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Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 11DEC2025 – Great Science Fiction Redux

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I think the only way to answer this is to look at some stories that have held my attention. I’m going to look at each in 4 particulars Plot, Characters, and Science, why it holds my attention. These are of course my own (potentially assinine opinions) and I apologize in advance if you find your ox has been gored

I Robot by Isaac Asimov
Plot: This doesn’t really have an overall plot per se, but one in each story. This is unsurprising as it a bunch of shorts tied together. Each story is itself is essentially a mystery and I find their resolutions in general quite Satisfactory (but the final story that I have never enjoyed)
Character: Honestly the human characters are cardboard. Susan Calvin feels like a classic scientist character in drag. Donovan and Powell who show up in several are more foils for the story line. The real characters here are the robots like Robbie and figuring them out is the whole point of each story.
Science: The Robot positronic brains are sheer handwavium. Some of the resolutions do involve some actual science. That said the positronic brains are VERY self consistent and that adds to a feeling of reality.
Why I Like It: the pleasure of it really comes from how the puzzles are solved. These are almost more Mystery than SciFi at some level

A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter L Miller
Plot: There are essentially 3 sections spread out over a period of several thousand years. Each section has an internal plot. All three sections ultimately lead to the final resolution of the plot
Character: Each section has one main character. These are well rounded (though ALL male as they are Monks or abbots of the Monastery for St. Liebowitz). Given their time scale they exist ONLY in their section, although their actions (and to some degree personalities) affect the later sections of the story
Science: This is a post nuclear war book. The effects of the radiation are wrong, though they would not necessarily have been thought unreasonable when these stories were written in the 1950s. Other science (as society recovers) makes sense though is not directly influencing the plot
Why I Like It: The story arcs are fascinating with the overall arch being rather disturbing. Mr. Millers prose is downright luminous in places and his plotting and bits of humor (winking at everyday things we understand but the characters don’t) helps offset the sombre tone of the overall arch of the story. Even though this is three separate stories the work to tie them together is elegant. This well deserved the 1961 Hugo when the Hugo meant something

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Plot: This is a time travel story where an apparent time paradox must be resolved or history as we know it may just disappear. It is also a closed room Mystery AND a bit of a romance all at once with most of the action occurring in the late Victorian Age. And it successfully wraps up ALL these pieces and (mostly) sets the time stream back to its proper state. This is a tour de force of plotting
Character: Our two main characters (Ned Henry and Verity Kindle) are very well fleshed out. The secondary players also have decent motivations though are though sometimes intentional stereotypes (e.g. a totally distractible Oxford Don)
Science: It has time travel, which in all honesty, appears to be more in the realm of fantasy than SciFI (even though it has been a staple since H.G. Wells The Time Machine). That said the rest of its science mostly makes sense, and other than one critical biology issuethe science is not critical to the plot. The time travel is self consistent (although we are in the process of learning about it in detail) but we don’t get David Weber like info dumps but learn the about the Time travel as we go along.
Why I Like It: This is just an absolute romp. You are swept along by the mystery and by trying to resolve the change in the time stream that is introduced. As I said the plotting is genius level, the mystery is very like a good Poirot story. There are little details you may miss in the first reading that on second reading you wonder how you missed it. Again a worthy Hugo award winner

That’s probably more than anyone wants to read. Looking at it (and other stories I return to time and again) I am mostly attracted by good plotting. I admire additional character work and language. I am willing to suspend disbelief if the “science” is self consistent. I will tolerate massive violations of reality such as time travel, matter transports (looking at YOU Star Trek) and other massive violations of basic science. I’d love to see other people look at their favorites in a similar light

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 10DEC2025 – Ray Bradbury

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Bradbury is nearly sui generis amongst the 40’s/50’s/early 60’s SciFi Writers. His stuff often feels more like Lovecraft or Clark Aston Smith. My first “adult” scifi (not juvies like Tom Swift Jr. or young children scifi like Spaceship in the Apple Tree) were two of his collections. They were R is for Rocket and S is for Space that my 5th grade reading teacher found for me in the school library. I recently got a new audible version of his Martian Chronicles and although the technology doesn’t really make sense (maybe not even then) the stories themselves are beautiful and elegant in a fashion that the Asimov/Clark/Heinlein stories usually didn’t try for. Bradbury makes a lovely palette cleanser among other SciFi. Some moderns try at his style but honestly most of them are pale imitations like art students copying a Rembrandt or one of the pre Raphaelites.

The Sheldon Chronicles

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Larry Sheldon (25,501 – 25,587 N.E.) – Founder of the science of psycho-cosmography, famously quoted as saying, “Look, we needed more space so we invented starships.  What’s the big deal?”  Creator of the Sheldon Plan whereby the new empire was replaced by the new, new empire and the outpost world Zero became the Bulwark for this new order.  He was a secretive and reclusive genius who suffered from acute fear of other people’s body odor.  Some historians now believe his existence may have been apocryphal.

(Encyclopedia Publicius Domainius, 1023 edition)

Here he stood in the center of the galaxy, the administrative capital of the new empire; Titantor!  A world that circled the central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy.  Only an incredibly powerful anti-gravity field prevented Titantor from being ripped to shreds and swallowed by the gravitational force of its evil black star.  A steady stream of planets and debris had to be fed into the anti-gravity generator to keep this horrific imbalance in existence.  But such was the power of this empire and its vanity that the whim of the emperor was enough to maintain this cosmic madness.

And here he stood Bob Goodfellow, a fresh graduate of the Arcturus Community College and Creamery here to put his knowledge of psycho-cosmography to good use assisting Larry Sheldon to save the new empire from the forces of entropy that threatened to tear it apart and bring on a trillion years of barbarism and low credit scores for everyone.  And he was nervous.  Meeting a genius like Larry Sheldon was intimidating.  He could feel sweat forming on his forehead.  He wiped it away with a handkerchief.  And suddenly there was Sheldon walking toward him smiling and looking him over nervously, “Bob, good to finally meet you.  Yeah, I’m not big on shaking hands or standing downwind of people.  So, let’s walk with the wind in our faces and you following me at about a six-foot distance.  Thanks!”

Within these strictures they covered the distance to the Titantor Senate building in about an hour and Goodfellow watched from the gallery as Dr Sheldon was cross-examined by the representatives of the Imperial Science Foundation.

The Pontifex Maximus grilled him, “Dr. Sheldon, you claim that using the energy output of fifty billion stars to turn the Smaller Magellanic Cloud into a jacuzzi for the emperor’s concubines will lead to the heat death of the galaxy.  Do you have any proof of this?”

Larry sat with his handkerchief clutched over his nose recoiling at the examiner’s overpowering cologne, “Well, the fact that the population of the empire has decreased from a million-billion-billion to seventy-eight would seem to be a relatively strong indicator, mathematically speaking.”  The Pontifex made a rude noise and scoffed, “What nonsense!  This mighty capitol; Titantor, on its own, is home to countless billions.  We see them all around us!”

Larry used his emergency inhaler and continued, “Yes, but they’re all robots.  In fact, it’s worse than the numbers indicate.  There are only thirteen women of childbearing age left and half of them are Vestal Virgins.  We’re going to have to really rethink a lot of priorities if this whole shebang is going to last past Wednesday.”

This sparked outrage and shouting among the senators.  The concomitant bad breath overwhelmed Larry and he swooned in the witness chair.       …     To be continued!!!!

A Great Science Fiction Story?

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Lately I’ve been thinking about this topic.  What makes a great science fiction story?  Can it be a great science fiction story if the story’s not great?  How about if the science isn’t great?  I think you know what I’m saying.  A great story, meaning great fiction, has characters drawn in a way that makes them compelling.  It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare but it can’t be two-dimensional cut-outs that wouldn’t make it through a toothpaste commercial.  And by the same token, what if the science is just stupid?  Sure, you can just say it’s fantasy instead and then the sky’s the limit.  But let’s stick to science fiction.

When I was a kid, I would have said that “great” science fiction needed the science but the fiction was not that important.  If there were enough star cruisers and anti-matter bombs and giant amoebas then all was right with the world.  In fact, the fewer human relations involved in the story, the better.  I was much more interested in the non-human characters acting “realistic” than any dialog between humans.  And the male/female dynamic was completely off the table.  The last thing a Lensman needed before, during or after a battle was a woman getting in the way.

Suffice it to say that time changes things.  I look at some of the “classics” of the golden age and I see a flatness to the story.  Now, this isn’t an all-encompassing criticism.  There are plenty of stories from the day that have nuanced characters and plots that reflect actual human personality types.  So, it’s not black and white.

Now, the modern literary science fiction has been described as having the opposite problem.  It’s all about human feelings and relations.  What isn’t as important is the “science.”  When that’s the case I will just declare that if a story doesn’t have any science at all then it isn’t a great science fiction story because it isn’t science fiction.  Period.

And without a doubt if a story has an exciting plot and memorable characters and also a clever science fiction premise then without a doubt it’s great science fiction.

So that leaves the other extreme.  What if a story is built on incredibly imaginative science fiction plot devices but the characters are cardboard cut-outs of human beings?  Can that be a great science fiction story?  In this category the works of Arthur C Clarke comes to mind and specifically 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Here is an epic tale stretching all the way from the dawn of Man to the first human interstellar voyage.  And yet the most human character in the book is HAL9000; a schizophrenic homicidal computer.  Now, is it an interesting story?  Well, yeah.  There are cave men and monoliths and moon bases and worm holes.  But honestly, do you find yourself rooting for anyone?  There’s just something so inhumanly stolid and wooden about everyone in the story that I feel that each one being murdered by HAL might be his happiest moment.  At least liveliest.

But anyway, I want to pose this as a question.  Can a technically engrossing sf story be considered great if the characters are ciphers?  What do you think?

Hailing Frequencies Open!

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Back in the 1960s we had a tv show called “Star Trek.”  It starred William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk, the captain of the starship Enterprise.  And for one hour every week Kirk and his crew of four hundred able-bodied men (and women) warped their way through the galaxy seeking out new life and new civilizations and boldly went where no men had gone before.

And wherever they went Lieutenant Uhura kept them (mostly) in contact with the Federation using a form instantaneous contact called sub-space communication.  I say mostly because something called sub-space interference would be invoked whenever it would be useful to the plot for the Enterprise to be incommunicado.  This would allow Kirk to show initiative and break with inconvenient policy like the Federation’s Prime Directive against interfering in the technological development of more primitive civilizations.  Of course, Kirk broke this rule about a million times in the course of the show.  But you know, there was dramatic tension while they sorted out their feelings about this rule.

But getting back to sub-space communication, it was instantaneous.  Which was needed to make the stories work.  After all, radio waves are electromagnetic waves and propagate at the speed of light.  The Enterprise travels many times the speed of light (maximum about 1000 times the speed of light).  So normal radio communication is essentially useless for them.  They could beat their radio message back to Earth by a factor of as much as a thousand-fold.

But here’s the thing.  Suppose you want to write a story where faster than light space travel is impossible but instantaneous communication with other stellar systems is possible?  What would be the dramatic possibilities of such an arrangement.  Well, basically, it allows the writer to imagine radically different cultures and organisms sharing ideas and information across the entirety of the cosmos.

You could have a supremely old race teaching a young one how to avoid all of the dangers that it experienced.  And they could teach them about their future.  Suppose a race on a planet is circling a star that is about to explode.  What would they want to pass on to the universe?  Maybe some religious insight or a supremely beautiful musical composition or maybe just their name; so, they would not be forgotten after they die.

Now of course instantaneous communication is as completely untethered to scientific reality as warp drive is.  But I can still see how using it in a story without FTL space flight would present story lines that aren’t as well-explored as ones where FTL space flight exists but “sub-space” communication does not.

Now all this being said, I will say that Lieutenant Tawny Madison, played by Sigourney Weaver in the movie Galaxy Quest really improved on Lieutenant Uhura’s performance as communications officer.  Her costume was significantly skimpier and showed much more cleavage than Lieutenant Uhura ever did.  And Madison didn’t need to wear an ear piece to hear the computer tell her what the ship was doing.  All she had to do was repeat what everyone else could hear over the ship’s speaker system.  Now that was progress.

It Might be Good Enough

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I was watching a video on YouTube that discussed the cratering of movie attendance after 2020 and how even after COVID was no longer a thing, how movie attendance has never recovered to pre-2020 numbers.  But the truth is that even before COVID the movies were steadily losing ground since around the year 2000.  So really COVID just hastened a trend that was already under way.

Well, that clarifies things somewhat but I think there are things to consider about this whole trend.  It’s not just a situation where a change in technology is disrupting an old business model.  Without a doubt that is happening.  But there is another phenomenon at work simultaneously.  And that factor is ideology.  For at least the last ten years there has been a concerted effort on the part of the movie making industry to restrict films to what they consider “acceptable” themes and characters.

And I think the drop in ticket sales reflects this change.  A solid thirty five percent of the country consists of people who aren’t motivated to see these types of movies, at all.  And this accounts for the drop in attendance and box office.

I guess the question that must be answered is, can the industry survive without this segment of the population?  The jury is still out but I think the answer is no.  Theaters have already become a low margin industry and without the enthusiastic patronage of key demographics financial viability won’t exist for much longer.  Then, what are the possibilities going forward?

One possibility is for some newer players in the movie making industry to modernize their operations to lower costs to the point where profits can be made with niche projects that can depend on a reliable demographic to support them.  This could work for the superhero films if the movies cater to the expectations of boys and young men to be entertained with an adventure story that appeals to their instincts.  By the same token a film that caters to the expectations of an LGBTQ audience or a young female audience or a baby boomer audience could also make money if its budget doesn’t swamp out its box office.  And so that could be the future.

I guess it’s possible that Hollywood could become so frightened by what has happened to their profits that they decide to do an about face and start making the kind of movies they made twenty years ago; ones that appealed to the bulk of Americans without trying to divide them by race and sex.  But somehow, I seriously doubt they’d succeed.  I don’t think they still have the wherewithal to recognize what goes into a movie like that.  Even if they tried to recreate that kind of movie making their instincts would betray them and the same woke tropes and characters would appear.  So the first scenario with new players seems more likely.

But I do not think any of this will happen quickly.  The entertainment industry is currently in turmoil.  Video games are currently the most popular form of entertainment for the younger generation.  Super hero movies in the last two or three years have bombed at the box office pretty consistently.  It will be a little while before the new money from Silicon Valley has had a chance to completely usurp the crown from the old Hollywood studios.  It’s definitely already happening but it’s not there yet.  When it does, I think we will start to see some very interesting changes.  It will never look like what we had.  Because we are not what we used to be.  But if it provides products for all of the larger audience types it might be good enough for my movie viewing pleasure.

I Feel Therefore I’m Amused

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What makes a good story?  And by story I’m including books, movies, songs, even a story being told by word of mouth.  What makes it a good story.  Simply, it has to make the audience feel something; satisfaction, recognition, joy, sorrow, anger, fear, horror, amusement, surprise or maybe even wonder.  In the absence of emotion can a story be good?  I’d say no.

So, when writing a story how do you ensure that the story checks some of those boxes?  Well, plot is one of the tools you can use to activate the reader’s emotions but more importantly, you have to build the characters so that they’re human.  Certainly, any generic female character being thrown into a scene where she is being stalked by a psychopath will elicit at least some emotion from the audience but if she is first made into a real woman with the requisite and recognizable emotions then the scene becomes harrowing.  Think of Agent Starling trapped in Buffalo Bill’s lightless room while he toyed with her in preparation for ending her life.  She is a trained law enforcement agent but she’s also a terrified young woman trapped by a predator.  The audience is on the edge of their seats.  Her fear is the fuel to make the scene real for the viewers.  It’s gripping.

And this is just as important for any emotion in any situation.  To be considered a success the reader has to feel something strong enough to make the story in some way real.  Let’s test my thesis.  Is the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a good story?  Does it make us feel anything?  Yes, there are scenes in the movie where we feel a sense of wonder at some of the things happening.  And there is a feeling of worry for Dave Bowman as he faces off against HAL9000.  I guess there is sadness over the death of Frank Poole.  But are any of these emotions particularly strong.  I guess on reflection the sense of wonder at the technological wonders we are shown in the flight to the Moon and aboard the Discovery One spacecraft are pretty interesting.  But none of the characters (except perhaps HAL) really activate our emotions.  In some ways Dave and Frank appear more robotic than HAL.  So, on the whole I wouldn’t call “2001” a successful story.  It’s almost like a travelogue to inform the audience about some interesting things that will be seen during a vacation trip.

Now compare this to the earlier science fiction movie, “Destination Moon.”  Technically, there’s no comparison.  “2001” is astonishingly beautiful and seems like a documentary shot in space.  “Destination Moon” appears woefully primitive in its special effects and graphics.  But the story has engaging characters and a plot that creates emotional interest.  The characters are placed in danger and the audience wants to see how the characters respond to this crisis.  Now surely, this isn’t some great work of art.  It’s melodrama and adventure.  But it works.  There’s enough there to make the characters real enough for us to care if they live or die.  Compare this to Dave Bowman at the end of “2001” travelling to the end of the universe through some kind of acid dream followed by him getting very old and then becoming some kind of “space embryo.”  To me all of that was meaningless from an emotional point of view.  It was boring.

So, the lesson is humans like stories that make them feel human.  Because it makes them feel.

Every One

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This is a great time of the year.  I allow myself to watch the various holiday movies whenever the mood strikes me.  I’ve already watched four versions of, “A Christmas Carol” this week and I’m bound to add materially to that number very soon.

Now, in my opinion, the top three versions are the 1938 MGM version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge; the 1951 English production with Alastair Sim as the miser and finally the 1984 version starring George C. Scott as the awful old man.  Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.  But each one manages to provide the catharsis that is the reason for the story.  We get to see Scrooge start out as the victim of a father who blames his son for his wife’s death in childbirth and then the son becomes this misanthrope who punishes everyone around him for revenge.

And along the way we get to see the beauty and joy that Scrooge’s friends and relatives create during their Christmas celebrations; Bob Cratchit and his poor family gather around the tiny Christmas dinner that Scrooge’s pathetic wages afford and rejoice at their day of celebration and family warmth.  Scrooge’s nephew; Fred entertains his friends and even manages to toast Scrooge’s health despite his knowledge that the old man despises him for his generosity and kindness.

As ever I find the 1984 version has the best Jacob Marley scenes.  The 1951 film does the best job chronicling Scrooge’s career with Fezziwig and his subsequent turn toward miserly misanthropy.  And in this presentation, it strays into territory not covered in Dickens’ story.  A subplot emerges where Scrooge’s beloved sister Fan dies after giving birth to her son Fred.  This is given as the origin of Scrooge’s hatred for Fred.  But in the film the Ghost of Christmas Past allows Scrooge to hear his sister’s dying words.  She begs Scrooge to take care of her boy (Fred).  Hearing these words that he’d missed in real-life, Scrooge is wracked with guilt and remorse.

The 1938 version, I believe, has the best portrayal of the Cratchit family.  And in point of fact the actor who plays Bob Cratchit, Gene Lockhart has his real-life wife playing Mrs. Cratchit and his real-life daughter; June Lockhart as one of the younger Cratchit children.  Now, when I say best portrayal, I’m not implying that the acting is better than in the other two versions.  In fact, I think the other two versions have fine actors and stay much closer to Dickens’ text.  But the longer screen time given to the Cratchit family in this version provides a warmer feeling and gladdens the heart of the viewer to watch it.

So then, who is the best Scrooge?  Well, I can’t answer that.  The best I can do is to bring it down to a choice between Alistair Sim and George C. Scott.  And choosing between them is only a matter of what mood I find myself in that day.  I will add that of late I think the George C. Scott mood finds me more often but I have to say at this time of the rolling year I want to have all three DVDs available for whatever mood I find myself in.

And as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, everyone.”