From: g@crcomp.net

Brian Niemeier posits Science Fiction and Fantasy as a dialectic psyop.
My own opinion's the opposite: hard Science Fiction distinctly differs
from soft Science Fantasy.
Niemeier may know best, beings he's more involved in SF than me.
Regardless of our opposing opinions on SF's dialectic, we share the same sentiment in regards to van Vogt. Here's one example excerpted from
Niemeier's essay:

When The World of Null-A hit, readers were electrified.
Here was a writer who could marry breathless pulp
storytelling with genuinely novel speculative frameworks.
Van Vogt’s nonlinear plotting and dream logic enthralled
fans ... and threatened critics. Knight dismissed Van
Vogt as incoherent.

Niemeier in turn more-or-less dismisses Knight as a control freak.
Niemeier's full essay is available at:

<https://brianniemeier.substack.com/p/why-science-fiction-and-fantasy-are-ae2>

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. veritas _|_ telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. liberabit |
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' vos |

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From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com

On 9/19/25 06:08, Don wrote:

Brian Niemeier posits Science Fiction and Fantasy as a dialectic psyop.
My own opinion's the opposite: hard Science Fiction distinctly differs
from soft Science Fantasy.
Niemeier may know best, beings he's more involved in SF than me. Regardless of our opposing opinions on SF's dialectic, we share the same sentiment in regards to van Vogt. Here's one example excerpted from Niemeier's essay:

When The World of Null-A hit, readers were electrified.
Here was a writer who could marry breathless pulp
storytelling with genuinely novel speculative frameworks.
Van Vogt’s nonlinear plotting and dream logic enthralled
fans ... and threatened critics. Knight dismissed Van
Vogt as incoherent.

Niemeier in turn more-or-less dismisses Knight as a control freak.
Niemeier's full essay is available at:

<https://brianniemeier.substack.com/p/why-science-fiction-and-fantasy-are-ae2>

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. veritas _|_ telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. liberabit |
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' vos |

Such quibbles about soft and hard are resolved with Specultive
fiction which can deal with outright fantasy or" the Weapon Shops of
Issur".
Tjere is not much science in stories of dragons, space ships, abd Tune and Space traveling magic machines like the Tardis, discarded concepts in
the mainstream like wizards, witches, fae, ogres and the like but they
satisfy some of our psychic needs for escape to other worlds where the contraints of realilty (as we know it) are loosened.

bliss


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From: quadibloc@invalid.invalid

On Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:08:02 +0000, Don wrote:

My own opinion's the opposite: hard Science Fiction distinctly differs
from soft Science Fantasy.

I think that there is a lot of truth in Brian Niemeyer's essay. But I'm
still not in full agreement with it.
If one admits that the _detective story_ is a genre, and not merely a
setting, then I think the same needs to be done for fantasy and science fiction.
Unlike the individual whose opinions on science fiction formed the
starting point for his essay, while I can enjoy some hard SF stories, I
tend to regard that literary form as one that occupies a narrow niche, bordering on the "technothriller".
Most science fiction is soft, using things like time machines anf
especially FTL spacecraft, in order to be set far enough in the future or
to be otherwise far enough removed from everyday reality to handle the
kind of themes that are the lifeblood of science fiction.
Is it a good story is of course one of the most important questions. But
reader preferences usually also involve genre, which is only natural.
What I tend to think should take precedence over the distinction between
hard and soft sf, which in itself, I agree, is relatively minor, is if a science fiction story... makes you think. As opposed to being a Western
with ray guns.
Even "makes you think" isn't precise enough, because "makes you think
about what" has to be asked. A real Western, or a science-fiction Western
in disguise, can both make you think about the injustices faced by
indigenous peoples.
Some kinds of ideas, though, can only be raised through the medium of
science fiction, and it's only by addressing those that a work can be
great science fiction, as opposed to possibly being great literature
within the science fiction genre.

John Savard

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From: g@crcomp.net

John Savard wrote:

Don wrote:

My own opinion's the opposite: hard Science Fiction distinctly differs
from soft Science Fantasy.

I think that there is a lot of truth in Brian Niemeyer's essay. But I'm
still not in full agreement with it.
If one admits that the _detective story_ is a genre, and not merely a setting, then I think the same needs to be done for fantasy and science fiction.
Unlike the individual whose opinions on science fiction formed the
starting point for his essay, while I can enjoy some hard SF stories, I
tend to regard that literary form as one that occupies a narrow niche, bordering on the "technothriller".
Most science fiction is soft, using things like time machines anf
especially FTL spacecraft, in order to be set far enough in the future or
to be otherwise far enough removed from everyday reality to handle the
kind of themes that are the lifeblood of science fiction.
Is it a good story is of course one of the most important questions. But reader preferences usually also involve genre, which is only natural.
What I tend to think should take precedence over the distinction between
hard and soft sf, which in itself, I agree, is relatively minor, is if a science fiction story... makes you think. As opposed to being a Western
with ray guns.
Even "makes you think" isn't precise enough, because "makes you think
about what" has to be asked. A real Western, or a science-fiction Western
in disguise, can both make you think about the injustices faced by
indigenous peoples.
Some kinds of ideas, though, can only be raised through the medium of
science fiction, and it's only by addressing those that a work can be
great science fiction, as opposed to possibly being great literature
within the science fiction genre.

Robin Cook's medical thriller fiction moralizes to make readers think
about injustices. And Cook's conventional character development occurs
until his readers reach the moral of the story.
Preachy moralizing combined with character development supposedly
signifies superior stories in the Anglospere's contemporary zeitgeist.
It shares both with religion.

Poe is the USA's poet laureate. He's also the father of Science Fiction.
[1] Poe's character development tends to emphasize internal
psychological states and moral decay rather than external actions or
growth. It's different from a bad guy in a Western who wears a black hat
at first and then develops into a nice guy by the denouement. Poe is anti-moralistic:

he is well-known in the annals of literary criticism for
his dicta on “the heresy of the didactic” and other anti-
moralistic strictures.

<https://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1960/p1968204.htm>

Science Fiction changed into a moralizing, character developing religion sometime between Gernsback and New Wave.

Note.

[1] Edgar Allan Poe may well be called the father of "scientifiction."
It was he who really originated the romance, cleverly weaving into
and around the story, a scientific thread.

Hugo Gernsback, AMAZING STORIES, April 1926

# # #

Some may be interested in the evolution of my thinking towards
Shakespeare. Recently discovered crypto-Catholic content seems at odds
with Francis Bacon. So, my current working hypothesis is an group pen-
name unilaterally and anonymously used by Bacon, a crypto-Catholic, and
all the other usual suspects.

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. veritas _|_ telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. liberabit |
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' vos |

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