Le Guin’s “ Those Who walk away from Omelas” was stunning. See a collection of eighteen stories by Alice Sheldon: Her Smoke Rose Forever.ĭitto the incomparable Harlan Ellison (Sample some of Ellison’s award-winning stories in the anthology I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.) Ursula K. Sheldon’s (James Tiptree Jr.) tales were among the best and scariest stories in English and probably all languages. I see that someone did mention the stories of R.A. I have an entire shelf in my office devoted to my personal all-time favorite short story writer - Robert Sheckley, followed closely by the great Cordwainer Smith - whom my daughter has just rediscovered. In The Postman, I tweaked the final two, resurrecting a beloved institution and assuming that people are brave deep inside, and that they would want to be citizens again.Ĭan you name some good science fiction short story writers? But these six cliches are almost always followed. Learn more about this in my essay: Our Favorite Cliche – A World Filled With Idiots in every Spiderman movie, he saves New Yorkers but always there’s a point when New Yorkers save Spiderman. Negative cliches: 1) No institution shall ever be trusted and 2) All of your neighbors (or the hero’s neighbors) are useless, cowards and sheep, Positive cliches: include 1) Suspicion of Authority 2) Diversity 3) Tolerance and 4) Personal eccentricity. Example: every Hollywood films offers up four standard positive messages and the same two evil ones. The most common ones go unnoticed because we were all raised by them. Look at the most prevalent cliches and poke at those. I tried to answer this with Gordon, in The Postman, the only character in science fiction who came in 2nd for three Hugo Awards… kind of symbolic since he’s a normal man who does some important heroic things and never exactly “wins.” He just inspires his fellow citizens to win.Ĭan you name a concept that is rarely explored in science fiction? Our institutions and efforts to work together and build a civilization of normal men and women who rise and cooperate? Hopeless. Sorry, gods and demigod characters teach one lesson – as in Star Wars and Tolkien – that normal people are hopeless, stupid and worthless. But he is a god – like all Orson Scott Card characters. Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game has some of the emotions of a lost kid far from home, but he always, always wins. I try to “humanize” him in Foundation’s Triumph. Daneel Olivaw, whose battle to save humanity spans 25,000 years in the Foundation novels, is certainly a massive archetype. Poul Anderson’s Flandry and Nicholas Van Rijn are both fun and memorable. The girl protagonist in Alexei Panshin’s Rite of Passage.Īs ongoing characters in multi-book series go. Lessa the dragonriding matriarch in Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series is inspiring, as is her deeply moving The Ship Who Sang. I especially loved the title character of Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, who’s just this post holocaust kid who’s trying his best to make it, and maybe do a little good, along the way. What are some science fiction novels with a memorable protagonist? And that affects the psychology of its readers. Science fiction contemplates that things tomorrow might be different than today. See my posting: The Difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy. You might change which chosen-one becomes the demigod or which noble prince becomes king. Above all, in fantasy the feudal pattern of rule by demigods and kings goes unquestioned. The story unfolds as the gods willed, not as human choice. In both of them, gaudy, fantastic things can happen! But the older fantasy tradition – going back to Achilles and Gilgamesh and Rama – is fatalistic. This is where science fiction departed from the mother genre – fantasy. Because we made mistakes that did not have to happen. Not that they will! But this means tragedies and mistakes and pitfalls happen because we ignored warning signs. The fundamental premise of science fiction – in my opinion – is that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents. What has been the impact of science fiction books on readers? You can see other answers and explore other viewpoints for each of these questions over on Quora: Here are a few of the science fiction-related questions I’ve answered over on Quora.
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