One of the things I have always been thankful for is that I am not likely to ever be the supreme ruler of China. It is an amazingly unenviable job. The best you can do is live a reasonably long life and die of natural causes, and good luck with that.
The problem with Walton's piece is that one has to do the same kind of work making inferences and dealing with deferred information in most fiction. I remember reading Pride and Prejudice and barely understanding anyone's motivations or the highly restricted world of upper class Regency life. Even stories set in the current era can require a lot of thinking to figure out the world in which they are set.
The main difference I can see is that science fiction requires that work with regards to basic properties of the world that most fiction assumes the reader has knowledge from alternate sources. If the story is set in 9th century Wales, it is a very alien land, but since it is 9th century Wales the reader knows something of its history, it topography and its traditions. If they wish to know more, there are many sources. The reader and author share background information about the nature of gravity, the atmosphere, biology, technology and the like. Notice the STEM nature of that list.
People who don't get science fiction probably can't understand why someone would enjoy figuring out orbital characteristics or technological contrivances even while they themselves enjoy the work of figuring out an unreliable narrator's lacunae, the social relationships of the castes or the forces that led one character to kill another.
I used to enjoy science fiction a lot more, but more and more often I get bogged down by all the clever world building now in vogue. It's feels like a video game where they start with the world building and then let the story play out almost as an afterthought. In film making, they call this "working the set", and it is not something that makes for a great movie.
Enjoyed the Walton. Belatedly. Meanwhile the genre widens and tends to engulf everything else, which, if anything, sharpens the point And I notice that in the comments Jeff Vandermeer was having difficulty with the idea of "the literal *versus* the metaphorical," as well he might.
My pea brain was thinking that Russia and China are just reverting to type. Putin is the new Tsar. and Xi is the new emperor. The Duma is the new Boyars. The CPC is the new Mandarinate.
One of the things I have always been thankful for is that I am not likely to ever be the supreme ruler of China. It is an amazingly unenviable job. The best you can do is live a reasonably long life and die of natural causes, and good luck with that.
The problem with Walton's piece is that one has to do the same kind of work making inferences and dealing with deferred information in most fiction. I remember reading Pride and Prejudice and barely understanding anyone's motivations or the highly restricted world of upper class Regency life. Even stories set in the current era can require a lot of thinking to figure out the world in which they are set.
The main difference I can see is that science fiction requires that work with regards to basic properties of the world that most fiction assumes the reader has knowledge from alternate sources. If the story is set in 9th century Wales, it is a very alien land, but since it is 9th century Wales the reader knows something of its history, it topography and its traditions. If they wish to know more, there are many sources. The reader and author share background information about the nature of gravity, the atmosphere, biology, technology and the like. Notice the STEM nature of that list.
People who don't get science fiction probably can't understand why someone would enjoy figuring out orbital characteristics or technological contrivances even while they themselves enjoy the work of figuring out an unreliable narrator's lacunae, the social relationships of the castes or the forces that led one character to kill another.
I used to enjoy science fiction a lot more, but more and more often I get bogged down by all the clever world building now in vogue. It's feels like a video game where they start with the world building and then let the story play out almost as an afterthought. In film making, they call this "working the set", and it is not something that makes for a great movie.
Enjoyed the Walton. Belatedly. Meanwhile the genre widens and tends to engulf everything else, which, if anything, sharpens the point And I notice that in the comments Jeff Vandermeer was having difficulty with the idea of "the literal *versus* the metaphorical," as well he might.
I wonder where the Chinese "Nushu", fits in to managing the female's place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu
My pea brain was thinking that Russia and China are just reverting to type. Putin is the new Tsar. and Xi is the new emperor. The Duma is the new Boyars. The CPC is the new Mandarinate.