Sci-Fi Month 2016: Blogger Panel #2

This post is part of Sci-Fi Month 2016, a month long event to celebrate science fiction hosted by myself and Over the Effing Rainbow. You can view the schedule here, follow the event on Twitter via the official @SciFiMonth Twitter account, or with the hashtag #RRSciFiMonth.

It’s time for the second blogger panel, where I pose a science fiction related question to a selection of book bloggers! If you want to answer the question as well, let us know your response in the comment section below. 🙂 The question for this panel was:

If you had a time machine, where/when would you go, and why?

Anna @ There’s Always Room For One More

Anna (@imyril) has been reading for nearly as long as she’s been walking, and arguably with greater success – or at least fewer bruises. She has a lot of very heavy books about archaeology and/or King Arthur on her shelves, most of which she has read, along with a glorious amount of more portable speculative fiction that she can read on the Tube. Favourite things beyond books include movies, cats, whisky and getting lost. Her musings can be found on her blog and on Twitter.

If I had a time machine…

As Rinn knew when she posed it, this is one of the most difficult questions you can pose an archaeologist. Even a recovered archaeologist (who am I kidding? You never recover). I studied archaeology because of all the things we don’t know, and I am fascinated by the gaps. The chance to examine one – just one – historical or mythical moment is a choice that makes my heart explode. My blood pressure has gone up just considering it.

But in some ways, it’s easy. I can get agitated and rattle off so many places and times (Justinian’s Constantinople; Troy VI; Crete after the eruption of Thera; Akhenaten’s Egypt), but I specialised in Dark Age economics (an academically acceptable option for an undergrad fascinated by Arthurian lore) so there can only ever really be one outcome. We know more than we ever have done about Anglo-Saxon ’invaders’ and the enduring links between post-Roman Britain and the Mediterranean, etched in broken amphorae and plague-carrying ship rats, but we still don’t know what to believe about Arthur.

If I set my time machine for Camelot, I have to assume it would draw a blank. The myth is just that – a beautifully illustrated body of stories concocted across Europe over centuries. But if there’s one thing the Doctor has taught me about having access to a time machine, it’s that you get to cheat a little. The transformation of post-Roman Europe is fascinating in its own right: I’d like to take a journey through the 5th through 8th centuries looking for the truth behind the myths and the realities of life in the ‘Dark Ages’. And maybe – just maybe – find a war leader who united the British and led them to victory against their enemies… even if it’s Vortigern, not Arthur.

There’s still a bit of me that’s shouting GO TO THE FUTURE. But at the moment, I’m not sure whether spoilers would really make me feel any better, so I’ll stick with my ancient past.

Jorie @ Jorie Loves A Story

Jorie is a book blogger and passionate reader at Jorie Loves A Story. She says that her blog was ‘inspired into creation due to a reader’s love and passion for the written word’.

She can be reached either through her blog or via Twitter (@JorieStory).

Such a curious question to be asked as this is something I have personally contemplated for such a long time – especially moreso now that I’ve become a book blogger and have regularly sought out stories which either travel through time or bend time within the narrative arc where the journey of the character has an equal foothold in both the present and the past; sometimes even within the future or an alternative variant of said future. Through my readings, I have garnished a healthy appetite of questioning my own opinion on the matter – would I travel through time if the opportunity presented itself? Or would I yield to understanding it’s best to live our lives forward rather than disappear back inside the past?

It’s a multi-layered question – as if you go by popular commentary found in fiction, television and motion pictures – you’ll find the discourse is not only actively commentated about but it’s a working thesis that has a variety of avenues to explore. One particular TV series comes to mind – it wasn’t inherently about ‘time travel’ but you knew going in something was ‘amiss’ on the time spectrum if the facts within the newspaper were meant to be found by one particular person who could impart his perception of those facts and events by making the best possible choice regarding what to do with the information. The series was called Early Edition and on a similar vein of Dr Beckett travelling through the quantum leap of time itself – both men strived to right wrongs and put people’s lives back on track. They did this from a genuine belief that they were given an ability to do good and it was their personal mission to fulfill that purpose.

When you approach it from a singular point-of-view, of personally travelling through time you have to re-consider the affect this is going to have on the continuum of time itself and how one individual person could effectively alter something that was originally non-existent in their timeline – either lived or unknown from their ancestral past as expertly explored in the new TV series Timeless, which embarks on exploring how individuals who are propelling themselves backwards through time’s arrow for a distinct purpose of stopping someone from aggressively altering history itself. Yet, as foreseen early into the series, each ‘step back’ leads to a ‘new tomorrow’ for their own timelines and histories – wells, technically in the beginning it only affected one character’s life, but evenso! It begged the question – are we meant to travel back or are we meant to continue to learn from the past without personally travelling there ourselves?

During Sci Fi Month 2014, I read A Stitch in Time by Amanda James wherein I revealed this:

A theory on time, the traveller who knits it back together, and the reality of time travel:

James reveals the basis of her running theory on the full dimension of being a time traveller and one who intends to not only travel along the meridians of time but on fusing time as a broken structure of record back together again; with a propensity of precision generally relegated to knitters or sewers. I, personally, loved what the time traveller’s mentor and guide is called inside the story (as a Time Needle sounds ever so posh) as ‘needling with time’ simply made a heap of sense to me! Time travellers by definition can either muck up an alignment of the continuum itself OR they can create positive contributions by causing a deviant of order as they re-distribute a level of calm within the chaos. I even liked how she parlayed her theory within the title of the novel itself, by using a Stitch in such a clever execution of a person’s job rather than rely solely on prior knowledge the reader may or may not have had as far as vetting information on the subject for themselves.

And, this is exactly my point. If a time traveller can effectively cause a positive outcome from their meddlings in time, then I think there is validity to time travel. However, it begs the question – how many who’d travel in time honestly consider the consequence of leaving a light footprint and not interfering when it’s unnecessary to do so? How many would have that kind of self-restraint?

Since 2014, I have also consumed the duology of Eruption and Reclamation by Adrienne Quintana, The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack and an alternative timeline of history in Kate Johnson’s The Untied Kingdom. In each of the stories, you are given valid arguments where time travel is a valid method of resolving something that has been left unresolved. Even in Doctor Who we are constantly reminded of the consequences of ‘spoilers’ a la River Song and of the key reasons why travelling in time is so very dangerous to one’s soul (i.e. the main reason the Doctor is older rather than younger is due to personal anguish for what he couldn’t change nor resolve the memories of those he had lost); yet where does that leave any of us to understand our own personal desire to re-visit the past?!

For me, I used to think having conversations with historical persons I had admired was the best way to chart a course into the past – my admirations for these women and gentlemen have never diminished, however, as I have started to journey into my own ancestral past as an Ancestry Sleuth inside my own family, I must lament there is a strong curiosity to re-visit my own ancestral roots through walking alongside my own ancestors at moments where they made key life decisions or lived moments of their ordinary hours where they were simply themselves caught up in the moment of living their lives.

To re-step through their footsteps – as I am only two or three generations away from the patriarchs of my family who immigrated to America, to see how they braved the ocean and conquered their fears to re-settle so far from their homes whilst uncertain of what they’d find once they were here is quite compelling. Even to go back to the late 1800s and walk through the hours with my great-grandmother of whom was my first best friend and watch as she took in the dawning of the 20th Century and how it shaped her thoughts and experiences from a Victorian upbringing would be incredible. To even go back further, to when the Fortune sailed from England to Plymouth and how my ancestors had to work off seven years of debt in order to stay in New England as the Fortune came without supplies would be incredible.

The only concern I still have – as a time traveller of stories and of an ancestral sleuth of memories – it is hard to turn-off the knowledge I have gained about how even one breath spent in the past can affect the future of tomorrow. Is it right to have the curiosity lead us into uncharted territories where our conjoined living histories could be altered like they are becoming in “Timeless” or is there a way to broker a foothold into the past without erasing the moments which already were lived yet give us a gain of entrance to observe? Perhaps the truer answer is meant to be left unknown. As how would any of us know exactly how we’d react if the choice was presented to us tomorrow? Would we lean on our foreknowledge or would we impulsively act on the hope of what we’d dare to find as seen in the film Midnight in Paris?

Tammy @ Books, Bones and Buffy

I think most people would probably choose a time from the past to visit, but me? I would most certainly want to visit the future. Even though things are looking pretty bleak on Earth, I think I’m enough of an optimist to envision a future filled with marvelous technology, alien visitors (the nice kind, of course) and a better quality of living for all. I’d like to think that scientists would have figured out the global warming problem and Earth would still be habitable in the next several hundred years or so.

I’m also very curious to see what my future ancestors (wait, is that a thing?) would be like, will my kids grow up to have kids of their own? And will they grow up to have kids? I’d love to visit my future relatives and see where everyone ends up. And wouldn’t it be cool to jump ahead in time and be able to see your present life as the past? What cool technology do we have today that will most certainly become obsolete in the future?

Plus, I really really want to visit some of the science fiction worlds I’ve read about in books, and who’s to say those worlds won’t become reality someday? Of course, I could jump ahead to the far future and wind up in a swirling mass of volcanic fire, but like I said, I’m an optimist…

Tammy Sparks blogs at Books, Bones & Buffy, and tries to read and review as much speculative fiction as she possibly can, while working full time, raising two teens, and volunteering for her kids’ various school activities. You can also find her on Twitter: @tammy_sparks.

Claire @ Bitches With Books

Claire blogs at Bitches with Books. She can be reached via her blog or Twitter (@BWithBooks).

Ok, so my magical time machine is even better than that, it can move back between worlds (fictional or real) and throughout time!

So on first instinct, I think I’d go to The Shire and visit Hobbiton or even Lothlórien at its founding, before the Ring of Power was made. It just seems like a peaceful time in the stories and I’m imagining such lush, beautiful nature and good food. I’d basically just hit up a bunch of pubs or sort of convince hobbits, men and elves that I’m an awesome guest and that we should all have a massive feast! Is it bad that all I want to do is eat a good meal like I was at Bilbo Baggins’ birthday party? On second instinct, I’m not sure that’s a terribly good idea because I imagine that my appearance and dress and loud manner would be quite shocking and unappealing for some?

My third instinct is to go to the world of magic (like in Harry Potter) and visit Hogwarts when it was first founded by the great four, to travel to my home country in the Caribbean and see the magic that happened there with the melting pot of cultures, to go throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa to see how magic was explored and transformed with culture and time. I think that would be the best, to see that kind of awesome magic!

Let me know your own response to the panel question in the comments below! 🙂

Advertisement

Sci-Fi Month 2016: Blogger Panel #1

This post is part of Sci-Fi Month 2016, a month long event to celebrate science fiction hosted by myself and Over the Effing Rainbow. You can view the schedule here, follow the event on Twitter via the official @SciFiMonth Twitter account, or with the hashtag #RRSciFiMonth.

As with 2014, this year’s Sci-Fi Month sees the return of the blogger panel, where I pose a science fiction related question to a selection of book bloggers! If you want to answer the question as well, let us know your response in the comment section below. 🙂 The question for this panel was:

Of all the dystopian novels, which do you think has the scariest setting or events?

Greg @ Greg’s Book Haven

Greg is a book blogger and Renaissance faire enthusiast who reviews a bit of everything, but mostly fantasy and YA. He also enjoys music and movies, and never met a used bookstore he didn’t like. He has written reviews for Knights of the Dinner Table and contributed to SFSignal in the past. You can find him at Greg’s Book Haven or on Twitter at @GregsBookHaven.

When it comes to dystopians there are no shortage of bleak futures. My initial answer when I read the question was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. After all they pit children against children for entertainment purposes. How whacked is that? Then I thought maybe The Maze Runner (by James Dashner), but I’ve only seen the movie and I should read the book before making that call. The reason I thought of The Maze Runner though was because on a personal level it seemed terrifying – having no memory, being dropped into the Glade with no control of your future, and of course the terrifying and deadly Maze. But my definitive answer is… Divergent by Veronica Roth. Why? Well, I think growing up in a closed off city, finding out later you were under constant surveillance and being forced at sixteen to join a faction that will dominate your entire future. Regardless of the goal, to do this to so many people is just so manipulative – your whole life is just an experiment. I think that may be even worse than The Hunger Games society.

At the risk of giving too many answers, I’m going to add one more: Logan’s Run, by William F. Nolan. An older dystopian, but imagine having to submit to euthanasia at twenty one (thirty in the movie). Your life has just begun, and it’s over! That may be the scariest one.

Lisa @ Over the Effing Rainbow

Lisa is a Glasgow-based blogger and reviewer, who has been cheerfully flailing (and occasionally ranting) at Over The Effing Rainbow since 2012. She’s generally fueled by copious amounts and tea and cake, and for the record those are the best ways to bribe her. You can find her via her website, on Twitter (@EffingRainbow), or presiding over her Imzy community. (Or by leaving a trail of cake.)

First of all I should probably confess that dystopian stories are not among my most widely read of sub-genres. I appreciate the really good ones I’ve read, but I am a bit of a delicate flower and I tend to prefer my reading to be less about doom and gloom and more about hope for humanity. Some dystopian-type books get this right, though the hope is usually accompanied by a LOT of nail-biting and lessons about being careful what you wish for.

It’s actually one such book that I immediately thought of when I considered how to answer this question, and despite the fact that I don’t read much dystopian science fiction, this is one of my absolute favourite SF books in general: Mira Grant’s Feed, which is the first in her Newsflesh trilogy. On the surface of things it is a post-apocalypse zombie novel. What it really is, though, is a really stunningly well-constructed examination of what society might become, not if we’re nearly wiped out by an apocalypse, but if we manage to survive one. It takes the question of “what if…?” and answers it in ways I still find marvellously clever, both in the simplicity of the answer and the terrifying complexity of it. Basically, this “apocalypse” is kicked off when cures for cancer and for the common cold are discovered, and the information leaked to the public before thorough testing is complete. Some well-meaning but vitally uneducated activists steal the cures, mix them and release them using (if I recall correctly) a crop-dusting plane. Bad, bad things happen. You can guess at the results. (Science is damn scary, you guys, and Grant clearly revels in it.)

But the novel takes place after humanity has found stable, relatively safe ground again, a few decades later. Security is tighter than ever, blood tests are mandatory in just about every public place possible – and in every home, naturally. These aspects are fairly par for the dystopian course, but it’s the social aspects that really twist the trope and make this book as interesting as it is. Rather than traditional news/media outlets being relied on to inform the public in general, it was every street-level blogger and capable, levelheaded Average Joe with a social media presence banding together and sharing actual useful, life-saving information and advice that helped humanity to pull through. The News let us all down, so we basically kept our heads and saved ourselves, and in this vision of a post-apocalyptic future, it’s the bloggers we trust. And this book was written and published several years ago. Sounds pretty frighteningly relevant today, doesn’t it?

It’s the level of apparent prescience there, as much as if not more than the more horror-centric zombie factor, that’s truly scary to me. We do, generally speaking, have a troubling habit of reacting rather than acting when faced with dangerous and/or violent situations, and thanks to the age of information, we often don’t bother with the context of facts; we tend more often to grab the facts and run with them. This is a potential future in which we literally do just that, and while the fact that we survive lightens the end of that tunnel, what’s really frightening is all the lessons we still haven’t learned, and the ways in which we still wrap ourselves up in fear and call it sensibility.

If you’ve ever found regular people to be scarier than zombies, which it feels like I do just about every day now, then this is one future that’s likely to scare the socks off you – and it’s really not as far-fetched as the zombies make it seem…

Jess @ Curiouser and Curiouser

Jess is a 25 year old book blogger from the UK currently working in academic publishing. A feminist killjoy, history nerd and unicorn enthusiast, she enjoys nothing more than reading books about well-written women and the men they make cry. You can find her on Twitter (@JGofton) or via her blog, Curiouser and Curiouser.

If a dystopian novel doesn’t creep you out, even the tiniest amount, then it’s not doing its job properly. The Hunger Games doesn’t seem like an all too distant reality in a world obsessed with reality TV and The Handmaid’s Tale continues to be read widely in schools and universities because there’s still so much to say about feminism and equal rights. For me, though, the most terrifying dystopian novel has to be the ‘big brother’ of them all: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. It’s bleak, cruel and devoid of all hope, and nothing freaks me out more than the idea of a place like Room 101, where your worst fears are quite literally realised. That the government in Nineteen Eighty-Four are able to make you think how they want you to think and essentially torture you into obedience is horrific – I’d genuinely rather live in Panem!

Crini @ All About Books

Crini is a blogger from Germany who mostly tours foreign worlds of fantasy novels with occasional detours into space and explorations of magical realism. When she is not too busy re-watching Pacific Rim for the 100th time, she is probably re-reading one of her favorite books yet again. She can be found on her blog, All About Books or on Twitter (@xcrini).

Dystopian settings like those in The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner certainly are brutal and not a place I would ever want to be in, but they don’t necessarily scare me. That’s mostly because I don’t really see myself ever being in a similar situation. I don’t expect to end up in a fight for my life like that.

One series/book that definitely did scare me though (as rare as that is) was Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. If there is one thing in books that always make me break out in cold sweat, it’s situations where the main character isn’t allowed to decide for themselves (anymore). That someone else could be in charge, like being committed to a mental institution, against your will, even if it’s with good intentions, always freaked me out. And Neal’s book is a lot worse than that. That parents can decide that you’re not good enough anymore and better off as an organ donor is as scary as it gets for me. Reading about kids on the operating table, knowing exactly what’s to come, made this quite intense too.

What do you think about the panelists’ responses? Let me know your answer to the panel question in the comments below!

Sci-Fi Month 2014: Blogger Panel #4 – Favourite Alien

This post is part of Sci-Fi Month 2014, an event hosted by myself and Oh, the Books!. You can keep up to date by following @SciFiMonth on Twitter, or the official hashtag #RRSciFiMonth.

Welcome to the final blogger panel for Sci-Fi Month! This is where we ask a group of bloggers a question relating to science fiction, and they are free to answer it in any way they wish. There has been four over the course of the event, alternating between my blog and Oh, the Books!. Today’s participants include myself, my co-hosts, and Cecily, who came up with our question! Today’s question is:

Who or what is your favourite alien, and why?

Asti @ Oh, the Books!

I have to admit, I don’t have a great knowledge of aliens to pull from. The only book I’ve actually ever read is The Host by Stephenie Meyer, and while it was okay I wouldn’t say the aliens were my favorite. No, I think I’m going to have to turn outside of books for this one.

I’ve loved my fair share of movies with aliens – Star Wars, E.T., District 9, Mars Attacks!, The Fifth Element, Transformers, Men in Black, Superman, etc. etc. (seriously, I could go on and on) – but there’s one that will always hold a special place in my heart. And I must warn you, it’s probably a bit unexpected, especially as it comes from a movie that’s a Rated R cult classic released in 1975.

My favorite aliens are the transvestites from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. Now, if you haven’t seen Rocky Horror Picture Show that may sound incredibly weird – and it is. That whole movie is weird! But it’s the most entertaining and memorable musical comedy horror film I’ve ever watched!

Why do I love these aliens so much? Because they’re so outlandish and have such simple desires! They’re not after world domination or anything like that. No, they just want to dress up, party, love, sing, and, in Dr. Frank N. Furter’s case, make themselves a man! Seriously, if these aliens were to show up at my door step I would not hesitate for a second to invite them in. I would have to keep Dave in my sight at all time sot ensure he doesn’t get up to any trouble, and I’m sure his parents would freak the heck out, but the mere thought of doing the Time Warp with them just excites me to no end.

So yes, my less-than-conventional answer is the aliens from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you haven’t seen it, you won’t quite get it and I’m not sure it’s a film I’d recommend to everyone. But I watched this film regularly with my friends as a teen and learned all the callbacks and saw it performed in theatre and just YES! There’s no other choice for me.

Asti blogs at Oh, the Books! with Kelley and Leanne, having previously blogged at A Bookish Heart before joining up with the other two to make a superblog! She is the awesome creator of the Bookish Games, and the Sci-Fi Month Social Media Maestro.

Kelley @ Oh, the Books!

It’s actually harder than I thought it would be, to choose a favorite alien! Naturally, I tend to ponder all of the various aliens from Star Trek, but since so many of them are humanoid it somehow doesn’t feel completely fair. Strangely, though, I don’t seem to be able to think of many alternatives! So… I think I’m going to say that my favorite alien is Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. To me, his character is one with a lot of depth and introspection, and I think his arc was very well done. He’s a changeling, which means he can take the shape of anyone or anything he desires, but he’s spent most of his life trying to figure out who — and what — he is. He struggles with a lifelong identity crisis, trying so hard to fit in, find where he belongs, and just to DO GOOD in the universe. And even when he found out what he was and where his people came from, he didn’t forsake everything he’d grown to be up until that point, and I loved that too. 🙂

Kelley blogs at Oh, the Books! with Asti & Leanne, having previously blogged at A Novel Read before joining up with the other two to make a super blog! She also has a super adorable three-legged cat.

Cecily @ Manic Pixie Dream Worlds

I have two (three, really) favorite aliens from my reading this year, and I think both are illustrative of the different ways that science fiction can be used to delineate the human condition.

The first are the two alien civilizations in Mary Doria Russell’s theological science fiction novel The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God. What’s really poignant about these alien cultures is how sapient species would have developed if they were, rather than one omnivore species like humans, two that lived in uneasy harmony: one carnivore and one herbivore. Russell explores the conflicts between the individualistic and pluralistic, the competitive and cooperative, if they were taken to their extremes in two separate species rather than internally in one. The author builds these two civilizations’ cultures into their linguistic systems — the language and culture inform each other in a recursive sense — and the resultant gaps in understanding are what drives much of the story’s conflict between the human explorers and the two species. The author’s background as an anthropologist shows.

The second I love for the opposite reason, which is how very realistic and unremarkable the aliens are. Solaris Rising 3, an anthology edited by Ian Whates, has several stories about aliens, the most refreshing and interesting of which is Alex Dally MacFarlane’s Popular Images From the First Manned Mission to Enceladus. The aliens in this story — discovered on one of Saturn’s tiny water-covered moons, and realistically ones that could be discovered within my lifetime — are microsopically tiny… and unlike in any other story I’ve read dealing with tiny aliens, they aren’t a virus or dangerous bacteria or erstwhile plague. They just are; the conflict of the story is derived from the discovery of the aliens rather than from the aliens themselves: from the tensions between science and business interests; from the harsh environment the scientists are exploring. This story, narrated via descriptions of space exploration propaganda posters as signposts, is the only one about aliens I’ve ever read where the protagonists say — paraphrased with great liberties, as this story is engagingly lyrical — “Holy shit, y’all: multicellular organisms!” Which is, you know, exactly how us nerds would react!

Cecily blogs at Manic Pixie Dream Worlds.

Rinn @ Rinn Reads

My answer to this question comes not from books, but from video games (although was that really a surprise??). There’s no question about it – my absolute favourite alien is Garrus Vakarian from the Mass Effect series. Whenever I play the game, he is always my love interest (when available…), and the conversations between him and Commander Shepard are wonderful. He’s motivated, driven, intelligent and not afraid to stand up for a cause he believes in. He rebels and protects the people, deviating completely from his Citadel security job to look after the hungry masses. To be honest, the entire Mass Effect series is a wonderful example of a range of humanoid and non-humanoid alien species, like the Elcor or Hanar, Asari or Turian. It’s full of a LOT of loveable aliens.

Oh, and Garrus’ one flaw? He’s always busy doing those damn calibrations…

Rinn blogs at… well, um, this blog you’re looking at right now, funnily enough. She created Sci-Fi Month in 2013 and desperately wanted to run it again this year, although she’s not been *quite* as good at it as she’d hoped. Thank goodness for the ladies from OTB!

Who or what is YOUR favourite alien?

Sci-Fi Month 2014: Blogger Panel #2 – Scientific Knowledge

This post is part of Sci-Fi Month 2014, an event hosted by myself and Oh, the Books!. You can keep up to date by following @SciFiMonth on Twitter, or the official hashtag #RRSciFiMonth.

Welcome to the second of the blogger panels for Sci-Fi Month! This is where we ask a group of bloggers a question relating to science fiction, and they are free to answer it in any way they wish. There will be four over the course of the event, alternating between my blog and Oh, the Books!. The first panel was held last week, and it’s already time for the second! Today’s question is:

Do you need to know a lot about science to read/enjoy sci fi? Or, on the flip side, do you think reading sci fi helps you learn about science?

Angie @ Angela’s Anxious Life

I don’t actually think you need to know a lot about science to read science fiction. I don’t know a lot about science and am able to read sci-fi and understand what is going on. Usually the author provides enough information so that the reader is not left in the dark and can follow the plot. I really don’t think that reading sci-fi helps you learn science. Maybe in some books.. but when I think of science fiction I think of made up stories. Or stories with technology that doesn’t even exist yet. I think maybe I haven’t read a sci-fi book that is a story about science that exists today… it is about science that will exist in the future. It is one of the reasons I enjoy sci-fi, it takes me out of the world of today.

Angie blogs about books, films, comics and video games at Angela’s Anxious Life.

Ana @ Read Me Away

No, I don’t think you need to be a science buff to read and enjoy science fiction. However, I think it helps. There this moment of “aha!” or “Eureka!” that I get when I’m reading sci-fi books because sometimes I’ll encounter something that I’ve learned about in my classes. “I know what that is!” I almost say aloud, feeling rather chuffed (and like a total nerd) when I find a topic I have some knowledge about.

I think reading is a learning experience, and if you don’t know a lot about science, science fiction can give you a great introduction to some of the more fascinating aspects about science. I didn’t like physics when I took it as a class, but I absolutely loved reading about astrophysics in sci-fi novels. I think sci-fi helped me appreciate science class more, because sci-fi gives me a glimpse of what science could possibly do, and what future technology could possibly look like.

People always talk about how the line between science fiction and science fact is getting really fuzzy, and I find that absolutely fascinating! And a little terrifying when you think about some of the dystopian sci-fi titles out there. That’s what I think, at least. You don’t need to know a lot about science to enjoy sci-fi, and I think that sci-fi is a great way to start off the science appreciation life. 😛

Thanks for letting me participate in this blogger panel, Rinn!

Ana blogs about books and also video games at Read Me Away.

Amy @ Ode to Jo and Katniss

Confession: I have never been into or been particular good at science. In high school when I had the chance to forgo chemistry for the joke class environmental science, I did it gladly. In college when I was required to take two semesters of science, I took geology and astronomy because I thought they would be easy. Turns out both were harder than I thought, especially astronomy because basically I was taking basic astrophysics! (Here I thought I was just going to learn about constellations and planets!) A look at a my ACT score (a standardized college acceptance exam sort of like the SAT) also showed my lack of scientific understanding as I scored 10 points lower in the science section than the English (a huge difference!).

But science fiction is different for me. I ignore the science babble and enjoy the wonder of the all the possibilities. I am certainly glad for people who understand space travel and all that good stuff so we can dream of the future, even if I will never understand these things!

Something else I appreciate about science fiction is when the SOCIAL sciences (history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.) are featured in the stories, “sciences” I can understand! I especially love when psychology plays a role in the story as a character struggles with what makes them human even though they are actually part android, or because of the acts they are willing to commit in time of intergalactic war, etc. Those are the types of stories that keep me coming back for more.

Does science fiction help me understand science any more? Eh, I don’t think too much. It’s possible it has a little bit and I just haven’t noticed, but let’s just say I’m not going to enroll in another astronomy class anytime soon. 🙂

Amy’s greatest sci-fi love is Star Trek, which her husband introduced to her (and that is true love). When she’s not watching Star Trek or doing boring adult things, she is probably writing or reading or, most likely, procrastinating everything via the Internet.

Lianne @ Caffeinated Life

I don’t think you need to know a lot about science to read and enjoy science fiction. I think that as long as you know some of the basics–how many planets there are in the solar system, that gravity works differently outside of the earth, that space travel at a particular speed is incredibly complicated and long by our standards (those are the only three that come to mind at present)–and that the logic of the world in which that story operates in makes sense or is consistent, then you an get by. Tying in to the next question, I love it that sci-fi novels have all of these ideas and theories at play in the story as sometimes the really interesting stuff compels me to look it up–via books, via the internet–and therefore learning a bit of science along the way 🙂 Sci-fi is a great medium to get people interested in science or to learn more/think about the possibilities out there.

Lianne blogs about books, as well as other topics such as films and TV, at Caffeinated Life.

What are your thoughts – do you think a knowledge of science is needed to enjoy science fiction? Have you ever read any books than assumed a more detailed scientific understanding?

Tagged Angela's Anxious Life, Blogger Panel, Caffeinated Life, Ode to Jo and Katniss, Read Me Away, Sci-Fi Month, Sci-Fi Month 2014, Science Fiction20 Comments