The Weird Stuff

[starcanuck64]

I don't read as much science fiction now as I used to in my teens and 20s and most of it tended to be "hard" sci-fi by the masters like Niven, Heinlein, Clarke, Brin, Asimov, Forward etc...scientists or engineers who wrote about a future rooted in science.

But sometimes it was nice to "go where no man has gone before" and spend time in some really strange places. Frank Herbert created some interesting ones like the Destination Void universe where a project to create AI instead produces God with the sequels dealing with the consequences. Also the Jorge Mckie stories were interesting in a future where for the smooth running of government a Bureau of Sabotage(BuSab) was created, something I felt at the time would be a great place to work. That universe featured sentient stars and Gowachin law that required lawyers to be tried before the main trial even got underway which seems like a great idea to me.

For really far out stuff there was Harlan Ellison and William Burroughs although I didn't read much of the later because of what it tended to do to my head. Also Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld was a pretty far out place where the stored spirits of every human who has lived has been reincarnated on a planet that is one giant river in a gorge with unclimable walls. When people die there they get reincarnated the next day to continue the "experiment".

Do other readers even make these distinctions and if so what do you consider to be the weirder side of science fiction?

[Noclevername]

I'm not a good judge of weird. If it makes sense to me and is a good enough read, I like it.

[Ara Pacis]

Don't read much SF anymore. Most is either hopelessly naive or dystopic and, since reality is beginning to look dystopic, I'd rather not read about it after I've already read the news for the day.

[HenrikOlsen]

Do other readers even make these distinctions and if so what do you consider to be the weirder side of science fiction?

Seeing that I grew up with Bester and Ballard I think my sense of weird is a bit skewed.

[starcanuck64]

Seeing that I grew up with Bester and Ballard I think my sense of weird is a bit skewed.

I hadn't heard of Bester and I only knew of Ballard from the Empire of the Sun movie.

Demolished Man sounds interesting, if I can find it I'm going to give it a read.

thanks

[starcanuck64]

I'm not a good judge of weird. If it makes sense to me and is a good enough read, I like it.

I think it's probably an arbitrary distinction I've created, sometimes when well done the more farout the story the better I find.

Like Ara Pacis I don't find much new stuff that fits the bill these days.

[mike alexander]

Early John Varley, especially his Eight Worlds stories, the Gaia trilogy, and Steel Beach.

Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories, and just about all the other ones, like "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard".

Alice Sheldon (aka James Tiptree, Racoona Sheldon). "The Screwfly Solution", "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death", "Houston, Houston Do You Read?", "The Man Who Walked Home".

[Solfe]

City, Out of Our Minds and The Visitors by Simak are all pretty weird but fun.

The original Bill the Galactic Hero is humor and oddness combined. What else do you call a Bloater Drive that increases the size of a space ship until it is bigger than the distance to cross, then it contracts around the destination?

The Stainless Steel Rat is cool in a dated way. Since I mentioned it, the 1979 Han Solo Trilogy seems to mirror/copy/pay homage to the Rat. What makes these books odd is the fact that galactic society seems to reflect 1972 society.

The Black Hole Travel Agency and Kuduna Memories are fun reads by Jack McKinney (Really James Luceno and Brain Daley.) The Black Hole Travel Agency books don't seem complete to me as Mr. Daley passed away, but there is this odd twist on characters. All of them are named after significant human traits or company brand names that are reflected in their behavior. I suspect there would have been a "great reveal" where the books themselves would have been billed as a "translation to terms and concepts (American) humans could understand".

[swampyankee]

Odd mix of writers: Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein came out of the 1930s pulps, while Niven, Brin, and Forward seem to come out of some reaction to the New Wave, so the two groups came out of quite different milieus. I'll agree both groups wrote what some critics consider "hard sf," but I don't think the two groups are congruent. The list of "mainstream sf" writers is very long: Fred Pohl (still active at nearly 90), Dickson, Anderson, Silverberg (who may fit your definition of weird), Lem, Chandler, James H Schmitz (although Telzey Amberdon, the young, tough government agent was a rare, very competent female lead character, so he'd probably be "weird" for his era), Hal Clement, James Hogan, Stephen Baxter (whose works harken back to the Golden Age with ... oh, never mind), Ben Bova (who've I met, at the first John W Campbell Awards), Harry Harrison (also at the first Campbell Award, and was a really nice guy), Charles Sheffield, A Bertram Chandler, C J Cherryh, James White, ....


For your rather odd categorization of "weird" as "not like works by Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, etc.," consider Jack Williamson, Jack Vance, Samuel Delaney, Octavia Butler (alas, she died at age 58), Sherri S Tepper, H P Lovecraft (whose writings some consider to be definitively weird; he died in his 30s), Phillip K Dick (whose works most people consider weird), China Miéville, Olaf Stapledon (whose writings I consider to be definitively turgid), Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring was brilliant), Alfred Bester (although I like to pretend Golem¹⁰⁰ never existed), Harlan Ellison, Barry Malzburg (also at first Campbell Awards, though I did not meet him), and L Ron Hubbard (an inventor of a cult, with some incredibly bad stories, but also some decent ones, and he should get some credit for his Writers of the Future contest), Ayn Rand (another cult inventor, and almost as turgid as Stapledon), and Tananarive Due.

I've read just about everything by your six "normal" sf authors. Sometimes, I want my wasted time back: I think most of the post-Moon Is a Harsh Mistress novels by Heinlein were very nearly unreadable. I also tend to wander around the genre pretty broadly, although I do avoid military sf (Ringo's writing, especially, has left a very bad taste, and I stopped reading David Drake after the, imho, incredibly stupid "Hammer's Slammers" books), and cyberpunk (I do not like William Gibson's works). I think that the SF genre has gotten much better, in many ways, since the "Golden Age": the writing tends to be better, especially in regards to character development. Asimov was probably in the "weird" category when he started writing -- his near-total absence of aliens was, I've read, due to a disagreement with John W Campbell, who held definite "human manifest destiny" ideas that Asimov, as a Russian Jew (see: pogrom) found unacceptable (Asimov did not, apparently, think that Earthlings would be all-conquering forces for truth and justice against vile, aggressive aliens).

So have I read the sf authors the OP would categorize as "weird?" Of course -- they're some of the best sf writers out there.

[starcanuck64]

The original Bill the Galactic Hero is humor and oddness combined. What else do you call a Bloater Drive that increases the size of a space ship until it is bigger than the distance to cross, then it contracts around the destination?

I've read his Eden and To The Stars series and found them kind of bland, Bill the Galactic Hero sounds pretty good though.

[starcanuck64]

Odd mix of writers: Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein came out of the 1930s pulps, while Niven, Brin, and Forward seem to come out of some reaction to the New Wave, so the two groups came out of quite different milieus. I'll agree both groups wrote what some critics consider "hard sf," but I don't think the two groups are congruent.

I found it a pretty natural transition from the early greats to my favorites of the 1970s and 80s. I think the later group did tend to draw on some of the styles and themes of the pioneers, with their own additions.

For your rather odd categorization of "weird" as "not like works by Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, etc.," consider Jack Williamson, Jack Vance, Samuel Delaney, Octavia Butler (alas, she died at age 58), Sherri S Tepper, H P Lovecraft (whose writings some consider to be definitively weird; he died in his 30s), Phillip K Dick (whose works most people consider weird), China Miéville, Olaf Stapledon (whose writings I consider to be definitively turgid), Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring was brilliant), Alfred Bester (although I like to pretend Golem100 never existed), Harlan Ellison, Barry Malzburg (also at first Campbell Awards, though I did not meet him), and L Ron Hubbard (an inventor of a cult, with some incredibly bad stories, but also some decent ones, and he should get some credit for his Writers of the Future contest), Ayn Rand (another cult inventor, and almost as turgid as Stapledon), and Tananarive Due.

Weird in a good sense, and as I said, it's probably my distinction.

And while the works of Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein were speculative they did tend to be more rooted in reality than some of the later(or maybe even contemporary) writers. It's not a great leap to imagine a Moon colony for instance, but sentient stars or god from a machine is stretching the bounds of reality...in an entertaining way.

Maybe un-conventional would have been a better word.

[Noclevername]

I found it a pretty natural transition from the early greats to my favorites of the 1970s and 80s. I think the later group did tend to draw on some of the styles and themes of the pioneers, with their own additions.



Weird in a good sense, and as I said, it's probably my distinction.

And while the works of Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein were speculative they did tend to be more rooted in reality than some of the later(or maybe even contemporary) writers. It's not a great leap to imagine a Moon colony for instance, but sentient stars or god from a machine is stretching the bounds of reality...in an entertaining way.

Maybe un-conventional would have been a better word.

I started reading SF at such an early age that all of it seemed equally possible (or impossible) to me. And as a child of the 70s, looking back, some of it was pretty out there in terms of what I now know about "hard science".

[starcanuck64]

I started reading SF at such an early age that all of it seemed equally possible (or impossible) to me. And as a child of the 70s, looking back, some of it was pretty out there in terms of what I now know about "hard science".

I started out with stuff like the Hardy Boys so when I "found" SF in my early teens it seemed pretty exotic.

Looking back Clarke and some others probably provided a smoother transition into the SF world than some other authors would have.

[starcanuck64]

I've read just about everything by your six "normal" sf authors. Sometimes, I want my wasted time back: I think most of the post-Moon Is a Harsh Mistress novels by Heinlein were very nearly unreadable. I also tend to wander around the genre pretty broadly, although I do avoid military sf (Ringo's writing, especially, has left a very bad taste, and I stopped reading David Drake after the, imho, incredibly stupid "Hammer's Slammers" books), and cyberpunk (I do not like William Gibson's works). I think that the SF genre has gotten much better, in many ways, since the "Golden Age": the writing tends to be better, especially in regards to character development. Asimov was probably in the "weird" category when he started writing -- his near-total absence of aliens was, I've read, due to a disagreement with John W Campbell, who held definite "human manifest destiny" ideas that Asimov, as a Russian Jew (see: pogrom) found unacceptable (Asimov did not, apparently, think that Earthlings would be all-conquering forces for truth and justice against vile, aggressive aliens).

So have I read the sf authors the OP would categorize as "weird?" Of course -- they're some of the best sf writers out there.

It wasn't meant as a criticism, it was meant as a description of style, content and theme.

I probably wasn't being clear, what I was trying to define was the difference between those authors who tended to take current trends and carry them forward to place a story and those authors that created, while not entirely fantasy worlds, unique environments and inhabitants that aren't connected with our conventional experience.

[starcanuck64]

Do other readers even make these distinctions and if so what do you consider to be the weirder side of science fiction?

On reflection I can see it's a distinction I made at the time.

I've lived my life in two very distinct phases divided by the acute phase of my illness. It can make it difficult to even remember certain elements of my younger life.

On looking back, about 30 years ago I would have described some of the authors mentioned here as not only weird but dangerous due to the state of my mental health.

If I had a do over to this thread I'd call it the Esoteric or Un-conventional side of science fiction or not post it at all. I realize now my intent was to discover some of the good stuff I missed back then because I simply couldn't process the emotional content of a lot of stuff.