MR/UF discussion

[tanaise]

Today, Greg came in and was stubborn. He still insists that Sharon's story about Trufflefeet isn't fantasy. It's a "save the farm" story, he claims. We were discussing Urban fantasy and magic realism. See, my theory is magic realism, the story is still a story without the magic. you could replace it with something mundane, and it would still be a story. A girl here wrote a story about a fantastic vegetable. She could replace the fantastic veggie with a potato, and it would still be a good story. Not SF, but still good. A guy wrote a story with a female vampire. If the vampire is removed, it's not a story any more, just a mass of a lot of really gorgeous imagery. But no story. That's urban fantasy. What do we think? I'm still working on my cyberpunk definition. At first glance it's hard SF with computer tech as the SF. But it's more than that. Most CP has a particular mood to it, so it may be that without that mood, it's just hard SF.

And then mike just came through and brought his genre with him. Science Fantasy. Like John Borneman's Brassman stories, or Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories--fantasy, but with an intrinsic bit of science in there. Often turn of the century/alt history type things.

And then there is my own def of my stories. Urban SF. It's soft SF, but with much less of a concentration on the science. For USF, the focus is on the people.

We'll have to see how this all works in real life.

and I would just like to say, I would have read everyone's story already except first I had to write my story--I didn't want to wait any longer this week, as I didn't want it to fill up before I got there. And someone else noticed that when Terry asked if everyone was going to be submitting stories this week, he looked right at me. Which I suppose could just be coincidence, except I'm off to his side, so it didn't seem like it. I guess I'll see on Thursday, when we crit my story. Assuming that tomorrow I get my story in in the first 4. Julian left a story already tonight (well, at like 10. I would have taken mine over there, but I'm paranoid, so I wanted others to take a look at it first.), and I think one other boy was hoping to get something finished already. So hopefully this will be do able.

Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah, so I finished my story. Then I chatted a little. Then greg came by. He left and told me to read stories (esp since his is one of them). I started. And then Mike came by. And in both cases we had really good conversations, but for heaven's sake, where were they when I was going crazy with boredom some other day?

Comments

[ariadnesthread.livejournal.com]

Most cyberpunk contains an element of dark future. Examples I can think of off the top of my head: Snow Crash, Neuromancer, In the Garden of Iden (not so much dark as kinda-twisted future), Blade Runner, even Twelve Monkeys. Contrast with the shiny-happy Star Trek future.

Just my $.02.