Escape Artists
The Lounge at the End of the Universe => Gallimaufry => Topic started by: Startrekwiki on February 22, 2007, 04:52:09 AM
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This is a question that has been lying around... Not really what is the best SF, but what is the real-thing? Personally I think that the line between SF and Fantasy has been a bit fuzzy. For example, I consider myself a Trekkie, yet I believe that Star Trek is in the no-man's land between SF and Fantasy, but Asimov, another favorite, is in the SF category. I consider things such as the storyline behind the vidiogame "Halo" to be SF because it's really based on a real theory: Aliens! Then theories are SF because they're stories based on another theory in science:
Every thought is a theory because there will always be someone somewhere who can prove you wrong.
So, in the end, what do you designate SF, and not?
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Science Fiction is an attempt to foresee a possible, if improbable, future and tell a story there.
Hard SF is more tightly based on what should/may happen, should progression go along that Path. Mainstream examples include a fair bit of Cyberpunk, 2001, and certain arguments could be made for certain parts of Star Trek, as they could be made that it belongs in Soft SF. You can also argue that Star Trek is just a morality play that got set in the 23rd century so it wouldn't cause an uproar that Uhura's fourth in command of the Enterprise.
Soft SF has taken the license to ignore what physical laws we think govern the universe. Star Wars and other space operas like Firefly go here, but don't take Soft SF to mean that it isn't deadly serious. The Foundation novels can go in here, Dune, any number of other genre-defining novels will also belong here, and it's definitely more of the genre than Hard SF.
Then again, this is all relative and some people will argue that the lines between Hard and Soft can never be fully drawn. Or that it's better that they're not. Maybe we should think of Hard and Soft SF and the border between them like we think of the border between Lichtenstein and Belgium (pardon my French). Sure, it's both real and important, but on the other hand who cares what it looks like exactly? (Well, except to the Belgians and Liechtensteiners.)
Honestly, what's good SF is good SF and what's bad SF is bad SF. Distinctions past that are usually boring and unnecessary.
After that it's just quibbling over if the walls should be Cerulean or Topaz.
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I don't like drawing the line. I'm just after the good story. I think the important part is that they let us know early what the rules are and they stick to them. No saying it's real hard SF and them having an alien levitate his lunch.
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I was thinking this because of a poll I saw on the EP site. The one about "Making a Separate Fantasy Podcast". If EP was really going to do that, there needs to be some kind of distinction. I mean, wouldn't it be odd if what you thought was Fantasy appeared on EP, or SF on the other 'cast? If there is really going to be such a podcast, there needs to be distinction between the two genres.
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For example, I consider myself a Trekkie, yet I believe that Star Trek is in the no-man's land between SF and Fantasy, but Asimov, another favorite, is in the SF category.
For those of us with a less involved perspective (I was raised on Star Trek: TNG, but am not quite a Trekkie), how do you qualify Star Trek as anything other than SF? It's based on "science" and set in this dimension's future, and it has the whole "if there's a rocket" trump card.
In genre classification I thought the lines were drawn by the mechanisms (“science” vs. “magic”) used to advance the plot, not the plot or the plot's intent?
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Have a look at http://www.escapepod.org/2006/11/30/ep082-travels-with-my-cats/#comments
Hugo award winner Mike Resnick puts his thoughts out there as to what constitutes sci-fi.
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Steve, didn't you say (or have a quote that said) "SF is whatever we point at when we say it?" or did I just mangle that quote beyond recognition?
Anyway I liked that idea. Some things are just too blurry.
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Steve, didn't you say (or have a quote that said) "SF is whatever we point at when we say it?" or did I just mangle that quote beyond recognition?
That's pretty much right. The quote comes from Damon Knight.
Here's a long list of other people's definitions and characterizations of SF, if anyone is interested:
http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html (http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html)
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I guess I'm stuck on Science Fiction being based on Science and Fantasy Fiction being based on things that aren't Science.
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I guess I'm stuck on Science Fiction being based on Science and Fantasy Fiction being based on things that aren't Science.
Frankly, I agree. Except for one thing: what is visual science fiction? I mean, is Battlestar Gallactica Sci-Fi? It's based on the scientific theory that there is life out there... And that it originated here. Or something like that.
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I mean, is Battlestar Gallactica Sci-Fi?
I would say it obviously is, but you are right - some people describe it as West Wing at war, in space. But this simply goes back to the old point that "sci-fi is what we point at", which, frankly, I find absurd. If you introduce
And for me the only difference between sci-fi and fantasy are the descriptors. Star Wars, BG, Dr. Who, even hard sci-fi, in my opinion, could be done by changing the words from Spaceship to Dragon, from planet to city/continent, etc. Both genres are intended to tell stories outside our current framework - whether the planet/city is only populated by women because of a disease/genetic weapon or a magician's curse is immaterial. I think it is people's exposure and personal preferences that decide what they like better.
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Author George Alec Effinger made a distinction between SF and Sci-Fi. SF is a story where the science fictiony thing is necessary to the plot and the feeling of the story. Battlestar Galactica would be SF, because the fact that the cylons are robots created by humans is necessary for the moral questions that the show raises. A Sci-Fi story is one where the science-fictiony aspect is not necessary. Star Wars is Sci-Fi because you could tell exactly the same story in a different setting. In fact, many of you probably know that Star Wars is basically a rip-off of a Kurosawa samurai movie.
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How about this one.
I recently read a story where the narrator believed that a particular girl was a ghost. It is revealed dramatically at the end whether the girl actually is a ghost or the narrator is crazy. Nothing scary happens, so I wouldn't call it horror, which would make it modern-day fantasy. But if it turns out that the narrator is crazy then you have a fantasy story in which nothing fantastic happens. I think a story like this would disappoint readers hoping to read about magic and the supernatural, but at the same time the story would annoy fans of mainstream fiction because the reader has to deal with the supernatural for most of the story. Would this story be on NPR or Escape Pod?
BTW, that is the point of defining SF,F,H as genres. Some magazines publish them, some don't.
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But what Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet considers fantasy is going to be radically different from what Realms of Fantasy does.
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How about this one.
I recently read a story where the narrator believed that a particular girl was a ghost. It is revealed dramatically at the end whether the girl actually is a ghost or the narrator is crazy. Nothing scary happens, so I wouldn't call it horror, which would make it modern-day fantasy. But if it turns out that the narrator is crazy then you have a fantasy story in which nothing fantastic happens. I think a story like this would disappoint readers hoping to read about magic and the supernatural, but at the same time the story would annoy fans of mainstream fiction because the reader has to deal with the supernatural for most of the story.
L. Ron Hubbard's novel Fear is very similar to the story you describe. (I don't think that's much of a spoiler since in the author's own introduction it's stated that despite the fantastical events that occur, the story could actually happen.)
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Battlestar Galactica would be SF, because the fact that the cylons are robots created by humans is necessary for the moral questions that the show raises.
Real cylons are war machines made by now-extinct lizard-aliens with the explicit purpose of killing humans.
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In one intro to a book of Phillip K. Dick stories he makes a distinction between fantasy and science fiction that I always liked. I think it's Second Variety, but I loaned it and a few others to my dad, so I can't find the exact book or wording right now. But anyway...
He said science fiction could happen, based on what was known at the time of the story writing. It could grow out of our world as it is today (or, could have happened like that in the past). Fantasy happens in a way that could never happen. If that makes sense.
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In one intro to a book of Phillip K. Dick stories he makes a distinction between fantasy and science fiction that I always liked. I think it's Second Variety, but I loaned it and a few others to my dad, so I can't find the exact book or wording right now. But anyway...
He said science fiction could happen, based on what was known at the time of the story writing. It could grow out of our world as it is today (or, could have happened like that in the past). Fantasy happens in a way that could never happen. If that makes sense.
I like the way that sounds but I guess that means Land of the Lost wasn't sci-fi then. I guess the Sleestacks are just a fantasy of mine.
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In one intro to a book of Phillip K. Dick stories he makes a distinction between fantasy and science fiction that I always liked. I think it's Second Variety, but I loaned it and a few others to my dad, so I can't find the exact book or wording right now. But anyway...
He said science fiction could happen, based on what was known at the time of the story writing. It could grow out of our world as it is today (or, could have happened like that in the past). Fantasy happens in a way that could never happen. If that makes sense.
Then wouldn't anything involving time travel or FTL be considered fantasy? I believe that current science considers both of those things impossible.
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In the audio outro to Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card says that when he was struggling with this question, an editor told him: "Scott, it's like this: science fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees. Just look at the cover art."
It's a remarkably good sorting device, but I don't know how well it works with short stories...
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In one intro to a book of Phillip K. Dick stories he makes a distinction between fantasy and science fiction that I always liked. I think it's Second Variety, but I loaned it and a few others to my dad, so I can't find the exact book or wording right now. But anyway...
He said science fiction could happen, based on what was known at the time of the story writing. It could grow out of our world as it is today (or, could have happened like that in the past). Fantasy happens in a way that could never happen. If that makes sense.
Then wouldn't anything involving time travel or FTL be considered fantasy? I believe that current science considers both of those things impossible.
Personally, I file such things under "science fantasy".
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I'm one of those (and I think this is basically what Russell said waaay back in the beginning of the thread) who just wants a good story. I don't really care what you call it; the genre lines are necessarily blurry and definitions are squishy, because in the end ALL of the stories are about ourselves and how we see our world.
Trying to put everything in a box will always leave something out... and I only want to leave out "stuff that sucks". (Good luck finding a universal definition for THAT!)
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I'm one of those (and I think this is basically what Russell said waaay back in the beginning of the thread) who just wants a good story. I don't really care what you call it; the genre lines are necessarily blurry and definitions are squishy, because in the end ALL of the stories are about ourselves and how we see our world.
Trying to put everything in a box will always leave something out... and I only want to leave out "stuff that sucks". (Good luck finding a universal definition for THAT!)
So why do you read science fiction?
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I know the question wasn't directed at me, but I agree with what Russell, TAD and a few others have said and I found your question to be an interesting one, so, for me, I think it's a little bit of escapism. And getting to experience an exotic life, albeit vicariously. I haven't thought long on the question, but I think that's one of the reasons I read/watch F/SF.
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I've stopped trying to classify it, honestly. There's been so much debate on the topic, I just don't know that there is an answer, or a way to classify/split the genres that would make me happy. Ray Bradbury is to me SF, but he doesn't have serious science in a lot of his stuff. Still, I can't imagine classifying him as anything else. Ditto Star Wars. I get the Science Fantasy thing -- it makes a lot of sense, but I just can't label it as such.
In the end, I think I just kind of end up tagging things with a bunch of different labels in my head instead of trying to boil it down to SF/F/H.
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I'm one of those (and I think this is basically what Russell said waaay back in the beginning of the thread) who just wants a good story. I don't really care what you call it; the genre lines are necessarily blurry and definitions are squishy, because in the end ALL of the stories are about ourselves and how we see our world.
Trying to put everything in a box will always leave something out... and I only want to leave out "stuff that sucks". (Good luck finding a universal definition for THAT!)
So why do you read science fiction?
For the same reaon I read horror, detective stories, and satire. I'm looking for a good read with a good story. I don't care what the rules are, as long as they tell me the rules early.
In movie references, I liked Matrix (and have a soft spot for comic book movies), because they told me why they could do this unbelievable stuff. I hated Die Hard 4, because they told me Bruce Willis was a normal guy in a normal world. Nothing after the first hour was believable.
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Then there are those of us, usually faintly annoying and pretentious I must admit, who claim to solve the issue by talking of "speculative fiction" - which could be seen as a larger set that includes various science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magic realism genres.
But then you just have a larger question of what distinguishes speculative from mundane . . . although I do think that is an easier distinction to make.
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Then there are those of us, usually faintly annoying and pretentious I must admit, who claim to solve the issue by talking of "speculative fiction" - which could be seen as a larger set that includes various science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magic realism genres.
But then you just have a larger question of what distinguishes speculative from mundane . . . although I do think that is an easier distinction to make.
I'm good with "speculative fiction." I usually just say genre, which is woefully inaccurate, I suppose, but I think it's the same idea. A very broad scope.
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I've stopped trying to classify it, honestly. There's been so much debate on the topic, I just don't know that there is an answer, or a way to classify/split the genres that would make me happy. Ray Bradbury is to me SF, but he doesn't have serious science in a lot of his stuff. Still, I can't imagine classifying him as anything else. Ditto Star Wars. I get the Science Fantasy thing -- it makes a lot of sense, but I just can't label it as such.
I'm with you there, partner. I used to be one of those guys that tried to convince people that Star Wars wasn't science fiction. But c'mon. It's science fiction. There are robots and spaceships.
So why do you read science fiction?
For the same reaon I read horror, detective stories, and satire. I'm looking for a good read with a good story. I don't care what the rules are, as long as they tell me the rules early.
You're resistance to defining genres makes more sense now. Me, I like reading science fiction more than other genres. I like the escapism and sense of wonder. But, unlike fantasy, my sense of wonder is heightened by some slim connection with reality. The thought that people may one day actually be able to do these things. It doesn't matter to me that I know intellectually that faster than light travel is impossible. Emotionally, it is closer to being possible that talking trees are.
Defining what science fiction is is important to me because I want to know something is science fiction before I read it. If I am promised the escapism, sense of wonder, and slim connection with reality and I don't get it I feel screwed. i.e. "Impossible Dreams." This was a delightful story, but it had no connection to reality at all. The fact that this story is so highly regarded in the science fiction community is troubling to me. Either I'm wrong about what science fiction is or they are, and we all know how that usually ends up.
Sorry if I am repeating myself from earlier posts. I don't remember what I wrote when this thread was active before.
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This discussion reminds me of Neal Stephenson explaining why he considers most of his published work, including Cryptonomicon and Baroque Cycle, to be science fiction (http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Issues/08Stephenson.html):
“People keep asking me why I think of the 'Cycle' as science fiction. When I was a kid I used to read these huge anthologies of science fiction stories, and there would always be some oddball stories that were set during the Crusades, or with cave men, or what have you. They weren't overtly science fiction, but there didn't seem to be any doubt in anyone's mind that they belonged. I make an analogy to cycling through stations on the FM dial, trying to get something other than morning talk show idiocy: when I come to a jazz station, I know within less than a second that what I am hearing is jazz. There's a particular aesthetic impression you get from jazz that you can identify and recognize right away. It's the same with SF -- once you get used to it, you just know. If you sit down and try to analyze it to death, certain elements may be there, but that kind of abstract theoretical process is not how people recognize jazz and it’s not how they recognize SF. So I like to think that what I've been working on is obviously SF. In a bookstore there are little signs above the sections. Go to the right signs, and the chances of finding what you want have just gone up quite a bit. So it's a perfectly legitimate function, and I don't mind that kind of label at all.”
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Actually, I don't think the plausibility of the science or other gadgets actually has much to do with the division between science fiction and fantasy. It has much more to do with feel and tone. I offered Card's comment that "science fiction has rivets" tongue in cheek, but I think it gets at the real distinction -- much more so than trying to classify stories based on the plausibility of their scientific premises.
As wakela pointed out, Star Wars is science fiction because it has robots and spaceships, not because the "jump to hyperspace" is scientifically plausible or the way the TIE fighters move has anything to do with the way real objects behave in a vacuum. Ditto Star Trek. What makes it science fiction is that it has gadgets that look and behave like extended versions of stuff we see around us (whose physical operating principles we typically don't understand anyway) and the characters talk to each other using a vocabulary that sounds like an extension of our scientific-rational worldview. It's that tone and feel that defines the genre (and more importantly, attracts a specific audience) rather than finding a physicist to sign off on your particular flavor of FTL drive.
Similarly, Lord of the Rings is fantasy, not because the Dark Lord or the elvish "straight path" is scientifically implausible (give me a few minutes, and I could concoct an explanation for either one that sounds as "scientific" as anything used to justify a phaser) but because they're explained in mythic and magical terms, and the characters talk to one another in a language that sounds like an extension of an older, more "spiritual" world view. Neverwhere does the same thing in a modern setting. "London Below" is spirit-infested, and filled with magical beings, in the way we all once believed the whole world was populated with spirits. Again, it's the tone, feel and vocabulary that defines the genre, not the plausibility or implausibility of the props.
At least, that's my take...
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Then wouldn't anything involving time travel or FTL be considered fantasy? I believe that current science considers both of those things impossible.
Pulling my Physics & Philosophy degree down from the shelf and dusting it off, I think I'll have to disagree with you there. It's slightly more nuanced.
Special Relativity considers it impossible for anything within a traditional 4D spacetime to travel at the speed of light unless it's massless. Hint: you don't want to be without mass. You can travel FTL within 4D spacetime if you have negative mass (or maybe imaginary mass, I forget which). Hint: you probably don't want those either. The fun thing being that if you can get past the lightspeed barrier, instead of having to pump in more energy to go faster -- asymptotically towards infinity -- you actually go faster the less energy you have.
You're right: it's all nonsense that comes from taking equations too seriously and it won't lead us to real FTL travel. Which is why all sensible speculation about breaking the lightspeed barrier talks about moving pockets of spacetime: you don't have to beat the limits if the limits move with your ship. (There is no fundamental SR objection to this idea but every proposal so far has violated conservation of energy on a farcical scale. It's Special Relativity that most people are thinking about when they say that FTL is "impossible", though, so this is a kind of way out.)
As to time travel, time has no preferred direction in any physical law except the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and even then it's more an inconvenient observational fudge than a proper building block of physics. Moving backwards in time is not prohibited by any equation, just human perception and prejudice. Time travel is problematic in many ways, but I don't know of any current physical theory that makes it impossible.
In short: you'll need to pull out unicorns or The Grail to make a story Fantasy. FTL or time travel can be a marker for less rigorous SF but it's not beyond plausibility.
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I'm one of those (and I think this is basically what Russell said waaay back in the beginning of the thread) who just wants a good story. I don't really care what you call it; the genre lines are necessarily blurry and definitions are squishy, because in the end ALL of the stories are about ourselves and how we see our world.
Trying to put everything in a box will always leave something out... and I only want to leave out "stuff that sucks". (Good luck finding a universal definition for THAT!)
So why do you read science fiction?
Somehow, I missed this question before. Sorry.
But the short answer is, when something works, I go back to it again.
80%-90% of the time, I want to be amazed by what I read, and 10%-20% of the time, that can be done without invoking scientific speculation or the supernatural in some way. John Irving can do it; John Steinbeck can... I'm sure there are others whose names aren't "John"... but when I go to the library, and prowl through the stacks, I usually end up taking home something that just ain't natural. (Come to think of it, Irving's stuff has a wealth of unnatural in it, too. ;) )
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I'm one of those (and I think this is basically what Russell said waaay back in the beginning of the thread) who just wants a good story. I don't really care what you call it; the genre lines are necessarily blurry and definitions are squishy, because in the end ALL of the stories are about ourselves and how we see our world.
Trying to put everything in a box will always leave something out... and I only want to leave out "stuff that sucks". (Good luck finding a universal definition for THAT!)
So why do you read science fiction?
Somehow, I missed this question before. Sorry.
But the short answer is, when something works, I go back to it again.
80%-90% of the time, I want to be amazed by what I read, and 10%-20% of the time, that can be done without invoking scientific speculation or the supernatural in some way. John Irving can do it; John Steinbeck can... I'm sure there are others whose names aren't "John"... but when I go to the library, and prowl through the stacks, I usually end up taking home something that just ain't natural. (Come to think of it, Irving's stuff has a wealth of unnatural in it, too. ;) )
I've never gotten around to Irving, but I agree wholeheartedly about Steinbeck.
I agree too with wanting to be amazed. But the problem I have is that I'm not getting that amazed feeling from a lot of the stuff I'm reading/listening to. I didn't find "Impossible Dreams" amazing, though it was certainly a charming story. "Kallakack's Cousins" also lacked amazement. Nothing from Resnick as amazed me. So is it me? Am I just harder to amaze for some reason? Or are other people not amazed with these stories either, but consider amazement less of a priority? Judging from the awards Resnick keeps winning, and "Impossible Dreams" won, I must be in the minority about something.
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I agree too with wanting to be amazed. But the problem I have is that I'm not getting that amazed feeling from a lot of the stuff I'm reading/listening to. ... So is it me? Am I just harder to amaze for some reason?
I think a huge part of it is the expectation factor. Something catches you by surprise (like "A Prayer for Owen Meany" did me), and then you explore (I read "Garp" and thought, "Wow! There's more!")... and then you're a little jaded. Sure, Hotel New Hampshire is good, but by this point you KNOW it's his sophomore effort; sure, everyone was anticipating Cider House Rules, but now you see the patterns in his writing...
So, yes, it is you. :)
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This "is it/isn't it" genre battle rolls on, constantly cropping up as we add new listeners/posters... and I have to laugh. Long ago, when I was a blearly-eyed Airman in the U.S. forces, stuck working the mid-watch, I used to peruse a read-only feed of the USENET newsgroups to pass the time, and one of my favorites was bit.listserv.blues-l
They had a number of enthusiastic and witty members, and were always fun to read, but occasionally, they would get sucked into these horrible flame-wars (like like this one (http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.blues-l/browse_thread/thread/702e498ea5fa6868/5ea66de0f7d013be?lnk=gst&q=not+blues+rick+flame+war#)) over what was/wasn't "blues". The usual suspect was a guy named Rick Edwards (aka "Voodoochile") who started from the opinion that Jimi Hendrix counted, and then expanded his definition to encompass nearly anything he listened to... including the Beatles, Alan Parsons, and... Captain and Tenille?
I like that we've advanced from quibbling at length over what is allowable in the forums (thanks, Gallimaufry!) and griping about bandwidth issues, and I certainly think there are times when something is questionable... but at the end of the day, I think our editors are justified in publishing whatever they want, and we should simply figure out how to manage our expectations accordingly.
Are the Blues Brothers "blues"? Maybe. Is Kurt Vonnegut sci-fi? Yep. Does the box they're in affect my ultimate enjoyment of what they offer? Nope.
Anyway, off to sign the kiddies up for the Summer Reading Program. Thanks for tolerating my presence! ;)
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This "is it/isn't it" genre battle rolls on, constantly cropping up as we add new listeners/posters... and I have to laugh. Long ago, when I was a blearly-eyed Airman in the U.S. forces, stuck working the mid-watch, I used to peruse a read-only feed of the USENET newsgroups to pass the time, and one of my favorites was bit.listserv.blues-l
They had a number of enthusiastic and witty members, and were always fun to read, but occasionally, they would get sucked into these horrible flame-wars (like like this one (http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.blues-l/browse_thread/thread/702e498ea5fa6868/5ea66de0f7d013be?lnk=gst&q=not+blues+rick+flame+war#)) over what was/wasn't "blues". The usual suspect was a guy named Rick Edwards (aka "Voodoochile") who started from the opinion that Jimi Hendrix counted, and then expanded his definition to encompass nearly anything he listened to... including the Beatles, Alan Parsons, and... Captain and Tenille?
I've seen (and participated in) similar arguments in rec.music.progressive, such as whether Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree count as "progressive rock", or whether the group that released 90125 in 1984 or the group that released Discipline in 1981 should have used the names "Yes" or "King Crimson" respectively (for my part, my position on the above, in order, was: no, no, no, and no.)
Oh, and I used to consider Whitesnake to be a blues band (up until the Slide it In album anyway.)