My cousin’s kids say the cutest things: Things My Kids Say: If I was pretend…. Would you rather be pretend or would you rather the imaginary characters came to life? Personally, when I read a book or watch a movie, the worlds are as at least as exciting as the characters (I suppose that’s why I like science fiction!) so I’d rather "be pretend!"
3 Replies to “Would you rather be pretend or have the characters be real?”
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I like Sci-Fi for its ability to examine issues and how they may affect the future of society. (Okay, I also like space battles and such). Most debates about society, technology, morality, and culture are too short sighted, focusing on anticipated immediate outcomes. Regular fiction can expan this to explore potential outcomes in different circumstances. Sci Fi does that too but takes that to another dimension by also examining anticipated outcomes after the passage of time or with the application of technologies and social constructs not currently prevelant. Fantasy can do this too to an extent.
And its also a good distraction. As escapism goes, its easier to set aside the cares of the day for a while while in another galaxy or time period.
I’m a David Weber and John Ringo and William Forstchen fan. I also really enjoy the joint efforts of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, with Footfall being my fave. The Mote in God’s Eye was great, but not a good reread for me because I find it depressing. Alan D. Foster is hit or miss, though I liked the early books in his The Damned series. David Gerrold has some good stuff. I enjoyed his War Against the Chtorr series but it got too weird with the character’s interactions. The Sci-Fi series I read just to find out what happened but disliked almost every page I read: Peter Hamilton’s The Reality Disfunction.
That’s funny. I had the opposite experience with Peter Hamilton’s series. It took me 3 or 4 tries to get past page 50 but then I loved them. (An ex-boyfriend gave me the first two books about 10 years ago and it took me about 4 years to actually read one of them.) I hated the whole part about the souls or the spirits or whatever they were but I loved the worlds he created … living habitats and spaceships! Computers and biotech seemlessly working with your body! When Louise goes to buy her first biotech computer I really wanted to go shopping with her!
I like David Weber, Larry Niven and David Gerrold too. I’ve never read anything by William Forstchen. I’ll have to check him out.
Stormy,
That is what kept me interested in the story even though I found the plot and even many of the characters boring, cliche, or silly. Al Capone??? But Hamilton set up a complete package future universe plotting out two very different ways humanity may progress. That’s what Sci-Fi is about. too bad for me that I didn’t like the story or premise or characters. 🙂
Chris