What do you think?
Non OTU: Is science fiction stricrtly meant for Teenage Boys?
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
- Start date
Not the rated-R movies.
I guess this thread answers that...
If it was strictly meant for teenagers, the mean age in this board would not be among 40's and 50's. So, no, it's ot strictly meant for them.
If it was strictly meant for teenagers, the mean age in this board would not be among 40's and 50's. So, no, it's ot strictly meant for them.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
And while this board skews that way for some fairly obvious reasons, there are plenty of women who read and love SF too (of many ages).
So, I think, no. The question is nonsensical. The fact that many people believe it doesn't change the fact that it is nonsensical.
I'm afraid I only catched the age part of the question, not the gender one...
If fact, it's a fairly safe bet that most SciFi isn't aimed at teen anything.
Bujold, McCaffrey, and LeGuin all explicitly do NOT write for teen boys. They write for themselves, and for women like themselves. They don't mind that some of their fans are teen boys, but much of their readership is adult women.
Likewise, the Star Trek intended demographic hasn't been "teen boys" since TAS went off the air. And TAS was an utter failure to reach the intended market.
Bujold, McCaffrey, and LeGuin all explicitly do NOT write for teen boys. They write for themselves, and for women like themselves. They don't mind that some of their fans are teen boys, but much of their readership is adult women.
Likewise, the Star Trek intended demographic hasn't been "teen boys" since TAS went off the air. And TAS was an utter failure to reach the intended market.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Science fiction is for anyone that enjoys reading it, but the sub genres and writing styles that the authors delve or use may not be attractive to all or most of the readers.
I've enjoyed watching the Hunger Games and the Hundred, but they appear to have had an Young Adult fiction genesis, which I've always felt patronizing, even when I was a Young Adult, so I wouldn't have picked up those books.
On the other hand, I started reading Harry Potter as an adult, and I thoroughly enjoyed the novels in the series I've managed to finish.
Le Guin was a little hard to digest, since she challenged a lot of my conceptions, as was McCaffrey (the first Pern novel was great, and at some point after the third, I thought screw dragons).
I've enjoyed watching the Hunger Games and the Hundred, but they appear to have had an Young Adult fiction genesis, which I've always felt patronizing, even when I was a Young Adult, so I wouldn't have picked up those books.
On the other hand, I started reading Harry Potter as an adult, and I thoroughly enjoyed the novels in the series I've managed to finish.
Le Guin was a little hard to digest, since she challenged a lot of my conceptions, as was McCaffrey (the first Pern novel was great, and at some point after the third, I thought screw dragons).
Harper Hall Trilogy shows McCaffrey's "Romance first, Sci-Fi Second" approach, and brings the Sci-Fi aspects back to the fore... in book 3... essentially, the 6th book of the Dragonriders cycle.
The Dragonriders Cycle ran well past the point where the original storyline was over... over 12 books... Masterharper and All the Weyrs ties the two series together.
As for LeGuin, I've read the Earthsea series several times. I watched the show, and understood her complaint... in the novels, there are no white folk. Everyone's various shades between "tanned" and "ebony"... but all the visual adaptations are filled with White Folk.... I've not read her other works, and found the few I tried impossible to get into, and harder still to stay interested in. Earthsea, however, was the primary inspiration for my Fantasy Hero campaign world. Her writing is exceptionally preachy, tho', and that really hurts her accessibility. I heard a recent local radio interview, and she explicitly targets college-age/college-educated minorities with her writing.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I would say that Heinlein wrote quite a lot for what I would call the teen-age boy audience, and some, like Stranger in a Strange Land, that was not. Piper was clearly writing for a male audience, while much of Andre Norton was aimed at the young adult audience, male and female. The Witch World series was what I would call Norton's "adult" novels.
I really have not gotten into any of the more modern writers, although for a while I was reading McCaffrey's Dragonrider series, but quite simply lost interest. Niven's Known Space cycle is probably the most recent that I have read. The more modern stuff just does not catch my interest to any degree.
I really have not gotten into any of the more modern writers, although for a while I was reading McCaffrey's Dragonrider series, but quite simply lost interest. Niven's Known Space cycle is probably the most recent that I have read. The more modern stuff just does not catch my interest to any degree.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
His political, possibly social, agenda bleeds through.
Even if you reject them, his ideas are worth considering.
Even if you reject them, his ideas are worth considering.
Niven's last known space novel was within the last decade...
Niven's daughter also wrote a sequel to MIGE/Moties...
Heinlein noted 2 periods in his work - his juveniles period, and his adult period; I note a third, as do many readers - his "Lazarus Long shows up inappropriately in everything" period... many of the works in that last third of his corpus have issues with continuity; I find them annoying. That third period is also politically preachy.
Sci-Fi is at its best when examining socio-technical issues; it's at its worst when it's preaching political ones.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The most recent Known Space novel that I read was the Ringworld Engineers. I did not like it that much. I am not sure if I have read any science fiction that has been published in this millennium.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It is Purnelle's daughter, it is titled Outies and is not a bad book IMHO.
Outies by Dr. J R Pournelle (Author)
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I appreciate the answers. I forgot how to make a poll, otherwise I would have tacked that on here.
I won't repeat my blog, but, I made a comment in an email to a former TV anchor I knew down in the San Diego area, and made a comment to the effect that I used science fiction as a means of avoiding the opposite sex.
Not really. What I meant to tell her was that I enjoyed sci-fi, and when you don't have friends of either sex around, you indulge in your hobby and passion. Traveller is one of those passions.
However, I got a lot of "bad vibes" in the real world to the point where there did seem to be a concerted effort to "deprogram me" or "get me off of" gaming and science fiction due to some wishes of newly discovered relations. People who really don't understand the concepts behind both regular space opera or Joe in Space kind of stuff as well as high minded allegory material like Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey.
Every since I watched my first Trek episode with a parental unit on their death bed, seeing Kirk and Spock walk down the corridors, and then maybe watch UFO or Dr. Who after that, I really loved the genre. Using science and tech to confront bad guys and so forth.
But, from my perspective it seems like there are people who believe that folks like you, I, the moderators and other regulars who come here, are caught in some kind of "loser rut" where you can't escape the stories, characters and paraphernalia of various scifi properties. To them, looking at me, ray guns and space ships are for little boys.
Huh.
But yeah, I'm glad this game and its setting in general doesn't delve into sexual material, and the language is kept generally clean for newer younger players and current folks who game with their families.
But that doesn't make it kids' fare.
Thanks again. And again, sorry for not putting up a real poll.
I think maybe me and my Florian are going to stay docked here at Regina for a while.
I won't repeat my blog, but, I made a comment in an email to a former TV anchor I knew down in the San Diego area, and made a comment to the effect that I used science fiction as a means of avoiding the opposite sex.
Not really. What I meant to tell her was that I enjoyed sci-fi, and when you don't have friends of either sex around, you indulge in your hobby and passion. Traveller is one of those passions.
However, I got a lot of "bad vibes" in the real world to the point where there did seem to be a concerted effort to "deprogram me" or "get me off of" gaming and science fiction due to some wishes of newly discovered relations. People who really don't understand the concepts behind both regular space opera or Joe in Space kind of stuff as well as high minded allegory material like Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey.
Every since I watched my first Trek episode with a parental unit on their death bed, seeing Kirk and Spock walk down the corridors, and then maybe watch UFO or Dr. Who after that, I really loved the genre. Using science and tech to confront bad guys and so forth.
But, from my perspective it seems like there are people who believe that folks like you, I, the moderators and other regulars who come here, are caught in some kind of "loser rut" where you can't escape the stories, characters and paraphernalia of various scifi properties. To them, looking at me, ray guns and space ships are for little boys.
Huh.
But yeah, I'm glad this game and its setting in general doesn't delve into sexual material, and the language is kept generally clean for newer younger players and current folks who game with their families.
But that doesn't make it kids' fare.
Thanks again. And again, sorry for not putting up a real poll.
I think maybe me and my Florian are going to stay docked here at Regina for a while.
I have run into this, Boy have I run into this. Often the "Bad Vibes" is more pressure to be like them, to worship their gods, be it religion, politics, Money or Sports frequently a combination of things. It's all about conformity. If you turn a critical eye towards what they are interested in you will find it is no different in practice than being a SF fan.
Note, I grew up with several family members who are extremely religious, I got some pressure questioning why I would read anything beyond the Bible and religious works. Heh, that didn't work, I read the bible, and what Christ said often didn't match what they were saying. But mostly they were trying to use religious pressure to make me conform to their cultural Ideals.
But mostly I think those groups who wish us to change object to the Science part of Science Fiction. At least around here the general public has a strong undercurrent of anti-intellectualism which equates to anti-science as Science is a intellectual pursuit.
