Transition and explanation of SNW into TOS technology
- Thread starter Astrostars2025
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Fictional futures do not qualify.
Definition:
period piece
noun
: a work (as of literature, art, furniture, cinema, or music) whose special value lies in its evocation of a historical period
That's not what a period piece is.
To be a period piece, it has to be set in a historical period. An imaginary future does not qualify!
Ditto!
So is there an equivalent term for stories evoking a futuristic setting?
Science Fiction
Sci fi can take place in the present or past, too, if the idea is that some imaginary tech is more advanced in what is otherwise our same historical/current world.
What do you call a story set in the future that isn't so much science focused (inventions, tech, etc) as focused on events that happen? Social (studies) science fiction?
What do you call a story set in the future that isn't so much science focused (inventions, tech, etc) as focused on events that happen? Social (studies) science fiction?
I think someone's going to have to invent one, because I'm coming up with nothing.
We can't use 'science fiction' because when I start saying that something isn't accurate to the time period I get people replying that it's just science fiction not a historical drama!
Still Science Fiction.
They do?
Okay I've come up with a new made-up term: 'constructed period drama' (like a constructed language). A drama with the focus on authenticity and immersion of a historical drama, except set in a consistent fictional setting.
Uh, no, science fiction can be set in the present, or even in the past.
I find myself thinking of the literary snobs who differentiate contemporary realism from genre fiction (and look down their pointy little noses at the latter). All fiction is genre fiction; contemporary realism is a genre in itsef (and so is historical realism). In bad fiction, the story is the slave of the genre. In good fiction, the genre serves the story (and, seemingly paradoxically, is in turn far better served by the story than it could ever be by a story that is its slave).
It's a joke.
Science fiction because stories are far better to connect with people if they're about people.
My go to example is Robert Heinlein. Now, I have no doubt that he imagined the ships in his mind far different than I did, because I wasn't as familiar with the era he wrote in. But, he did not spend much time on ship description but on characters and their response.
That's the heart of stories is the people. Science fiction is no different because of the tech or the aliens, or planets are too outlandish you need people to help you get invested. That's why the idea of a "period piece" is a poor fit for science fiction; the reaction of the people to the new thing (science, tech, whatever) is setting up the culture for the story to unfold.
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