this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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Today I Learned

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

So looking up the Blake story it’s not really sci-fi at all?

At best it’s maybe alt-history, except if I wrote a story about the next few months that doesn’t mean I’m telling an alternative history.

Edit: Lola Leroy is set during American civil war, so I guess it’s historical when looking back a few decades?

And Imperum in Imperio is set in the period it’s written.

Feels like calling any of those titles Science Fiction is a lot of a stretch. Might as well say the DaVinci Code is SciFi at that point.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You might be right about these not being sci-fi, but sci-fi can take place in the period in which it was written. Alternative history plus sci-fi can definitely be a thing. Or writing sci-fi that's supposed to take place in just a few years.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And I addressed that. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable calling said title alt-history.

Do you think a title like the DaVinci Code is sci-fi because it altered history?

These sound like fictional drama/thriller books in a period piece setting to me.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Speculative fiction is generally a better term to avoid quibbling over details. The speculative step is the important defining thing in any case.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So looking up the Blake story it’s not really sci-fi at all?

You should edit the wikipedia entry then, because it disagrees with you.

"Samuel R. Delany described it as "about as close to an SF-style alternate history novel as you can get.

Further, while it incorporates elements of the fugitive slave narrative, Blake's narrator is also a scientist, whose focus on data collection and research stand in repudiation of the racial science of the day.[10] In fact, this reflects one of Delany's major themes: that Africa and its contributions to science and math were foundational to the Western world.[12]"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Because one author says so does not make it so.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Considering we're talking about the era of the belief in Drapetomania, I'd say a slave revolt followed by an attempt by black people to take over Cuba would be considered sci-fi by a lot of readers.

Edit: Also, sci-fi wasn't really a thing in 1862.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No sci-fi wasn't an official thing, yet the title of this is 'were developing the Afro-Futurism/Black Sci-Fi genre...'

I'd say a fictional story about slaves successfully rebelling and taking over a country, narrated by a scientist, who does science things, counts.

It is ridiculous how much hair-splitting is done when it's Black culture, and I'm quite embarrassed by the attempt to claim entire wikipedia sections are 'wrong' like this.

(Not saying you're saying that, I understand we're on the same page.)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Black Panther the movie actually borrowed some art elements from Afrofuturism. Although it's not very pronounced.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's literally afrofuturism

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Isn't it set in the present?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

If you're into sci-fi and Afro-futurism I really enjoyed Sweep of Stars by Maurice Broaddus (written a couple years ago; cool to see what a long history it's building on)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I feel like a certain poster here is conveniently and transparently overlooking the word "DEVELOPING" in the title.

I notice the wikipedia article is still un-edited, too. Put your money where your mouth is if you're so confident.