Science fiction

I live and breathe it.

Ohh yes Xena, I loved her too although I was an adult when I watched it, I don't think I had any strong female role models when I was growing up, the nearest was Thelma in Scooby-Do, I'm from a generation where women stood around screeming and waiting to be rescued by a man

I think Vance is a bit like Marmite, you will either passionately love his work, or hate it. He is/was certainly held in great esteem by many other SF/fantasy authors such as Poul Anderson, Dan Simmons, Michael Moorcock, Dean Koontz, Robert Silverberg, Tanith Lee and George RR Martin. Five of the authors I have named wrote 'Dying Earth' short stories for 'Songs of the Dying Earth' a tribute-book for Jack Vance.

The Dying Earth short stories and novels are more fantasy than SF, though, in general, his SF is rather fantastical and his fantasy is tinged with SF.

The DD and Advanced DD treatment of magic is lifted directly from Vance's 'Dying Earth' - limited ability to memorise spells, IOUN stones, Phandaal's prismatic spray etc. etc.

I wonder if it’s simply that we don’t like the neurotypical world that we inhabit and seek escape in alternative worlds.

Theres a book I read in childhood that’s always stuck with me, called The Keeper of the Isis Light. It’s about a little girl who lives all alone on a remote planet looked after by a robot that her sadly deceased parents tasked with caring for her. I won’t spoilerise it in case any of you read it, but even decades later as a middle aged man the book affects me deeply. I suppose I always identified with the girl but didn’t realise it.

I just did a bit of a dive into the internet and found a Guardian article about why men like science fiction:

'..men are mostly dragged kicking and screaming into grown-upness. They never give up the secret hope that complexity will go away and leave them alone. They take refuge in trivia because facts, nice orderly facts, are psychological balm to the friction burns inflicted by contact with real life. This might take the form of obsessive devotion to a football club, a desire to possess a copy every Velvet Underground recording ever released or the ability to watch the Empire Strikes Back 57 times. It is the phenomenon known as geekiness, and it emerges at the point where the Venn diagrams of maleness and Autistic Spectrum Disorder intersect. Science fiction appeals to geeks because it effaces all remnants of the grown-up world. It is a parallel universe conducted entirely within the confines of childhood.'

To me, this reads like all sci-fi fans are autistic men, but we know that some autistic women (like me) also enjoy science fiction.I did read somewhere that autistic women have "male brains".  Maybe Autistic women's minds are not hard-wired to be purely (or mostly) interested in what their society deems are "usual" interests for their gender, which gives us more freedom to like different things.

Science Fiction encompasses order and facts (real scientific facts built into a story, or created facts like Asimov's laws of robotics) coupled with the opportunity to escape the mundane and the stresses of everyday life, in a highly creative format.

My first book was was The Gendered Brain, by Gina Rippon.

It was the first book I read after my diagnosis but I don’t remember that. I must go back and re-read that bit.

I read Neurotribes and found it totally the opposite to you, Uhane, I found it alienating and to American, I didn't feel I fitted in with anything that was talked about in it. Funny how we're all different.

Of BSG? 

Yeah, I think I remember that - I liked Enterprise, which was really my intro to the Star Trek world. 

There's some good new stuff too, Apple do sci fi well. 

I like Foundation. 

Dean Stockwell is a legend. He also appeared in a Star Trek Enterprise episode, working with Scott Bakula again

I preferred the second iteration.

this is something that is brought up in some detail in the book "Neurotribes", a very uplifting and informative read.

I liked him. And he always had Al to keep him on track. 

Although he made a good Cylon too, as it turned out!

I’ve had a copy of Tales of the Dying Earth sitting on my bookshelf for years but still haven’t gotten round to reading it.

I was so sad when the original Quantum Leap ended. Sam felt like a friend.

Roy said:

Just realised I’m a fossil, I meant BSG 1978 version.

Well, I've seen the original series too, and also the original Quantum Leap, vastly superior to the recent reboot. 

Perhaps that makes me a fossil too. Or perhaps a Dinosaur, my greatest ambition as a small child! 

I've often associated sci-fi with men and male hippies, which shows my age too. I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, I loved Iain M Banks's Culture Novels, I don't know why because they contain all the things I usually dislike about sci-fi. I like Heinleins Stranger in a Strange Land, although I did really struggle with it at first. I think a lot of sci-fi explores what it means to be human, but in a context thats different. I watched Star Trek and Dr Who, but I went off Dr Who when David Tennant left and some of the later Star Trek stuff just hasn't done it for me.

I like some fantasy, David Eddings Belgariad and The Mallorean, but not his other stuff, I liked The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I liked Alan Garner's childrens books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and the Moon of Gomrath.

As you can see I use the word liked a lot, mostly I don't read fantasy or sci-fi anymore, I started to find it either a bit samey or incomprehensible.

I don't like Disney, I think it should be banned...........For Crimes Against Winnie the Pooh!

Sci-fi can be so uplifting and optimistic and Dr Who is a great example of that. An alien with to connection left to his own home and complete freedom to do whatever they want decides that helping humans is the best thing they could do with their time.

So much of entertainment now is gritty, pessimistic and subversive. Its nice to be told that humanity is going to thrive for hundreds of years to come, and we can make a future where alien species help each other.

Great observation. I know a special interest for lots of autistic people is technology related, and sci-fi is all about exploring the implications of technology.

Also, stories about aliens can create great analogies for the disconnect we feel from living alongside neurotypical people (think 'stranger in a strange land')

I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation and my favourite character was Data. He was an andriod that was always humbly trying to replicate normal human behaviour, but he also did thing no other character could do. Other characters never treated him as anything less than human and always included him in social activities, accepting his differences as part of his personality.