2.6 KiB
"Utopia, LOL?" up for Nebula Award!
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Author: u/embrodski *
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URL: https://nebulas.sfwa.org/2017-nebula-award-finalists-announced/
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Score: 50
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Created: 2018-02-22T01:17:54
Post:
Comments:
u/Ilverin [+7] (16 hours later)
Previous discussion in /r/rational of this story
https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6gt400/rthsfth_utopia_lol/
u/embrodski [+9] (a minute later)
The first piece of explicit RatFic (I believe?) to be up for a major award! While there are other things put up that we all point to as great Rationalist Fiction, I don't think those authors were aware of/writing as RatFic (esp since many of them pre-date the genre)
u/wren42 [+8] (15 hours later)
what makes it explicit ratfic and not just good hard scifi?
u/embrodski [+5] (16 hours later)
I'd say Jamie Wahls working at MIRI and being intimately familiar with the genre makes a big difference. You can write things that are cyberpunk-esque back before cyberpunk was a thing, but it's not explicitly cyberpunk until both A. the genre is an acknowledged Thing, and B. you are aware of it and its conventions.
u/wren42 [+12] (17 hours later)
sure but I mean transhumanism has been a thing for a long time. Rational fiction and EY don't have a specific monopoly on any of the ideas in the story, nor are those ideas required to make it rational fiction. as a short story with pretty limited time for plot, few of the 'conventions' of rational fiction apply - ie. consistent rules and worldbuilding, intelligent antagonists, logical problem solving, application of methods of rationality or science, etc. You could say some of these are used a bit in the brief plot, but not in a way far off of anything, say, Herbert wrote.
I mean I liked the story, it feels similar to The Last Question a bit, but I wouldn't have said "now THIS is a prime example of rational fiction!"
u/embrodski [+1] (a day later)
Well, in that case, do even any of EY's short works count? Sword of Good, the LotR story, heck, everything short of HPMoR & Three Worlds Collide fails this test. But I'm pretty sure those are explicitly rational works.
u/wren42 [+2] (4 days later)
I'd say sword of good works still -- it has an intelligent antagonist with clear, rational objectives. it subverts some fantasy tropes and asks questions about the morality of slaying orcs, etc. and teaches some lessons about rationality and morality in the process.
not sure which LOTR story you mean.