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Robert Silverberg has an interesting column in this month's Asimov's Science Fiction where he discusses a type of science fiction that he calls a "translation". Here's an example:

Jets blasting, Bat Durston came screeching down through the atmosphere of Bblizznaj, a tiny planet seven billion light years from Sol. He cut out his super-hyper-drive for the landing . . . and at that point, a tall, lean space-man stepped out of the tail assembly, proton gun-blaster in a space-tanned hand.

It's basically a Western in outer space, and you could call it a translation from this:

Hoofs drumming, Bat Durston came galloping down through the pass at Eagle Gulch, a tiny gold colony 400 miles north of Tombstone. He spurred hard for a low overhang of rim-rock . . . and at that point a tall, lean wrangler stepped out from behind a high boulder, a six-shooter in a sun-tanned hand.

It's not just that the words are just rearrangements, but the ideas don't change much. In a "translation" the motivations and the problems are the same as we face here on Earth already. The science fiction setting doesn't really change any of that, just the scenery and the props.

We've all read plenty of stories like this,sometimes it's even fun. I'd say that at least 50% of Star Trek is "translations", possibly even higher. What do you think? Do you like your science fiction more pure?

I enjoy unique anthropological extrapolation in my science fiction. Alien cultures, alien devices, alien biology...stuff like that. Vulcan culture could be considered a direct "translation" of human culture, but my fascination with it is because it's different, not because of the similarities. Just changing the names of things isn't enough for me. I wouldn't much enjoy reading that example story you gave unless something uniquely alien happens. If all it ends up being about is a shootout at the Ponfarr Corral, I don't think I'd be interested.

Yeah, that first one read like "space opera," in the sense of literally translating from "horse opera."

But I think your question about ST is valid. Yes, they did a lot of it. I think the first series did a lot of it partly because that's what Hollywood writers knew in those days. I think TNG and the other series would resort to it when they had run out of scifi ideas, especially as time went on. I also think Hollywood in general is prone to doing things that fit into a simple pitch: Imagine Wagon Train, only in space. (That's TOS.)

Sometimes this could be fun, as when they did it on the holodeck as meta fiction,. But I was not a big fan of the holodeck in general and got really sick of it in TNG. In terms of TV storytelling it feels very decadently self-referential. (Yeah, I know I finished my last big fic doing exactly the same thing.)

But American society has always been about decadent self-reference, right? So it's all good.

Some "translation" is a good thing for mass audiences. It helps them connect with the story. Truly alien SF has a limited fan base. Most people, IMO, don't want to be forced to think to understand their entertainment. The ones that like it are the ones that read cyberpunk or murder mysteries. Everybody else prefers Star Wars novelizations and checkout stand bodice rippers. I enjoy a good bodice ripper on a brainless Saturday afternoon. If the participants have alien sounding names and get up to shenanigans in zero-G, so much the better.

"cyberpunk"? That's so...80's...

I think Vulcans are one of the better sci-fi elements of Star Trek, in that you have a race that has renounced "emotion" and then look at how that affects them and their interactions with others. Unfortunately, too many of the writers have simply translated "I don't like that" as "illogical" .

I think one of the interesting things about TV writing vs regular writing is the constraints that are placed on the writing by things like the actors and the special effects budget. The transporter is way out of place in TOS. The ramifications of the thing are huge (I especially enjoyed Distracted's use of the transporter in surgery and Asso's use of the transporter in reverse surgery, c.f. Payment) and it's way too advanced for TOS, let alone Enterprise. A competent novel writer would never have introduced it, but a novel doesn't have any budget problems with landing the crew in a shuttlecraft every time.

I think that ENT was pretty limited in the amount of "pure" SF. TOS had a few good ones, like "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Devil in the Dark"

putaro wrote:"cyberpunk"? That's so...80's...

Aw, you know what I mean. All those gritty urban books full of incomprehensible computer jargon that are always talking about "the singularity" when organic human brains will become obsolete. I've never liked those. I have to think too hard to understand what the heck is going on. Give me space opera with understandable characters in exotic alien settings any day over virtual people in virtual cyberspace doing incomprehensible things for reasons I can't fully understand and don't much care about.

How can you not like a genre that started with "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"? (that's the opening for Neuromancer). Of course, it's terribly dated, since a modern television will just tell you there's no channel there, rather than showing static .

Charlie Stross' Singularity Sky is fairly good for a post-singularity space opera, though he tends to like to show off too much (and he needs to look up the definition of "prompt critical" for nuclear reactions, though it is a spiffy phrase).

Or "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson which is not post-singularity, but does involve a lot of cyberspace, and is fairly amusing.

Sorry, not my thing. I'm more of a C.J. Cherryh or Lois McMaster Bujold kinda girl.

I always liked Jerry Pournelle and Gordon R. Dickson myself. Musy say your discussion of "translation" caused me to start thinking a bit. I really like good scify and wonder how many ST:ENT eps qualified. Right of the top I thought of "Dead Stop" especially their payment formula.

Oh and I forgot "The Forever War" I think it's by Haldeman. Probably the best I ever read

I like "The Forever War" too and it's certainly a bit of real SF. I have most of Pournelle's books and he walks a narrow line between translation and extrapolation in a lot of them. Many times the actual story itself isn't even much of a "translation" - most of the technology isn't much advanced beyond our own, there aren't any aliens and it's just mercenaries fighting. But, the background is definitely trying to explore what would society look like as it expands out to the stars.

Distracted wrote:Some "translation" is a good thing for mass audiences. It helps them connect with the story.

Distracted is spot on here. I'm a pretty hard-core SF guy, but even I appreciate a little 'translation' here and there. If your settings and characters are TOO alien and unfamiliar, you'd better do a really good job of catching me up without making me read pages of expository 'future-history' or I'll bail on you.

Star Trek was never GREAT science fiction but it was often GOOD science fiction (even if the science was sometimes bad, the canon inconsistent and the quality of episodes all over the map). It kept me watching and made me care, which is something MOST television shows have been unable to accomplish.

As for space operas, they may have been hokey in a lot of ways but they could invoke a sense of awe and wonder that I find absent in much contemporary SF.

Transwarp wrote:...As for space operas, they may have been hokey in a lot of ways but they could invoke a sense of awe and wonder that I find absent in much contemporary SF.

This is the most true truth that can ever be told.

Sense of awe is definitely something that I enjoy in science fiction. Of course, being able to generate on demand is a little tough. For a while, there was "the big thing" - Ringworld, Rendezvous with Rama, Eon. But, big things run out of ability to awe after a while. There were a number of stories with deep time, but that gets hard to follow as well. Super-intelligence is almost impossible to write.

I love ancient empires and vast galactic civilizations but they're kind of out of fashion right now. Things come in cycles.

I think the concept of "translation" is always with us and it's not really a bad thing. A neat thing about SF, though, is the twist. A situation is set up that looks just like the standard one than some element of technology, culture, alienness gets tossed in to turn things. It's when you get to the end of the story and realize "Well, that was just a Western" that you get disappointed.