Attention Sci-Fi Geeks: What is your favorite invention / innovation in the genre?

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is it "the jaunte" or
maybe "kemmering" (oy) or
maybe something else?

list them all right here,
don't blame me if I steal your
ideas and run

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 15 May 2006 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno that i'm really interested in these as "innovations" more than as skews on established tropes - it seems that a good way to do science fiction history would be to trace e.g. concepts of the alien throughout the genre's history..

i will go with the language in delany's babel-17, which i think was called babel-17. unless i have the title totally wrong.

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 15 May 2006 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

NO WAIT NO

'kipple'. def.

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 15 May 2006 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

How about the simplex/complex/multiplex narratorial voice in Delaney's Empire Star?

― remy (x Jeremy), Monday, 15 May 2006 18:06 (nineteen years ago)

gay sex

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 15 May 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

Gay sex does improve it, although ambigendered polysex is mostly just silly.

― ¯\(º_o)/¯ (Chris Piuma), Monday, 15 May 2006 21:44 (nineteen years ago)

AMBIGUOUS HETEROTOPES

― remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

so uh what was this for, hm?

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

time travel is my favorite sf trope.

― electro-acoustic lycanthrope (orion), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

I'm working on a science fiction novel about science fiction, is all I can say at this point.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

i'm writing a fantasy novel about fantasy. it's not going well.

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 19:20 (nineteen years ago)

you should write a fantasy novel about will o' wisps instead!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

or unicorns, maybe.

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 20:55 (nineteen years ago)

Monomolecular chains/filament. (Favorite examples in Niven, Gibson, K.S. Robinson.) Also, nanotech, although I don't know if SF writers or scientists led the way on that.

― The Jazz Guide to Penguins on Compact Disc (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

You should write a fantasy novel all about the concerns of upper-middle class suburban white guys who are thinking about cheating on their wives!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 21:37 (nineteen years ago)

I hate to say it but... when you're drinking and the drinks you mix keep getting worse and worse, there's this awful part of your brain that wishes you could trade your pets in for that thing in Star Trek that will make you a gorgeous dry martini just for the asking... but out of loyalty I would say the light saber.

Oooh, but then there are those pills Bugs Bunny uses to grow those huge bird things (when he's trapped in space) that remind me of the twin sisters in Gormenghast... is Bugs in space really sci-fi though?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 2 June 2006 23:30 (nineteen years ago)

Chris P I don't know what the holy fuck you are talking about.

Ann S that "thing" is called Whoopi Goldberg, she was a popular actress

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Saturday, 3 June 2006 02:32 (nineteen years ago)

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