Yeah, there are a lot of very different flavours of science fiction. A lot of the difference IMHO has to do with whether the science and toys are driving the story or just providing a way to tell it.
For instance, a Clarke story I read recently ("Breaking Strain") starts with a two-man spaceship that's thirty days away from port when an accident leaves it with only forty man-days of air.
If that had been an Asimov story, I'd happily have bet money that it would turn into a thinly-disguised logic puzzle where human cleverness and scientific trivia manage to save both of them. Instead, Clarke used it to write about how two people who don't much like one another interact under the strain of knowing that one of them has to die.
For similar reasons, I'm rather fond of John Wyndham and Robert Sheckley.
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Date: 2007-05-13 08:22 am (UTC)For instance, a Clarke story I read recently ("Breaking Strain") starts with a two-man spaceship that's thirty days away from port when an accident leaves it with only forty man-days of air.
If that had been an Asimov story, I'd happily have bet money that it would turn into a thinly-disguised logic puzzle where human cleverness and scientific trivia manage to save both of them. Instead, Clarke used it to write about how two people who don't much like one another interact under the strain of knowing that one of them has to die.
For similar reasons, I'm rather fond of John Wyndham and Robert Sheckley.