This year's scifi contest at TheScian.com will open for submissions in June and end in September as it did last year. There will be a few important changes to the contest from last year. This year the story contest will have a theme. The theme is this: "Living on Earth and Elsewhere". I imagine the theme would cover a story about a bacteria that fights for freedom inside an acidic gut, a story of a silicon creature in future making a pilgrimage to earth, and a lot others I can't imagine. In any case, I would expect the story to entertain - and inform if it must, but not necessarily - in unforgettable and exquisite prose. There will be no limit on the number of words. A more detailed brochure will come shortly. My intent for this early note is to give authors who are serious about their craft more time to gestate, give birth, clean the poo and provide many cleansing baths to their beloved stories before they send it out to The Contest. You can email me at 'thescian.contests at googlemail dot com' if you have questions. Last year's brochure is here.
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:) Happy News. But, I have a question: as a genre, isn't science-fiction supposed to be quite informative? Science-fiction that's purely entertainment and not really informative, is in my opinion, not really 'science-fiction' but rather 'science-fantasy' - like Star Wars. In which case, I ask, where does the science part come in?
Earlier Science fiction is now more appropriately called Speculative fiction. But, even the new name is a slippery slope when it comes to defining the genre. There's quite a lot of fun readings on this subject if you look for them.
Fiction, atleast the non-trivial ones, are never 'purely' entertaining. Fiction, whichever genre it comes from, seeks to inform (inform in the sense of throw some light on the human experience) at some level or other. My intent above is to encourage engaging stories (as opposed to pedantic stories which most often suck and send the reader scampering away. If you cannot hold someone in their seats, you have little chance of having them hear what you want to say).
The science part comes from the authors who write the story and where they place the emphasis - and probably more importantly - where it is published. I realize this is all quite vague. Your question is a valid one and I don't have a satisfactory answer.
Heh heh. I sort of know what you mean, having had a little experience editing submissions for a science-fiction magazine of sorts. One common trend I noticed was that many SF writers try to imitate Robin Cook, but don't do a very good job of it because they leave out or under-do the science aspects of the story. I have found that getting the technical parts right is quite difficult, and can be very difficult at the best of times. So many authors minimize the work they do there, but in my opinion, they leave out the very essence of SF, and their work ends up looking like a twisted Sheldon with a few statements trying to establish a tenuous connection with science.
Oops. Meant to say, "can be very tricky at the best of times". Sorry.