When did Science Fiction start to become more inventive, but less original?

Question

Examples: Verne's 20,000 Leagues. Submarines and Scuba gear, but could not envision wireless communication.

Heinlein - pre 1970: Space travel, aliens, remote control, but did not foresee computers - it was all slide rules and cameras.

Suddenly we had all types of predictions with technology - holograms, weapons, communications, ship design and more.  But - all the original ideas seem to be used up - most of the "big" authors just rehash old plot lines.  Niven, Weber (especially Weber), King's occasional SciFi are total rip-offs, Stirling and most other modern authors can't seem to think of an original plot to save their lives.

Look at the original thinkers and creators/foundation of modern SciFi: Asimov, Heinlein, Wells, Verne, Shelly, Silverberg, Card, Mathewson - and many more. Wells and Verne invented the genre. Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke perfected it.

When do you think this happened? Can you think of any ORIGINAL modern SciFi?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I'll start by quibbling.

Verne and Submarines, cutting edge, well except that we find evidence of the idea in 14th century engineering sketch books.  Same for diving suits.

For original I'd like to name a few, not all of them.

Gibson, his 1980s ideas have pretty much become stock backgrounds for any number of movies, comics, and other books.  His latest books Pattern Recognition and Spook Country are a bit subtle for a lot of science fiction readers, as most have trouble with sci-fi which only proposes a couple of new forms of art.

Kim Stanley Harrison's Red Mars Trilogy, written in the 1990s is surely the equal of any of the nuts and bolts writers of the 1950s.  One of the more realistic views of the near future, it deals with mechanics of settling Mars.  For everyone who is sick of generic futures ala Star Wars, this series is a breath of fresh air.

Neil Stephensen's Diamond Age from 1996 is definitely a modern classic.  Anyone who is a fan of sci-fi can't help but be impressed at his mastery of the technology reveal ( that point where the author introduces the new world making technology.)

Stephen Baxter's Manifold series.  Dealing with the Fermi Paradox,I'd sa this is one of the best series dealing with star travel in a realistic fashion I've ever read. Not exactly a happy future.

Sure a lot of old ideas are recycled in modern sci-fi, as we still haven't established most of the dreams of the 1950s.  So orbital habitats, space elevators, space colonies, aliens, and biological warfare still show up.

Sure there is a lot of horrible sci-fi out there, anyone who once read Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen has surely been sickened by the large number of alternate history books that flood the market now. ( They're sci-fi, yet they require no new inventions, so lots of hacks can churn these out)  Just as anyone who read Heinlein has been glutted on dozens of other generic space habitat based stories.
I'll leave you with the mangled words of Theodore Sturgeon, known as "Strugeon's Law" at this point.

"Sure 90% of sci-fi is complete crap, but 90% of everything is crap."

whatagal828 · Answer

Don't  know whether it began as a book but the film "Blade Runner" comes to mind.

When did Science Fiction start to become more inventive, but less original?

2 Answers