Via Winchell Chung. Like the original poster, I’ve read 11 of these 17, and would definitely include Ancillary Justice in the list (it’s not in there).

Originally shared by Wilhelm Fitzpatrick

I’m 11 out of 17. The article resonates with me because I divide up my own history with SF along before/after lines of books I read that left with me with a overwhelming impression of having encountered something new. For me those books are…

Neuromancer

A Fire Upon the Deep

Snow Crash

Ancillary Justice

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/09/17-science-fiction-books-that-forever-changed-the-genre/

A post by Jeff Ford reminded me that I’d been meaning to think through how science fiction genres could be converted into fantasy genres and vice versa.

Here’s my list, with acknowledgements to Wikipedia’s lists of subgenres (I added portal fantasy, which doesn’t have its own Wikipedia article). Asterisks (*) indicate something I’ve either tried myself or plan to try.

Science fiction subgenres for conversion to fantasy:

– Alien invasion (Fae or demons as aliens; intrusive fantasy)

– Anthropological or social SF (no magic, only social differences)*

– Apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic (magical or mythic apocalypse: the Old Ones return, or the magic goes away, or the magic comes as in the Kate Daniels books, or magical creatures invade)

– Biopunk (magical manipulation of living things)

– Cyberpunk (descent into a mythic realm where the real and the symbolic meet; possibly with a grittyness to the “real-life” part of the setting)*

– Dying earth (magic wears out, etc.)

– Hard SF (hard fantasy: the magical rules are clear, specific, and well understood)

– Military SF (military fantasy)

– Solarpunk (positive, utopian fantasy in which magic is used to build a better world)*

– Space opera (elements of voyage, battle, trading – could even be interplanetary, but with magically powered ships)*

Fantasy subgenres for conversion to SF:

– Bangsian fantasy (interactions of historical figures in the afterlife; SF version would use computer simulations of them, or something like the Philip Jose Farmer Riverworld books, where everyone is technologically reincarnated)

– High fantasy (epic tone and cosmic stakes)

– Contemporary fantasy (Nowpunk or contemporary SF – the science-fictionality of today’s life and technology; technothriller)*

– Dark fantasy (aliens substituted for vampires, etc.?)

– Fairy tale (supernatural beings and talking animals become AIs and uplifts; magicians become engineers)*

– Fantasy of manners (SF of manners, like Vance’s Araminta Station or Bujold’s A Civil Campaign; the social maneuverings are the focus, rather than the technology, etc.)

– Grimdark (some forms of dystopia; some kinds of cyberpunk)

– Heroic fantasy (the struggles of a hero in a science-fictional setting)

– Historical fantasy (alternate history)

– Mythic fiction/mythpunk (cosmic or metaphysical SF)

– Portal fantasy (alien or dimensional abduction)

– Sword and sorcery (planetary romance like C.L. Moore’s Northwest Smith stories)

Already on the borderline

Decopunk, dieselpunk, steampunk, clockpunk, etc. often already have fantasy elements in a pseudoperiod setting*

Psychic powers*

Science fantasy (obvs.) like Star Wars

Urban fantasy if it uses technomagic (like the “Elfpunk” of the 90s)*

Any thoughts on other subgenres that could be flipped, or on different ways in which the ones above could be flipped, from SF to fantasy or vice versa – or into something that’s both at the same time?

Gold mine! An entire blog series devoted to science in SF and the kind of facts it’s useful to know when you’re writing fantasy.

http://dankoboldt.com/science-in-scifi/

In my SF stories, I sometimes just assume that people have basically invisible tech that communicates between their senses and their devices without going into how that works.

Advances like this are part of the reason.

http://www.seeker.com/eye-phones-communicate-with-contact-lenses-1983569612.html

More on wifi emotion reading.

Originally shared by David Brin

Almost any ambient radio system – like WiFi – will be able to eavesdrop and track your movements and much more. “By measuring subtle changes in breathing and heart rhythms, EQ-Radio is 87 percent accurate at detecting if a person is excited, happy, angry or sad — and can do so without on-body sensors… Using wireless signals reflected off people’s bodies, the device measures heartbeats as accurately as an ECG monitor, with a margin of error of approximately 0.3 percent.”

This does not have to mean an end to privacy or freedom. It does mean that the earnest, well-meaning prescriptions offered by most civil liberties paladins – to yell “stop, looking at us, Big Brother!” – are pathetically futile. I have to wonder when they (any of them) will wake up to the fact that cowering and hiding simply will not and cannot work. It never ever has.

One thing has worked. It is responsible for what freedom we do have! And it is being played out, right now, on our streets. It is the one and only thing that can work tomorrow. And it is the one thing that all the privacy mavens, liberty activists and security “experts” absolutely refuse to allow into their minds.

It is happening despite them. The solution is unfolding, as it had to, and as I predicted, 20 years ago. The street is making use of technology to look back at power. Bravely, assertively insisting on transparency for those with power. Alas, the “leaders” among the anti-orwellians will – apparently – be the last to realize any of this — that you do not fight Big Brother by hiding from him.

You stop him from oppressing you by getting in his face.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-detect-emotions-remotely-with-wireless-signals?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fe66890448-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_147a5a48c1-fe66890448-281972889

Originally shared by ExtremeTech

Whoa. Super powers!

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/236180-tardigrade-dna-inserted-into-human-cells-gives-x-ray-resistance