I don’t really think so, unless you have a very broad definition of neurodivergence. In which case, yeah sure most all art is made by people who are not balanced happy individuals, now too. If you don’t have that black hole of need inside you, you don’t need to fill it.
HG Wells
Jules Verne
Mary Shelley
L Frank Baum
Heinlein
They seem like regular minded people just brilliant. I don’t think of anyone as a “normie” though, my definition of normal is either it has to be broad enough to encompass a majority of the population, or it’s meaningless because nobody is identical to anyone else, all broken in our own way and strong in our own way.
Black hole of need?
How about just different shapes of people, with differing tastes. Some obsess over money. Others over art.
Sure, but happy satisfied people aren’t usually the ones who progress humanity forward in art or sport. I wouldn’t describe it as neurodivergence, but do think it’s the people who have a need that most of us don’t.
Much like all other creative endeavors
being so acoustic about languages you make a book that is a global hit
Modern sci-fi was created by an extremely depressed widow that only thought about the social and scientific repercussions of bringing her husband back from the dead and put it in the form of literature. And appreciation for Sci Fi has been around for a very long time. Nosferatur, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, The Blob, The Day The Earth Stood Still, War Of The World’s, etc…
No, modern sci-fi evolved over time like all the other complex stuff tends to.
Modern sci-fi is created by every fellow with a strange idea. Who thinks maybe I could get my idea across better if I framed it as a narrative and put it in scientific terms. because science is such a lovely language for talking about strange ideas.
Mary Shelley’s Frankentstein is noted to be the future sci-fi story. Mary at the time was dealing with grief of the death of her husband. That’s all I’m saying
i dunno, ok, but that’s like saying the theory of relativity, or the mona lisa, was created by a neurodivergent and co-opted by normies. some of us are artists, and some of us work the fields. without either we all starve.
It’s always an argument over value with you people.
It’s always an argument over just how special a snowflake you are with you people
Oh zing!
See, it’s always an argument over value with you people.
So it’s always about who gets the credit. Who gets valued and who doesn’t. Who wins and who loses. That eternal muck of monkey dominance battles.
This bs dominates the common mind utterly. There’s no room for art there. It’s invisible.
and yet, you felt it was needed to point out the credit/value between neurodivergents and “normies” lol
No, that’s just your damn limited, dominance games obsessed perspective talking.
My point is actually the quality and appreciation of modern science fiction.
does quality and appreciation hold no value?
I don’t understand. Which authors are you referring to that created the genre and are neurodivergant?
Great question. I’m not OP. But a bunch come to mind.
Disclaimer: Even in recent classic eras of science fiction, it wouldn’t have been safe for authors (who need publisher trust to buy food) to get diagnosed as neurodivergent, so I feel like we’re left with wether neurodivergent individuals embrace their work, rather than if the author ever acknowledged any personal neurodivergence.
Disclaimer: I’m not neurodivergent. I don’t feel safe seeking a diagnosis. And things aren’t binary, so what the hell. I do acknowledge it’s interesting that I relate strongly with a bunch of these characters, and can bring them to memory quickly as some of my favorites…
With that disclaimed:
- “The November People” by Ray Bradbury comes to mind. It explores how classic Hollywood “monsters” would handle themselves as roommates, mostly through exploring their mental diversity rooted in their physical/cultural differences.
- Asimov’s robot detective stories (start with The Caves of Steel) have protagonists whose planets effectively make them neordivergent anytime they visit another planet than their birth world.
- “Stranger in a Strange Land”, by Heinlein, is about a neurodivergent (for Earth) young man who grew up as the sole human citizen of Mars.
- Philip K Dick’s detective protagonist from “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (aka Blade Runner) is clearly neurodivergent, as is his wife.
Edit: As others have mentioned, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, of course!
That’s a perspective on Mary Shelley that I hadn’t considered. But she was reasonably well-adjusted and popular. And yes I do consider Frankenstein to be the first English science fiction.
But she was reasonably well-adjusted
Bruh…
She kept her dead husbands heart and would carry it around with her
That’s not neurodivergent that’s just goth bro.
Victorian goth no less.
Weird but also romantic. At least it was her deceased husband’s heart, and not her living husband’s?
Reasonably well-adjusted not perfectly well-adjusted.
I don’t refer to mary shelly. I do not distinguish her as the “inventor” of science fiction either. Rendering strange ideas in terms of esoteric disciplines for the metaphorical augmentation or whatever is as old as humanity.
Okay. So what’s the first work of science fiction to you?
If the authors believed magic and the gods to be real, would ancient works like The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Iliad count as science fiction?
Good question! Typically they get listed as fantasy because the magic isn’t manmade. Most definitions of science fiction require a human to have created the unrealistic element - or an extraterrestrial lifeform who is roughly analogous to a person. It’s not just that magic is present, but that it was derived from supernatural sources and not by human actions.
It’s something I haven’t delved into enough to arrive at a definitive conclusion, actually. The subject delivers little thrill for me.
Then I suggest you accept the common interpretation that “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”, is at least the first modern work of sci-fi.
I can tell this means a lot to you. I suppose it’s a matter of taste.
Fair enough as a term, but it was one of my minors in college. Authors use both.
Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.
Ah, you’ve read Heinlein and Lovecraft.
The worm criticizes the hawk for crawling improperly.
It is funny. There are so many things in modern day that would be a dream come true to young me but it all goes dystopia and all the fantasy and scifi is one of those things. I thought I would love so much but so much is not done well. I sorta feel for gay people because being into scifi was a subculture but it going mainstream has greatly diminished the subculture as it sorta becomes unnecessary but I miss that small group feeling.
Greg Egan, Iain Banks and Sam Hughes are good stuff, if you haven’t.
Also, there’s this amazing new genre, “LitRpg”. Basically fantasy where an rpg type videogame became real.
Most of it is the usual dreck but some of it goes hard sf, delving into the existential stuff.
A couple of the rationalists have even taken a swing.
Try
Mother of Learning
Death after death
Friendship is optimal
So ya, real development is still alive.
Sounds like isekai.
LitRpg
I don’t think this is new; The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg was published in 1983 where players in a tabletop RPG get whooshed into the game world at the beginning of the book. Fun series.
Also, jumanji
No, it was invented by poverty ridden meth addicts…
It’s not ancient history
Meth was first discoved in 1898, Mary Shelly published Frankenstein in 1818.
If we count Frankenstein as scifi…
Then stuff centuries earlier also count as scifi, and she’s out of the discussion again.
If we count stuff earlier than 1898 your statement is false from the jump.
Also there are other authors that published what is considered sci-fi before 1898 as well.
If we count stuff earlier than 1898 your statement is false from the jump
I never said we should…
I view the begining of scif as the 60s maybe late 50s.
My point was if you’re taking it back to Shelly, by the same logic we’d have to take it back further. Which you apparently agree with?
I view the begining of scif as the 60s maybe late 50s.
If you’re making a point about pulp sci fi, the golden era of sci fi was in the early 40s, and there was plenty of pulp sci fi in the decades before then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_US_science_fiction_and_fantasy_magazines_to_1950
