The Cheesy SF Categorization System

[CaptainChewbacca]

Hmm, so where would Orion's Arm be placed in this "Cheesy" categorization?

Soft, swiss cheese

[Ford Prefect]

Don't forget that Orion's Arm cheese is also been filled with hot air.

[Gullible Jones]

Orion's Arm... Hmm.

Personally I don't think the OA universe sucks, it does have some pretty interesting elements in it judging from my cursory examination (Leviathan anyone?).

However, the presence of not one, not two, but five different types of reactionless drives, in coupling with not just femtotech (already the SF equivalent of high wizardry) but freaking subplancktech, which is frankly every bit as logical a term as "supernatural"... Places this firmly in the Soft category, and barely above Spreadable.

At least the website doesn't call itself "hard SF", though the fanboys may think otherwise. To quote it quoting Arthur C. Clarke:

The only way to explore the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

They certainly take that to heart, I'll give them that.

[Vendetta]

The sheer amount and variety of wank in Orion's Arm means that it can only be categorised as knob cheese.

[Gullible Jones]

Wank? Do you mean "stuff that is too uberpowered to fit in the universe properly", or just the attitude of "zOMG this tech is TEH AWESOME, lets include it"?

[Vendetta]

Wank? Do you mean "stuff that is too uberpowered to fit in the universe properly", or just the attitude of "zOMG this tech is TEH AWESOME, lets include it"?

Take your pick, really.

[Sarevok]

http://www.davidbrin.com/lungfish1.html ... s Lungfish is a a great story dealing with posthuman like lifeforms. This is how OA should have been like instead of devolving into techwanking.[/url]

[Covenant]

I move that we subdivide magic into two cheeses:

Processed Cheese and Head Cheese.

Processed Cheese is made from bits of real cheese, and then run through the ringer over and over until you have a vaguely cheese-related product that looks like plastic and tastes like ass. I'd say that Star Trek is a processed cheese since it only has the barest appearences of a Sci-Fi show (spaceships, lasers, etc) but that any closer examination shows that it's merely using these as additives to a story that neither requires nor respects the cheese bits from which it took, and merely sells on the basis that you can melt it into any shitbrick you want and it will still taste the same: Nazi Planet, Greek Planet, Space Romans, Space Russians, Alice in Wonderland Episodes--whatever you want! There's a planet for it somewhere.

Head Cheese, otherwise known as fromage de tête never has been or never will be cheese except in name alone. It's what happens when you let TV executives decide to lump sci-fi and fantasy together, or mix Supercomputers and, like, the meaning of love or some similarly contrived plot. Like head cheese, it's an entirely different product that only is held into a mould by a variety of gelatin. In some cases, it's just glossed-over fantasy bullshit that uses some extremely bare cheeselike elements to unite extremely obvious fantasy stuff. This applies to Just Magic sort of stuff that has a few sci-fi trappings, kinda like a lot of the recent Dune bullshit that might as well be written about Cocaine Elves and Sand Wizards and dragons that shit heroin.

[Gullible Jones]

Head Cheese... LOL, I like it. That should really be included.

Processed Cheese was basically the "spreadable" category, but I guess it makes more sense. I think we should keep Casu Marzu (Rotten) though, just because some SF is so stupid that it needs that category.