OK, a quick-and-dirty "what I'm thinking of."

Idea/Metaphor books: Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, Ringworld, Stranger in a Strange Land, Gateway, Rendezvous with Rama, The Forever War, Ender's Game.

Character books: Red/Green/Blue Mars, Barrayar et al, (Dune? Haven't decided), The Number of the Beast, Friday.

More to come - but hopefully this helps define my terms.

Actually, that just confuses me further. The Left Hand of Darkness is as much character portraits of Genly Ai and Estraven as it is an examination of the effect of rigid gender division on society and The Forever War and Ender's Game both work as character portraits of people under severe stress and unending military regimes. The Mars trilogy is as much about the effect of ideology on history as it is about any of the characters, who are (very deliberately) archetypes only filled in with personal details; it's in fact a big thought experiment about what manifest destiny would mean for a frontier without native sentients.

I mean, if the point is that really good science fiction will work both as a thought experiment and an exploration of character, I agree -- but if the point is that there was some kind of change in how SF worked, then I'm lost. Especially because of the dates, since there's a range of books published from the 1960s to the early 90s in both sections.

Edited to add: It is a truism among SF scholars that there's been a shift to more self-consciously "literary" techniques and character development -- but most of them place the shift as occuring the 1960s New Wave writers, so it's earlier than -- and affecting -- the books that Raquel mentions, except possibly Heinlein, who is definitely from the SF Golden Age, even if he was still writing into the 80s (although very far from his best work).

There are changes I personally might describe between 60s SF and contemporary SF, but they wouldn't be on the character vs. idea axis, so I'm still not clear on what Raquel is describing.

Curious if any one else has read something by Michel Faber?

The books in Raquel's first list seem to be more allegorical than those in the second list. I'm starting to get a better sense of the shift on those terms. Allegory came under very serious attack in all lit-crit in the late 60's, I dimly recall.

And yet Micole certainly has a point about the KSR Red/Green/Blue books. They felt to me as thought-experiments, not novels-of-character. Doorstops, indeed, and frankly I suggest anyone interested in reading them should start with Antarctica, which addresses most of the same themes in a much shorter form. *g*

But I'm interested in hearing Raquel talk more about your thesis?

And yet Micole certainly has a point about the KSR Red/Green/Blue books.

Yup. Flat-out allegory. I'm really looking forward to Raquel's return to the topic. It also occurs to me that there was a turning point for SF characters in that they began to have (be shown with) families. A bunch of dynastic stories started showing up. I had the Mars books in that particular mental filing cabinet.

Re: Michael Faber. I tried reading Under the Skin, which I've heard lots of praise for, but it was too bizarre and on the icky side for me to get into.

I just finished Under the Skin. Agree with the bizarreness, but it turned out interesting enough if you like that Sci-Fi sort of thing. Intriguing change of thought perspectives between the woman and her hitchhickers. The Scottish dialects were just amusing to read.

I think I prefer the newer "Victorian era" book, The Crimson Petal and the White. I read it first. Gained appreciation for Faber's style and eye for detail from that. good ending too! The beginning first reminded me of Perfume by Patrick Süskind. realistic description details; not always pretty.

Any Stephen Donaldson fans out there?

From Publisher's Lunch:

The final four books in Stephen R. Donaldson's series THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT, beginning with THE RUNES OF EARTH, to Jennifer Hershey at Putnam, for publication beginning in fall 2004, by Howard Morhaim at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. UK rights were sold to Malcolm Edwards at Orion UK. The original six books in the series, published between 1977 and 1983, have sold over 6 million copies.

Film rights have been optioned to Marc Gordon and Peter Winther.

and oh. my goddess, this should be tasty, from the same edition of "Lunch":

Tanith Lee writing as Esther Garber's FATAL WOMEN, a collection of short novels and stories of Lesbian sexual love, to Chris Holroyd at Egerton House Publishing, in a multi-book deal.

and may I just say, glhglhglhglh....

I can't parse that release at all Deb. Is he coming out with more books in the series or were they re-packaged into a smaller number of books? There is no book called "Runes of Earth" that I know of.

If it's a new series, that's interesting because he DIED at the end of the sixth book in both realities (actually, now that I think of it, I'm not sure if he was dead so much as transformed in The Land, so it may be feasible). The film rights being sold is interesting, but I can't imagine it being done as a movie - mini-series maybe, but if it's not pay cable, it's going to be blanded out and lightened up beyond recognition.

I know the series has more dislikers than likers in these parts, but I'm a sucker for unpleasant anti-heroes. That said, while I finally ended up liking it ultimately, teaming Covenant up with an even more negative, unpleasant and broody heroine for the second series made for a seriously depressing reading experience.

Much preferred the Mordan't Need duo, by a long stretch. Really must get around to The Gap sci-fi series someday.