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Spider Robinson And The State Of Science Fiction
pcb writes "There is a rather decent
rant in today's Globe & Mail from Spider Robinson (of the
Callahan series fame) regarding the dismal state of science fiction, in
which he laments that the future is not what it used to be. While
attending Torcon 3, the 61st
World SF Convention, he notes that SF readers today seem to prefer the
Tolkienesque fantasies of some forgotten past, rather than the forward-looking works of science and space travel that used to dominate the
genre. Are SF stories from authors like Heinlein, Clarke or Asimov
irrelevant today, as people look into the past to dream rather than the
future? Robinson asks: 'Why are our imaginations retreating from
science and space, and into fantasy?'"
If you think that's bad, you should see the state of science-fiction fans! PEEEEEE-U!
There are only so many ways you can fly around in a starship going back and forward in time and mating with green aliens. Technology is no where near as fun as magic and elf chicks
They were wrong about flying cars by the year 2000. Once bitten, twice shy.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
You know, this reminds me of why I always preferred space Legos to the other series; we KNOW that in the current day, cars and trucks and houses and what not weren't covered with little dots, same with castles and pirates and all of that; but the future...the FUTURE...those little dots might be what keeps it all together!
Actually, that kind of applies to why I liked scifi over fantasy in general.
Steampunk is an interesting crossover genre, I jsut discovere Steam Trek, a mapping of Star Trek onto the "what if the Victorians got space travel" theme.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Well if we could travel at 2c we'd make it there a lot faster.
Spider Robinson, the living definition of the hack SF author who survives purely by pandering to his arrested-adolescent fanbase and recycling the same appallingly trite scenario into an endless stream of identical "novels," is complaining about the state of modern SF writing?
Oh! The! Irony!
If speculative fiction needs to be saved from anything, it's the Spider Robinsons, Mercedes Lackeys and Piers Anthonys of the world. If they're complaining, that's probably a good sign -- hopefully that people are starting to spend their money on books by authors with actual talent rather than the 2,387th entry in the Callahan's Cross-Time Dragonquest for Telepathic Cats series.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Most people couldn't tell you what Newton's 3 laws were, and Einstein's relativity was considered utterly incomprehensible
Some things that haven't changed... =)
>>"Even given billions of dollars, NASA could not create a race of half-orcs"
Ever been through Alabama?
Did you watch "the matrix"?
No, the question is, did you watch the matrix?
In soviet russia, Matrix watches YOU.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Anyone who doesn't realize this clearly hasn't been following the news.
Believe me, I don't want to be mean, but you read Asimov for the characters?
Oh, boy!
No, you shut up!
Current Karma Status: Roadkill
Terrible events in my life, listed in descending order of their personal importance, abridged:
1. Death of my father.
2. Hit by taxicab in Philadelphia.
3. Dumped by first girlfriend in junior high school.
4. Held up at gunpoint.
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57. Bicycle stolen.
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1,294. Embarrassing facial blemish on night of big date.
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7,837,129. Recipient of pathetically obvious "so how many books have you published, huh?" flame on slashdot by the author of "Lady Slings the Booze" or, as likely, a fanboy using his name.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I'm not reading this post.
... A. Because We Don't Have One.
... squandered on a massive bureaucracy that is unable to launch anything without spending billions of dollars, and is still unable to launch anything that is really useful, like a goddamn factory or habitat.
Their mission of launching people into space was lost to the more preferred mission of launching money into people's pockets.
... lost in fear and loathing as the Western World's flagship (America) heads straight towards wrecking upon the reef of Empire.
Profit motives have displaced the Human condition, and a vast hole in Human culture is still growing.
It can crash all Human civilization for many generations.
America had been aligned into an Orwellian world of constant terror of the rest of the world, from the Cold War onward, and we have the utter gall to wonder why the future is not appealing?
Education systems in America are producing the best educated morons the world has probably ever seen since the British Empire, and there we are with a finger up our collective nose, lamenting the lack of workable foresight?
Generations of space development have been so obviously wasted on producing a welfare system for aerospace companies, the US Air Force, and NASA in general, and yet we still hem and haw and demand that practical applications still exist?
I'm not buying the lies, I won't honor the ignorance, and I won't tolerate the frauds any-friggin'-more. My eyes are now as open as my mouth, and it can only take death to close them.
Space development is gone
Cultural development is gone
We have dared to put a price tag on a child's smile. We are done. Any fool can see this. Hopefully some microculture somewhere in South America, Africa or Asia will arise from our (probably radioactivity- and bacteria-infested) ruins and build a better world.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]