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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?'"
Robinson asks: 'Why are our imaginations retreating from science and space, and into fantasy?'
I was hoping that the article would bring up the obvious answer, but it didn't quite reach it. The essence of fiction is that it is not real, and "science fiction" is supposed to take the idea a step further -- beyond real, if you like. To the unreachable, beyond what we consider possible.
But in this century, what is beyond possible? Exploring the planets? Been there, done that, got pictures. Exploring other star systems? Totally possible, but the centuries-long timescale makes it simply boring. Time travel? Everybody knows that you'll just end up meeting the Borg before you should, or something.
In other words, perhaps science fiction is suffering from too much science!
On the other hand, fantasy worlds like Tolkien's are completely unreachable, unimaginable in reality. Even given billions of dollars, NASA could not create a race of half-orcs in a deep trench (strategically located below a large dam).
Science is possible... fantasy is impossible. Perhaps that's the problem.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Maybe because despite repeated claims to be ending a series, authors continue to go back to mine tired ideas when nothing else is making them money?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Tolkien had very anti-technology undertones. He constantly refered to the dark clouds of Mordor, the decimation of the forests in Eisengard. That strikes a note with the post-hippie kids of the 70's and 80's.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
UNBELIEVABLE! Anyone who has read Vance's works, please feel free to tell me your favs as I look forward to reading many more, as I've just finished the last of the aforementioned books. I'll give you a million SVU and a bag of Purples for your efforts! :)
A Fire Upon The Deep
A Deepness in the Sky
That's all that needs saying.
'Why are our imaginations retreating from science and space, and into fantasy?'
Did you watch "the matrix"?
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
Compared to the earlier-mid parts of the 20th century, we see science all around us. Medical breakthroughs, technological innovations, etc.
We used to have to wait decades for great discoveries. Now they theorize and prove within short years. Fantasy brings people into a world that can't exist. Sci-Fi stories may one day be true and aren't as escapist.
Trolling is a art,
The traditional Sci-Fi of rocket ships, blaster guns, and aliens may be on decline, but there many new sci-fi (not fantasy) books coming out all the time.
The focus of much of the Sci-Fi these days is on the relationship of the technology to society and the long term effects of the technology on the path of humanity.
Take a look at Vernor Vinge, John Varley, John Wright, Cory Doctorow, John Barnes, Bruce Sterling, Ken MacLeod, and Dan Simmons if you are interested in some recent sci-fi. No elves or magic swords there.
Just because it's not 60s style, libertarian - free love stuff of the past doesn't mean it's not sci-fi.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
she publishes her Sci-fi at Baen.. books available eltectronically through http://www.webscription.net/ with no DRM!
. htm
a sample available at.. http://www.baen.com/library/1011250002/1011250002
it's a short story without the space battle-cruisers.. but the rest of her stuff has 'em.. and so much more.
--iamnotayam
It's a reflection of taste that we are moving from the tech driven SF genre into the character driven fantasy world. At least in fantasy, they aren't trying to explain HOW the magic works. They simply use it to get around a peculiar problem, or to leverage the abilities of the protagonist against an otherwise overwhelming foe.
Damn it. I'm starting to sound like Campbell.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Funny, I rarely found the science part of science fiction interesting.
I find the ideas that the author has are the intriguing people.
Heinlein in "The moon is a Harsh Mistress" exposed me to many ideas I've never thought of before. It also provides a stark contrast to Lord of the Flies and the nature of man.
The Forever war was a blast, what is this world coming to?
Enders game, interesting solutions, and some of the hows. Starship troopers had some interesting political ideas.
Lifeline was yet another interesting expression of a though, and reflection on change.
FWIW Tolkein is just as much about politics and psychology and history of the day as much as any good sci-fi story.
No, no, no. You don't mate with the green ones. They're not ripe yet.
If we go back in time say 500 years, things didn't really change all that much from one generation to the next and so there was no concept of "the future" as we have it today. Imaginary images often revolved around religous "places" such as heaven or hell.
In the golden age of science fiction writing, which for most people I think is the 50's and 60's, in the future amazing things seemed possible and there was am optimism that things like space travel, flying cars, robots etc. might actually happen for ordinary people, perhaps even within the lifetime of the young people that read the fiction.
I think we're a bit more cynical nowadays, and thus the future doesn't seem so exciting. We've learnt that things don't change as fast as we would like them to, and the actual changes are mostly quite dull.
Imagine if a 50's science fiction writer had thought of the web. A story about buying a book on Amazon from your cubicle at work (most peoples reality today) somehow doesn't seem as exciting as flying to another planet with a cheeky robot.
I went to a presentation/speaking appointment by Terry Goodkind a few weeks ago, and he mentioned something on the subject. I won't get into his whole philosophical thing here, but he thought that the reason that sci-fi had taken a rear seat to fantasy was "moral clarity". 99% of fantasy out there deals with good vs evil, on a very basic level, whereas sci-fi tends not to as much. It may make social commentary, or pose interesting problems, but very rarely in sci-fi is there an archetypal hero, and that this is something that people really crave in today's society... a person (even if they're fictional) that a reader can admire, and be inspired by.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
You can't write a space story without a friggin PhD today. It was easy 50 years ago to talk about visiting planets and alien races and genetic engineering, artificially intelligent robots, but now we have the science to actually do that stuff, or it's looming on the horizon. If you aren't up on your tech, you're novel will be picked apart and you labelled a hack.
It's much easier to write about a fantasy world that never has, or will, exist. Plus, people have always been fascinated by the concept of "magic".
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"My genre has always had its ups and downs, but this is by far its worst, longest downswing. Sales are down, magazines are languishing, our stars are aging and not being replaced. And the reason is depressingly clear: Those few readers who haven't defected to Tolkienesque fantasy cling only to Star Trek, Star Wars, and other Sci Fi franchises."
There are two different points here; I'll address each separately.
1. Sales are down. BFD. Just because the slide is a bit longer than average is no reason to panic. Granted, it's a couple of years since I picked up fiction (Lois McMaster Bujold excepted), but Robinson is harping on like there hasn't been a good book in a decade. I'm not the only one who could name six or seven authors who are truly excellent and still writing. Just because sales are down doesn't mean the fiction is there; it just means people are diverting their attention elsewhere. Which brings me to point two...
There is, I suspect, no relation between the increase in media-driven novels and 'proper' ones. People who read Star Trek novels aren't interested in proper SF; I suspect the same holds true for other franchises. If there is a problem with these books, it's that they're included in SF totals, making the SF book industry look healthier than it is.
Robinson's point seems to be that there's a feedback loop between space exploration and SF; I personally have my doubts. I've not doubt whatsoever that SF does indeed foster an interest in space, but is the reverse true? I sort of doubt it.
SF isn't in decline. Quality SF as a percentage of teh total volume of merchandising masquerading as product may be, but so what? Just buy the good stuff, and leave the crap to the trekkies. Or buffyites. Or whatever.
I really want to see the data--has this trend he's upset about been going on long enough to actually be a trend? And has he picked up anything by Kim Stanley Robinson, Iain Banks, or David Brin lately? Society has taken a different turn than the Golden Age writers predicted, and our speculative fiction is mirroring this. SF isn't dying, Spider, it's just changing form.
(Flamebait: And I don't know why he's talking about "his" genre. The Callahan books aren't SF; they're Chicken Soup for the Geek's Soul.)
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Part of it is about economic cycles.
We're in a recession. During recessionary periods, nostalgic fantasy dominates the cultural landscape. It was true in the 70's, it was true in the early 90's, and it's true now. During boom cycles, "the future is now" optimism (or "the world is changing too fast" pessimism) has a lot more energy.
Also, the sense of public investment in the future is weaker. The age of space travel as a public-sector funded universal aspiration has been eclipsed by the corporate "if it ain't profitable within 3 years, it's not worth doing" attitude of the present day. There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes, most of us won't be able to afford it.
Ah. Why does science-fiction have to happen in the future? I have no doubt that the Baroque cycle will be sci-fi esque, just like cryptonomicon. The best example of this, however, is Drake's Belisarius series. Set in Rome, it's a really fun look at what the Romans would have been like if they were accelerated technologically. (And AFAIK, at least the first two books are available from the Baen free library, which is just wonderful.)
::Shrug:: A genre is how you define it. If you ask a healthy and diverse sampling of people to pigeonhole a sum of books, I can almost guarentee that each persons' definition of a genre will differ to a greater or lesser degree with other people's.
Sci-fi, as others have stated, is a state of mind. Stephenson's Diamond age is a good example of this. Yes, it has nanotech, but the main focus of the book is on the culutral implications of technology -- which is why it is just a great read, if you want military sci-fi, Ringo's works are quite fun, as well as Weber's.
Aruging semantics makes for such fun.
Think about it a little. We have laws such as the DMCA that basically divide our current tech into little fiefdoms. Innovators are sued, hacking existing tech is quickly becoming a crime, and the existing players encourage passive use of their tech --not understanding.
Many of the ideals that make SF what it is are being marginalized today. Sort of depressing really.
Combine this with our present science and we know enough that reaching another star system will not happen in our lifetimes. Though Mars should --if it doesn't its political, not technical.
Almost smells like a plot to put all the smart ones back underground where they belong so the real business of making money today --right now, can get done...
Maybe I am just being a little too alarmist this morning. I personally enjoy SF and share the view of the author. Maybe nobody is really exploring SF because fantasy is easier or something...
BTW, what is the genre of "The Reality Disfunction" by Peter F. Hamilton? Seems to be SF, but does have some other elements. Any ideas?
Blogging because I can...
There may be several reasons that "hard" science-fiction is no longer in vogue, replaced with fantasy or space opera.
1) It is not as though "hard" science-fiction has always had mass appeal. It has always had a specialized genre feeling. What passes for science fiction movies today are generally no more than shoot-em-up's in space. More like futuristic action. This is what appeals to the movie-going audience. "Hard" science fiction is too "hard" (must think...hurts brain) and is probably not profitable.
2) Fantasy pops into the human need for myth. Mythology (not necessarily incorrect or unfactual) exists traditionally in historical and religious traditions, Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Christian, etc. creation myths and such, and with the modern push to explain everything scientifically, a major piece of how people function (i.e. mythology in life) disappears, thus a longing for mythos appears, which fantasy seems to fill better than analytical science fiction.
3) The idea of a "bright, happy, future" seems to be relegated to naivety and a cynical "dystopia" seems to have set in (thus apocalyptic movies, etc), and this view seems to be pushed by many media outlets (i.e. bad news sells). We apparantly will pollute ourselves to death in 50 years, the world will be completely controlled by corporations, etc.
4) Finally, the largest bastion of future hope for science, at least in the US, NASA, has gone from getting a man on the moon in 10 years, to losing orbiters in Mars, as one magazine article put it, on the 30th anniversary of Apollo (paraphrasing) "We want NASA to be a precursor to Starfleet, but they are more like a bad post office."
These several things go to explain the loss of interest in "Golden Age" science fiction
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Perhaps the direction technology is taking us scares
the hell out of us. The future apparently holds
fewer rights, less privacy, more commercials, etc.
Who wants to fantasize about that???? Not me!!!
Tell me how do we get off this world thats heading
down the toilet?
At least fantasy still provides hope that good can
still prevail against evil. With techonology the
question is which evil state of afairs wins over
some other evil state of afairs. Mind you the
heros may be good vs evil but the world in which
they live still sucks!
Thats my point....
Computer control systems were almost unheard of, and used only on system of fantastic proportions like Nuclear reactors and weapon targeting systems.
Don't forget that technology was largely credited at the time for winning the war. It also brought an end to many plagues affecting americans: smallpox and polio. 50 years ago was a much different time.
50 years ago technology WAS magic. Few who used it understood it. Those that made it happen were wizards in labcoats.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
Science fiction doesn't have to be about science, in fact, IT CANNOT BE ALL SCIENCE. All too often the authors focus on just the scietific aspect and totaly forget about the characters.
I have read every single Asimov book I could find because he never made that mistake. Science is the setting, the characters are the story.
I've been trying desperatly to find some good SciFi to read and I've failed. All too often I feel like the author is trying too hard to explain how all this scientific mumbo jumbo works and not why the character is doing act X and act Y.
So I ended up reading fantasy books, simply because the charcater development is generaly better. I couldn't care less if the fighting takes place with quantum molecular phasing fusion bombs or rusty swords as long as it's justified and I feel like I care about the characters involved.
I think time has nothing to do with it; I don't care if we'll be in space 40 or 40000 years from now or never. We'll certainly never be in the "Forgotten Realms" or in the world of "Richard Rhal". It doesn't have to be "realistic", or "well researched" it just has to make sense. Am I ok with Sci Fi which says 2+2=5? No, not unless it make sense, and if it can make sense and have good characters, I want it.
Maybe I've been spoiled by Asimov and Clarke (Rama was great, even though the ending made me want to puke). Certainly, the world of SciFi sucks right now. It's not because the books describe flying though space in the year 2003. George Orwell wrote 1984 knowing that the time was irrelevant, and its' still a great and fairly popular book because of the character development.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Soon, computing will stall out too. We're nearing the end of optical lithography on flat silicon and the limits of power dissipation. The SIA roadmap says the end comes before 2013. There's no new technology in the pipe likely to replace these technologies. There's no clamor for it, either - the next things expected in computing are the Pentium N+1, Windows N+1, Palm N+1, and cellphone generation N+1. Yawn. It's like waiting for the 1957 Chevy to come out with bigger tailfins.
Outside of biotech, it's hard to find any bright spots.
I think you have actually hit on something important here.
I am a collector and reader of old sci-fi. The ~vast majority~ of golden and silver age sci-fi are short stories (usually reprinted from magazines) and short novels. There are, of course, series and serials, but the majority of the works are stand alone stories.
When I walk into a Barnes and Noble, I see two kinds of sci-fi. One is the wall of spin-off series. You know, the hundereds of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battletech, etc. series, which are usually written by many different authors, using the same characters and ideas. There is nothing wrong with this: its fun, and occasionally good stuff comes from it. However, when it dominates the market, there is a lack of new ideas being expressed - which is what brought us to sci-fi in the first place.
On the other side of the aisle, I see the regular sci-fi authors. About a third of the books I see are series. Now, I love a good trilogy, but if you compare a 1000 page trilogy with a thousand pages of short stories, which do you think is going to have more ~ideas~?
At its core, sci-fi is about ideas. Yes, good characters, good plot, good scenery are all nice, but in the end I want to hear something NEW. And I don't care whether it takes you 1000 pages or 10 to tell me. But authors get paid by the page, and publishers get paid by the book.
I wonder if it's not that we have less sci-fi ideas, but that they are padded more these days. Is that the price of popularity?
SF authors who still have spaceships but put character ahead of science include Asaro, Moon, and Cherryh. All have some intersting science or engieneering in the Doc Smith tradition, but not as the core of the tale.
Can I think of any male authors? Well, the Cyberpunk sub-genre treats the techno as background, or as McGuffin, with conflicting motivations a major factor. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series certainly features the terraforming technology and the extrapolated Marsology ... but has strong characters with twisting motivations. His Orange County "trilogy" is three different futures, the main character common to all three is the geography and pre-history of O.C.; the Green agenda's speculative tech is present, but the characters are vivid as well. Baxter's Space:(X) "trilogy" is on the scope of 2001 or Harry Selden, in the style of Stan's Mars, with the "3 alternates" conceit of Stans' O.C., with the continuity being 3 alternate twistings of a specific person by history, opportunity, and fate.
Funny Spider Robinson should complain about this though. The Callahan's stories fall under Clarke's Law; the Future Beings who drop into the Cross-Time Saloon might as well be magicians from Myth Adventures.
(1) an Armageddon style battle. Not a Last battle, but a huge, all-out, good-vs-evil battle. I think people are just getting a feeling, though they're looking externally when they should be looking internally.
(2) Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally Catholic work (sorry if I sound to some like I'm not being humble. I'm quoting Tolkein when I say that.) That is, it goes back to orthodox Christianity.
(3) Lord of the Rings is about internal moral struggles.
(4) Lord of the Rings upholds that the right will be victorious.
(5) Lord of the Rings gave birth to whole genres of fiction, storytelling, games, and so on.
Now, #5 explains why it was ready as the work of choice to come into film. But those others all relate to something that is lacking in our society, today, and in our lives, today. And since that lack is destroying us both internally and externally in real life, we make up for it in fantasy.
Contrast that with the 50's, when our major lack was in technology, and our fantasies (for that's what sci-fi really is) played out in that field.
Of course, better than a fantasy that fulfills your feeling of lack, is a reality that makes it right. Which fact should make a lot of people think if maybe the Catholic Church has something after all...
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
One of the panels at TorCon3 was "Has Science Fiction Failed as a Fiction of Science?" The various panellists decided that SF hasn't so failed, and then proceeded to give explanation after explanation of why, in fact, it has. Lets face it, to any sophisticated reader, most SF written today is not written about a possible future, but about what we once thought might be a possible future. Scientific and technological progress has passed by most of today's authors and left them in the dust. Reading even well-written 'SF' like that of Czerneda or Bujold IS reading fantasy and has much the same feel as reading 1930's SF where everything is done with massive vacuum tubes. The story may be well told and the characterization is great, but the setting makes no sense. Where are the AIs? Where are the hugely extended lifetimes? Where is the nanotechnology? Where are the body modifications? Whaere are the ubiquitous microscopic computers? Where is the brain uploading? Where are any number of technologies we are working towards today that don't show up in most contemporary SF? Spider laments that readers prefer Fantasy to SF. Maybe they just prefer that their fantasy be overt.
Now, all is not lost, some authors such as Walter Jon Williams, Charlie Stross, Linda Nagata, Ian M Banks, Greg Egan and others have embraced the new future that is appearing in front of us, but they are the exceptions. Until most SF authors are actually writing about possible futures again, SF will be in an inevitable decline.
Because the populace has been trained to think (or emote?) as post-modernists, where everything is socially-constructed, or the will to power, and the modernist and pre-modernist belief in an objective reality and the right of Man to till the garden has been rejected.
While the difficulty in distinguishing magic and advanced technology is a good point, I don't think it is the right point. Consider, for example, that the typical SF enthusiast of the postwar period was MUCH MORE likely to understand some basic physics and chemistry than the average reader. Doc Smith went on and on about the presumed physical reasons for FTL travel, and made working through the implications a major part of his works.
What exactly is different between the FTL technologies which are presumed for much SF, and magic? For that matter things like teleportation and telepathy appear in both SF and fantasy. These phenomena are equally fantastical in either setting when compared to what we know is possible.
I think the difference is that there is a presumed sociological framework in which the effects are acheived in SF. We presume that FTL will be possible because of some kind of technological infrastructure and societal processes that will make the required discoveries possible.
In fantasy, it is psychology that makes the fantastic effect possible. Indeed, I think the big difference between SF and fantasy have to do with their model for how the human mind is enmeshed with the world. In SF, the human mind is effective in the world because of its senses and control of the body's phsyical faculties, combined with the contributions of everyone else. Telekinesis, telepathy etc in an SF world are merely extensions of the mundane senses and facluties. In fantasy, the mind can directly effect the world through the process of magic. It immediately follows that fantasy is about symbolism and SF is about mechanism.
It's a mistake to make value judgements between the types of literature; they both reflect different preoccupations that occur at different times, and no doubt the pendulum will swing the other way. I think the swing towards fantasy is a shift towards psychological rather than sociological preoccupations. We have adapted to and accept technological change as a given. We are less interested in the consequences of change and how we fit into a changed world. Instead, we are more interested in issues of meaning. Tolkien captured this, in a more judgemental way than I would, when he dismissed SF being about "improved means to diminished ends".
Looking at Tolkien's work, the reason for its appeal is crystal clear to me. It's not about escapism; it's about issues of death, hope, courage and responsibility to our brethren. Asimov's works are much more about how a world with robots of near human capabilities might work.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I've noticed that our entire society leans more toward fantasy, mysticism, and mythology, lately. Reality, or possible future realities, is becoming rare in any form of mass media. Even 'Reality TV' is horribly far from reality.
It has been suggested that we are entering a new 'Dark Ages', of sorts. This is perhaps in response to the fear, rational or not, of what near-future technology may bring - human cloning and a list of other 'scaries'.
What I find very interesting is this: In ages past, man feared nature, because of what he did not know. In this age, man is beginning to fear science, because of what he can know.
On a side note, a question that I'd like to ask, which is somewhat related:
How would you classify works such as OSC's Ender series? Obviously set in the future, but after Ender's Game (and a few pieces here and there in the next 3 books), they are mainly focused on personal, moral, and geopolitical issues, with little or no mention of any technologies or lifestyle changes. Even the 'nets' are simply categorized hub-style Internet groupings. It seems to me that the Ender books set in the near future (as opposed to the 3000-years-ahead future) read more like modern fantasy... almost like what you would get if you took the politics and war-making in the Lord of the Rings, and set them in modern times, while ignoring the rest of the story.
"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson
Spider Robinson has himself provided one reason for the decline in the older forms. It's the title piece in his collection "Melancholy Elephants". And a bitter diatribe against the indefinite extension of copyrights. And, to my mind, quite moving.
The short form is:
1) There are only so many ways of telling a story that people find enjoyable.
2) Copyright extension causes it to be impossible to rework an older form, and, even more corrosively, it becomes difficult to avoid accidental plagerism. (Just consider the effect that SCO is trying to achieve.)
3) So people progressively move to uncluttered fields. But there are only so many forms that are enjoyable.
4) Creative activity slows...and slows...and slows
I don't do the story justice. Find it and read it. It's a sufficient explanation for this, and many other problems.
(I have given other explanations for this problem, and they are also true.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Let me hasten to add that fantasy isn't sitting still either. Just try anything by Jasper Fforde or China Mieville if you want to be jolted totally out of your usually tracks.
This lament about the death of SF gets repeated every few years. It's less true now than it ever was.
Author of Permanence and Ventus, co-author of The Claus Effect and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing SF.
It beat Star Trek to death. I know at least 20 sci-fi fans, and none admit to watching 'Enterprise' regularly. Star Wars has been turned into a merchandising machine. "Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the REAL money from the movie is made." - Yogurt.
My advice is just be patient. Pop culture takes obscure stuff, thows it into the mainstream, then dumps it for something new a year or two later. Now Tolkien is all the rage. Just wait, in time people will become tired of that too and eventually new and fresh ideas will come back to Sci-Fi. Or someone will do a "Foundation" movie series that will make LOTR look like a bedtime story.
I think most of our planet has stopped dreaming. I the 60s and 70s most of the population was thrilled with the possibility of space exploration and "going where no-one has gone before". Nowdays it is getting more money than anyone has got before. To most people: technology = Bill Gates = big bucks.
Look just at the way investors think -- if it doesn't pay off in 2 years they are not going to invest. Space exploration takes decades. Let us not kid ourselves -- with the pace of space exploration in the 60s, we could put the man on Mars in a decade and probably start colonizing the Moon in the 2 decades.
The productivity and the wealth of the world are
enought to both solve the world hunger, education and space exploration.
The system encourages people who are best at accumulating capital not to spend it on long term goals. Look just at John Carmack vs. Bill Gates.
John Carmack is a dreamer, hence the X-Prize project involvement -- Bill Gates is not.
The unregulated free market system unfortunately prefers the later.
Most of the very creative people in the world cannot even pursue their creativity because of the economic system.
Believe me, I don't want to be mean, but you read Asimov for the characters?
Oh, boy!
Older works, however (e.g. Golden Age SF or Renisance portraiture) have had the advantage of seeing the worst of the garbage fall away (Heck, did *you* save the crappy poetry you wrote in 7th grade?). As a result, we tend to forget the garbage that came before it and treat the current crop more critically ("Back in *my* day the music was better..."). It's an ongoing process you can see it today if you turn to any oldies station - more Santana and less Partidge Family. The ratio is definately different than the actual play and sales ratios you saw when the songs were new.
Just something to think about...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
IMHO the best science fiction of the past was always of the one-step-beyond variety. It took what we know, and looked one step farther out. It guessed about the new situations that people would face in that world, and wrote stories that showed what it would be like to live in that world.
The problem with doing that now, is that one step beyond is beyond what people *can believe*.
We are faced with the real possibility of physical immortality. People do not believe that.
We are faced with the complete restructuring of the economy and redefinition of the value of the individual due to the development of robots. This problem was first described and dicussed in R.U.R, the book in which the word "robot" was first used as we use it today. But, now it is just one step beyond. Very few people are even aware that the change is coming or how fast it will happen when it does.
We are faced with nanotechnology. The first discussion of the topic happened (AFAIK) in the second half of the 20th century and wasn't seriously dicussed until the late '80s. But, nanotech is already showing up. The majority of people have not yet even heard of nanotechnology.
I could go on and on.
One step beyond is now so far out that most people, even SF fans, can no longer accept it.
About 15 years ago I wrote to complain to the editor of my favorite science fiction magazine because one of the stories was not science fiction. It was about everyday things like a guy using email to interact with other people to solve a problem with a robotic assembly cell.
15 years ago the editor thought my letter was astounding. To him, everything in the story was pure science fiction. Stuff he didn't ecpect to every see.
Stonewolf
I think it can all be summed up with "so where's out flying cars?"
The real problem isn't your readers - it's sci-fi authors who delude themselves into believing they're some kind of prophets. In truth most sci-fi *is* fantasy and the future they paint no more real or useful than any good sword and sorcery novel. If sci-fi authors really held as much of a key to the future as they love to proclaim, they'd be scientists - not writers - and actually help to make that future happen. Sure they sometimes may make a few hits and educated guesses here and there, but in reality not even "hard" sci-fi is any better at predicting the future than John Edwards is at calling up someone's dear departed granny.
In the end, sci-fi just couldn't deliver on it's promises. Anymore, when people read "classic" sci-fi, the power of the story can't help but be a little diminished by the often embarrassingly "retro" future they paint. Inevitably much of the science now seems hopelessly outmoded and archaic. Yes, the stories they tell are as good now as they ever were, but the reader must now read them as fantasy - a kind of "future that will never be".
Meanwhile why is it classic fantasy - even ancient Greek legends - can still seem fresh and poignant after thousands of years? They're timeless precisely because they don't pretend to be "reality" (speculative or otherwise). They're free to express their concepts and ideas in a world that's oddly all the more believable because it's disconnected from our own.
You see, the whole point of any story is in the situation - not the settings. The human condition really hasn't changed all that much. Even though the trappings may be different, the same sort of moral, social, ideological, or personal struggle can just as easily and accurately be expressed in fantasy as in sci-fi. This is the fundamental power the written word has always had. Regardless of when it's set, any story can add to our future by making us think about ourselves and our nature. Claiming this is the special province of sci-fi is just conceit.
I have a huge collection of Golden Age and slightly later SF, acquired when I was in my teens and 20s. A couple decades later I tried rereading some of it... and was surprised to realise that most of it sucks, including that by Big Names Of The Era. It's not well-written by any standard, and it tends to rehash the same small clutch of ideas endlessly. After I started writing and editing myself, it looked even worse.
... dull. I've seen it 100 times before, and I just don't want to see it again. Obviously, if a lot of other fen feel the same way (and I doubt I'm alone), this does nothing to encourage the market.
:)
That said... in its day it seemed fresh and new, and we were so hungry for anything that wasn't Here And Now, that if it more or less smelled like SF, we read it, and *liked* it, and hungered for more. Now -- the space program is old hat and no longer exciting, and hardware SF (and the "new worlds to explore" ideas that go along with it) seems equally old hat and unexciting. Worse, the newly-written hard SF that's come along has struck me as
Over the past few years I've found it's the same with TV as well. Frex, I've already seen every cop show I ever want to, and no matter how "good" a new cop show is, I just can't work up any interest in it. It feels old, tired, and boring, because I've already seen decades worth of it.
Fantasy is getting well into its own rut, as the proliferation of stuff like the Wheel of Time brickset illustrates. I used to read a LOT of fantasy, yet now, if I never see another witch or elf or dragon, it will be too soon.
So what do I read, anyway? about all that's left is character driven stuff, which means mainly Bujold- or Cherryh-style space opera, and George R.R. Martin- or Melanie Rawn-style fantasy.
What's really happened is that I've outgrown event-driven stories, regardless of their venue.
I know I had a point when I started writing this, but I think I left it in the 1930s.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?