On Science Fiction
Apr. 22nd, 2005 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalak -or-
Mishalak Bores People to Death
The continuation of an essay thingy I wrote over on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
anonymousclaire about What's Wrong with SF?
Part of the problem with SF has been that we were disillusioned out of the idea that the future would be perfect due to technology. Back in the heady early days it seemed that everyone, even New Yorkers, would live a perfect Californian existence with lots of nifty gagets and plenty of everything we wanted. Somehow this would make the bastards less awful, maybe through mental trauma erasure devices. But then we get to the future, and "find that where someone was a tosser fifty years ago, for all our scientific advances the best we can make them now is a tosser with an iPod," to steal a line from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grytpype_thynne.
He explicitly points out that not all people with iPods are tossers, but since I don't have one I'd be perfectly willing to imply that people with iPods are tossers. Except for the fact that someday I hope to be the sort of person who has an iPod or post-iPod "it does everything you want and a lot you don't" type device. Like some sort of hyped up Palm Pilot. But I digress.
SF probably is broadly as good or bad as it ever was. Probably better since we get a heck of a lot more SF today than we did in the past. However I am at least one part serious to my two parts "writing to see my own silly words". I've sometimes gotten the impression from SF that the writers believed O'Neal's outline of the future in 1984. For anyone who doesn't remember it was, "If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stomping on a human face-forever."
While things are never perfect when we arrive in the future it seems that things are not much worse than they were before, and in some cases they are much better. For example in my own lifetime things have gotten appreciably better for gays like myself here in America. This doesn't imply that things will always get better for everyone or that there are no problems, but it does seem to say that the future isn't bleak. Or at least it isn't bleak if you've got the right pair of jeans and a date, so maybe it is pretty bad for SF writers.
So I'd like to throw a bit of SF into the mix of escapist fantasy I've been reading, but I've been vaguely dissatisfied with a lot of SF I've read lately. So I produce writing like this without a good clear idea of what I do want. Which probably means that I should get clear upon what I'm seeking. To that end I think today I will seek a comfortable but stylish pair of shoes to go with my excellent jeans.
Mishalak Bores People to Death
The continuation of an essay thingy I wrote over on
anonymousclaire about What's Wrong with SF?Part of the problem with SF has been that we were disillusioned out of the idea that the future would be perfect due to technology. Back in the heady early days it seemed that everyone, even New Yorkers, would live a perfect Californian existence with lots of nifty gagets and plenty of everything we wanted. Somehow this would make the bastards less awful, maybe through mental trauma erasure devices. But then we get to the future, and "find that where someone was a tosser fifty years ago, for all our scientific advances the best we can make them now is a tosser with an iPod," to steal a line from
grytpype_thynne.He explicitly points out that not all people with iPods are tossers, but since I don't have one I'd be perfectly willing to imply that people with iPods are tossers. Except for the fact that someday I hope to be the sort of person who has an iPod or post-iPod "it does everything you want and a lot you don't" type device. Like some sort of hyped up Palm Pilot. But I digress.
SF probably is broadly as good or bad as it ever was. Probably better since we get a heck of a lot more SF today than we did in the past. However I am at least one part serious to my two parts "writing to see my own silly words". I've sometimes gotten the impression from SF that the writers believed O'Neal's outline of the future in 1984. For anyone who doesn't remember it was, "If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stomping on a human face-forever."
While things are never perfect when we arrive in the future it seems that things are not much worse than they were before, and in some cases they are much better. For example in my own lifetime things have gotten appreciably better for gays like myself here in America. This doesn't imply that things will always get better for everyone or that there are no problems, but it does seem to say that the future isn't bleak. Or at least it isn't bleak if you've got the right pair of jeans and a date, so maybe it is pretty bad for SF writers.
So I'd like to throw a bit of SF into the mix of escapist fantasy I've been reading, but I've been vaguely dissatisfied with a lot of SF I've read lately. So I produce writing like this without a good clear idea of what I do want. Which probably means that I should get clear upon what I'm seeking. To that end I think today I will seek a comfortable but stylish pair of shoes to go with my excellent jeans.