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Aug. 16th, 2004 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ann_leckieAh, the eternal question. What is Science Fiction? And more importantly, what is science fiction for, and what is good science fiction?
You know, just the other day I was listening to a local call-in show on public radio. The guest was talking about ways to live more simply, to live off the grid. Now, one can certainly legitimately debate the desirablility of such a life, but then comes the caller near the end of the show--he wants to know how, if you take yourself out of the technological loop, you're going to be able to deal with the Singularity when it comes? Because it's pretty much inevitable.
I was washing dishes, thinking, "He actually believes that?" Well, yes, as further conversation revealed, he did. "Wow," I think, "what a nut."
So then I'm reading blogs, and I come across nihilistic_kid's. Which links to this which has, in its comments section, some interesting discussion. As I read the comments, though, I was getting annoyed. The insistence, for example, that one had to deal with the Singularity somehow in one's fiction or be left hopelessly behind. And the statement that enjoying space opera with vast galactic empires and anthropomorphic aliens (to whatever degree) was somehow wanting to read SF that was "comfortably in the past."
You know, when I was in eighth grade, if you didn't feather your hair and wear a comb with a big handle sticking out of the back pocket of your designer jeans, you were so not with it. In high school it was oxford shirts and Dickies pants, and those plaid wool skirts with the pins. You had to have them, or you weren't cool. But you know, over time, it became clear that cool wasn't ever going to stand still, and my ability to know (and afford) cool at any given moment was pretty sorry. I wear jeans and T-shirts these days, because they're comfortable. And when I look back at old photos, all those fashions that seemed so lovely look hopelessly silly and outdated now. Of course, even my jeans and T-shirts will look silly in a decade's time. The cut of jeans is by no means immune to the dictates of fashion. But at least I can wear them until they fall apart, and not feel constrained or itchy, or worry about how I'm going to sit down without injuring myself.
I shake my head over this whole thing. Ten years from now (hell, maybe ten weeks from now), the Singularity will seem so dated, so already done. If it's cool because it's some kind of valid prediction, then why would it become uncool until after the Rapture comes?
And if predicting the future is the business of science fiction, then why does it do such a piss-poor job of it?
The fact is, predicting the future is not what SF is about. SF, in my view, isn't about one thing. Some SF tries to predict the future, to extrapolate. In the end, of course, it can't help being more about the author's here and now than any kind of future, but that's the breaks. Some SF, though, is more or less explicitly about now, and uses SF's techniques to discuss or chew over questions that are too tough or unpleasant or whatever to approach with more traditional realism. Some SF is rayguns and rocketships and big battles and whatever just because it's fun, and that's good, too. After all, just because I've learned to appreciate hand-crafted sourdough bread, fine wine, and all those lovely curdled milk products in the case at the import store doesn't mean I don't still dig a good macaroni and cheese with a glass of grape juice. Of course, I'd prefer it was well-made macaroni and cheese, maybe even made with some of those imported fromages (though that's not by any means a requirement), but in the end it's still macaroni and cheese and what the hell is wrong with that?
Don't get me wrong, I like seeing current fashions. I think (at the moment, anyway) that some of them look really cool. But what I don't like is being told, with an offhand and airy superiority, that I'm hopelessly stuck in the past because I won't spend my money on them. Hey, if you want to, cool, and you look good, no question. But I don't want a closet full of bell-bottoms I can't wear next year, and I'm comfortable, and why are you so concerned about what I'm wearing, huh?
I'm not sure I see why one has to separate the supposed sheep from the goats here. It all just strikes me as so high school. And one of the most valuable lessons I learned in high school was that it didn't matter whether or not I was one of the cool kids.
Oh, apart from Nick Mamatas' article, there's another nice one over at matociquala's blog
You know, just the other day I was listening to a local call-in show on public radio. The guest was talking about ways to live more simply, to live off the grid. Now, one can certainly legitimately debate the desirablility of such a life, but then comes the caller near the end of the show--he wants to know how, if you take yourself out of the technological loop, you're going to be able to deal with the Singularity when it comes? Because it's pretty much inevitable.
I was washing dishes, thinking, "He actually believes that?" Well, yes, as further conversation revealed, he did. "Wow," I think, "what a nut."
So then I'm reading blogs, and I come across nihilistic_kid's. Which links to this which has, in its comments section, some interesting discussion. As I read the comments, though, I was getting annoyed. The insistence, for example, that one had to deal with the Singularity somehow in one's fiction or be left hopelessly behind. And the statement that enjoying space opera with vast galactic empires and anthropomorphic aliens (to whatever degree) was somehow wanting to read SF that was "comfortably in the past."
You know, when I was in eighth grade, if you didn't feather your hair and wear a comb with a big handle sticking out of the back pocket of your designer jeans, you were so not with it. In high school it was oxford shirts and Dickies pants, and those plaid wool skirts with the pins. You had to have them, or you weren't cool. But you know, over time, it became clear that cool wasn't ever going to stand still, and my ability to know (and afford) cool at any given moment was pretty sorry. I wear jeans and T-shirts these days, because they're comfortable. And when I look back at old photos, all those fashions that seemed so lovely look hopelessly silly and outdated now. Of course, even my jeans and T-shirts will look silly in a decade's time. The cut of jeans is by no means immune to the dictates of fashion. But at least I can wear them until they fall apart, and not feel constrained or itchy, or worry about how I'm going to sit down without injuring myself.
I shake my head over this whole thing. Ten years from now (hell, maybe ten weeks from now), the Singularity will seem so dated, so already done. If it's cool because it's some kind of valid prediction, then why would it become uncool until after the Rapture comes?
And if predicting the future is the business of science fiction, then why does it do such a piss-poor job of it?
The fact is, predicting the future is not what SF is about. SF, in my view, isn't about one thing. Some SF tries to predict the future, to extrapolate. In the end, of course, it can't help being more about the author's here and now than any kind of future, but that's the breaks. Some SF, though, is more or less explicitly about now, and uses SF's techniques to discuss or chew over questions that are too tough or unpleasant or whatever to approach with more traditional realism. Some SF is rayguns and rocketships and big battles and whatever just because it's fun, and that's good, too. After all, just because I've learned to appreciate hand-crafted sourdough bread, fine wine, and all those lovely curdled milk products in the case at the import store doesn't mean I don't still dig a good macaroni and cheese with a glass of grape juice. Of course, I'd prefer it was well-made macaroni and cheese, maybe even made with some of those imported fromages (though that's not by any means a requirement), but in the end it's still macaroni and cheese and what the hell is wrong with that?
Don't get me wrong, I like seeing current fashions. I think (at the moment, anyway) that some of them look really cool. But what I don't like is being told, with an offhand and airy superiority, that I'm hopelessly stuck in the past because I won't spend my money on them. Hey, if you want to, cool, and you look good, no question. But I don't want a closet full of bell-bottoms I can't wear next year, and I'm comfortable, and why are you so concerned about what I'm wearing, huh?
I'm not sure I see why one has to separate the supposed sheep from the goats here. It all just strikes me as so high school. And one of the most valuable lessons I learned in high school was that it didn't matter whether or not I was one of the cool kids.
Oh, apart from Nick Mamatas' article, there's another nice one over at matociquala's blog