On how science fiction sucks
Let me count the ways.
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Bruce Sterling once wrote the sentence: “It’s war to the knife in the neon-lit backstreets of cyberspace.” And much else besides.
He could write the next Palmer Eldritch, which he won’t; he will still be the guy who once wrote the sentence: “It’s war to the knife in the neon-lit backstreets of cyberspace.”
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I would like to found the José Saramago Award for the obvious and heavy-handed, so that I could hand it to Richard Powers every year. I read Galatea 2.2 a few years ago; when I think of its last 50 pages - I’m being literal here: my jaw still locks, my teeth are still grinded.
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Up to this date, William Gibson still thinks that Japan is the future.
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Sure, you can add the cyber- prefix to the once fashionable word punk. You can associate yourself with Philip K Dick, the adorable schizophrenic hack. But Science Fiction, quote unquote, is perenially haunted by the ghost of Isaac Asimov. Being into it indicates an Asimoviness of the soul. The didacticism, the will to enlighten; the authoritarian exercise of the hypothetical society, with a clear-cut moral lesson in the end; the surrendering fascination-cum-despair over the thought of giant robots fighting. Daze over gimmicks, gadgets and devices (the most interesting thing about Batman is the bat-belt, right?). Nerds trying to be hip but never wavering nerdy self-righteousness, desire for control, anxiety, anal-retentiveness: more heavy metal bands, more adventures of Hiro Protagonist.
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Which is a pity; what is there to write about, in 2009, that is not about technology? That is not, in a certain sense, also science fiction?
bogeaux wrote:
For context’s sake - this was about the Kyoto protocol:
“It’s 1983 all over again here in the USA; open scorn for international accords, a brand-new Cold War, and a corrupt Evil Empire run by aging ideologues with heart problems. Europe’s got the 21st century all to itself!
I find a definite upside here — I’m feeling 18 years younger! We ’80s cyberpunks always hankered to be heroic dissidents in a corporate-dominated dystopia. Cue those syndrums, maestro, it’s war to the knife in the neon-lit backstreets of cyberspace!”
Posted on 23-Apr-09 at 7:29 pm | Permalink
elcio wrote:
“hard” science fiction as a genre - at least for stories concerned with Type I scenarios - is on the verge of becoming obsolete.
When we have nanoparticles injected into suburban dicks to cure erectile dysfunctions, or adapted laserjet printers printing human hearts (that’s so 2005…), it becomes redundant to add the tag SCIENCE to anything - it might as well be only “fiction” (type II and III stories will remain largely unchanged, though, concerned as they are with as of yet impossible things like terraforming, deep space exploration etc).
Posted on 29-Apr-09 at 10:22 am | Permalink