As the Sci-Fi channel moves even further away from the genre it sought to bring to the cable-watching masses* by introducing the shockingly stupid “Syfy” brand, I find myself introspective about the state of science-fiction today.
Fortunately, I’m saved the heavy lifting by this article in NewScientist. They talked to a half-dozen of the biggest names in SF literature, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Baxter, William Gibson, Ursula K Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Nick Sagan, and asked their opinions what the future of science-fiction holds.
All were optimistic, but, in the end, I think the article’s author, Marcus Chown, sums it up best:
Science fiction is the literature of change. It is no coincidence that it emerged as a recognisable genre with writers such as Jules Verne in the late 19th century, an era when, for the first time in history, children could expect to grow up in a world radically different from that of their parents. As change accelerated in the 20th century, science fiction mushroomed. As long as change is an integral part of our lives, science fiction is likely to survive.
And it’s unlikely that our world will stop changing anytime soon. In fact, it’s changing faster than ever.
The speed of change, highlighted by Sagan, has simply raised the bar for the imagination of the current generation of writers. There is no reason to believe that they will not rise to the challenge.
So the problem facing the science-fiction genre isn’t that it’s dying. It’s that it’s getting harder to write, a plight which will only lead to better science-fiction in the long run.
*I never liked the Sci-Fi channel. I don’t think there’ll ever be enough good genre material out there to sustain such an entity. I didn’t like the vast majority of their programming or their original series. And while I had experienced a glimmer of hope that a new era was beginning with the very enjoyable Battlestar Galactica series, the decision to go even more mainstream with SyFi puts that hope to bed.
Links
Sci-fi special: Is science fiction dying? (NewScientist.com)
“So the problem facing the science-fiction genre isn’t that it’s dying. It’s that it’s getting harder to write, a plight which will only lead to better science-fiction in the long run.”
Hah, yep! It comes back to the Singularity concept. If change continues to accelerate, there’ll be a point at which we can’t predict much of anything on the other side of an “event horizon” of super-rapid change.
That’s Craig’s major complaint about “current” sci-fi: that it’s pretty much about just regular 20th century people with 20th century mentalities, but with robots and rocket ships.
I’ve been finding that the best Sci-Fi these days is coming from British writers. Check out Iain M. Banks, and Alastair Reynolds if you haven’t already.
20th century people with 20th century mentalities is not so much of a hurdle for me. While different eras and different geographic inarguably spawned different social norms and collective views of the universe I think it is more guided by the geography and tradition than by time or technological advancement. If say a mountainous region had tribes separated into their own little valleys have been raiding and killing each other in tribal warfare since the 3rd century are exposed to 20th century technology they will still try to kill each other but they will be doing it with rifles and getting to and from raids on pickups.
The underlying threads of humanity remain for the most part unchanged over time. I could see the counter argument that globalization or “solar systemization” effectively changes the geographic region that we all live in but even then I think the ambition, hate, hope, fear, love, envy, pettiness, etc will come through. I think this view is why I enjoyed the series, Space Above and Beyond as much as I did. It seemed the most realistic of Sci Fi to me.
I always considered writing good alien mentalities to be the biggest trick.
I don’t read much modern SciFi (as in, last 15 years.) The books are set in 2010 or 1995 or, indeterminate future when man has-colinised(I spell bad)-many,-many-planets. I like them because they give me a bit of insight into what the cultural feel was at the time they were written. Imagine – reading a book about the future to learn about the past. Well, that, and they’re fun.