starship-design: FW: Spider Robinson

["L. Clayton Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Courtesy of Mark Oakley, Thieves and Kings:

So. . .

Spider Robinson is depressed about the state of Science Fiction.

He cites dropping sales and no new authors replacing the old, as well as a
mass defection of readers to 'Tolkienesque' fantasy.

You can read his article/rant here.

I can understand where he's coming from. Heck, I've heard his lament on the
lips of numerous other Sci-Fi writers. To be part of a fading industry isn't
exactly inspiring, seeing fellow creators slip from view, watching the
dizzying excitement of a once lunatic market place die down to something
which actually makes sense. . . (Well, I don't know if the paperback book
market could ever really be described as 'lunatic' in quite the same way
comics were for a while. . . Nobody I knew ever sealed away paperbacks in
vinyl bags for posterity!) In any case, I do feel for Mr. Robinson.

Moreover, though, it got me wondering. . .

And, ohhh, but this is a can of worms like none other!

I'll start off small. First of all, I should explain that I have always felt
Science Fiction, from the day it first began to materialize, has had an
expiry date stamped across its forehead. I'm not just reiterating the tried
and true, "Sci-Fi will be pointless when when there really are people
walking around in space suits and zipping back and forth between the stars."

No, no. It's much simpler than that.

See, I think stories have only two basic purposes and that everything else
is just turkey trimming. Ahem. . .

"I believe that stories exist for no other reason than to explore and share
ideas."

It works like this; when people become curious about a subject, there is a
desire to examine and to consider that subject. When desire grows enough,
somebody will inevitably sit down at a keyboard and hammer out a book about
it. Ideas flow, you see, whether we want them to or not, and they must be
contained! Recorded. Sifted through. Shared. --And if the subject is
fascinating enough, why then a lot of somebodies will hammer out a whole lot
of books!

Look at teen romance novels for instance; because there are always young
women clamoring to know everything they can about love and relationships,
there is a more or less permanent market for 150 page paperback novels with
sappy covers about dating and first love and all that. --When young women
grow up, then we see the far more prolific 'grown up' romance novels for
slightly different reasons, but still driven by the desire to spin around
and absorb certain sets of ideas. So long as there are heroines, (and
hormones), there will be romance novels.

Not so with Science Fiction. No hormones there. (Well, actually, there were
quite a lot, but that wasn't Science Fiction's reason for being.) No.
Science Fiction came into existence because the millions of minds living
through the first two thirds of the twentieth century were besieged with the
growing awareness that technology and industry could, and very likely would
achieve terrifying and spectacular wonders! --The kinds of wonders which
would change the very shape of humanity itself into something new!

But crikey, if people had only the dimmest clue of what that something would
be. . .

Indeed, people had only the most vague notions, but with Hydroelectric dams
being built, telescopes probing ever more deeply into space, rockets being
erected, new materials being developed, and all manner of new technological
powers being discovered. . , people quickly began to realize that whatever
the change was going to be, it was going to be Big with a capital 'B' --and
that they'd better start thinking about it right smart quick!

But no fear; the trusty human mind has ways to deal with this kind of
scenario. Why, the human mind when faced with sudden shocking possibilities,
will Think About Them A Lot, thank you very much. --The mind will swim in
new ideas and jump around with great excitement, examining the problem from
every angle as though it were a new toy, a dangerous animal, a tempting
delight, tasting, poking and turning it in the light, and chattering about
it incessantly until at last it understands! And so the story-tellers went
into overdrive, fighting to wrest this new beast into some kind of
manageable shape. Trying to tame it so that when the countless hoarde
finally came upon us, we would be ready. --Indeed, so that we might even be
able to direct its power towards better ends while avoiding the pitfalls in
the road. And all the while, this new reality swarmed into being all around
us. (Though, for many a flashlight-under-the-covers 10 year-old, not nearly
fast enough!)

Well, folks, I hope we all like how things are turning out, because it is
rather too late to change a great deal at this point. The steam engine is
now thundering along and only the most minor course corrections, (if even
those), will be tolerated. That is to say, here we all are, arriving in the
Future!

Bet you didn't realize that, did you? But, no, look around. Re-check the
road map, (the digital one in your car with satelite positioning), make a
cell-phone call to your friend who is expecting you, or hop on the internet
to compare travel notes. --Spend as much time as you need to make sure. Sip
on some re-mineralized bottled water, or perhaps a tetra-packed beverage,
and be sure to apply some SPF-40 sunscreen while you're out there scouting
around.

In the end you'll be forced to agree that This Is It. You're here. That'll
be $29.95 please, (plus ten cents a minute on week days.) You can access
your wealth from one of many convenient computerized dispensers located on
any number of walls around the city. Try not to drink the city water unless
you filter it first. You are welcome to enjoy the wide variety of tasty
Genetically Modified foods which are discreetly used in almost every item on
every menu. Don't worry; it has all been fortified with a vast list of
synthetic ingredients created by the most powerful of pharmaceutical
agencies on the planet. --And do please smile for the million or so video
cameras you will encounter during your stay. Yes indeed! Welcome to the
Future!

And no, I'm sorry, but we didn't end up with those flying cars in every
garage, nor do we get to live in splendid moon colonies. Energy isn't free,
and neither is food. Of course, we could arguably have all of those things
if we really wanted them; Unlike back in the heyday of Asimov, Bradbury and
Clark, the technology for a utopian world is no longer the stuff of dreams.
It's here. Right now. All of it. But sorry, no, it really doesn't look like
the average Joe and Josephine will find themselves wearing jet-packs on
distant worlds while engaged in daring ray gun battles with galactic
smugglers. --But then, to be fair, when dealing with billions of
possibilities, you really can't have everything; flying cars and ray guns
for the people were only a couple of the countless futures envisioned by the
many hundreds of story tellers. Unfortunately, so was Orwell's "1984". But I
digress. . .

The point of the matter is that the open-ended future of a billion
possibilities built upon the new and wonderful promise of science and
industry is no longer open-ended. Heck, if you were to ask the average
person on the street, I suspect you would probably receive a fairly detailed
account of where all this new stuff will take us over the next few years.

As such. . .

The need for stories examining all the possibilities of science and
technology isn't really there anymore either. Everybody is fairly well tuned
in now. Future vision is no longer a kaleidoscope of science dreaming. Not
the way it once was. Sorry, Spider. The job is just about done, and the
workers are rolling up the drop cloth and heading for the van. The wild
flights of speculation, the story-telling party of the century, is over.

Or perhaps I should say, the party has moved into the kitchen. (After all,
there's always work of some sort which needs doing somewhere around the
ramshackle house of humanity!) --People's minds are traveling over different
terrain these days. And while some might look at the Orwellian vision and
sink in their chairs with growing despair, I see a great deal more than just
the backwards, corrputed, polluted and violent dystopia we were all warned
about time and again. There are new and spectacular things afoot in the
world! And all the millions of minds are seeking answers to these new kinds
of problems. New possibilities!

What possibilities?

Oh, but that part is easy! Just look at popular fiction. Peer into your own
headspace at the questions you find yourself asking. Or perhaps. . , the
questions you are avoiding. --Remember, Science Fiction was also, for many
years, a most shunned area of literature. A large number of people have a
strong tendency to not want to look too closely at things which promise to
change their lives in Big (with a capital 'B'), ways. How did Bilbo Baggins
put it. . ?

'We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing
uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody
sees in them,'

Ha ha!

But that doesn't ever stop the forward thinking and the eager from jumping
right in, pulling up new ideas, examining them with passion. And slowly the
rest of the world, as always, will warm to the expanding pool of thought
even as the new reality begins to dawn all around them. Escapism? But of
course! It's all about escapism! They said the same thing about Science
Fiction, and they were right! However, the question nobody ever asks is,
"Escaping to where?" --Think carefully, because the stories we read today
are but kaleidoscope shadows of the places we'll be living in tomorrow. Our
subconsciouses are generally much smarter than we are, after all. They speak
to us through the stories they make us want to read.

And what stories do we find ourselves drawn to?

Why, we have Tolkien summoned up in full strength and bright, fresh armor on
thousands of theater screens and millions of television monitors around the
world. We have Babylon 5 and Buffy, both now on DVD making the rounds. We
have The Matrix, (silly as the most recent installment was). Heck, even the
latest Star Wars travesties tell a similar story; examining political
upheaval and universal change. Oh, and magic. Don't forget the magic. Yes,
we also have young Mr. Potter, don't we?

There are new winds stirring in the world today. . .

Surely you have felt them by now.