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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. . ?
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.
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