Posted on 01/31/2005 1:37:19 PM PST by EveningStar
I've been a science fiction fan for decades and it appears to me that the vast science fiction writers and fans are liberals/leftists. Am I imagining this?
Yeah he's hitting pretty big, good for him I say.
I first stumbled across "Guns Of The South" when it was being read on the NPR show "Radio Reader." I had stopped the car and my family had gotten out to go get McDonalds and I sat there listening. They were well into the book and describing a particular Civil War battle that I recognized, the Battle Of the Wilderness. I was impressed with the accurate description that allowed me to recognize it without the author actually saying "this is the battle of the wilderness." I had no idea that this was an alternate history novel, let alone SF.
The action was taking place near the crossroads and the rebel forces were running out of ammunition. Yep, that happened. And finally the ammunition wagons pulled up, but the first few crates had the wrong ammunition, all mini-balls. O.K., I thought the rebels were still using mini-balls at this stage and that was one of the reasons they lost the battle, but I'd go along. Oh, they found another case with the right ammunition... the banana clips...
BANANA CLIP??????????
.... for their AK-47s.....
AK-47S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the point I knew I had to buy the book and find out what this was all about. The thing that so impressed me also impressed Shelby Foote, the great Civil War historian. He thought so much of the accuracy of the manuscript (except for the things directly changed by the time travler plot element) that he wrote the forward for the book.
That "little" left turn that Turtledove used to allow the south to win was a bit too much, even for his tastes. He has revisited the idea of the south winning the war in another series of books, but with a much more subtle change, where battle plans lost by a southern general (in reality) and recovered by the north, leading to a southern defeat, are recovered instead by a southern soldier (in his story), thus altering the whole history of the war.
I got bored with the World At War books after it became apparent that book 3 wasn't going to resolve anything and haven't gone back to them yet. Someday I may.
I don't know of Stirling. Crichton and Card have already been discussed on this thread.
This Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan is no liberal!
Stirling, if I had to guess would say he is Libertarian with Conservative But would lean to the conservative side a bit. His book Island in the Sea of Time is one of my all-time favs!
Sounded ok to me.
i am a big sci fi fan and a few friends are as well
we are all conservative though when i used to go to conventions (sigh yes i was a nerd) most tended to be liberal
Actually, Wells's socialism is pretty evident in The Time Machine, which can be read as a cautionary tale about the gap between the bourgeoise and proletariat, the rich and the poor blah blah blah.
Some of the Star Trek books are feminist drek, but I have found a very readable ST author - Friedman.
What I liked was the South winning and President Lee still deciding that slavery had to go (which almost led to another war with a faction of General Forrest). It showed that even though the time travelers tried to change history, they really didn't affect it that much (at least in the way they wanted to).
Fred Pohl was a communist when he was a teenager, but he quit when Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler. I think, having gone to lots of sci-fi cons in the Chicago area, that fandom skews either to the far left or right.
Gene Wolf is very conservative and I always enjoy talking to him whenever I see him at a con.
Lots of people, including the earliest Christians, have been communists. The Anti-American Left, including the New York Times, never really criticised Stalin, and refused to believe blindingly obvious evidence.
And it repeats itself with Saddam.
Before finding this board and reading this thread, all of the scifi contacts I have met, seen, & know were all "left wing". They often spouted popular, academic, "HIP" humanistic views like Trek's "Infinite Diversities, in Infinite Combinations". BUT, their own realife day to day hardcore beliefs they routinely demostrated are very selfish "everyone for themselves" and cliquish "who gives a damn" tripe. It's about their hypocracy. I must be looking in the wrong parts of scifi fandom. I have unfortunately have had little contact with very few scifi fans whose word & deeds have any positive personal integrity that could challenge the classic Shatner's SNL "Get a Life" scifi fan skit. The stereotype is alive and well, sadly.
I found this and it said it so well:
If Star Trek fans seem left wing, they're just copying Gene Roddenberry. His behavior shows the true nature of his beliefs. The truth is he hated organized religion and used his shows to promote his humanist views. In fact his intolerance was directed strictly against Western religion, since Eastern religions are compatible with his notions on the perfectibility of man and male dominance. He was no friend of the women's libbers either. His own wife, Majel Barrett, said in People magazine, "He believes in the equality of the sexes as long as it doesn't interfere with his home life." Is this the same WW2 generation that created the WAC and Rosie the Riveter? Didn't we fight a war to protect religion and human rights from a cruel aggressor? So how come this civilian, Roddenberry, creates a "perfect" future and there's no room in it for half of the USA [women]?
Star Trek is just one man's fantasy of what he wished the military was like : a girl in every port, the women & minorities aren't after YOUR job (it's an honor just to be here), you go where you want, do what you want, and the boss is always out of town.
I can tell you the real armed forces has no use for slackers. Try as I might, I can't picture Uhura, Rand, or Chapel in basic training -- enduring the DI, climbing the cargo net, crawling under barbed wire while live ammo sings overhead, let alone driving a "duck" at Normandy. I'm not one to say kick Uhura and Co. off the ship. Just wish they would've grown up before they enlisted. (I know a few WACs and Rosie the Riveters who could bench press the 1701 and everyone in it. Doesn't mean they don't shave, Gene.)
And face it, some of Trek's biggest stinkers : "Bread and circuses," "Patterns of force," the first movie, "Encounter at Farpoint," "Haven," "Who watches the watchers," were all written on HIS watch. I mean BAD. Really, really, incredibly bad. He also created the worst character in all Trekdom (Lwaxana Troi, also known as Id-woman, played by his wife) and screwed up two other perfectly nice characters, Christine Chapel and Wesley Crusher. Crusher I hear was the man's idea to re-live his childhood BUT get it right this time. Seems when G.R. was a boy he was so smart nobody liked him. Good thing that didn't happen this time! Meanwhile Chapel abandoned her home, changed careers, and wandered space and time to land a man. And she only loves men who don't love her back. (Paging Dr. Laura!)
I'm telling you, Basic training would have either killed her or given her something to live for... Face this, too. Some of the best Trek ever done was written by someone else.
But Roddenberry created the pompous universal "controller" role for ST. On the whole, I'm glad he quit. Good characters ultimately drive their own plots. And if your opinion is more bad characters with good plots, you had your turn long ago. Garbage in and garbage out. =
PS.....I wouldn't call myself a scifi liberal and my friends wouldn't either.
Hey possum, just out of curiosity, I know you're an artist, and I'm a photographer. I've found that there's a kind of ideological doorman in the artist's community, particularly at the academic level. Basically, conservatives need not apply. It's not universally true, but happens frequently. Has this been your experience?
If you check out the stable over at baen.com you won't think so. Pay particular attention to John Ringo and Steven Weber.
Got a FReepname for Ringo in case he drops by? I'd sure like to pay my respects, and thank him for the hours of joy he's provided me.
Back when I knew him he was under JohnnyRingo, this was before and shortly after his first book was published (and well before I read his stuff), then I lost touch with him and next time I looked he was gone. Here's his website though http://www.johnringo.com/ couldn't find a contact link but it does have his convention schedule, sci-fi conventions are fun give one a shot.
Orson Scott Card is NO liberal.
That's already been covered in this thread and I'm a frequent reader of Card's column. :)
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