Science Fiction Purges its Problematic Past

Quillette ^ | 11/05/2019 | Craig DeLancey

[Lurker]

“I might have time to read many of them one more time, and then what?”

Donate them to your local High School. It’s always good to that old school stuff into the hands of the next generation.

L

[buckalfa]

I am an avid scifi reader. Even the cheap space operas available from Amazon. Pure escapism. Yet modern *awards* do not recognize writing excellence as there is little if any excellence to be found. There are no Isaac Asimovs or Frank Herberts to be found among us. Modern awards by any name mean nothing.

[Dr. Sivana]

Killing your husband as part of a suicide pact, whatever the reason, is still murder.

“What women do is survive. We live by twos and threes in the chinks of your world machine…. Think of us as opossums…. Did you know there are opossums living all over? Even in New York City.” When an alien spaceship lands nearby and the group encounters an extraterrestrial explorer, the fisherman panics, but Parsons and her daughter beg the aliens to take them away. They would rather leap into the unknown than return to their life in America.

When I read that description, I thought of those Dutch girls who thought it would be a good idea to "leap into the unknown" and join ISIS. The authoress never (to my knowledge) showed how things worked out with the extraterrestrials. Perhaps they were put in a zoo, or given male specimens to breed with, or were examined, killed and stuffed. But I guess they took the chance, rather than "return to America".

[Dr. Sivana]

The End.

Unfortunately, an appendix has to be included to Klinefelter's (XXY), Trisomy X (XXX), XYY Syndrome, and Turner Syndrome (XO). That is point .2% of the population, but they do exist.

[Jamestown1630]

I can’t imagine anything more destructive to artistic talent than imposing shallow, temporal politics and ideology upon it. It’s in every genre - the more ‘woke’ they become, the more their talent seems to dull. So many writers deal in the picyunish now, instead of big, sweeping ideas.

[null and void]

Maybe those should be aborted, lest they mess up a simplistic formula?

[treetopsandroofs]

Hmm, I actually spend a lot of time at my local high school, and in its library.

I don’t see a lot of respect for literature there, but if even just a few will, I suppose it’s worth it.

Thanks for the idea.

[null and void]

instead of big, sweeping ideas

Big, sweeping ideas are symptoms of racism, fascism, and Nazism. We should only write about banning straws, not grasping at them in desperate circumstances.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[Lurker]

“Thanks for the idea.”

My pleasure. I’ve dropped a bunch of seriously politically incorrect books there.

L

[BuffaloJack]

woke?

[a fool in paradise]

You know that deep down they despise George Orwell’s knowing criticisms of Stalinists in the West

[HombreSecreto]

Rename it the “Whatever” or “WGAF” award, imo.

[Army Air Corps]

The current Newspeak way of saying Politically Correct.

[PapaBear3625]

“Problematic” the favourite catchphrase of the American Cultural Revolution to describe anything that is not deemed as being woke.

Problematic: politically incorrect, but explaining WHY it's politically incorrect would reveal too much of the game.

[subterfuge]

It’s Pat!

[PapaBear3625]

Baen Books, (publisher of politically-incorrect writers like John Ringo, Larry Correia, Tom Kratman and many others) is where I go for readable Science Fiction.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Baen Books...is where I go for readable Science Fiction.

Me too. I have dozens of eBooks I've downloaded from their free library. I loved the "1633" series. There just isn't enough time to get to them all.

C'mon....retirement!

[Jamestown1630]

...banning straws, not grasping at them in desperate circumstances

Good expression of how dumbed-down we are becoming.

[null and void]

Thank you.