Why are Our Imaginations Retreating from Science and Space, and into Fantasy?

The Globe and Mail (Canada) ^ | Monday, September 8, 2003 | SPIDER ROBINSON

[RightWhale]

I've NEVER read one of these novels and refuse to

Aw, go on, read one. They're nothing like the screen plays.

[brbethke]

Buy magazines. All writers test market their new ideas in short stories for magazines. Don't expect any new ideas to appear in books. Books are put out by publishing houses, who are in turn owned by multinational entertainment conglomerates, who are concerned first, last, and everywhere in between with making a profit. And given a choice between publishing Yet More Dragondreck or some book that isn't easily packaged, labeled, and marketed, they will go with the dragons every time, simply because the dragon book is less of a risk.

It's almost impossible to get a publisher interested in a new idea unless you've already sold a few stories that explore it and generated a positive buzz among the fans and critics.

[DoctorMichael]

....French company that purchased it a few months ago. ......

Huh? I hadn't heard THAT!

No wonder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DoctorMichael]

Aw, go on..........

Sorry (LOL), but I can't tell if you're joking or not.

[lafroste]

As the author of a sci-fi novel that has yet to see the light of day, I offer another story:

I was looking for an agent, and introduced myself to a woman claiming to be an agent who was from Washington DC. She read my manuscript, then got back to me. She said that she thought the story was very good, but that she could not represent the work unless I made one teensy-weensy change: she wanted me to transform the story's hero into a lesbian female. (The story had absolutely nothing to do with sex - probably why it hasn't been published...).

I informed her that, unfortunately, the protagonist was a heterosexual male and there was precious little I could do about that.

Anyway, my story IS hard science fiction; no aliens, no other worlds, no mystic powers, just good old physics taken to the extreme. I think its an excellent story.

[Tokhtamish]

I never liked that one. Killing people at precisely the point when they are becoming really useful is dumb.

Another problem I had with space scenarios was the motivation for colonization. Either "Australia" (dumping ground for Earth's unwanted) or "Suburban White Flight" (the well off fleeing Earth's squalor). Well, "Australia" makes little sense because nobody is going to build spaceships to empty Earth's prisons, ghettos, and homeless shelters. And if technology has progressed to the point where every well to do person gets his own Darryl Hannah doll, why leave Earth at all ?

[brbethke]

Try another agent. There are plenty of them out there.

A bit of practical advice, though: I hope you're actually submitting the manuscript to actual publishers. It's a whole lot easier to get a good agent after you have some interest from a legit publisher.

[mrsmith]

Fantasy is Sci-fi for 'gurlz'.
NASA is research for 'gurlz'.

A society that treats testosterone as an indicator for Prozac treatment will die on the planet it was born.

[brbethke]

And here's a very useful link for you.

[brbethke]

Ever read "The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth? I think you'd enjoy it.

[js1138]

If you can simply plug into cyber experiences the way people go online these days, who needs reality ?

One of my first SF reads was Heinlein's "Door Into Summer".

[brbethke]

why leave Earth at all?

Because Wyoming was no longer far enough away.

[Poohbah]

I was looking for an agent, and introduced myself to a woman claiming to be an agent who was from Washington DC. She read my manuscript, then got back to me. She said that she thought the story was very good, but that she could not represent the work unless I made one teensy-weensy change: she wanted me to transform the story's hero into a lesbian female. (The story had absolutely nothing to do with sex - probably why it hasn't been published...).

Agents live in New York, or Los Angeles. You didn't get an agent, you got a political hack/scam artist who is fronting for a vanity press. She probably has not made one sale to a legitimate press.

[Eala]

Although looking back, it is obvious that this trend has been happening since the 1970s.

My assessment also. First it was the dystopic visions of the late 60s to early 70s, where the future changed from something wonderful to something horrible. Then the junk that turned away altogether -- I was furious when I bought the latest award-winner, "Of Mist, and Sand and Grass" by Vonda McIntyre (this is straight from memory so I might have part of it wrong) and found out what junk it was.

These days I tend to buy the annual Year's Best anthologies, and otherwise read from the collection gathered over the past 40 years.

[RightWhale]

That's about right. I actually had one short story published long ago. I can't even remember exactly where, but it was definitely off-Broadway. It was strictly sci-fi, no aliens, etc., but I know at least one reader who said it creeped her out but good. You just don't find those on the drugstore dime-rack.

[Billthedrill]

What sealed the deal for me was the horrid 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever'.

You too? You know, I read every book in that relentlessly depressing series hoping for a happy ending of some sort. Ugh.

There are a couple of cultural factors working to push the pendulum away from "hard" SF - first, the notion, pushed by those on campus too stupid to understand engineering, that it is the social sciences and not the hard ones that will become predominant in solving the problems of society that constitute the backdrop to every hard SF novel. Second, the idea that it's harder to write - hard SF has rules that must be followed or it doesn't work; in the fantasy world anything (including the laws of physics) is negotiable. And third, it's kind of hard to get people involved with the explosion of incredible technologies in the real world - the Internet, GPS, computerized appliances, microtechnology, satellite communication, genetic engineering, to name but a few - to be impressed by anything more remarkable in fiction. Heck, it's hard to come up with a fictional idea more fantastic than today's reality, and that doesn't look to change for awhile.

But good writing will out, and it ages much more slowly than less-good writing. I saw a young relative of mine with a Heinlein novel in his hand not too long ago. It's kind of a tough standard.

[PogySailor]

May I suggest:

Revelation Space

[atomic conspiracy]

I think the reason for this is fairly simple. The real space program exceeded all expectations during the 1960s, creating a tremendous sense of excitement and potentiality around the subject. Since then, it hasn't gone anywhere. The Shuttle has gone round and round for 22 years, chained to LEO, reinventing the wheel, sucking down billions, and occasionally killing people.

More than 30 years have passed since the last Moon landing. Worse, the program was shut down before the enormous expenditure on research and development could be properly exploited, leading to the impression that we spent 40 billion dollars just to put 12 guys on a worthless rock for a few hours apiece.

The old idea of "our future in space" has worn pretty thin. It is the future now, and nothing has happened.

It could have been different, and this article explains why and how: 2001: No Space Odyssey

Check out this gang's homepage while you're at it: Nuclear Space. They are serious ogres and thought-criminals to the luddite eco-wacky mob, which makes their effort worthwhile all by itself.

[MalcolmS]

The reason for this is that it is simply impossible to develop new stories that have not already been told within the confines of the hard SF genre.

The whole point of a hard sf is to develop NOVEL takes on space exploration and science. Each book or series needs a new 'mcguffin'.

Since the 1930's, we have, in our literature explored the near planets, the galaxy to its boundaries and infinite uncounted dimensions. The genre is exhausted. The mother lode has been mined out, and it is virtually impossible to find a tiny nugget around which to base a new book, especially with the confines of hard SF.

In real life, manned exploration has gone no further that posited by Jules Verne in 1865. Since we have been unable to keep up, readers and writers are frustrated and have moved on.

One of the problems is one of physics, or chemistry. We simply cannot get affordable access to space given chemical based systems. There is simply not enough energy in a pound of fuel. The only hope is for someone to invent anti-gravity, or develop a new compact energy source safe for use in getting to orbit--that or a space elevator.

And no matter what, once it is cheap, the world becomes a far more dangerous place. Objects in space are inherently high energy. You don't wan't a future Osama dropping rocks on your cities from LEO. Quite frankly, cheap widespread access to space cannot be permitted without an effective defense system.

This is unfortunate. In the introduction to his early 1990's anthology, "Fire on Ice", Orson Scott Card rendered a passionate defence of SF Literature as one of the few forms of literature that allows us to examine the constructs of our societies. Because alternate worlds are imagined, and the results examined, SF allows us to look at our own world through new eyes. It is well worth seeking out and reading for these few pages.

[LiteKeeper]

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