Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, 28 March 2019
Stories....Science Fiction Stories. Does Science Fiction have to be all doom and gloom? - A ReadItTorial from 20 minutes into the future
Labels:
ReadItTorial 2019,
Science Fiction
I was lucky enough to attend a recent round-table chat between four science fiction authors. The actual subject for the evening was meant to be based around the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landings - but that wasn't quite how the evening panned out.
On the discussion panel, Gareth Powell, Ben Jeapes, Simon Morden and Justina Robinson - award winning authors all, sat down to chat about space travel and science fiction.
Interestingly enough, the chat touched on a fairly wide range of subjects, from the rise and rise of capitalism-driven space programmes, to Space Porn, building Cathedrals as a model for generation-spanning space exploration, and of course a sprinkling about the main topic for the evening and the muted response from all on the possibilities of humans ever returning to the moon.
For me, as a lifelong science fiction fan, the evening was interesting for many reasons (probably not as interesting for C or her mum, who came along with me).
I found it fascinating that most of the authors had a fairly dour view of our chances of ever reaching a futuristic utopia as imagined by the likes of Gene Rodenberry, where space exploration and pioneering science came after the world had a few near misses with wiping itself out, and eventually came to the conclusion that money was the root of all evil, dispensing with it entirely so that "Star Fleet" could be born.
I stuck my hand in the air a couple of times to try and trigger a discussion about the "Star Trek" vision and how that's radically changed too, in line with the world's headlong sprint into ecological annihilation. I still think Gene Roddenberry had something in his partial view of a slightly skewed world where capitalism was destroyed in favour of a fair distribution of wealth (and welfare I guess) but I don't think anyone would ever predict or be able to understand how we could arrive at that destination, and whether it would truly mean we could put our brainpower, creativity and resources towards scientific endeavours to enable us to exist as a species for a little longer.
Simon raised some horribly accurate points about some of the bigger players currently massaging their egos in space. The likes of Musk and Bezos, all smiling and benevolent saviours of the US Space Programme endeavouring to ensure that the next spacecraft to leave the atmosphere once again flies the stars and stripes (and a few banner ads for various private companies) rather than the hammer and sickle, or perhaps the chinese / Israeli / Indian flag. Justina and Simon also mooted the possibilities of space being seen as our next place to scavenge as much mineral (and other) wealth as possible. Again some fantastic and valid points made about the 'big baddies' in some of our best-loved science fiction novels and films always being these faceless corporations who exploit space for material gain back on Earth (Weyland-Yutani, Tyrell Corporation, I'm a-lookin' at you!)
When it was the turn of the audience to participate (and again I'm a bit sad that the audience-driven part of the talk was so brief) there were obviously some very well informed folk sitting among us, who talked about how science and scientific discovery, curiosity and wonder should really be the drivers for our reach for the stars rather than how much moolah can be made.
I liked Gareth Powell's slightly bonkers (but probably horribly accurate) observation that porn drives most technological advances in polite society, propping up literature, cinema, television and eventually space exploration as many feverish folk anticipate spinning around the earth in orbit aboard floating space brothels (something that both Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein wrote about decades ago, just for ref).
I wondered though - what happened to our taste in science fiction and fantasy? I laughed when on a recent writing course someone told me that 'dystopia doesn't sell' when I look around at the current science fiction market and see it absolutely flooded with doom-laden stuff that speaks of a dark future that we're rapidly moving towards, rather than science being the saviour of planet earth as we realise our folly just in the nick of time.
Perhaps that's it. People no longer want the wool pulling over their eyes. Perhaps they just want to read about and accept one form of truth that feels more realistic than a future where we all have robot servants, flying cars and can eat a comfortable 1500 calorie meal in pill form.
Perhaps now, we're just too damned in love with the Blade Runner vision of 2019. One where the ruined planet is left crumbling, and we're urged to move out to the offworld colonies, breathing expensive air, living in domes on a dustbowl of a planet.
The stuff about Mars was good to hear too. It's not going to be impossible to undertake a suicide mission to the red planet for sure, but it's definitely not going to be a suitable second home by any stretch of the imagination.
Damned good stuff though, thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, and if you do have any recommendations for recently published utopia-driven sci fi, I'd love to hear about them. I'm getting a bit fed up with all the doomsaying, just sayin'
Friday, 22 May 2015
The irony of describing Science Fiction as "Childish" is not lost on us - A ReadItDaddy Editorial
Labels:
A ReadItDaddy Editorial,
Childish,
Science Fiction,
Simon Pegg
 |
| "Zita the Spacegirl" - Ben Hatke's fantastic sci fi romp is a rare bird indeed...! |
The whole of geekdom got all in a tizzy this week as one of its most beloved Geeks, Mr Simon Pegg, seemed to roundly stick the boot into the very genre that provides him with a comfortable living through various involvements with Star Trek and Beyond.
You can read his retraction (which had a whiff of "Oh DANG, I'm in danger of persecuting the very folk who provide me with that livelihood" here).
Warning, it's very sweary and not for the eyes of children. Read it like you're reading about a man backpedalling furiously to avoid falling into a deep crevasse.
As much as "The Peggster" has some valid points to make about huge corporations cashing in on our love of extending our childhoods well into adulthood (which isn't really a new thing, it just feels like it as geek culture wholeheartedly embraces "the pursuit of things" for people with disposable income and not much to spend it on other than the pursuit of things they perhaps couldn't afford as kids), he has made a slightly odd statement along the lines of science fiction being 'childish' that really didn't ring true.
If you discount Star Wars, Marvel, DC and Star Trek, kids are sold a pretty raw deal when it comes to science fiction. Proper science fiction that is, not action-led space operas that endlessly churn out the same trite storylines, space battles and good vs evil tropes.
Proper science fiction, in fact, that makes you want to get into science, to make real the things you've read about depicted as fantasy. Stories, in short, that inspire children to look to the future to see what they can do about it and how they can be a huge part of it.
We kicked off this article with a fantastic cover image from "Zita the Spacegirl" by Ben Hatke. Ben's fantastic action hero shows that you can write engaging, deep and brilliant science fiction for children (and hey, it's durned good stuff for adults too) - but why are books like Ben's not more commonplace for children? And why does it always seem that, until you hit the rich heady YA genre that is very sci-fi heavy, there's very little to pick and choose from when it comes to sci fi stories that don't arrive in comic or graphic novel form for the 3-8 year old age group.
Is it that science fiction has become synonymous with big branded franchise stories more or less taking over from clever and original stories and characters, as "The Peggster" describes? Now that would make a worthy rant!
Personally, being initiated into geekdom at a very early age by two sci-fi loving uncles who introduced me to Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars (all of which are still hugely popular with kids today) but who didn't stop there, letting me read the likes of Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Moorcock (probably wholly unsuitable reading for an 8 year old, to be fair), I quickly grew to realise that there was a lot more to science fiction than just making up stories about robots, spaceships and space damsels in distress.
Clarke's highly knowledgeable and 'technical' approach to Science Fiction was attractive for so many reasons. It all felt possible, believable. It all felt as if Clarke was writing about a future that was tomorrow rather than aeons from now. Other authors chose to enhance my appreciation of science fiction by describing the most alien and surreal future imaginable. In Asimov's case, his characters imbued the important lesson that even despite humankind's successes in harnessing the elements to make our lives easier, the same human frailties often led to our undoing (and ditto for Heinlein who had a knack of reflecting society and culture of today in stories about tomorrow).
From there, it was easy to start absorbing books written more for my age at the time by geniuses such as John Christopher, John Gordon and John Wyndham (must be something about the name "John" that instantly makes you an expert at writing tight and sometimes horrific sci fi dystopia stories that grip you from the front cover to the back) and of course discovering the scintillating future worlds in comics like 2000AD and Starlord (amongst many many others).
Kids are OK for science fiction comics, as we've already mentioned. We've shouted long and loud about the fantastic Phoenix Comic, which does not shy away from mature and gripping science fiction stories (Troy Trailblazer is just one example of a science fiction story that doesn't treat its intended audience like dumb actioneers, it deals with some pretty astonishingly mature concepts for a children's comic story - almost hard-fi for kids).
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that for younger children, science fiction is a relatively unexplored frontier. There are some books - but they're usually fairly low impact (though Jonny Duddle's sublime "King of Space" is a notable exception and the perfect example of a children's picture book with sci fi themes that works absolutely perfectly on a number of levels - we love it!) It would be fantastic to see less "Johnny and the Rocket to the moon" type stuff where the science fiction backdrop is incidental (and quite often interchangeable).
Simon Pegg's interview rant may have been taken the wrong way by a number of folk, and his retraction felt like it could've been a lot shorter (A simple sentence like "I made a huge generalisation, and I'm sorry, Science Fiction and Fantasy ROCK and SO WHAT if it keeps us thinking young!) but the sting for me was hearing science fiction described as childish when kids seem to get the raw end of the deal when it comes to stories from the future that aren't branded in some way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
