DROWNING IN SCIENCE FICTION

“I yam what I yam” (Popeye – which really makes one wonder about certain Bible passages) an SF geek, have been and always will be.? So, while I agree that waterboarding is certainly torture, drowning in science fiction is anything but…

Except of course when your day also has to have book marketing, household chores and remembering to pick the wife up from work crammed into it.? (MUST. REMEMBER. TO. PICK. UP. WIFE. ON. TIME.)

Several interesting things on the blogosphere are contributing to the torrent:? DamienGWalter pointed me to a recent episode of Sofanauts that discusses, amongst other things, Mr. SF Bigot Himself – Orson Scott Card.? The host – Tony Smith, along with guests Jeremy Tolbert, Paul Raven Graham and Amy H. Sturgess discuss Ender’s Game and whether the guests have allowed Card’s virulent homophobia to interfere with their reading of him:? Two-to-one they do.? Amy pays due credence to the ‘Ender’s Game is a great introductory novel’ ploy and discussion then turns to “military sf” and creates a (SHAMEFUL) direct line from Starship Troopers, through The Forever War to Ender’s Game.

I would like to take a moment out to remind everyone that A: one of the leading editors of the era in which that book was published stated that OSC’s submissions to his magazine were (loosely paraphrasing) “utter shit and completely devoid of talent” and that at least once (quickly shouted down) another writer and editor of some note made the case that OSC had not even written the book himself, as evidenced by his complete lack of knowledge of its contents during a discussion of it.

I’d also like to say that the statement “everyone is entitled to their own opinion” (especially when it comes to vile, disgusting, unfettered, baseless bigotry) always makes me say “yes, but we don’t have to listen to it”.

Which is my point.? Two-thirds of the Sofanauts get it:? if the author is going to use his (questionably obtained) fame as a bully pulpit for his non-fiction, it is fair play to take it out on his fiction.? I for one would vehemently protest the use of E.G. as an “introductory” science fiction text, because I wouldn’t want anyone to have the mistaken belief that approval and recommendation of that book translates into approval of everything OSC.

And I think that OSC ought to be uninvited from any SF event he’s scheduled for – and any author that submits anything to his small press ought to be ashamed to take dollars or promotion from it.? We’ve got tolerance in fandom, true, but we don’t have to take that kind of crap;? if you’re going to wave your privates around in public, no one should be surprised if others take a swipe.

Now I take issue with Damien.? I think.? He seems to be approving of the “mundane SF movement” in this piece in the Guardian.

I’ll just say this:? the commentor who stated that the reason we live in the world we do today is because of science fiction, not science, got it right.? We need MORE writers ignoring what the theories say and doing more imagineering if the next generation is going to have signs and wonders to strive for.? If we embrace this turning inwards – that’s what the future will look like.? Mundane.

This is not substituting “mythology” for realism (the mundane contention is that certain things are NEVER going to happen, like FTL, and therefore these are dried out myths that SF must abandon in order to move forward), it is engaging in the hopefulness and creativity that IS science fiction’s stock in trade.

That statement makes it obvious that they forgot that when those concepts were first imagined – THERE WAS NO WAY POSSIBLE THEY WERE EVER GOING TO HAPPEN.? But some folks – like the ones who created the genre you’re pissing on now – didn’t pay any attention to that.? And it got us at least as far as the Moon.

I suppose if you want to favor certain theories over others and restrict yourself to the less glamorous, less adventurous ones you can do so – but I won’t be reading any of your stuff.

Gotta go PICK. UP. WIFE.? So I’ll leave you with this closing thought:

Suppose the singularity arrives in the form of some advanced, non-human intelligence – fully capable of ignoring us – or deleting us from the scene.? Now suppose this intelligence is INSANE.? And it commits suicide.? No more singularity in our future then, is there?