Is today's SF too pessimistic?

[cjr72]

An interesting article about Neal Stephenson's Hieroglyph project:

Stephenson launched the Hieroglyph project to rally writers to infuse science fiction with the kind of optimism that could inspire a new generation to, as he puts it, “get big stuff done.”

He got the idea at a futurist conference last year. After lamenting the slow pace of technological innovation, Stephenson was surprised when his audience leveled blame at sci-fi authors. “You’re the ones who have been slacking off,” said Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University and co-founder of the forward-looking think tank the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes.
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The Hieroglyph project’s first concrete achievement will be a sci-fi anthology from William Morrow in 2014, full of new stories about scientists tackling big projects, from building supertowers to colonizing the moon. “We have one rule: no hackers, no hyperspace and no holocaust,” Stephenson says.

[Pomtroll]

Interesting article. I do think much of today's SF is pessimistic. And I would like to read some innovative stories. However I don't think we can keep the negative completely out. Not when you are dealing with moral issues such as cited about I Robot.

I do wonder though if some of this innovative SF will have to come from the scientists themselves....That is if they can think outside the box. Many SF authors from the near past did have science backgrounds.

[MrsJoseph]

I love this article. It reminds me of a discussion we're having in one of my book-clubs. About realism and "gritty realism" (a la GRRM) and how it affects the reader. And if readers all really want so much of it. Cause everyone is doing it now.

[BeccaPrice]

I've pretty much stopped reading most SF (other than Lois Bujold) because it's all so dystopian.

[elemenoP]

This dovetails nicely with Neil Degrasse Tyson's ideas that funding Nasa is necessary for "dreaming" and technological advancement.

http://twentytwowords.com/2012/03/18...-defends-nasa/

eP

[Penforhire]

We're still mired in a period of political and social unrest, magnified by increasing global connectivity. Upbeat SF feels too pollyanna right now.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

We're still mired in a period of political and social unrest, magnified by increasing global connectivity. Upbeat SF feels too pollyanna right now.

Not to me. I appreciate it. I get enough doom and gloom on the news.

[Belfaborac]

I love dystopian fiction in most guises, so I've been having a field day lately. That being said, I think in general the pendulum has swung far enough and more my way and that more optimistic and upbeat Sci-Fi would be good. I don't think it has to feel too pollyanna at all (never heard that phrase before I think, but I'm assuming it means what it sounds like it means); that really depends on the skill and style of the author.

[whitearrow]

I would like to read more traditionally optimistic scifi, but the problem for me is that while I love science fiction, real science isn't my forte. Scifi writers often fail to do a good job defining what they're talking about in an understandable way. You have to describe the space elevator for me in a way that I can visualize it, not just say "space elevator" (or whatever) and expect me to get a picture in my head.

That said, I do enjoy the dystopian sci fi we've been seeing a lot of lately -- it's a natural for world-building and conflict.

[GeckoFriend]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Not to me. I appreciate it. I get enough doom and gloom on the news.

I totally agree with you.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

We're still mired in a period of political and social unrest, magnified by increasing global connectivity. Upbeat SF feels too pollyanna right now.

I think you could acknowledge these issues and still have 'upbeat' stories on how future technologies could address them, etc.

[fjtorres]

I'm thinking they're looking in the wrong direction: SF (as a minority genre) doesn't mold the mood of the times but rather reflects it.

These are in fact depressing times for technocrats so it should hardly surprise anybody when the fiction that comes out is built off the dominant tone of the era. (Anybody remember the "New Wave" doom-and-gloom stories of the late 50s/early 60's? Or the stampede to Fantasy in the mid 70's?)

SF futures are most often extrapolations of the present so when the present forecloses optimism most writers will find themselves groping for ways to "get there from here" and concluding that dystopia is more likely than utopia.

DeGrasse Tyson is correct that NASA *should* be working on Advanced Enginneering R&D programs that might lead to solutions to the problems of the day. But the NASA that today exists isn't the NASA that used to do that work. The current NASA is a politicized, paper-shuffling, leaderless bureaucracy hunkered down just trying to justify the existence of their in-house staff and facilities in the face of a leadership that wants it to be more like DOE; a funnel for grants and contracts to the politically connected (ala Solyndra).

All we need to know is that the luddite in chief bemoans NASA's inability to inspire (with real-world successes) the way 60's era Hollywood fantasies "inspired" with cheesy special effects; that sees the agency the same way as the old soviet leaders saw *their* space program, as an exercise in Public Relations and flag-waving; that cancelled a structured, logical, and achievable program to build the tools needed to go explore deep space because "we've been there, done that", in favor of cheap stunts like being "the first to visit an asteroid" using existing tech. (And is now discovering that the kerosene burners and tin cans the "new NASA" is building can't reach even NEO asteroids.)

With NASA out of the picture and everybody else still trying to repeat 40-year old NASA feats or stuck in low earth orbit, why should writers join the mass delusion that we're on a road to bright sunnny futures?

Heinlein once said there were really only 4 types of SF stories:
- If this goes on...
- What if...?
- If only...
- The little tailor.

The last is the realm of space opera, of larger than life figures engaged in larger than life adventures and has never been terribly popular among editors at the main publishing houses. And the other three all involve extrapolation from the present. (or from a point in the past, in the case of alternate histories.)

I would posit that the popularity of sparkly vamps, super-hero movies, alternate history and steampunk all reflect the dominant tone of the times; that world civilization is on the road to a dark age and that bright and sunny futures are becoming the realm of fantasy, not SF.

The choice in SF today is between sheer escapism or grim futures because the case for extrapolating positive futures is too flimsy to convince even the writers.

It's going to take a lot of change in the real world before the fiction can credibly change tone.

[JD Gumby]

He got the idea at a futurist conference last year. After lamenting the slow pace of technological innovation

Given that, technologically, we've advanced further in the last 150 years or so than humanity did in the previous eight to ten thousand years, I'd have to say Stephenson's a bit spoiled if he thinks technological innovation is slow.

[RainingLemur]

I'd prefer to see some "happier" SF stuff, sometimes. But, I can certainly understand why it's been a little less so.

[QuantumIguana]

I thought I was the only one who thought that dystopia was getting overdone. I remember an old science fiction story where a man travels to the future, and sees that the world of the future is a nightmare. He comes back and instead of telling people that the future is a nightmare, he tells that that it is a paradise. And the people then go out and build that paradise. I think there needs to be a balance. When things are in unrest, that is when we need something more optimistic, and when things are looking pretty good, that's when we need something that is more cautionary. That way, it keeps us from falling into the twin traps of complacency and despair. I have grown tired of the phrase "gritty realism", because it may be gritty, but it isn't very realistic. Most people's reality doesn't look anything like the so-called "gritty realism".