Charlie Stross bemoans “the crap new SF” and its recent overemphasis on alternate-history. By which he means that American SF post-9/11 is virtually a non-near-future zone – it’s mostly militaristic alternate Cold War outcomes and the US Marine Corps in the 37th century (Charlie notes the the British are still doing near-future, and argues that’s why there’s a reputed British New SF Wave). He attributes this to a loss of trademark American optimism, which he acknowledges is thus revealed as fragile, and is now hiding morosely under the bed.
Chad Orzel, over at Scienceblogs, offers a totally different hypothesis.
Chad takes the unusual set-up tack of trawling through you-Tube to gather an astonishing array of homemade video-clips to the Bonnie Tyler/Jim Steinman song Total Eclipse of the Heart (go to his post for the links if you must), and then, to quote Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, “Chad whirls around, ninja-like” to his point:
“Ultimately, this is the answer to Charlie Stross’s query about why nobody writes near-future SF any more: because this is what you have to compete with. Presented with revolutionary, world-spanning communications technology, and the ability to instantly retrieve information from an astonishing array of sources, and send it to any of a truly mind-boggling number of people, this is what we use it for.
Futurism never stood a chance.”
Chad’s not saying that You-Tube shows that we’re going to hell in a handbasket, he’s merely asking what past SF author ever predicted that this level of trivial entertainment was what we’d do with something as amazing as the Internet?
Perhaps this lack of foresight about the Internet goes back to that SF optimism noted by Stross: Golden Period authors always seemed to show a future society where culture-wide nobility of purpose had triumphed over bread and circuses. Only the spacefaring elite might partake of higher endeavours, the rest of their society were somehow seen to be only reluctantly making do with humdrum amusements while awaiting news of the great achievements the bestriding colossi were making on their nebulous behalf.
Perhaps in this they were, unrealising, relying on the old Grand Narrative of history (which has come up for discussion several times on this blog). This history was all about the great doings of great men, various celebrated writings about those great doings, and very little about the day to day lives of wider populations. The Grand Narrative tends to a view of the hoi polloi as largely amorphous and passive, awaiting grand events to give their lives meaning, largely because their voices have not survived to come down to us today.
Yet despite the celebrated high level of discourse in surviving correspondence from the glory days of Rome and Greece, let’s not forget that what has survived was the polished prose of politically ambitious men who, like Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest, consequently meant their diaries/letters for publication so that their elite peers might be duly entertained by their brilliance, and the masses marvelling.
The general level of correspondence through most of history would have been much more pedestrian, despite the cost of paper, and hence less likely to be treasured and kept, let alone published for a wider audience. Indeed, the cost of paper in the ancient world encouraged recycling of paper as much as possible (ink was bleached and paper reused), and thus only the most vivid and important communications were kept to be reread and eventually compiled by historians.
Today’s historians, in the move away from the Grand Narrative, realise that the masses have usually been less deeply interested in great men and great events than in court gossip, athletic contests and local scandals on a day-to-day basis, and thus it still is. We are all capable of being deeply engaged in certain events widely considered important, but for most of us only some of those events are truly exciting. Not everyone is enthralled by every space launch or medical advance or new philosophical paradigm, however great groups of us are deeply involved fans of various forms of entertainment (TV, music, sports etc) and have slabs of minutiae regarding these interests at our fingertips.
The internet, despite its original high intent as an academic/professional/military communications network (a purpose it still serves admirably well) has also allowed all of us to regurgitate our passionately accrued mental detritus onto variously grouped message-boards, newsgroups, websites and blogs instead of having to keep it squashed down inside for fear of glazed eyes at parties. Hooray: at least if someone reaches our corner of the Interweb they’re probably interested already in at least some of what we’ve got to say! No glazed eyes anymore, at least not where we can see them.
All those amateur video-clips at You-Tube present thousands of friends and families who have not had to suffer through their loved ones’ weird hobby, and thousands of people online who love that sort of stuff who’ve really, really enjoyed watching it. Sometimes it’s more than just a bit of fun, as when a spoof video filmed by Royal Dragoons proved so popular that people downloading it briefly crashed the MoD servers in the UK, yet even the MoD was pleased with the morale boosting that the vid displayed.
The SF authors of the past might well have been surprised by the essential triviality of the way most of us use this amazing worldwide communication system we enjoy, but should they have been?
The Internet has allowed people that, pre-Web, went through life feeling they were so weird that nobody else shared their interest, to feel confident that actually, there are lots and lots of people in the world who do share it and can be chatted to nearly anytime. Being able to reach out and enjoy an affinity with another human, even one on the other side of the world that you will never meet, is priceless. It’s not surprising that a lot of people keep that interaction very lighthearted and superficial: who wants to risk alienating these people who find your obscure hobbies interesting by getting too serious about something where their opinions may differ from yours?
Then we have the stoushers: the flamers and cultural warriors. There is obviously a different sort of affirmation in holding out provocative opinions and defending them which many find enjoyable, as well as some genuine desire to act as an agent for change, as has been shown possible by various advocacy groups such as the netroots campaigns making progress in the USA.
I’ve now run out of discursive puff (and I haven’t even got around to pr0n), so over to you in comments.
Did you catch Jaron Lanier talking about this stuff on the philosophers zone last month? I also wrote a post on the marketplace of ideas online.
I tend to agree with you.
It’s not surprising that a lot of people keep that interaction very lighthearted and superficial: who wants to risk alienating these people who find your obscure hobbies interesting by getting too serious about something where their opinions may differ from yours?
But, also, the freedom to get serious is there too and that’s another beauty of interaction online. The evolution of all this technology is an amazing thing and I think it’s facilitating our own evolution in ways that we can’t even see yet. Great post.
Most folks are inclined to be timewasters and scalliwags.
“Utopian” SF imagines a world where those entertaining tendencies have been bred-out/educated-out/beaten-out of the denizens of Utopia.
This is the literature of control-freakery. Writers of this dross denigrate or deny the human capacity for subversion of authority.
In fact, the most potent technological advances have multiplied opportunities for timewasting and scalliwaggery.
Viva Cyberspace!
That’s a good readin’ post, tigtog. Got me thinking over my breakfast rum ‘n’ coke ‘n’ weetbix, that popular history and historical fiction has been another victim of our times.
Where would a Baronness Orczy or a Georgette Heyer ply her clever and fun trade in today’s current publishing market? Presumably they’d all be directing History Channel documentaries on how successful the Second World War was fought or how fun the Normandy landings were, keeping carefully away from such clusterfucks as the fall of Singapore, Churchill’s Norway experiment, Dunkirk, or Bataan.
Huh. I suppose that’s caused by an overreliance on Grand Narrative, though, rather than its much-exaggerated demise.
Put down the Grand Narrative, I say, and pass the Grand Marnier. It’s nearly eleven o’clock.
I’ve got to agree with Charlie Stross regarding the current status of horror especially vampire fiction. Funny thing was I had just started working on a post complaining about the treatment of the poor vampire in fiction these days.
I will put forth the idea that the ugly, protracted death of American near-future SF began more than a year before Sept. 11, 2001, when Caleb Carr published Killing Time serially in Time magazine. Our dear Caleb should stick to near past and protoforensics, because Killing Time was composed exclusively of ass.
However, I have hope for the future, because I am just embarking on what is sure to be a correspondence for the ages with my 10-year-old nephew. Clearly it’s time for me to write my near-future scifi novel.
It’s very early days Mark…baby steps…I remember when the US right-wing ran the blogosphere…hell! I remember when there was no Google and we used to live in a lake!
Sheesh…what rat years are to dog years. 2000 seems so far ago.
Every second that passes some more miles of fibre-optic and wifi coverage spill outward, onward and upward blanketing the globe. I think its a ‘ scale free’ thang and the beauty part is that it’s DARPA originated. The capitalists sell us the rope we now use to hang them with.
One quibble with one comment. I would not lump the Norway heavy water plant strike as a clusterfuck. Even the sinking of a passenger ferry with loss of innocent life was justified as legit collateral damage in order to stop Hitler getting the chance to make a bomb. This is also one of the extremely rare examples of the UK secret service Mi6 actually pulling off a class operation.
I can’t think of any other…unless you count the taking of credit for signals and cryptanalysis. One of the best books I’ve ever read in any catergory is by Leo Marks about ww2. It’s called ‘ Between silk and cyanide’.
Now I’m out of puff’n'stuff. Pass the cabernet.
Mark hasn’t commented on this thread, dear professor.
How was the cabernet?
My cabernet was superb. Too dark to see through and just a very little bit tangy, with hints of liquid petroleum gas, or was that the bus I drank it on?
Only one way to find out: exhaustive testing of both wine and exhaust.
DD: I had chardonnay pinot gris tonight, with san choy bao. Yum.
To go back to your earlier comment, I think the historical romance sector is still fairly strong, actually. Anglospheric history has been well mined, so we see more Egyptian, Roman and Viking history to satisfy the romantic yearnings. Fewer heaving bosoms and more eyeliner, clinging linens and occasional furry romps – what’s not to like?
Shaun, I believe these days if a vampire can’t tapdance ironically he’s fucked.
Matilda, you make me glad I have never heard of Caleb Carr before. It sounds like he needs a good dose of two parts scalliwaggery to one part philosophising.
One reason why I liked F Paul Wilson’s Midnight Mass tigtog. Not ironic, tap dancing, angst ridden vampires in this book. Just a whole bunch of mean, bloodsucking, totally evil vampires.
I’m reading through The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. A lovely written take on the Dracula legend so far (but I am only halfway through and in the midst of some all too convenient chance meetings serving as a plot device).
Everyone:
I used to like science-fiction UNTIL that awful day when Hollywood got its claws into Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, tore the guts out of it, then turned its carcase into a cowboys-n-injuns-with-rayguns for nong-nongs with less than 6 neurons between each ear.
Thank goodness for that excellent documentary, Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
[Anyone who says it isn't a documentary hasn't been watching what's been coming out of the White House or Canberra lately].
I lament the terrible decline of the other, non-optimistic genre of science-fiction: the apocalypse story. Our current-day terrors are fairly scary, but when you compare bin Laden’s bizarre cave-rants with the pants-filling frighteningness of U2 flights over Cuba, ballistic missile submarines and MIRVs, how can the poor little rich boy ever hope to compete?
What recent equivalents are there for On The Beach, Day of the Triffids, Red Alert/Dr. Strangelove, The Day After, Mad Max, and so on? Why does Hollywood have to reach back to HG Wells to get a decent end-of-the-world plot? (Deep Impact doesn’t count, and nor does The Day After Tomorrow. Shockers, both of them). Why did Independence Day have to end with the aliens getting beaten?
Don’t give me Terminator, by the way. Number 2 was the best action movie ever made, but it’s an apocalypse-averted story, not the opposite. In this age of terror I think we need a bit less optimism and some actual, genuine, horrifying narratives.
…
The exception to my theory (breaking the Three Paragraph Rule): Zombie movies. May their tribe increase, with lots of shuffling and biting and groaning.
Shuffling zombies yes but not the fast running ones. Never liked that ‘update.’
I wonder if zombies singin Is this the way to Amarillo? would be as amusing as the Royal Dragoons?
That vid’s given me an intermittent earworm for the past two weeks, but at least when I start hearing it it brings a smile to my face.
The upside down faces with chin-eyes version of Total Eclipse is I think my favorite.
Bob Carr and Geoffrey Blainey are weighing in on the history wars again.
Liam:
I think you’ve actually hit the nail right on the head. There does seem to be Apocalypse Avoidance in recent English-language writing and films/dvds that have passed my way.