There's really three kinds of scifi that get published. There's Clarkes Law, which is so far future the technology may as well be magic. There's Discovery scifi, wherein the new technology is either good or bad according to the message of the story. And there's Near Future scifi, which is the kind I write. This has to take place between now and 40 years in the future, no more than that.
Clarke's Law scifi is usually human allegory because the technology can do anything needed for the story. Realism is unnecessary. All those Culture novels are Clarkes Law stories. The tech in them is largely irrelevant. Star Trek is also Clarkes Law scifi but they pretend that the tech matters despite half the time the answer is to "reconfigure the deflector array". I swear they should just have a button installed for that. Episodes would be shorter so they could have more commercials. That and stop issuing red shirts on away missions. That never ends well.
Discovery scifi is the origin of all those monster movies based on Frankenstein and Body Snatchers. Things man wasn't meant to know, or the opposite: science threatens to free us from tyranny and is suppressed. Depends on who is directing it at the time. We are still technically in the age of Enlightenment, and its the primary difference between The West and the Islamic states which are largely still under Feudal organization and suppression of discovery. Which is really ironic since in their early days, the Islamists were major scientific minds. Discovery scifi is what every monster movie is about. Some things man as not meant to know is a very common theme. Who turned over the rock? Others are the allegory for freedom wrapped in the shroud of paranoia. The person who changes the course of the world. That's your space opera. Star Wars is about secrets being told and freedom gained by overwhelming the tyranny that suppresses some scientific truth. In Star Wars, that truth is that the Empire was corrupt and would eventually destroy itself, and that its tool for destruction was itself corrupt, having a fatal explosive weakness that made for really flashy movies with high box office profits.
Near Future scifi is the important one, however. While the other two are about human allegories or frailties, Near Future does something genuinely important. Due to its specific realism through a full immersion in a believable future, it puts the reader/viewer into the state of mind that they themselves can live in this place, perhaps even WILL live in this place. It shows what is possible. It shows that our future is still a human place for human beings. Not robots without pockets (Star Trek), or constant warfare and evil magic (Star Wars) or giant monsters destroying cities (Godzilla). Near Future is about life for people. The truly well done stories are rare, however. The tendency to drift into paranoia because that sells books for the Space Opera fans tends to ruin a setting. Military and Spy fiction is often Near Future, but again, the paranoia of the main character's actions defining the future for the rest of humanity is jarring and unrealistic. Such events occur regularly, and every Rock Star CEO wants to be that guy, but most of those people are shown over time to be Sociopaths, probably acquired through too much unwarranted praise and degenerate lifestyles. I avoid those people. The world is much too big to require dealing with them.
Near Future scifi is also the most challenging to write. You have to write human stories with modest ambitions because real people have modest ambitions. Family drama, romance, some minor adventure, these are acceptable topics that your audience empathizes with because these things happen to them. These are shared experiences. Bond movies are fun to watch but I wouldn't want to live there. World is always about to be blown up every couple years, assassins everywhere, car chases with machine gun fire across miles of city and everything seems to be made of gasoline and explodes? I'll pass on that level of destruction, thank you. I would much rather write about a future I'd be comfortable and safe living in. That's what Near Future is supposed to be. It's going to have its drama, but far lesser scale. Natural disasters like Sandy are disaster enough.
My choice, years ago, was to write Near Future scifi. I chose that because its much harder to write. It's the least disparaging towards the reader. It demands the most attention to detail from the author. It requires a plausible Voice for the character as a normal person. I wanted a real challenge, and do something at least as well or even better than others had done before me. This is how you land writing awards and sell books, after all. Do something new and do it better.
Now, if I could just sit down and write...
No comments:
Post a Comment