I have discovered why I dislike straight fiction, “popular” fiction, why I so prefer science fiction and speculative fiction (which are not always one and the same.) It’s not that the “popular” fiction never has themes of science, or the future. Quite to the contrary, there have been some very futuristic straight fiction books.
No, my problem, my issue with the straight or, more properly, “popular” fiction is the aim, the goal, the tone, the tenor.
For, you see, while science fiction, like all good fiction, presents a problem, it also seeks ways to solve the problem. From my experience with straight fiction, the goal is largely not to solve the problem so much as survive the problem, or merely to chronicle the collateral damage from the problem. Science fiction has always been a genre about solving problems, not just for immediate use but for the future, for the long term.
So is this it? Is this the difference between Fandom and Mundania, between the Rainbows and Babylon? The search for, the willingness to find, solutions?
And is this what has happened to Fandom as we once knew it? To science fiction? In our flurry, fury to be Accepted, to be a part of Society, the Status Quo, have we given up on solutions, on solving the World’s Great Problems?
On Thinking?
I was always proud of my particular subgroups, subcultures—not in a big, glaring way, but in a quiet way, acknowledging the good—for seeking solutions rather than dwelling in, wallowing in, the problems of the world. Yes, those problems should be acknowledged, but they should be solved, not held as examples of…..of anything.
“But” you say, “you can hold it up as a bad example!” To which I reply, “That’s still an example, and the word ‘bad,’ or the implication of ‘bad,’ is easily ignored.”
We have plenty of bad examples in the world. Darth Vader. Darth Maul. Natural Born Killers. Storm Troopers. The One Ring. The Eye of Sauron. Mr. Smith. General Custer.
How many of these symbols of evil is either coveted or idolized? What does “bad example” mean to a generation who all seem to want to be over six feet tall and menacing, and dependent on a respirator?
What has happened to our Fandom?
Oh, I know, those Storm Troopers who come out in force—and yes, a lot of them have more impressive costumes than even Lucas did for Star Wars back in the 1970s—are not bad people; some of them even go out of their way to do good works. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter. That’s like saying, “Oh, those SS troopers weren't SO bad….that one group of them saved a kitten from a burning building,” or “Darth Vader spared his daughter, his son,” It’s a good deed in a morass of death and destruction. The evil they represent is still there, represented by these images. There is still an undercurrent, even if it's not on the surface.
I’m not an absolutist, a dualist. However, there is so much evil in the world, in the media, in literature and movies and television, and there is no balance for it. The News spouts evil; the television dramas spout evil, the straight/popular fiction novels spout evil, and none of those sources, not one of them, seeks to solve the problems presented.
Damn it all, we need solutions!
No, my problem, my issue with the straight or, more properly, “popular” fiction is the aim, the goal, the tone, the tenor.
For, you see, while science fiction, like all good fiction, presents a problem, it also seeks ways to solve the problem. From my experience with straight fiction, the goal is largely not to solve the problem so much as survive the problem, or merely to chronicle the collateral damage from the problem. Science fiction has always been a genre about solving problems, not just for immediate use but for the future, for the long term.
So is this it? Is this the difference between Fandom and Mundania, between the Rainbows and Babylon? The search for, the willingness to find, solutions?
And is this what has happened to Fandom as we once knew it? To science fiction? In our flurry, fury to be Accepted, to be a part of Society, the Status Quo, have we given up on solutions, on solving the World’s Great Problems?
On Thinking?
I was always proud of my particular subgroups, subcultures—not in a big, glaring way, but in a quiet way, acknowledging the good—for seeking solutions rather than dwelling in, wallowing in, the problems of the world. Yes, those problems should be acknowledged, but they should be solved, not held as examples of…..of anything.
“But” you say, “you can hold it up as a bad example!” To which I reply, “That’s still an example, and the word ‘bad,’ or the implication of ‘bad,’ is easily ignored.”
We have plenty of bad examples in the world. Darth Vader. Darth Maul. Natural Born Killers. Storm Troopers. The One Ring. The Eye of Sauron. Mr. Smith. General Custer.
How many of these symbols of evil is either coveted or idolized? What does “bad example” mean to a generation who all seem to want to be over six feet tall and menacing, and dependent on a respirator?
What has happened to our Fandom?
Oh, I know, those Storm Troopers who come out in force—and yes, a lot of them have more impressive costumes than even Lucas did for Star Wars back in the 1970s—are not bad people; some of them even go out of their way to do good works. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter. That’s like saying, “Oh, those SS troopers weren't SO bad….that one group of them saved a kitten from a burning building,” or “Darth Vader spared his daughter, his son,” It’s a good deed in a morass of death and destruction. The evil they represent is still there, represented by these images. There is still an undercurrent, even if it's not on the surface.
I’m not an absolutist, a dualist. However, there is so much evil in the world, in the media, in literature and movies and television, and there is no balance for it. The News spouts evil; the television dramas spout evil, the straight/popular fiction novels spout evil, and none of those sources, not one of them, seeks to solve the problems presented.
Damn it all, we need solutions!
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