Why not a positive version of the future where hyperspace hackers hack the genome and turn us into reptiles that can survive the oncoming global warming holocaust, and have way more fun?
My sense, based on nothing but my gut, is that any capacity for "bright future" science fiction died or went into hibernation around the time of Watergate, postmodernism, and post-colonialism. Presenting a bright future for humankind seems in some way to be a sort of colonization of the future, and we have learned not to trust colonization - we can't trust the motivations, the assumptions, and we definitely can't trust the people who will be in charge to carry it out; they are some combination of corrupt, moronic, and amoral.
Just as we resist whitewashing the past, we now resist whitewashing the future. I'm not saying this is a good thing, it just is, or seems to be a part of our current culture. I don't know if I would have it in me, as a writer, to paint a happy future. Dystopia is in my DNA.
All that said, I seem to recall a popular "Mars Trilogy" documenting the terraforming of Mars. Never read it, but that comes to mind as a pretty big job...
@4 depends. As we've seen on recent Dr. Who spin of that, even that can be dystopian, as opposed to the series you mention.
I miss the days of Hard Science SF writers and their brave new (old) worlds.
We focus too much on the dark parts, and too little on froth and light. It even impacts our Fantasy series. Even remakes of old fantasy classics are darker than they used to be.
I applaud this project and heartily agree with everything Stephenson wrote...
but... loooordy can we at least start by envisioning a better web design for that site? First there is grey on grey text lus more grey and more grey and hey... grey (and smaller than 16px - tsk, tsk) and then there is just...well, zzzzzzzz.
If the point is inspiring people - and getting them to inspire others - about the future, then let's get a cutting edge designers and illustrators with better creative ability than snoozer 1999 web design. There are plenty unemployed designers that would volunteer.
Why is it that leading figures in the Sci-fi genre in general seem to have simply atrocious tastes when it comes to web presence? I know that's not true in other avenues of their creative life. But god. Is it true on the web.
4, while I in no way hold the same conclusions as you, I admire you for remaining true to your username. I would expect no less of Jude. I raise a pint in salute!
I'm sorry, but most science fiction between HG Welles and Phillip K Dick is a wasteland filled with page after page of exposition on how make-believe rockets work, and shallow Ward Clever cut-outs. And honestly, if you think cramming our heads with escapism until we can believe in the Jetsons again will solve collapsing global food stocks, you are a proponent of ignorance.
@9: yeah, fuck A.E. van Vogt and Andre Norton and Arther C. Clark and Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury and Poul Anderson and Frank Herbert and James Tiptree, Jr.! Fuck 'em all.
Like Jude Fawley said, aside from a few visionaries (Huxley, Clark) much of science fiction from the 30s to the 60s was about space as the New Frontier - a desire to escape to the colonial myth of the West. Heinlein was a pygmy fascist, and Bradbury managed to delude himself into thinking he had written Fahrenheit 451 about political correctness.
Let's just all get rich and do like George did with Game of Thrones, borrowing concepts from (at last count) five other SF and Fantasy writers I know of.
I'm trying to come up with a single Neal Stephenson title that doesn't feature some combination of hackers, hyperspace, and Holocaust as a major theme.
Why not a positive version of the future where hyperspace hackers hack the genome and turn us into reptiles that can survive the oncoming global warming holocaust, and have way more fun?
Just as we resist whitewashing the past, we now resist whitewashing the future. I'm not saying this is a good thing, it just is, or seems to be a part of our current culture. I don't know if I would have it in me, as a writer, to paint a happy future. Dystopia is in my DNA.
I miss the days of Hard Science SF writers and their brave new (old) worlds.
We focus too much on the dark parts, and too little on froth and light. It even impacts our Fantasy series. Even remakes of old fantasy classics are darker than they used to be.
but... loooordy can we at least start by envisioning a better web design for that site? First there is grey on grey text lus more grey and more grey and hey... grey (and smaller than 16px - tsk, tsk) and then there is just...well, zzzzzzzz.
If the point is inspiring people - and getting them to inspire others - about the future, then let's get a cutting edge designers and illustrators with better creative ability than snoozer 1999 web design. There are plenty unemployed designers that would volunteer.
Why is it that leading figures in the Sci-fi genre in general seem to have simply atrocious tastes when it comes to web presence? I know that's not true in other avenues of their creative life. But god. Is it true on the web.
There, is that utopian enough?