Two notes about science fiction
May. 17th, 2006 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroy1) People who think that they're "redefining the genre" need to read more science fiction.
2) Science fiction is in a lot of ways a pessimist's genre. It's mostly a string of cautionary tales, extrapolating from current trends and technologies into something often very much darker. Perhaps that's why I like it so much.
Corollary to #2:
A few months (years?) ago, I had an idea for a science fiction world that I kind of dug. It was a cross between Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell with a few of my own flourishes thrown in (aliens, notably). But the thing never took off in my head; it was a curious intellectual exercise, but it never really felt like a story.
I get the strong suspicion that the element I was missing was terror.
2) Science fiction is in a lot of ways a pessimist's genre. It's mostly a string of cautionary tales, extrapolating from current trends and technologies into something often very much darker. Perhaps that's why I like it so much.
Corollary to #2:
A few months (years?) ago, I had an idea for a science fiction world that I kind of dug. It was a cross between Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell with a few of my own flourishes thrown in (aliens, notably). But the thing never took off in my head; it was a curious intellectual exercise, but it never really felt like a story.
I get the strong suspicion that the element I was missing was terror.