Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Upon the subject of Science FictionWriting Science Fiction
It’s no secret that writing SF is my favorite. I’ve done a bit of most everything -- even mystery – but SF is my greatest love. I blame it on Star Wars which I saw at age 6 and changed my life. I love watching and reading SF, too, not just writing it, and unlike reading erotic romance (which becomes too much like “work”) I always come away from viewing SF films or reading an SF novel or story with creative inspiration. I think it’s because there are just so many ways to play out the future.
Here are some of my rambling thoughts on the subject:
***Futuristic versus non-futuristic: it would seem obvious that futuristic takes place in the future. Is there SF that doesn’t? I guess there’s science fiction that’s contemporary: Chain Reaction (an awful movie with my second husband in it) comes to mind. Anything in which there is an element of SF that’s not “real” at the moment – technology used in ways different than we have now, maybe. Yet, that could be near future. So we have near future sf and far future sf. A great book, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, takes place both in “contemporary” times and the far future, but because the book came out in the late 1970’s, the contemporary time period has actually become the past. Yet in reading it, you don’t know this unless you read the copyright information, etc. because the issues she writes on have not changed. In Passion Model I write in far futuristic, yet I usually call it just SF.
***We have space SF and non-space SF. I like them both. I write them both. One of the things I found interesting about the tv series Firefly was that it put forth the notion that humans colonize the universe, and there is no other life form (though I’d imagine there’d be alien fauna and flora, just no…aliens?) Compare that with Star Trek and Star Wars, in which alien culture and life forms are a huge part of what makes up those worlds. Which do I prefer? I like them both. I don’t really believe we humans can possibly be the only dominant sentient being type things in the universe; but I do believe we’d colonize the hell out of it, if we could.
***Medieval or fantasy SF, sometimes called science-fantasy – which I think of as, like, science fiction but with magic. ;) Then again, advanced technology IS magic, isn’t it? I’m thinking of something like…Natalie Damschroder’s The Tree Keeper for an example. I’m trying to think of more…you know what I mean. Planet of the Apes might count, sorta…I really like science fantasy. A mixture of SF and fantasy, done well, can be immensely satisfying. I think this would work well in a post-apocalyptic setting, where technology has somehow cast society back into what we’d consider a historical type setting. The Dark Tower series. God, I love those books, until the part where they get ridiculous and self-serving. Which brings me to my next ramble…
***Post-apocalyptic science fiction. Hell’s biscuits, I love it. I love, love, LOVE it. I was told to my face by a pretty well-known agent that it doesn’t sell. Huh? Ooookay. So…where am I getting all the books and movies that feed my love for such a category? I cut my teeth on The Stand fuhgodsakes. Again, Planet of the Apes. The Handmaid’s Tale. Again, the Dark Tower series, which I adore. I wrote my own post-apocalyptic trilogy, starting with a book I call Seeking Eden, which I hope someday sees print, because it’s a damn good story. And so are the follow-ups to it. And there IS a market for this type of thing. I know it. I read it. I love it.
*** “Good” future vs “Bad” future. Here’s a real point of pondering for me, particularly after re-reading Woman on the Edge of Time. See, ya got your good future, where everything’s clean and bright and, dare I say it, shiny. Where there are no restricting gender roles, where there’s plenty, where the world is better than it is now. Then you have your bad future – like in Blade Runner a movie I have watched dozens of times and could watch a dozen more (the book’s good, too, as is most of Dick’s work.) Dirty, corrupt, the people are poor and cities overrun stuff – but look at the pretty lights! And the pretty costumes! J You have Star Trek, which is neither good nor bad, but rather more like an idealized version of what we might like our world to be now, with good and bad people in it. Great advances in science and technology but still war.
I think I contemplate this sort of thing most because…well..SF can be preachy. In WOTET (a great book, by the way) you have the “good” future in which everyone gets along, fasure, and lives off the land and nobody livebears children but each child has three “mothers” (who can be male, thus breaking down the traditional gender roles). There are problems there, too. They’re at war with what the reader only glimpses into – the “bad” future where the division between rich and poor means death to those born below the level where technology has raped the world. But see…the techno future is so much freaking fun! Piercy’s “good” future is great in a back-to-the-Earth, love-your-neighbor way. It’s a feel-good future, full of hope. But it’s a little preachy. In Passion Model, I write about a post-apocalyptic society in a domed city where sex is the most popular past time (well, I DO write erotic romance, after all.) I guess I write the “bad” future, more Blade Runner than WOTET. There are shortages, the government’s out of control and persecuting the mecho’s, those who through accident or choice have had their body’s systems and organs replaced more than 53%. Why does this appeal to me more than the happy happy joy joy soft focus future? I have no idea. Discuss.
That’s enough rambling for now. It’s incoherent, and I should probably shut up. I should probably form a theory, provide proof for or against it…I could write a nifty article in comparison and my thoughts on how SF portrays human nature blah-de-blah-de-blah. But nope, I’m blogging, spew of consciousness, sift through it and find a nugget for discussion, if you like or just ignore it. It’s all good.
This topic open for discussion – what do YOU like in your SF?
M
