OPTIMISM AND SF... the CORE of SF, thank you. Even when we write serious dystopias, we write in the optimism that intelligent people will read the book and take what we have to say as a warning. Most of the time we write about tech thats going to change the way we do business with each other. SFs like a laboratory: its thought experiments let us test whether a new invention or process is going to produce a liveable world or a dystopia. Honestly, sometimes were not sure when we start writing what our answer will be, but damn, indeed by the time we finish the story, we should have an answer. Lady Or the Tiger endings are so done once and done well. We owe the reader an outcome, our best shot. We get to vault over modern crises we think are going to go away, and write about a world where racism has gone away or refurbished itself into another sort of xenophobia that people can read about and---yes, examine the validity of their own attitudes. We get to research actual science and understand actual physics. We try not to take magic happens here as part of our tool kit. We get to research actual history and see what actually MIGHT repeat itself. And why. As a body we remain optimists. Sometimes in the face of the Cold War and the tea party its gotten hard, but weve been optimists since Homer penned the Odyssey. We believe that technology is a bridge to a good future, and that its our advantage over the dinosaurs, who had no thumbs, and who were obliged to watch the oncoming meteor without being able to do a thing. If we can alter the climate, we can steer it. If we can blow up the earth, we can direct that energy. Seeing one future doesnt mean you have to go there: seeing multiple futures means youve got a choice. We never outnumber the defeatists...but thats ok. We never have. And theyve never actually done anything. The outright destroyers? Weve still got them outnumbered, and weve beaten some of the worst. We just need to keep on shining a flashlight into the dark---because there is a future we believe in. We believe our readers will discover and invent their way into a future part of which we imagined, and part of which will just amaze us.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:14:33 +0000
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