What I want, the SF version.

[mrissa]

For some years I have wanted more science fiction that's optimistic in tone without being utterly disconnected from the current situation. I would like more upbeat-cool futures we could get to from here. It's not that I don't like dystopias or grim futures, and it's not that I'll refuse to read them. It's that I don't find myself lacking in that area. Ditto the stories that are either far-future enough or alternate-timeline enough that there is a chasm between here and there that may or may not be unbridgeable but certainly doesn't look bridgeable soon: they can be great fun, they can be good stories, but I'm not lacking in them. The bridges that are difficult for me are the social ones, more than the technological ones -- I don't think Mundane SF is the solution to this problem in any generalized way, although probably some works of Mundane SF will fit the bill for me. What I mean here is, FTL all you want, but don't pretend that we have a working space program at the moment or, y'know, in my lifetime. Alternate social structures, absolutely; alternate social structures that we have painlessly established in twenty years, pull the other one.

I was finally able to put words on this desire when I rewatched Galaxy Quest for the umpteenth time in May: the Thermians have taken something ridiculous and in parts frankly stupid and made it into something beautiful and functional. That's our job here, people. A lot of what we have right now is ridiculous and in parts frankly stupid. We're trying to get from that to beautiful and functional. (And funny and kind, ideally, but I'm already asking a lot of this future thing.) I don't need these tales to be predictive. I don't need them to be purely extrapolative rather than speculative. What I mostly want is acknowledgment that, yes, ridiculous and in parts frankly stupid, and I want to see glimpses, little side notes out of the corner of one's eye while one reads a really good story, of how the heck it got from that to the nifty shiny fun future setting.

The thing is, as I said, I've wanted this for some years. But in the last few months, as I've been working on What We Did to Save the Kingdom*, some of the connected-but-clair** SF stuff has been starting to fall together. I can see how to do some of the short stories I've wanted to do. I can see not only what I want to read but how to write some of what I want to read in this area.

This is, I scarcely need say, kind of exciting. What We Did is what I consider high fantasy, by which I mean fantasy with a lot of politics and magic. I think other people mean other things by high fantasy. This is not a quest fantasy. It has no elves (not even under other names), nor dragons, nor wizards. It is mathy, and there are barricades in it. I am uncommonly fond of novels with barricades, the kind that come with peasant uprisings. The last book I wrote indulged my lifelong fondness for sea serpents; this one has barricades. I have a little knit sea serpent on my desk, but no one need feel obliged to knit me a barricade. Aaaaanyway. I can't tell why on earth working on this book should have this effect on SF stories of a type I've wanted to write. But at this point, I'll take it. Why not? Strange are the ways of writerbrain.

*I'm still pretty sure that the book is going to be called something other than What We Did to Save the Kingdom, but that's the necklace's title, and I don't have another title for it, so here we are.

**As opposed to noir, a distinction coined by truepenny or at least introduced to me by her.

Comments

[redbird]

Mathy and barricades?! I want.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll just have to keep writing it, then!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I happen to love the title What We Did to Save the Kingdom. (As far as I am concerned, the only thing you are permitted to replace it with is What We Did to Piss Off the Continent.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, okay.

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

I think that SF - mundane, high tech, whatever- is best as inspiration. Some may complain that Star Trek was nothing by Wagons West in the galaxy, but the fact remains that virtually every scientist this country has produced in the past 2 generations had watched Trek, and our lives would not be the same without it.

One series I enjoyed tremendously was the Firestar series by Michael Flynn for much the same reasons you said. It acknowledged the idiocy here and turned it into something bigger and greater. It felt like the hope we had in the '60s when we were shooting for the moon.

I hope the barricades are fun.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The barricades are great fun.

I liked the first part of Firestar, but I felt like the series sort of tapered off in goodness there. But yes, that's one of the reasons I really, really liked it when I started reading it.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Fantasy with barricades: do want. I was just wondering the other day why no one seems to have done the French Revolution with magic. Or the English Civil War, even.

Regarding shiny futures that we can get to, what do you think of the Ken MacLeod oeuvre? (I can make an argument that it is, and I can make an argument that it isn't.)

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy (2 of 3 are out) deals with a peasant uprising and the aftermath. It's good stuff.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ordered with a birthday gift certificate!

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of them, I think they're really stupendous.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like all of Ken MacLeod's stuff some of the time and some of it all the time, but it rarely hits quite what I mean here.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Revolutions: Try the third book in this trilogy: * Westmark
o 1 Westmark (1981) by Lloyd Alexander
o 2 The Kestrel (1982) by Lloyd Alexander
o 3 The Beggar Queen (1984) by Lloyd Alexander

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Egad! I can't believe I forgot that one!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I consider it likely there will be a working space program within your lifetime.

But it won't be American.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"In my lifetime" referred to the plot so far, not to come.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Yay Math! and his virginal footstool--oh wait, wrong Math. /sigh/ No Gwidion either I suppose.

I too enjoy barricades, or at least people taking a stand for what they believe in, putting their lives on the line in defiance of encroaching chaos and evil (or their government) -- that's some good pathos there woo-wee! Yeah, TP totally got me with Nightwatch

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Miners, not minors! Er, no. I mean: mathy, not Mathy!

Also 100% certified Gwydion-free.

I don't even have fake Welsh people in this book, much less fake legendary Welsh people.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I really love Kim Stanley Robinson. I'd recommend his recent climate change trilogy (titles have 40, 50, and 60 in them), and his "Antarctica".

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Really? Maybe I should give those a try. I wouldn't generally call KSR upbeat in tone, and I was sufficiently not-keen on Blue Mars, The Martians, and Years of Rice and Salt to not feel urgent about getting the climate change books.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I generally find KSR fairly upbeat- in that he seems convinced that ordinary people can have an impact into our societies. However, I'll grant that "Rice and Salt", as well as the last 2 of the Mars books, don't show that as well as some of his other stuff. (Although, in context, I found both "Blue Mars" and "The Martians" pretty positive.)

I do think, though, that "Antarctica" and the climate change trilogy are more explicitly optimistic- at least in potential. We CAN do things- although we may not choose to do so.

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

I'm almost 85% done with Rice and Salt, and am not certain I want to finish. This is usually a bad sign. I like the book in pieces, and I enjoy the conceit, but the whole is not hanging together for me.

I have not read the Climate Change Trilogy, but Patrick Nielsen Hayden recommended it last Convergence when I asked him where the optimistic SF was. I have the first book checked out from the library. Heh. Maybe I'll ditch "Rice and Salt" now and start that.

And yes, I normally love KSR. His Kathmandu stories are among my favorite short fiction ever.

Hmm

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I am not keen on "Rice and Salt". I think it's a fascinating concept, in all kinds of ways, and I admire it conceptually- but I don't love it. I had to plod through it (and wouldn't have bothered except that I generally like his stuff).

The climate change trilogy, though, was much more engaging- or so I thought.

And I totally ADORE his Kathmandu stories! They are just so brilliant and such fun!!!!

Anyway- yeah, I'd ditch "Rice and Salt" and start "40-whatever" (I am blanking on the name right now). I'll add that I would adore discussing the "distributed housing" concept in "50" with someone...

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

Okay, ditching "R&S." On to 40 Days of Rain!

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Addendum-

In general, I find KSR pretty humane, which I value a lot.

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

Mrissa, may I link to and cite this post on the TCSFWN message board? You have once again distilled something that I have been thinking about for a long time.

Optimistic SF that shows a future that is in sight of our time is what is profoundly lacking in current SF. Everything that I read in SF that is near-future is dystopic. Like you, I don't mind a little dystopia now and then. But a steady diet? Ugh.

Hmm

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course, feel free to link away!

I had a friend who commented -- I believe in a locked post -- that he had a hard time believing in optimistic futures. I said, yes, exactly; that's why we need them.

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

It is now linked. (http://scifiwriting.meetup.com/2/messages/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3363491)

Hmm

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nifty, thanks!