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DARKWOOD

 I really like this
 rhetorical dodge:      (from LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS)


    "Science Fiction" was
    the dark wood, a
    hideout for an outlaw
    band that remains
    nameless.

       Jesters taken refuge
       in a parade of clowns              One problem: The
                                          suggestion here is
                                          that there were the
But I fear that this is a rather          good guys, the heavy
florid way of admitting that I            thinkers; hiding out
don't know what I'm talking               amongst a bunch of
about.  I don't mean plain old            bozos, those damn
SF, I mean *something else*               light-weights hacking
which remains unnamed, hiding             out popular crap.
within the walls of SF.
                                             There may be some truth in
   What would that be?                       that model, but when you
                                             get down to specific cases
                                             you often find mixtures
Later I go on with                           that defeat generalization:
circumlocutions like                         heavy ideas mixed with
                                             romantic claptrap; escapist
  "the literature of change"                 hackwork that nevertheless
  "the fiction of possibilities"             hits a point that really
                                             resonates...
There's an intentional
ambiguity there: I                                HEINLEIN
might still be talking
about Science Fiction
in general there *or*
I might be speaking of
some subset of SF.



In context, maybe
it's clear I'm after a
sub-set. But what
sub-set?  That's the
real question, and
it's one I've been
dodging.

Answering it could be a problem
fully as tedious as arguing
about the definition of science
fiction itself...

But I've got a name
I'm kicking around:

  Deep SF

All it needs is a manifesto.
                                     IN_DEEP


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