[PREV - RANDOM_ENCOUNTER] [TOP]
MUNDANE_MORNING
January 3, 2011
The Mundane SF Manifesto is
manifestly depressing. The bad manifesto for
better SF is an odd genre...
Yes, much "Science Fiction" barely RAYMONDS_FOLLY
deserves to be regarded as anything
but Fantasy: it's dependent on cliches
that are complete nonsense:
faster-than-light travel, telepathy...
These premises are so ubiquitous
the average SF reader has the
vague impression there's
something reasonable about them. At the very least,
this should shoot
The standard SF Consensus Future(s) down the pretentions
are *based* on notions like this, and of the SF fan about
this is indeed an indictment of SF. their inherent
superiority to the
mere "mundanes".
But this manifesto, at least in it's
original form was full of remarkably
stupid gaffs, perhaps the worst of
which is the title.
Interstellar travel
You can avoid nonsense is entirely possible
without being condemned without FTL.
to the "mundane".
The ideas should be
The funniest gaff: familiar by now:
the insistance that
quantum uncertainty Multi-generation space ships;
has no macroscopically Suspended animation;
observable effects. Time-dilation;
(They live in an Radical life-extension.
alternate universe
without solid state LOOSE_FEATHERS
electronics).
The computers these
guys use are just
magic boxes to http://whensquirrelsattack.wordpress.com/2007/08/11/why-people-hate-the-proponents-of-the-mundane-sci-fi-bowel-movement/
them, but we're
supposed to accept "why people hate the proponents of
them as authorities the mundane sci fi bowel movement"
on the range of August 11, 2007:
reasonable
possibilities.... "... they’re really a bunch of
self-righteous condescending arrogant
little pricks who are more than happy
to ignore history and scientific
facts when it suits them."
If SF is supposed to be challenging,
If SF is supposed to make people
think seriously about the future,
to make them confront the inherent
strangeness of the universe, than
breaking away from the SF space opera
Consensus Future is a necessity. This is not how one
should go about
But the Mundane SF manifesto does manifesting...
*such* a bad job of making this point,
it seems actively counterproductive. HARD_AS_STEEL
Of course, I
don't do much
Probably the most interesting thing better:
about the Mundane SF Manifesto--
which is not to endorse the point-- IN_DEEP
is (quoting the wikipedia version,
because the original has vaporized):
"That unfounded speculation about
interstellar travel can lead to an
illusion of a universe abundant This is a kind of
with worlds as hospitable to life reasoning that's
as this Earth." common in more
serious circles than
The suggestion that fiction about space this: thou shalt not
travel is immoral, because it can give speak of how we
you the impression that the earth is might cope with
disposable. global warming,
because it might
encourage people to
ignore prevention.
Rudy Rucker's defense of SF
"it's like surrealism" is
similarly depressing... (and
it sums up the problems with
a lot of Rucker's work).
I haven't read all that much
Charles Stross, I get the
feeling that he's another
(Nov 14, 2017)
case like Neal Stephenson...
They're bright guys who know Actually, this is unfair
some things, but they're too to Stross. He writes
jokey for my tastes, like that only sometimes.
But maybe they both do a good
job of sugarcoating the fire
for people who can't take it How many metaphors
straight. can *you* mix in
just one sentence?
--------
[NEXT - OTAKU_BASE]