I can just imagine the awkward situation of some of the last century’s science fiction writers who have started to die off at fairly advanced ages since the 1980′s, beginning with Robert Heinlein. They had made their livings decades ago by publishing stories premised on the idea that we live in a technologically successful manned “space age,” yet in the real world they lived long enough to see that the “space age” effectively ended in the early 1970′s. How does it feel to the still-living septuagenarian+ science fiction writers like, say, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven and Ben Bova, when they realize that they have outlived the basis of their careers by a couple of generations?
I don’t think accurate prediction is the basis of science fiction, though some effort at prediction is part of what drives the field.
I’ve been trying to figure out what the relationship is between prediction and science fiction. On one hand, I think it’s wrong to use accuracy of prediction as the primary way to judge the value of a piece of science fiction, though I still think it’s cool when a author gets something right.
On the other hand, it seems fundamentally wrong-headed to say that science fiction is only about the time in which it is written.
I can’t think of any other human enterprise which gets so much mileage out of trying to do something which is impossible to do at all well.
Younger people may have trouble appreciating this, but I can remember when years like 2001 seemed like way-off times in “the future.” I recently read The Puppet Masters, which Heinlein wrote about 1950. He set the story in that mysterious, far-future year 2007, where people use cell phones and display liberal sexual mores, so those aspects didn’t challenge my suspension of disbelief. He also seems to have anticipated the security paranoia of the last decade about terrorism. But he didn’t get much else right.
However, you have to hand it to the last century’s science fiction writers despite their bad calls. They often showed men, mostly, who got off their asses and did stuff in the real world, like building moon colonies, exploring exoplanets, fighting wars with alien races and such. For the most part they didn’t anticipate the lassitude and vulgar hedonism which characterizes American life in the real 21st Century.
I’ve started to wonder lately if science fiction’s fondness for neo-feudal social structures, noble houses, monarchies and the like postulated for future societies will seem prescient if it turns out that the democracy bubble has started to collapse in our lifetimes.
Yeah, I can remember when I had trouble believing I was living in the nineties—surely they were flimsy imaginary years, not years which could be part of the real world.
The Door into Summer is probably the best sf novel for predicting devices, and it’s got my favorite piece of general prediction. When the main character wakes up in the future, he doesn’t have any way to guess what many of the job descriptions refer to.
I don’t know what you mean by vulgar hedonism. To my mind, both the toys and the food have been improving, and I’m glad of it. Low end art is pretty awful, but the world may have always been like that. There’s still high end art being made, both popular and fringe. There’s more permission to portray sex and violence, but less permission to engage in casual bigotry. I’m not sure this is a change for the worse. (Strange but true: sf fans, at least seem most likely to skim sex scenes, action scenes, and description).
As for golden age sf which predicts society going downhill, I recommend PK Dick, and especially Kornbluth.
I do think things are going wrong, but I don’t think lassitude is a good explanation. Instead it’s energetic people who’ve found ways to skim value without doing anything useful.
On a bit more cheerful mode, I would point to Jules Verne, who wrote in 1865 about going to the Moon, and we did it a century later, using means significantly different from the one he envisioned. We can only hope the same will happen : the space age will come, just later than predicted and using different technologies (space elevator ? launch loop ? replicating nano-bots to produce the base first, and then sending people there ?).
I can just imagine the awkward situation of some of the last century’s science fiction writers who have started to die off at fairly advanced ages since the 1980′s, beginning with Robert Heinlein. They had made their livings decades ago by publishing stories premised on the idea that we live in a technologically successful manned “space age,” yet in the real world they lived long enough to see that the “space age” effectively ended in the early 1970′s. How does it feel to the still-living septuagenarian+ science fiction writers like, say, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven and Ben Bova, when they realize that they have outlived the basis of their careers by a couple of generations?
I don’t think accurate prediction is the basis of science fiction, though some effort at prediction is part of what drives the field.
I’ve been trying to figure out what the relationship is between prediction and science fiction. On one hand, I think it’s wrong to use accuracy of prediction as the primary way to judge the value of a piece of science fiction, though I still think it’s cool when a author gets something right.
On the other hand, it seems fundamentally wrong-headed to say that science fiction is only about the time in which it is written.
I can’t think of any other human enterprise which gets so much mileage out of trying to do something which is impossible to do at all well.
Younger people may have trouble appreciating this, but I can remember when years like 2001 seemed like way-off times in “the future.” I recently read The Puppet Masters, which Heinlein wrote about 1950. He set the story in that mysterious, far-future year 2007, where people use cell phones and display liberal sexual mores, so those aspects didn’t challenge my suspension of disbelief. He also seems to have anticipated the security paranoia of the last decade about terrorism. But he didn’t get much else right.
However, you have to hand it to the last century’s science fiction writers despite their bad calls. They often showed men, mostly, who got off their asses and did stuff in the real world, like building moon colonies, exploring exoplanets, fighting wars with alien races and such. For the most part they didn’t anticipate the lassitude and vulgar hedonism which characterizes American life in the real 21st Century.
I’ve started to wonder lately if science fiction’s fondness for neo-feudal social structures, noble houses, monarchies and the like postulated for future societies will seem prescient if it turns out that the democracy bubble has started to collapse in our lifetimes.
Yeah, I can remember when I had trouble believing I was living in the nineties—surely they were flimsy imaginary years, not years which could be part of the real world.
The Door into Summer is probably the best sf novel for predicting devices, and it’s got my favorite piece of general prediction. When the main character wakes up in the future, he doesn’t have any way to guess what many of the job descriptions refer to.
I don’t know what you mean by vulgar hedonism. To my mind, both the toys and the food have been improving, and I’m glad of it. Low end art is pretty awful, but the world may have always been like that. There’s still high end art being made, both popular and fringe. There’s more permission to portray sex and violence, but less permission to engage in casual bigotry. I’m not sure this is a change for the worse. (Strange but true: sf fans, at least seem most likely to skim sex scenes, action scenes, and description).
As for golden age sf which predicts society going downhill, I recommend PK Dick, and especially Kornbluth.
I do think things are going wrong, but I don’t think lassitude is a good explanation. Instead it’s energetic people who’ve found ways to skim value without doing anything useful.
On a bit more cheerful mode, I would point to Jules Verne, who wrote in 1865 about going to the Moon, and we did it a century later, using means significantly different from the one he envisioned. We can only hope the same will happen : the space age will come, just later than predicted and using different technologies (space elevator ? launch loop ? replicating nano-bots to produce the base first, and then sending people there ?).
I don’t know about Niven or Bova, but Pournelle writes/blogs prolifically online and answers emails, so one can just look: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/SPACECOVER.html
He seems pretty unhappy at the stagnation, and hopes the X Prizes may help.
Fred Pohl is still with us at over 90 years old. His blog is worth reading, and may touch on this from time to time.