Opinion piece here, and, before I dive into this week’s blog article topic, I want to say this article isn’t about bashing the creativity of others. Rather, I’m going to be writing about differentiation. I’ve read a ton of science fiction, owe a lot to doing so, and will continue to do so. One of the most important things for any artist is to understand the medium he or she works in, form a continuity of ideas and expressions, and then figure out a way to express their own ideas as part of that linear discussion. Part of that process includes omitting others’ works. That’s what this article is – and I reserve the right to change my opinions down the road. This blog is about my writing journey. I hope that connects for everyone.
Also, I’ve been staring at the tank in this week’s article image for probably two months. I first saw it on a retro scifi art page. I have it on both my phone and computer. I would invite you to go check out Les Edwards “Dread Hulk” on his artist page. I would also invite you to pick up The Tour of the Universe – the book it was originally commissioned for. I chose the painting for this article, because it’s a great visual example for 1980s science fiction art. Classic. I’ve been exploring brutalism architecture lately, and this tank really gives me a similar vibe. I feel a bit like the guy in the blue shirt with a camera in the painting.
Okay… moving on.
There’s a lot of science fiction out there and, when you read enough of it, you can start to break science fiction into eras or a taxonomy. It starts to take on a bit of a comic book context. Golden age, silver age, bronze age, the dark age, and the present.
I hope I got that right. I own a box of comic books, but there’s a real-life Jason Lee/Brody (Mallrats) expert out there that’s going to roll me.
If you want to see an actual breakdown of science fiction, here’s a Wikipedia page. I’m going to talk in looser terms.
Science fiction, what I would call my grandfathers’ science fiction, explored a lot of big idea “what if” questions. A great example would be The Time Machine or War of the Worlds (Wells). I love these stories, and I regularly bring up H.G. Wells’ writing in conversations and in this blog. These were formative stories for me – both as a reader and a creative. I hated reading and writing in grade school. I didn’t really get into either action until my early twenties, when I started to understand historical studies were more about ideas than names and dates.
Science fiction, what I would call my father’s science fiction, feels more like it’s about characters and stories. Sure, there are ideas floating around – those are fundamental to science fiction, but the Buck Rogers era has more of an Indian Jones vibe to it. I read a lot of stories about the wild adventures of some astronaut and the unwanted exploration of weird planets by stranded space travelers.
The science fiction that bridges my youth and my father’s later years is made up of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and books that still include vampires, the lasrifle, the tactical understanding of the distance between ships in a space fleet, spaceships with wings, and stories wrapped around the idea of teleportation and parallel universes. And while all of these pieces are fine in their own way and I’m sure there are stories that haven’t been fully explored, I’m left wondering… when do we get over the big ideas, the character adventure to the new planet, and the novelty of lasers going pewpew? When do characters live in the world of the future and treat everything as mundane? When do we return to Huckleberry Finn whitewashing the fence – but instead removing the oxidation with a rust-removal laser?
In short, I think we’re there. Need a big example? I think Star Wars: Andor started to push a door open. Kassian starts in a world that isn’t re-explained for the millionth time. And it felt good. It felt natural. It didn’t jar the Star Wars crowd in the same way no one needs to explain Photoshop in the marketing office anymore. The world is maturing and with it, whether conscious or subconscious, writers and their audiences no longer need the exposition of the new frontier Wells needed to establish to tell his stories. The world is engorged with science fiction. Break it apart into subgenres if you want, but that really only goes show what the audience can handle. I would argue that this is some of the appeal in the first Bladerunner, Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners, and even Gattica.
Don’t believe me? Look up “cyberphonk” and count the seconds it takes you to understand what it is. The association of ideas and fictional settings is a huge strength in the next generation of the science fiction community. That recognition is new. It’s an evolutionary development that started stories like Frankenstein and has gotten us to the manipulation of Blindsight and its going to keep evolving. It’s going to expand with AI as society is rewired, learning changes, and as the body of science fiction grows in volume and moves more and more into an expression of the average person’s journey, life, and setting. The big ideas will still be there. Themes aren’t going away. But, if the goal of art is to imitate life, science fiction needs to bring real-life back into the future. It’s the responsibility of the science fiction writer to connect those ideas in a way that engages the audience, if science fiction is to keep evolving in this direction.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Let’s discuss in the comments.
