Alien Earth, by Megan Lindholm° Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 1984, by George Orwell Hocus Pocus, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ° - Out of print, limited availability new, see secondhand booksellers Just a few visions of the future; did you ever notice that they tend to be grim? Sometimes it seems like a literary necessity; Neil Simon, in Broadway Bound points out the necessity of conflict in comedy. People tend to give more attention to conflict; while there is still a story without conflict, it gets boring real quick. Nonetheless, the most grim is Lindholm; it's post-apocalyptic, of a sort. Among her other titles is Wizard of the Pigeons, which, being out of print, seems to suffer the kind of inflated prices that really good stories tend to endure in limited print. Alien Earth is downright nightmarish, but in a compelling enough way to keep you reading despite the depression. I'm sure that Huxley and Orwell have plenty of followers, and can generate much discussion, so I'll skip on to Vonnegut long enough to comment that Hocus Pocus cannot be taken seriously, but it's a human vision only slightly less hellish than Breakfast of Champions. I mean, think about it. Most of the best paintings of Jesus involve the tale of his suffering. Grim, indeed. But as we now stand in a politically-charged time with authoritarian nightmares slouching toward reality, I have much cause to think these days on the grim visions of the future that have affected me deeply over time. Lay 'em out. I know the sci-fi market I don't spend nearly enough time with is rife with futuristic visions. Any good hopeful ones? :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I have for a long time nurtured the vision and hope that humans will evolve into a more intelligent and empathic being. The vision is starting to fade though, but sometimes somthing happens that triggers it again. Then we can always hope to die, that will surely be a blast.
I take your note that most future texts are grim. But it does seem that that is how the future is going. I was startled when I realised that the future Steven King described in a book of his he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman called Running Man. In that world, there's the rich, and there's the poor. The story is about a man who enters a reality TV show were his life is at steak. Now, I know that no such reality TV show exists, but the interesting thing is, the book was written well before we first saw survivor or big brother. And the distiction betweem rich and poor is becomming more and more evident. Sorry that this isn't a hopeful story, or is it? The ending is very good. A good read, if not a bit depressing. I just thought that it would be relevant to this thread.
I think the future is grim. The fact that humanity is a race says a lot. Only the strongest, fastest and 'best' will survive: something recognised by Charles Darwin nearly two centuries ago.* *And even before that: Gregor Mendel.
Jules Verne (French 19th century writer) wrote about the future in the past and (nearly) all he wrote really happened (submarines, getting to the moon etc.) I think that writers of this and last century somehow lost the optimisim (regarding the future developments) and most I know present the future as dangerous or robotic or not nice in other ways. But it did not come out (Orwell) so we should start to be more optimistic. (Future will simply be marverlous.) Clarke's Space Oddysey 2001 is an example of an optimistic vision.
Yes grim..... why though? why do we consistently have to be so negative about the future. Technically the future is positive. As now, as a society we think back "Gosh we were so naive n decades ago" ... we are climbing out of the dark ages slowly but surely. Things are better now than they ever have been. But no, thats not enough. We love doom and gloom, we lap it up. Maybe this would make a good start to a new thread.
Rough approximations I thought perhaps to revive this short-lived topic with an obvious observation. One of the tendencies of fiction writers is to occasionally get their morals in a bunch. It's a hard balance reflecting in the story what portions of reality the writer knows and extrapolating the vision to encompass the whole of the story. The result is that fiction writers often come across as haughty, moralistic, self-righteous, ad nauseam. But it strikes me that this also lends an explanation to grim visions of the future. What did your mother tell you? Don't make faces, or one day it'll stick like that and you'll be ugly forever .... Anyone? Anyone? More and more over the last generations in America people have asked children to look to the future, and much like American business in the computer age, children were asked to take that burden in addition to dealing with the present. Sure that's reality, but it's also an earlier assignation of certain senses of responsibility: the future. And what's the moral lesson on the future? If you (fill in the blank) you'll end up (fill in the blank). Don't get good grades you'll end up a bum. Talk back to your mother you'll end up in jail someday. And what of the grim visions of the future? Alien Earth: If you don't change your reckless ways, you will lose the Earth and have to fight to reclaim it from the damages of your own excesses. (Audience: "Humanity") Brave New World: If you do not change your addiction to the industrial glory, life will become so miserable as to be undesirable to your present condition. (Audience: "Society") 1984: If you do not change your dependency on fear, then fear will rule you. (Audience: "Society") Hocus Pocus: If you don't get a serious psychospiritual enema, life really will be this full of sh@t. (Audience: "Free Society") Obviously, those are very rough approximations. Mostly serviceable to establish a trend. I'm sure there are many that can state it better than I according to that model. And that would reinforce the point, to be sure. So it would be fair to close with a simple shrug, and a calm, "Er ... something like that."
Andre We might also ask your considerations, as well. But Das Kapital is an academic examination of economy; these are a more difficult considerations in the context of the topic as Marx tended toward prescribing a pseudo-utopia and reinforcing those prescriptions with his economic analyses. Moore's Utopia is exactly that: an examination of what he thinks Utopia would look like. Every once in a while, a writer has to broach that subject. It's limited, responsorial to issues facing the British crown and its subjects, and vaguely disagrees with itself at the end in order to not make any firm assertions. In fact, I'd be very interested to see your analysis on the differences in the literary regard for the future in the 16th century versus the 19th century versus the 20th century. Conditions for consideration are vastly different between the periods. For it is true that pseudo-visionary doomsaying has become its own genre of a sort; Brust's Cowboy Feng's Space Bar & Grille, a comedic pulp sci-fi adventure, depends on a nuclear holocaust to set its stage; Bradbury's Farenheit 451 depends on value judgments pertaining to individualism and knowledge, and the presumption of society's rejection as a symptom of continuation of contemporary (to the writing) trends. So that changes the 20th and 21st centuries' regard for the future. Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep presents a dismal, passionless future dependent on general human apathy contrasted against the individual who can't get the hang of not caring. So I admit that I've left the topic open to much consideration, but there is in fact a difference between a political/economic work like Das Kapital and the literary visions of fictions discussed. I won't limit this topic in that sense, but I'm curious if you have an opinion on the difference between the sales job being in selling the book itself (e.g. modern sci-fi novel) and pushing a political idea larger than the book (e.g. Karl Marx)? And, as I'm not fully up to speed on the sixteenth century, Andre, perhaps you could give us some critical insight as to whether Moore set the trend, defied the trend, or followed the trend (or otherwise) of 16th-century literary futurism. Heck, opening up to five centuries' consideration was more than I hoped for with this topic. Looking forward to your analysis ....
Sod Das Kapital, just read "news from nowhere" by William Morris. That about does the trick. THats a literary portrayal of a communist future. For a more anarchic look, albeit anarcho communism, try "the dispossessed" by Le Guin. The point about Dystopias being warnings about the future has been around for years. To some extent it is true I think, and they do help keep us on our guard a bit more, as well as provide suitable soundbites to help motivate people. I'm fairly certain that there wasnt a great cannon of futuristic writing in the 16th century. It more took off in the umm, I think the 17 or 18th. I cant remember exactly who and what, id have to go look it all up. Theres also more modern considerattions to do with Nanotech and hideous himan killing viruses, as well as nuclear war, but I havnt read many of them. Apparently Huxley didnt write Brave new world intending it as a warning dystopia, more as an actual potential outcome, given the interests in Eugenics and the effect of the mass over production prevalaent at that time. The way Huxley thought hten, brave new world might have been a reasonably desirable outcome.
Striclty speaking, the Celestine prophecy has nothing in it actually set in a future utopia/ dystopia situation.
But you gave the first one, which deals with the potential future evolution of society, not with the actual fully blown evolved society a decent length of time in the future.
The future will span out as the goverment see fit, can you even call mistakes mistakes when the government is involved, the future cannot be told unrandomly through visions.
My horizons are broadening like child-bearing hips .... So do the Hebrew Scriptures and their sequels. But I suppose Celestine Prophecy qualifies. I hadn't thought of it as literature in the context of speculative fiction, but it is by all means a creative work. Same with the Bible. But how dystopic is that? The end of the world before anyone gets to be truly happy? Ugh .... But I have to admit ... Das Kapital, The Celestine Prophecy ... I don't think it would have occurred to me to consider these books in a literary context related to speculation of the future had I not been reminded. That'll learn me Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I am not certain but I think that it was Andre Norton who referred to science fiction as "future possible" and Lucas' Yoda who claimed "future difficult always changing"
