Science fiction without the future

By Cory Doctorow at 12:45 pm Thursday, Feb 21

Science fiction author Judith Berman looks at a year's worth of issues of Asimov's and ponders the dearth of new, young sf readers. She raises the point that very few of the stories being published today are a celebration of the future (or indeed, the present), but rather they look backwards to the "Golden Age" of sf when writers were exuberant about tomorrow. She calls me on this -- rightly so -- for a couple of future-shocky stories I sold to Asimov's, and goes on critique the genre for being almost exclusively focused on its fear of the present and the future. Good, thought-provoking stuff!

With so many writers apparently uneasy about the state of the world, I would expect plenty of mordant commentary on our entanglement in the wheels of the runaway technological locomotive. But almost none of the stories in these 13 Asimov’s issues--not even those set in a "real future"--offer a genuine critique of technology, of its use by and its impact upon humanity. David Marusek’s biting "VTV," about new extremes of media manipulation, is a standout exception (3/00). Critique requires that its author gaze unflinchingly at present and future, ugly and perverse as those might appear. What we have instead here is a pervasive techno-anxiety that for the most part looks away from the source of its fears.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)