On the sad state of science fiction:
Wherever they emerge, social-justice warriors claim to be champions of diversity. But they always reveal themselves to be relentlessly hostile to it: they applaud people of different genders, races, and cultures just so long as those people all think the same way. Theirs is a diversity of the trivial; a diversity of skin-deep, ephemeral affiliations.
This is one of the reasons I haven’t read as much as I did when I was younger. And sadly, the situation is similar on many college campuses.
Yes, SF is pathetic. About 15 years ago, Gardner Dozois begged SF fans to buy periodicals to keep the publishers alive. I bought a few periodicals at Barnes and Noble and gave up after two issues. The stories were bland. Well written, but as bland as oatmeal. The focus on characterization meant an abandoned vision.
Dozois is probably an ex hippie (he is certainly of the New Wave Era.) His past certainly colors his editorial decisions and it’s become cliched.
Only recently have I returned to reading SF. The newer stories do seem to be more PC and placing a higher percentage of women in roles you don’t typically see them in. The wool series is a good example…don’t get me wrong, I have met a few female mechanics but the percentage is quite low. I’m not saying they can’t do it but most women are not interested.
The same goes for various space marine stories. Are the authors juicing the number of females to not draw the ire of SFSJW’s?
Certainly putting women in roles traditionally for men is considered by the SF elite a revolutionary idea. Only it’s been done for so long that it is cliched and become another cult of social justice trope that keeps sales down.
Who needs science fiction? If you want fiction, turn on NBC news.
SF was relevant and interesting when technology was galloping forward from the 1920s to the 1960s. Now, not so much. The zeitgeist today is more influenced by changes in social programming than new technology and speculative fiction based on social change is exactly what the SJWs are moving present day “Science” fiction into – the same kind of SF that the Soviets used to write.
A particularly bizarre example is a very nasty troll that apparently has been exploiting this culture to attack a lot of people viciously and disrupt a lot of forums over more than a decade. For example:
Part of what made her so disruptive was that she had a following she could leverage to exhaust and deride targets further.
Incidentally, Alex Dally MacFarlane may be “Requires Hate” or at least shoulder some of the load, if it’s more than one person.
And finally, there’s the now obligatory trigger warning:
I’m a little hesitant to call this culture, “social justice warriors”, but it allows a number of vile things to thrive.
Funny, I just looked up this troll and found an article on her at dailydot.com. On the side margin was the link for this major story:
Sci-fi fans blast world’s biggest fantasy convention for lack of diversity
http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/world-fantasy-con-white-male-panels/
Lame.
Trying to wade through the social justice garbage to find good stuff is definitely a drag. There still is good stuff out there though. The Expanse has been great, and they’ve released a trailer for the up-coming series on SyFi.
Actually, “social justice warriors” is the perfect name for them.
Father Coughlin, of 1930s-era radio, had a magazine called “Social Justice.” Naive liberals commonly associate Coughlin with the right but he preached a lot of the same stuff as today’s leftists.
Science fiction isn’t going away any time soon. There’s still a fun future ahead.
I only buy what I choose. Let markets sort themselves out. Not all people are nuts, but many are and trying to reason with them is useless.
I stopped reading much SF when so much of it became ‘Look! Communism never worked in the real world, but it will work in the future! Honest!’ stories. Fortunately that’s no longer such a problem, now anyone can publish anything they want, and we don’t have to convince publishers to publish our stories.
That hasn’t stopped SJWs demanding that everyone must have female LBGT furries in their stories, though.
G’day,
I have been pretty easy with my SF reading since I got out of fandom over a decade ago. Most of the stuff I read I download to my Kindle and that includes lots of independent writers, not tied to a publisher. But really, who cares about SF these days? Answer not many. At least of the literary kind. Have a look at their convention numbers. The last Worldcon was in London which would have had many European attendees. that ad about 10,000 attend. The previous one held in Texas had about 6000.
The Santiago Comic con gets over 130,000 .
Ralph
All literary sf conventions are down, compared to media cons. My husband and I run a business selling books, t-shirts and collectibles at conventions. Literary sf conventions were originally our mainstay, but now the money’s in anime and comic cons. We still go to a few of the literary sf conventions, but only if they’ll at least break even. When an anime or comic con fails to make us money, it’s a sign there’s something seriously wrong with that con’s marketing strategy.