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Anyone who goes to the movies
TOPShelf
magazine
or reads any science fiction is
probably familiar with at least one
dark dystopian story. Whether or not
your selection includes The Hunger
Games, I Am Legend, or Wool is
besides the point. You've probably
been exposed to the genre, which
means you're at least partially familiar
with the state of modern sci-fi.
I say "modern" because the truth is
that science fiction hasn't always been
this depressing. Seventy years ago
you'd be hard pressed to find anything
as dark or engrossing as Ender's
Game, Dune, or Old Man's War. That's
not to say that those types of books
didn't exist, but they were extremely
rare. Many science
fiction stories chose to
focus on the science
rather than the fiction,
putting aside the
characterizations and
story elements in favor of
a single idea. War of the
Worlds (1989) focused
entirely on an invasion
from Mars, but it didn't
even bother to name its
characters, including its
narrator. We never know
anyone's backstory, who
they are, or anything truly significant about
them. If the Tom Cruise adaptation had
actually been faithful to the original book,
Cruise would've only appeared for a handful
of scenes. But that's how it was back then-science fiction was a different kind of beast.
In other words, the science and the idea
were the real characters, not Joe
Whatshisname, who was really only there to
give exposition like a walking wikipedia
article and press the imaginary buttons on
the big "what if" machine. Those aren't
necessarily bad things to do, but they don't
exactly make for accessible character
literature. The Time Machine was great, but
6
WHAT EVER HAPPENED
TO HAPPY SCI-FI?
by JN Chaney (www.JNChaney.com)
when your protagonist doesn't even have a
name, it can be a little difficult for modern
audiences to relate to him.
Science fiction has changed, but only
because it started trying to balance both the
characters and the "big idea". To understand
this change, you have to remember where
our society was and where it is today. Ever
since the bombs fell on Japan, most people
have come to appreciate the potential horrors
of technology. When scientific discovery can
lead to an entire metropolitan city getting
wiped off the face of the Earth in a single
heartbeat, suddenly everyone's optimism
goes down the drain. Don't even get me
started on the perpetual state of fear and
anxiety that arose because of the Cold War.
Throughout the last several decades, our
culture has become obsessed with the
apocalypse. Every other day there's some
religious figure telling us the end is near. Our
global media has allowed us to hear and
know about every little skirmish taking place
on the other side of the globe, in regions we
previously would never have heard about. We
look on with utter fascination, absorbing it
all. It's only natural for our culture's literature
to reflect this newfound obsession. We just
can't help ourselves.
This isn't exactly new. People have been
predicting the end of the world for thousands
of years. The difference is that now we
actually have a reason to talk about it,
because we have the means with which to
make it happen. Look at what famed dark
satirist and science fiction writer Kurt
Vonnegut said back in 1970:
"I thought scientists were going to find
out exactly how everything worked, and
then make it work better. I fully expected
that by the time I was twenty-one, some
scientist, maybe my brother, would have
taken a color photograph of God
Almighty — and sold it to Popular
Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth
was going to make us so happy and
comfortable. What actually happened
when I was twenty-one was that we
dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima."
Why is it like this? Why would we
rather hear about the world blowing
up than about a utopia where people
are so happy they piss glitter? It all boils
down to how we feel in the moment. Science
fiction is a reflection of today, not tomorrow.
It's about how our culture is right now and
how the person writing that story views it. If
the world looks like it sucks and everything's
gone to shit, you aren't going to see as many
happy stories of Captain Spaceheart
running through the cosmos saving space
princesses and battling space monkeys.
These people are writing stories about the
future, but that future is only an extension
of today, and if today isn't turning out so
well, then neither will tomorrow.
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