Out of this World : UC San Diego boasts a number of award-winning science fiction and speculative fiction writers , including Hugo and Nebula award winners .
DAVID : Fiction writing is the last great form of magic . It ’ s the creation of an incantatory spell that causes changes in reality . I believe we ’ re alive today because of cinema science fiction . The number of nuclear war warning movies — Dr . Strangelove , Fail Safe , WarGames — each of them about potential failure modes has led to changes in procedures . All the virus movies that got more funding for anti-pandemic work . Speculative fiction is a self-preventing prophecy . Our civilization ’ s success depends at least as much on the mistakes we avoid as the successes we plan .
UC San Diego alumni are standouts in the realm of speculative fiction . But did you know what they studied at UC San Diego ?
David Brin , MS ’ 78 , PhD ’ 81 Applied Physics and Astrophysics
Aimee Bender ’ 91 Revelle College | Literature with a critical eye and see the past as being deeply interconnected to the future . My psychology professors showed me the landscape of the brain is a new frontier . That they , too , were still students of the human mind . To be told by leading scientists that science isn ’ t fixed , that it starts with curiosity , was mind-blowing and empowering . My professors from both disciplines taught me to think for myself .
AIMEE : It ’ s important to foster a kind of openness in the classroom [ Bender is a professor at USC ]. Of never feeling limited or restricted … of never turning away from genre if the genre is interesting and attentive to language . And never feeling like you have to write in a certain way to be considered literary . Any place that nurtures that openness is helpful to writers .
SARINA : Absolutely . What do you think is the purpose of speculative stories aside from entertaining readers ?
AIMEE : It ’ s a way to contend with and think about things that I know I can ’ t really think about another way . It ’ s a way to process the experiences that we ’ re all going through but we ’ re so close to it that we can ’ t except through art .
KIM : Art has to be a maximum of entertainment and education . I try to do both . Speculative fiction is a form of intellectual play . It ’ s the asking and answering of the question , “ What if ?” Near-future science fiction has turned into climate fiction because climate change is with us . Can ’ t escape it . If you ’ re going to write about our near future , you ’ re going to write about climate change because it ’ s the big story .
CATHERYNNE : I couldn ’ t agree more . I think that science fiction has actually been part of the vanguard of making people aware of climate change . By showing how bad things can get and , in some visceral way , convince people to care . It is about as effective as any multi-million-dollar marketing campaign , inasmuch as it can be . Telling stories about how we get out of a problem is a small part of how we do get out of it .
Gregory Benford , MS ’ 65 , PhD ’ 67 Physics
Sarina Dahlan ’ 98 Muir College Psychology and Visual Arts
Nancy Holder ’ 76 Muir College Communication
Kim Stanley Robinson ’ 74 , PhD ’ 82 Muir College English Literature
Luis Alberto Urrea ’ 77 Muir College | Special Project
Catherynne Valente ’ 02 Muir College Classical Studies
Vernor Vinge , MA ’ 68 , PhD ’ 71 Mathematics
Andy Weir , Former Student Revelle College Computer Science and Engineering
UC SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE 37