May 9 2011: What I'm actually doing is taking current history and technology and then plotting a new future from there. Since I'm a guy :) I started with current history of advanced high speed flight and space flight and then evolved new technology from there, and around that I'm constucting an alternative political future. As with all scifi I'm building my view of a very different future, hopefully showing that there are different options.
There is one big theme in just about all scifi though, once man leaves the boundaries of earth, we are much more likely to leave behind the prejudices introduced by the borders of earth, BUT unfortunately that does not necessarily mean that we won't create new prejudices based on the boundaries introduced by space.
May 8 2011: As someone who personally writes science fiction, and a father of a fourteen year old daughter, I see a much brighter future for the written word than some of your other commentators, and I see that future in my own daughter. Up to about the ago of twelve she only dabled very ligthly in reading, mainly going for the visual comic style materials and a lot of movies and TV, but in the last two years, her appetite for reading has exploded, probably also in line with an evolving intellect at that age. Now I agree that the printed book might be becoming a thing of the past, but the true advent of electronic reading has led to a new boom in reading, with just about every electronic device being able to be converted to a book reader, and as a teenager she has adopted this technology wholeheartedly.
From my own perspective as a writer of science fiction, the medium allows me to take the current environment that we live in, and from that postulate to a future that is completely different from that which we are plodding along in now. I can take the technology that is being developed right now, and dream about how that can be used to better the future for all of us.
And finally, going back to my teenager, she is now entering that part of her school career where literature is being presented to them that tries to embed the wrongs of current society in them, but even in her mind at the age of 14, it is clear that the wrongs are being held up to them, BUT no alternative is presented, whereas novels like "Enders Game" and other similar stories provide alternative and better futures or plans of how the wrongs of today can be addressed.
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A reply on Conversation: Reading science fiction for a more critical view of our society?
There is one big theme in just about all scifi though, once man leaves the boundaries of earth, we are much more likely to leave behind the prejudices introduced by the borders of earth, BUT unfortunately that does not necessarily mean that we won't create new prejudices based on the boundaries introduced by space.
A comment on Conversation: Reading science fiction for a more critical view of our society?
From my own perspective as a writer of science fiction, the medium allows me to take the current environment that we live in, and from that postulate to a future that is completely different from that which we are plodding along in now. I can take the technology that is being developed right now, and dream about how that can be used to better the future for all of us.
And finally, going back to my teenager, she is now entering that part of her school career where literature is being presented to them that tries to embed the wrongs of current society in them, but even in her mind at the age of 14, it is clear that the wrongs are being held up to them, BUT no alternative is presented, whereas novels like "Enders Game" and other similar stories provide alternative and better futures or plans of how the wrongs of today can be addressed.
Well, that's my two cents worth