Thursday, October 2, 2008

Science and Fiction: A Love Story.

As I write this, I stare with great longing at the blank page of my most recent attempt at writing science fiction. It is no small task to approach a subject so based in reality, with so many rules and processes to consider, and express the beauty and wonder that lies just below its surface.

I see many writers go out to the far reaches of speculation and write about where ever their mind takes them. This far future fiction is often grounded in the ideas of today, and then drawn out to some spectacular point. This type of fiction is often as close as people can get. If things go awry, then it just is written off or ignored. The other side of this is near future fiction, in which technology is just one step or jump ahead of us. I will not bother going into the problems that it faces, for Charles Stross has already elegantly discussed it here.

Others, as put by Issac Asimov, write science fantasy. To clarify, they write something as Tolkien's Middle Earth, but instead of orcs and wizards, we get aliens and laser guns.

The reason I bring it up is because of how I want so much to be in that first category. Especially in the way that Stross or Gibson weave words around the the technology of this age and the next in a seamless mesh of fact and fancy. As I rise to this challenge, I encourage other writers endeavoring to write sci-fi to reach for the same. Let us bring the literary value of science fiction back to the table and try and reclaim the timelessness these works exist in.

Well, I suppose I am done ranting and had better get back to work.

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