Re: Self-selected literati bull*** SF

Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> Blake Hyde wrote:
>
> > I don't agree with many of Ringo's opinions he's expressed in other
> > threads. I don't like Joyce, but I do like many other Literary Writers.
> > I took a degree in literature, after all. However, I think I understand
> > what he's trying to say: he doesn't like the pessimistic (I don't think
> > nihilistic was the right word to use, because there is very little SF
> > that I would consider truly 'nihilistic') branch of speculative fiction.
> > Like 1984. Like Brave New World. Like Fahrenheit 451, or Do Androids
> > Dream of Electric Sheep?, or any of the dozens of other pessimistic
> > "futurist" novels.
>
> The earth invaded by slug-ugly aliens who proceed to eat us is
> optimistic?

It is optimistic, in a nihilistic kind of way. Let's get all the
independent-minded librul city dwellers eaten by nasty critters, and
the Strong Salt of the Earth will rise to their Rightful Place. Any
librul city-dwellers who want to survive are condemned to underground
slave/welfare pits, with military service as the only escape. At the
same time, weird alien bankers with long noses and shark's teeth
manipulate the entire universe for their own nefarious ends.

But war porn can still make for good popcorn. (Bad for you, not
filling, but you keep going back for more.)

For the Connie Willis haters, I never thought of "Winnebagos" as
nihilistic. There's an unsubtle difference between nihilism and a
cautionary tale. And "Winnebagos" is one story in an extremely varied
mix of short stories. Very few stories in "Impossible Things" are as
pessimistic as Winnebagos. Most of the stories are optimistic, or
funny, or both.

For example: "Even the Queen" was written explicitly in response to
critical demands for "feminist writing". It is utterly hilarious. And
the story about survival of the fittest in the paleontology department
is an absolute classic.

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