Mainstream Sci Fi Forgot Why the Future Was Interesting; Mumbai Singularity Remembers.
Time was, science fiction writers used to forecast the future by considering which aspects of daily life would be changed by new technologies, and how.
Robots, they told us, would replace all manual laborers. Computers would enable undreamed-of means of communication. And advances in genetic engineering might bring the advent of a whole new humanity.
Every new invention offered writers inspiration to imagine a radically different world.
Then the one change nobody saw coming happened: Technology started outpacing sciffy writers’ predictions of its effects.
Now everybody walks around with more processing power in their pockets than NASA used to guide the moon landing. Yet people remain obstinately human. Our lives still revolver around family religion, and nation.
And the old stories weather every technological upheaval. Because it turns out you can’t change human nature. So the questions those evergreen myths answer will never be obsolete.
That tension makes for some of the richest science fiction subject matter. Unfortunately, Late Modern sci fi tends to envision the future as Year Zero. As they see it, the advent of the Singularity will sweep away all that came before, obliging civilization to start over from a blank sheet of paper.
And somehow, what’s drawn on it every time is a worldwide Los Angeles with more neon and worse weather.
You call that what it is: A lazy waste of a respected genre’s potential.
Think about what does - and doesn’t - happen when new technologies cause widespread disruptions.
Read the full post on Substack.
My friend and fellow author Nym Coy has just launched a Kickstarter to bring her mythic cyberpunk thriller, Mumbai Singularity, to audio. She’s teaming up with award-winning narrator David Sweeney-Bear, and I think the result is well worth checking out.