Comment by noufalibrahim
9 days ago
I remember an article, I think by Neal Stephenson, that described the change in the attitude of SF over the years. Things like 20000 leagues under the sea, off on a comet etc. were optimistic, adventurous and generally upbeat. Even the Asimov books were more about world building than doomsaying. There's quite a bit of dystopian pessimistic stuff that's in the market now and perhaps it's just because it's what sells or maybe there's a deeper underlying reason. In any case, the shift was something he talked about in the article/talk.
I remember reading round the world in 80 days when I was a kid and while it's not really "science fiction" in the 90s, the overall premise really triggered my imagination. Can't really say that for many of the more doom and gloom type stories that I read later in my adult life. I liked the freshness of Black Mirror when it first came out (pre Netflix) but then it dawned on me that it was mostly doomscrolling repackaged and converted into slick entertainment. I tuned out after that.
The dystopian era of SF movies started in 1972 with Silent Running.[1] That was the first "grubby future" Hollywood movie, and is an obscure but notable milestone in cinema history.
There was early dystopian SF. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine ends with a dystopia. E. M. Foester's The Machine Stops (1909) was way, way ahead of its time.
Vashti’s next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one’s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? — say this day month.
To most of these questions she replied with irritation — a growing quality in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one-that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music.
The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of music in the pre-Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and primæval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.
Social media. 1909.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
There's the whole 'solarpunk' genre of fiction that I'd say is more optimistic. Epitomised by stuff like Becky Chamber's books 'A Psalm for the Wild Built' and 'A Prayer for the Crown Shy' (which are both excellent by the way).
Thank you for the recommendation. I haven't read much solarpunk. Cyberpunk is too dystopian for me. Steampunk, I like the aesthetic but I don't think I've read much literature in that genre except the difference engine.
I think Neal Stephenson had it backwards. The utopian science fiction comes second and is more of a reaction against the pessimistic dystopian science fiction.
Frankenstein is considered by many to be among the first science fiction books and is essentially a Black Mirror story from the 1800's. You had HG Wells and War of the Worlds for example. The Time Machine by HG Wells also portrays a possible negative vision for humanity based on an extrapolation of the social trends of the time.
Look at Asimov's robot stories. The orignal "robot" story was not from Asimov but a pessimistic story written in the 1920's about killer robots attacking people and being violent and all that. Asimov's optimistic peaceful robot stories were actually a reaction to the pessmistic violent robot stories that had been popular previously.
I think humans generally over the past few centuries have had uneasy feelings about technological changes and then that is reflected in dystopian, negative fiction. People react to that negativity by intentionally writing bright optimistic positive science fiction stories.
Look at Star Trek the Original Series for my final example. That tv show came out during the turmoil of the late 1960's and it responded to that turmoil and feelings of nuclear holocaust with a vision of the future that was filled with optimism and idealism.