The D word « Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Psst. Wanna hear a dirty word? No, not that word. I’ve got one that’s even dirtier. One that sends seasoned industry veterans running. You ready for it?

Dystopian.
Because our futures have become too bleak! Too pessimistic! And way too dark. And it’s getting kinda depressing . . . there was some soul-searching on the topic over at SF Signal’s Mindmeld last week, but the call to Think Positive really got underway last fall, with the announcement of an “optimistic” SF anthology. Who knows, maybe it’ll be the first of many.
And believe me, I get the argument. It’s all too easy to come up with scenarios in which humanity has nuked the planet to a crisp, assuming zombies don’t eat all of us first. Inventing stories in which humanity is thriving. . . well, that’s a little harder. And it may be that the darkness of so much near-future science-fiction has more than a little to do with the waves of fans abandoning the genre in favor of fantasy. So now the Campaign Against Dystopias is underway in force, and who knows which editor is going to be next to start enjoining science-fiction writers to “write responsibly” by concentrating on the positive?
To which I can only say: screw ‘em.
Some full disclosure is in order. I’ve got more than a passing interest in this subject, since I write near-future science-fiction that proudly wears its D-badge. I mean, what the hell else would you call a world a hundred years from now where global warming is turning the planet into something that’s starting to look more like Venus? But that world is a very real possibility, given the one we inhabit today.
And this is where Positive SF makes me more than a little nervous. Because lately, our society has had increasing trouble dealing with reality. We’re drifting ever deeper into denial as to just how bad our problems are. And the last thing we need is for the only literature that can steer us through to start encouraging its writers to start putting on their rose-colored glasses and act like Everything’s Gonna be A-Ok. Because unless we start making some radical course-corrections involving our resources and the environment . . . it’s just not.
There’s another, related problem here. As Hugo runner-up Peter Watts has noted (in defense of his own dystopias), any realistic extrapolation of the future has to start from where we are right now. Seen from that perspective, the goal of science fiction isn’t to tell us all the wonderful things that could be in our future. It’s to get people to wake the hell up. Because the fact of the matter−and that word fact is really important−the way we’ve treated Earth across the last few decades has seriously curtailed our options. In fact, at this point−from the cheery wide-eyed standards of positive SF−I’d go so far as to say that every single plausible future left to us is dystopian.
Except, of course, they’re not.
Which leads us to the other side of the dreaded D-word−and the other point that positive SFists miss. William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER described a future that many regard as bleak−and yet the author has commented that for many in the Third World today, the Sprawl would be paradise. Which I think captures a dynamic that people often miss about futures: they’re not monolithic. One person’s dystopia is another person’s golden age. Halfway through my first, all-too-dystopian book one character says to another, “don’t you see we live in the dawn-times?” He’s referring to the massive expansion of the off-Earth economy, but−regardless of specific scenarios−the fact remains that just because things are getting worse along some fundamental vectors doesn’t mean we won’t take steps to turn the corner.
Particularly as the human animal seems to really only get serious when it’s backed into one. Seen from that perspective, positive SF might be seen as the last throes of our denial before we start to get serious about the predicament of our species. Or it could be the beginning of science-fiction’s final decline into fantasy. We’ll just have to find out the old-fashioned way, by living the future in all its complexity, one moment at a time.
David J. Williams is the author of the just-released THE BURNING SKIES. Learn more about his work at www.autumnrain2110.com.

3 Responses to “The D word”

kavka says:

June 9, 2009 at 4:30 pm

I think that part of the irony here is that positive SF is usually not positive at all (or, at best, merely represents the positive ideals of a specific, select few) – it tends to focus on hive-mind states and a loss of individuality – whereas the darker dystopian tales can often be seen as a call-to-action for the reader, who is reading the work at a time when they’re not just stuck in the outcome of their/our decisions, but are actually making those decisions. In that regard, there is a lot more empowerment within dystopian tales for the reader.
And quite frankly, I can’t think of anything more positive than being able to put down a book and think, ‘I’m so grateful and appreciative that life isn’t like that/that bad now’ – and feeling like my little antshit self might be able to ensure that it never gets that way.
dpomerico says:

June 12, 2009 at 11:03 am

And then there’s the other side of the coin, in which people tend to not classify “dystopian” literature as science fiction at all. But the fact remains that much of what gets written as science fiction–set in the future–is a direct response (and/or warning) to what’s going on in the present. Would we have 1984 without Stalin? How about Fahrenheit 451 without McCarthy? Hell, is there a Lord of the Rings without the trenches of World War I? Or any of the giant bug-monster movies without the Cold War?
Dystopian literature may appear negative, but much of what it’s trying to do is, as kavka says, “a call-to-action.” Kim Stanley Robinson’s series that started with Forty Signs of Rain isn’t about the inevitability of global environmental catastrophe, but the fact that it’s only inevitable unless we do something about it.
And, perhaps more importantly, most of us read for pleasure. And it’s a lot cooler when the world is going to hell then when everything is hunky-dory. The Burning Skies and The Mirrored Heavens are so fun because there’s non-stop action–because there are people who need killing and the world is going to shit.
Now I don’t mind if the ending is ultimately a positive one, but I think it’s way more satisfying if the protagonists have to go through hell to achieve it.
Richard Paez says:

June 29, 2009 at 7:54 am

I have never come across any SF book set in a dystopian world or that otherwise provides a “warning” scenario in which the characters make references to other SF books. There might be a few (given the size of the genre, there must be), but they must be rare.
The point of this observation is that since we do live in a world where dystopian literature is common, we are better prepared to avoid (or minimize) the mistakes made in many of these novels. This isn’t often discussed in open political forums (at least in the US) because SF is still considered ‘juvenile’ by many politicians, but that doesn’t stop them for paying top dollars to hired futurists. That these narratives form for us a kind of scratchpad and external immune system makes them all the more important.
Let’s keep on exploring the worst choices in our fictional narratives so that we can hope to make better ones in our historical narrative.
And kavka is absolutely correct: while all possible hells fall on the same spectrum of hellishness, no two people’s heaven will ever be the same. Every utopia will seem crooked, controlling, or downright boring to somebody sooner or later — the reason, I believe, why real-world religions and fictional depictions alike tend to be vague when it comes to describing ‘heaven’.