[FRIAM] Cautionary Tales: CliFi

[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

Thanks for your feedback on KSR's writing style... it really sobered me 
to realize how much of an obsessionist I am on this topic and what I 
will ignore to feed that obsession.

I tripped over (thank you Google News Feed) an interesting article in Grist:

    https://grist.org/climate/with-the-world-on-fire-climate-fiction-no-longer-looks-like-fantasy/

that resonated with my reflections.   While I do feel a little obsessive 
on the topic (not just climate but all the convergent "endogenous 
existential threats" coming at us),  I feel somewhat balanced about it, 
especially as I graze on the buffets that books like MotF and 
Stephenson's Termination Shock and Amithav Ghosh's "Great Derangement" 
offer.   I also found William Gibson's Jackpot Series:

    https://www.wired.co.uk/article/william-gibson-agency

refreshing (for a dystopia) with our myriad existential threats 
(climate, species, pollution, finance, civil unrest, fascism, etc.) 
converging on a bit of a (nasty) wet-fizzle of an apocalypse he 
sardonically dubs "The Jackpot".

The Grist article describes (somewhat) the value of keeping one's eye on 
the dystopian/apocalyptic future threatened by our short-sighted habits 
and (overly optimistic?) conceptions of the future generated by our 
materialistic pop-culture.

Someone here (Marcus, Glen, EricS ?) mentioned Musk and the idea that he 
might be pursuing the canonical "Good Old Fashioned Future" coined in 
the Golden Age and refashioned in the Modern Era of Science Fiction.    
We boomers (and Xers?) who went into Sci/Tech likely read at least a lot 
of Marvel/DC comics (if not the Science Fiction without pictures) of our 
era and I claim it heavily shaped our image of what was 
possible/desireable.    I don't think it is serving us (Gaia of whom we 
are her most precocious children?)

- Steve

> On 1/25/22 5:58 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>> < It might not surprise anyone here that I have become a CliFi 
>> obsessionist with Kim Stanly Robinson's stuff well represented 
>> ("Ministry for the Future" standing out well above the others).  His 
>> Red/Green/Blue Mars series is a good complement with the 
>> social/technological/spiritual implications of Terraforming there. >
>>
>> Huh.  I found MftF drawn-out and boring with distracting little 
>> nonsense chapters interleaved.   I don’t see why it is popular.   A 
>> few good ideas here and there but couldn’t care less about the 
>> characters.  It could be massively compressed.
>>
> That would be *all* of KSR's novels I'm afraid...  my obsession with 
> the ideas (unanticipated problems as well as unanticipated responses) 
> trumps any need I have for being entertained by the characters or even 
> plot.
>
> It really read to me (as you point out) as a series of loosely 
> connected vignettes of specific interest.   To the extent that *some* 
> of the MoTF characters did get under my skin, it was as an irritant as 
> much as anything.   I probably read Red Mars when it was new as my 
> introduction to KSR and did not go back to his writing until as little 
> as 5 years ago when I found his topics more relevant than I had 
> acknowledged before...  He seemed to me to be a lot preachy and I 
> guess now I'm enough of the choir to be able to hum along with his 
> sermons now.
>
> Stephenson also gets very tedious for me, but I find his depth of 
> research and quirkiness of characters and technical surprises worthy 
> of my attention through his gruelingly long and seemingly careening 
> storylines and characters.
>
>
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