Mobile phones, Internet, Mars Probes, bionic limbs and so on. All the wonders of the modern age. Have most of the revelations of Science Fiction come true? Is Sci Fi now redundent?
For one thing, SF isn't really about technology per se anyway.
For another, I don't have a personal robot in the kitchen (as I was promised I would have). No hover car sitting on the roof helipad, neither. I don't have implants to give me telepathic contact with my friends (thank heavens!). I don't have bionic limbs which allow me to push the damn hover car (which I still don't have!) when it breaks down. I don't know any aliens, unless you count my mother, the neighbours, and all the rest of fricking humanity.
I can't have my consciousness transferred into a luscious 20-year-old android version of myself (but I'm loved anyway - awwwwwww).
I don't commute to the moon each weekday. I don't work for a secret organisation protecting Earth from alien invaders (well, I do really, but I'm not allowed to tell you that).
I am not a clone of the real me, mistakenly believing I am the original.
It's ages since I had to fight a robotic killer sent from the future to destroy humanity. (lucky I wasn't washing my hair that night!)
And I STILL don't know what happened to that Moonbase ... except it is gone FOREVER!
And even if the worse came to the worse, and I DID get all that ... we watch movies and read books set in the contemporary world, don't we? - and those are not redundant. So why should Sci Fi ever be so?
Keeping looking up to the stars and dream. When you stop dreaming YOU are redundant.
I can't match Toad's comment- but no, SF isn't redundant, though I can't help feeling it isn't as much fun (or as optimistic) as it once was. As somebody else said, the future isn't what it was..
I agree with both of Toad's comments. And as for time going backwards...there was a Star Trek: The Animated Series episode that dealt with that subject--The Counter-Clock Incident, as well as (on a lesser basis) the first season Trek:TOS episode The Naked Time.
Your mileage should vary of course.
And where's my consciousness projector, so I can steal the body of some kid and go to a movie cheaper, or a time machine to go back and buy all these cool Spacex and Project Sword toys when they were first released?
Noooooooo! Course not.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, SF isn't really about technology per se anyway.
For another, I don't have a personal robot in the kitchen (as I was promised I would have). No hover car sitting on the roof helipad, neither. I don't have implants to give me telepathic contact with my friends (thank heavens!). I don't have bionic limbs which allow me to push the damn hover car (which I still don't have!) when it breaks down. I don't know any aliens, unless you count my mother, the neighbours, and all the rest of fricking humanity.
I can't have my consciousness transferred into a luscious 20-year-old android version of myself (but I'm loved anyway - awwwwwww).
I don't commute to the moon each weekday. I don't work for a secret organisation protecting Earth from alien invaders (well, I do really, but I'm not allowed to tell you that).
I am not a clone of the real me, mistakenly believing I am the original.
It's ages since I had to fight a robotic killer sent from the future to destroy humanity. (lucky I wasn't washing my hair that night!)
And I STILL don't know what happened to that Moonbase ... except it is gone FOREVER!
And even if the worse came to the worse, and I DID get all that ... we watch movies and read books set in the contemporary world, don't we? - and those are not redundant. So why should Sci Fi ever be so?
Keeping looking up to the stars and dream. When you stop dreaming YOU are redundant.
I can't match Toad's comment- but no, SF isn't redundant, though I can't help feeling it isn't as much fun (or as optimistic) as it once was. As somebody else said, the future isn't what it was..
ReplyDeleteWhat if the future was the past and everything's going backwards?
ReplyDelete! elbuort gib ni eb d'eW
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of Toad's comments. And as for time going backwards...there was a Star Trek: The Animated Series episode that dealt with that subject--The Counter-Clock Incident, as well as (on a lesser basis) the first season Trek:TOS episode The Naked Time.
ReplyDeleteYour mileage should vary of course.
And where's my consciousness projector, so I can steal the body of some kid and go to a movie cheaper, or a time machine to go back and buy all these cool Spacex and Project Sword toys when they were first released?
Gordon Long
Oh, yes! Star Trek: The Animated Series - very underrated. I love it.
ReplyDeleteI could kick myself for forgetting a time machine so I could go back and collect all those cereal premiums and boxes. If only! Sigh.