[Writingworkshop] SF as being about the present

[Adam Holland]

Thanks for all of the examples.

I actually have "The Land Ironclads " in a volume right here in front of me.
:)

I was hoping to find something scholarly I could reference for a law review
article.
I will be writing about the coming disruptive technology of 3D rapid
prototyping, and what the law needs to do to get ready for it, the way it
didn't for the PC

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Neale Morison <neale at nealemorison.com>wrote:

>  I don't know if I've seen an article about it, but it's a generally
> accepted notion. You can only write about what you know, so writing about
> the real future is out.
> When we watched 2001 it was fun to see the late 60s fashions exaggerated
> into the future, but essentially it was a Cold War in Space situation.
> Kubrick did the same with A Clockwork Orange, intensifying aspects of the
> present and calling it the future. The ties in particular
> 40s Sci Fi largely involves fighting space Nazis in your space Cadillac. It
> helps a lot to realize that you're creating a world no matter what genre you
> write. Sci Fi seems to permit a more tailored, restricted world, with maybe
> a tweak to a physical law or two, maybe some interesting technology to offer
> a few more options to explore. But it's always about people doing that
> people stuff they do.
>
> There's an essay here with a quote from Joseph Conrad to H. G. Wells:
> http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/tomorrow.htm<http://www2.ku.edu/%7Esfcenter/tomorrow.htm>
>
> Giving humanity over to the impossible, but retaining the humanity.
>
> Wells wrote "The Land Ironclads" in 1903 - envisaging a future in which
> tanks dominated land warfare. As usual, he was right, but the title tells
> you how he thought about it. When he write it sea ironclads, like the
> Monitor and the Virginia, had been around for half a century, playing
> leapfrog between armour and gunpower. The leap was to put the invulnerable
> gun platforms on land. So the future is present day concepts, connected in a
> new way.
>
>
>
> Adam Holland wrote:
>
> hi, guys,
>
> Any tips on where I might find some writings on the notion that SF is
> really always about the present?
> that is, a culture's vision of its future reflects how it sees itself and
> it's potential?
>
> Adam
>
>
> Reason?  Remind to to tell you about my law article topic another time
>
> * From the discomfort of truth there is only one refuge, and that is
> ignorance.
> I do not need to be comfortable, and I will not take refuge.
> I demand to know.*
>
>
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