Is futuristic sf relevant to the present? Yes, because it can show future consequences of present actions. The Time Machine shows the social classes of the late nineteenth century devolving into Morlocks and Eloi. 1984 shows dictatorial movements present in 1948 dominant in 1984. James Blish's and Norman L. Knight's A Torrent of Faces shows characters several centuries hence finding an obsolete artefact called an "ashtray" and attributing it to the Age of Waste. Characters in one of Asimov's Foundation novels express incredulity at the suggestion that nuclear explosions might ever have been caused deliberately as an act of war. Poul Anderson's "Starfog," includes the following dialogue. Daven Laure explains that:
Large-scale extraction of minerals from oceans would generate:
"'...so much heat that planetary temperature would be affected.'
"'That sounds farfetched.'
"'No. A simple calculation will prove it. According to historical records, Earth herself ran into the problem, and not terribly long after the industrial era began.'" (p. 790)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's more accurate to say well done science fiction can show us speculative consequences of current actions. No one can predict the future.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Obviously 1984 did not come true by 1984 but it did identify threats to freedom and even sanity. The purpose of dystopian fiction is to help to prevent the dystopias.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Or Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, in some ways a more plausible dystopian novel than Orwell's 1984. And Orwell had the USSR in mind when he wrote his dark masterpiece.
I think it's better to say good SF, dystopian or not, examines imaginary possibilities set in the future, either in our timeline or in alternate worlds. Stirling's four fascinating, gruesome Draka books is a splendid example of well done dystopian science fiction.
Ad astra! Sean
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