Brian Aldiss said that sf is always about the time at which it is written. The twentieth century experience of two World Wars and more wars made sf less utopian and more dystopian. Poul Anderson moved from writing about intelligent species from many planets crossing space faster than light to writing about post-organic intelligences emanating from a single planet and crossing space slower than light. Alternative history fiction is a commentary on contemporary experience, not (or not just) an escape from it. SM Stirling's American time travellers narrowly escape from World War III. They escape. We do not. Where are reality and its fictional reflections heading to now? We are still in the Chaos which may be the only part of Anderson's Technic History to come true.
2 comments:
They escape -- and are determined to prevent nuclear war.
Yes. They are not mere escapists or escapologists.
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