But Why Sci-Fi?

I was going to assume that none of us are living in an 80s coming of age comedy movie and therefore don’t need a dance montage to tell us that ostracizing others based on the fact that their interests place them in a different clique than us is silly. But you know what they say about assuming (hint: it’s bad). So for the sake of making sure we’re all on the same page let me address some basic questions you might have about this blog and about science fiction as a totally radical genre.

“You seem so cool. How can you be interested in science fiction? Isn’t that for nerds?”

Well, you’re right about one thing, Imagined Reader. I am in fact very cool. But! You’ve made the grave error in assuming that being cool and being a nerd are mutually exclusive. The science fiction community is filled with as many people with diverse lives as any other field of interest. There are celebrity nerds! Athlete nerds! And most surprising of all perhaps: college professor nerds. Furthermore, you don’t need to identify yourself as a nerd to be able to enjoy science fiction. Plenty of people watch scifi movies for the action, adventure, and awesome aliens.

“Aliens? Time Travel? Robots? Seems kind of lame to me. Why not focus on real life issues?”

Wow, Imagined Reader, you sure cut right to the chase. But, okay, I’ll level with you. There are a lot of important things going on in the here and now. And sometimes scifi is super silly. Why should someone care about fiction set in a make-believe future? Well, because most science fiction is actually dealing with the social and political issues of the time it was written in. Asimov and Bradbury were writing as much about race as androids and Martians. Le Guin and Russ were obviously writing about gender issues. The Day the Earth Stood Still and Planet of the Apes are about war and violence. The futuristic backdrop is there to provide perspective and, sometimes, to make it easier for some people to question the status quo.

Also, as I said in my previous post, the future is now! We live in a world of:

Aliens! Well, maybe not aliens…

Time Travel! Okay, so not quite on that one…

Robots! BINGO. Robots, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology are current events for us. We live in a society on the cusp of something that the kings of science fiction dreamed about. How many people do you know that use Siri? That’s the beginning of an artificial intelligence program. For all we know the next iOS upgrade will bring us HAL. Though if you asked him drunk at 3 AM where to find the best waffles in the city you might run the risk of being told, “I’m sorry. I can’t do that,” before he breaks out into “Daisy Bell”.  

Science fiction is important. It’s about change. It’s about new ideas. It’s about hope and caution for future generations.

(It’s also about lasers and space and weird clothes, aliens and mutants and the hubris of man, science gone awry and corporate greed in case you were getting the wrong idea.)

So, I mean, when it’s all said and done… what’s not to like?