Debate: Does Science Fiction need to be grim?

[roseembolism]

It all started with an article in the Guardian "Science fiction doesn’t have to be gloomy, does it?", where the writer Damien G. Walter took modern SF to task for being excessively grim, pessimistic and well, "doommongering".  Kathryn Cramer responded to this with the argument that SF was a way to reflect on what was going on in the world, and if SF was dark, that's what the readership wanted.  At that the debate was on, with people ranging from James Nicoll to Lou Anders arguing whether or not dystopic worldviews are actually matching the way the real world is going.

As for me, I just wonder whether people actually do want to see SF that tries to be relevant by being grim and pessimistic.  After all, the period where the SF magazines went heavily for grim doommongering seems to coincide with the period where readership drastically fell off.  Could the editors fo these magazines have been clinging to "relevant gloomiess" to the point of going out of business? 

So: DO people want to read "relevant" SF, even if it is pessimistic or despairing? 

Comments

[mithriltabby]

There’s a well-established niche in SF for the cautionary future, the expression of “if this goes on...” A well-told cautionary future tale can still be a good read. The important thing for me is that something more than “protagonists survive” happens in the story; postapocalyptic fiction has to have a significant note of hope for me to find it worthwhile.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

The presence or absence of hope in the personal or general term is one of the main differences between positive SF and doomsaying SF.

[devonapple.livejournal.com]

I believe that Sci-fi should primarily be encouraging or thought-provoking. It's my impression that most of the doom-mongering falls under the "thought-provoking" banner. It is a common device, however, to use misfortune or bad situations as a crucible from which something better is able to rise, but the bar for "bad situation" has been set so high that I imagine many people feel that if they aren't destroying the universe with rampant, unchecked, seemingly unbeatable technological horrors, that they can't compete with the ones who are. It's the whole "strength through adversity" trope.

Even ST:TNG, which was on the whole a fairly doom-light series, had its phases (Borg) when things got darkest just before the dawn. ST:DS9 was almost completely defined by strife (as was B5). And these are some of the more popular and extant examples of the genre most people have to look to.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I think there's a strong difference between SF stroes that involve a huge problem to solve, a grim situation to overcome, and ones that have a generally grim and pessimistic view of the future. The difference is between the Borg episodes of Star Trek, and say, "A Dog and His Boy".

[rhylar.livejournal.com]

My biggest complaint with modern SF has nothing to do with the tone of the story as a whole, but with the way characters have to be arrogant, self-involved jerks with nothing to recommend them.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that out of emotional self-defense I've been limiting my SF reading to Stross and Bujold recently. So I am used to characters that are arrogant, self-involved, and often jerks...but they have a lot of other qualities to recommend them.

[kathrync.livejournal.com]

Since you don't give examples, I'm guessing at what you may be thinking of, but what you are describing may have to do with the push toward "character-driven" stories of 10 years ago.

[haamel.livejournal.com]

I get bothered when it feels like the writer of a work is pontificating, which in sci-fi often comes out as some of that grimness and pessimism. I personally didn't need Orwell's doom-and-gloom 1984 scenario to be aware of the civil rights issue -- his book may have been thought provoking, but the main thing it provoked was a desire not to read any more of his stuff again. Any author who paints a grim scenario as though he or she is in sole possession of specialized knowledge about the end of the world, when in fact it is pure speculation, can really really raise my hackles.

[(Anonymous)]

Chiming in late on this...

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that SF reflects our thoughts on the role technology plays in our lives. In the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century, technology was new and exciting and was going to transform our lives for the better. Nowadays, we still love technology, but we've also seen it devastate the environment, disconnect us from each other, and generally cause as many problems as it solves. Hence the SF in recent years has a darker, less optimistic tone. Obviously there are exceptions in both cases, but that's the overall trend.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

Er, that was me. Thought I was logged in...dang technology!