I’ve been sitting on this gripe for years, but enough is enough. It’s ranting time. Today’s subject: pessimism in Science Fiction. Buckle up everyone.
Back in the good old happy days of Star Trek: The Original Series, the future seemed like a bright and hopeful place. Humans were set to find peace and unity, striving as a race to create a better life for the species and a greater world to live in. Now, thanks to basically every contemporary Science Fiction novel, movie or TV show currently popular, it seems like the future is destined to be a bleak, gloomy, desolate wasteland. What happened to thinking the best of humanity? Why is there not more popular fiction extolling the virtues of our species? Is there simply no good drama left to be had in a technologically advanced future without everyone being oppressed, controlled or enslaved?
One of the things I’m often quizzed about as an author is ‘C.S, why do you choose to write about cultures and countries that you’ve never been to?’ And the answer is far simpler than you’d imagine. From as early as 8-years-old, I always considered myself to be a writer of fantasy and science fiction (before I heard the umbrella term of speculative fiction at least) and couldn’t understand why anybody would want to write about something as ‘boring’ as the real world. However, after a few months working in retail, I soon discovered that the old adage was most certainly true: reality is far stranger than fiction.
C.S.Bilsborrow 