The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Apopheniac:

Faren Miller said:

"Gibson's variety was near-future, one of the most difficult kinds to pull off since it can date so rapidly."

Gibson himself has said:
"I really don't see myself as a futurist. I think the world we live in is so hopelessly weird and complex that in order to come to terms with it, you need the tools that science fiction develops."
(from The Guardian)

Yes, he did sort of predict the internet, but in Neuromancer there are no cell phones, the USSR is still around, the US has splintered into warring regions, and there are dot matrix printers, as Gibson pointed out in the introduction to an anniversary edition of Neuromancer. He's one of the best near futurists of all time, and half of his predictions didn't come true, but his books still hold up. Why?

Because near future SF is really just a species of 1984-style SF, Science Fiction as a kind of satire. Even the near-future mode isn't really about the predicting things, in the end. SF is the product of a certain sensibility interacting with the present, and, as such, will likely survive any real future shock.

I will admit, though, that pulling off near future SF isn't something people seem too confident about lately. And I, for one, am not really sure why. Anybody have any ideas?

William Gibson answered a question I put to him when he was speaking in New York last fall, and his answer really shook me up for a few weeks.

I asked:
"You've said that the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction factor, that the rate of change in the world is bigger and faster than it's ever been. Does that make the mode of science fiction a less viable, or even impossible way to explore and explain the world?"

He said:
"Yep. That sounds about right. I would agree with that."

Since his sf books are so amazing, and since has stopped writing sf, I was forced to consider whether he was right, whether the whole enterprise of sf as a way of engaging with the world, of exploring its strangeness, of remaking it through a kind of satire, wasn't going to work anymore. Of course I came to the conclusion that he was wrong, or that he was answering a different question than the one I was asking. But it is still an important question for readers and writers of sf to think about; it really made me examine why I love sf so much, what it is that makes it such a lovely and powerful thing. Is it about predicting the future, or engaging a particular sensibility? Can a sensibility become obsolete?

As for the Sterling quotation, he was saying that SF needed to be truer to its geeky, weird heritage and stop trying to be so literary, not that the enterprise of literature is outmoded and books should become multimedia presentations. When he said that, he was still a young turk trying to revive the genre.

This quote from a speech he gave in 1991 explains what he meant more clearly:

"We're not into science fiction because it's *good literature,* we're into it because it's *weird*. Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "woo the muse of the odd." A good science fiction story is not a "good story" with a polite whiff of rocket fuel in it. A good science fiction story is something that knows it is science fiction and plunges through that and comes roaring out of the other side." (full text of the speech here)

The best answer to any anxiety about whether there is a future for sf is his advice. Follow your weird, and damn the rest.

The bigots of southern Deleware should be read this beautiful letter from George Washington, written in 1790 to the congregation of Touro synagogue in Rhode Island:

"To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island

Gentlemen:

While I receive with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of answering you, that I shall always retain, a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past, is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of con-science and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favor-able opinion of my administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

George Washington"

That religious tolerance could be expressed so perfectly and succinctly 200 years ago and be so forgotten today proves to me that certain forms of Christianity in America survived the 20th century like bacteria survives an antibiotic, and have mutated into weirder and stronger strains.

I so agree with Claude Muncey. Annals of Truly Bad Ideas needs to be a running feature, sort of like that book "Web Pages That Suck." Various features of the NYC Subway could keep the thread going for at least the first few months!

This all fits well with the complaints about the relationship between the press and the Bush White House during the first phases of the war, and the final phases of the election, i.e., the White House press corps became a dissemination service for presidential press releases. The lazy journalist problem isn't just limited to reporting about cultural "trends." Propaganda via laziness?

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