It has been observed before by more professional types than myself, but, sci fi has gotten depressing these days. Every time you turn around, the world is ending and a rag-tag group of survivors must "Row, Row, Fight Za Powaa" to overthrow an oppressive regime and restore a decaying society.
Sci Fi has been heading this way since the late nineties. Back then, if you remember, we were terrified of the Y2K bug, the predictions of Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations. One of the most popular book series of the time was the Left Behind series and its various spin-offs.
And, since 2001, it could be argued that we were, in fact, living in The End Times. After all, since 2000, we have war, widespread disease, social unrest, economic decline, corruption, and reality t.v., so we must be. We're so caught up in dealing with all of these problems, there seems to be no time for optimism for the future.
But isn't this when we should be trying to be optimistic for the future? Shouldn't we be encouraging exploration and scientific advancement in the imaginations of readers all over the world? When our "escapist" mediums do nothing but reflect our already bleak view of the world, doesn't that just trap us in an echo chamber of Doom and Gloom and Learned Helplessness?
This is not to say that sci fi has always been happy and cheery. They still address major issues and project what the future would be like if these issues continued, be they social, environmental, or political. Even so, there was always a glimmer of hope. Yes, the Earth may have become uninhabitable due to a thick cloud of smog and trapped bacteria, but we're trying to fix things, or we're starting over on a new planet with the lessons we've learned from Earth. Yes, we might have been invaded by interstellar Orkin exterminators, but we humans are willing to fight to survive and stand our ground.
What kind of glimmer of hope is there in dystopian fiction? Why do we need to wait for some "chosen savior" or "plucky heroine who goes against the order of things" in order to find hope in the future? Why place so much stress on an individual? Have we, collectively, become so beaten down that we can't overcome our own inertia?
So, I challenge the aspiring sci fi writers who might read this - change the narrative. Bring the hope for the future back into sci fi. Don't wait for the present to get better before you can imagine a shining future.
