Discuss: Instead of Suns, the Earth

Thanks so much for this article! I had not heard of the ‘Mundanes’ and will explore some of the books you’ve listed here. One film that fits nicely into this sub-genre is a 1972 movie titled “Silent Running” which I find myself recommending to a number of friends these days.

Thanks too—hadn’t heard about the Mundanes.

I appreciate the spirit of their manifesto—but I think it ignores the most potent literary device of science fiction: allegory.

The good space operas are still grounded in earthly concerns, if we are willing to see how their struggles with identity, borders, race, etc—are actually allegorical comments on our own world.

Yes, the stereotype of spacey SF is that it’s too escapist—but that could be more a problem of lazy readers than lazy writers.

SF would lose most of its dynamism if we only had straightforward dystopias to read.

I recommend Ursula K Le Guin’s,The Word for World Is Forest, ecology, empire and indigenous peoples, years before(and better) than Avatar

Surely this sentence needs unpacking:
Despite gender portrayals that some might find problematic but which I find accurately reflect a certain type of male-scientist attitude, Gregory Benford’s Timescape makes the list that the Mundanes themselves compiled in pointing to work that hews closely to a geocentric fictional universe of environmental crisis and responsibility.
    Such twisted writing usually betrays underlying confusions.

I looked into this idea of a Mundane science fiction genre.I believe this is from the Mundane Manifesto,

“that the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet”

Can’t argue with that.

SF can be beautiful novels, Childhoods End, The Dispossessed, Thorns,  or an adolescent fantasy of green women and space battles. More people may have given Science Fiction a chance if they’d read any of those novels before watching TV or Hollywood’s version of the genre.

I truly enjoy Ursula K Le Guin’s
worlds and cultures that are at once advanced and at the same time agrarian. I understand her father was an anthropologist,her mother a psychologist, what a childhood to draw from.

I’m now reading Brave New World, and there are parallels to the training of the castes to hate nature and our current fixation on constant digital entertainment.

Libraries have done a disservice by separating Science Fiction from other books. The Kale doesn’t have a separate produce section in the store does it?

ehhhh

Not feeling it. I don’t consider their angle more likely or less likely.
The truth will be in the middle somewhere. This smells more like an attempt at being fashionable. I think to choose to be that myopic is a backwards step for SF.

“I do not think it irresponsible to portray even the direst futures; if we are to avoid them, we must understand that they are possible. But where are the alternatives? Where are the dreams that motivate and inspire? Where are the visions of hopeful futures, of times when technology is a tool for human well-being and not a gun on hair trigger pointed at our heads? Our children long for realistic maps of a future they (and we) can be proud of. Where are the cartographers of human purpose?” - Carl Sagan

Haven’t they read LeGuin? Oh, that’s right, you said that. Who’s putting out anything of that caliber today? Even LeGuin seems to have lost her way.

I think I am with Jack and Bernie on this. While the sentiments of the “Mundanes” are well intentioned, they are limited, and the article itself points that out. One of the most powerful writers about our earth and the issues facing it - LeGuin - uses other planets and intersteller travel as an alegorical space (if you will) to comment on the cultures and struggles facing the earth. Who cannot read The Telling without seeing the scathing critique of a hyper-progress oriented society? (My personal favorite is the dark, bitter stimulant drink they constantly imbibe, under the name “StarBrew” - any resemblance to any earthly product is strictly coincidence, eh?). And if you are looking for a long-term, sustainable model of society, look at the Hanish villages in her Churtin Effect short stories.

I also have another concern - there is a large sub-ganre of dystopian near-future science fiction (and horrer as well) that plays into an apocalyptic mindset that is niether progressive nor environmentally minded. The post-collapse dystopia is a tired playground for ultra-masculine hero’s to tough it out against mutant barbarians and the like - think of the Road Warrior - or to restore the landscape of a violent frontier. Near future looks at possible future scenarios are not enough to be progressive. It need also have some vision and critique, and I think Sagans point about the need for positive visions is quite apt as well.

(I would also add there is a comperable difference between Sustainability and Survivalism, which sometimes gets blurred in some apocalyptic visions of environmental catastrophe - the goal of sustainability is to prevent environmental collapse, not to be the only survivors of it)

As for LeGuin’s more recent works, I think they are very much up to her standards - particularly _Four Ways to Forgiveness_ and _The Telling_ (and _Changing Planes_ is frankly quite an enjoyable set of worlds). If anything, I find them better than _The Word for World is Forest_, which is a fine idea, but could use better character development (the US military soldiers are a rather flat with the effect of making a somewhat 2 dimensional critique of Vietnam war era politics - the soldiers in Avatar are actually better characters). Part of the strength of LeGuin is not just the incredible worlds she creates, but that she populates them with rich complicated characters who are fully and falably human, and she has only gotten better with this over time.

A few other writers who come to mind as being within the frame suggested by the article:

The earlier (1960s and early 70s) works of Kate Wilhelm, particularly _Juniper Time_, _The Killer Thing_, _Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang_, and many of her short stories from that era offer thoughtful looks at society, technology and environmental collapse (her current detective novels are quite enjoyable, but not nearly as thought-provoking).

Katie Waitman - her second novel _The Divided_ is a fascinating story of war, imperialism and non-violent resistance.

Though not nearly as gifted a writer as some, Joan Slenzewski’s quaker-inspired novels offer some thoughtful meditations on the relationship between people and between people and the environment. Her “Sharer” novels explore the question - what if we colonized other worlds by adapting ourselves to linve on them, rather then trying to terraform them to make them acceptable to us.

Nicola Griffith’s _Slow River_ contains a powerful near-future critique of corporate bio-technology and “environmental remediation.”

To name a few. There are others that I am sure we can come up with, (not to mention all of the feminist and other political sci-fi out there.)

John