I sit before you splenetic and confused.
At the weekend I attempted a palace coup, as one does on a sunny Saturday in early Spring, to wrest control from those asleep at the wheel of the local branch of a national environmental body I recently joined (reading previous blog postings will provide dots for you to join). For a little less than twenty-four hours, I was co-chair and co-treasurer, before the out-going chair decided that a constitutional rule requiring attendance at six prior meetings in order to be nominated for a committee role still held, hence my nomination, and therefore appointment, was invalid.
Given a) the meeting was to revive a moribund group and form a new committee, with few long-standing members having the continuing energy to push things forward, b) this was only the group's second meeting since 2019, and c) there were only eight of us in the room, two of whom wished to be shot of their responsibilities, with few others enthusiastic, and we needed four committee members, draw your own conclusions. You may cite a focus on following procedure over achieving results: RMS Titanic, deckchairs, etc. Mine is that they'd rather have the climate rise by two Celsius than me in a position of influence.
Why that may be so is, I think, illustrated by a drabble that I submitted to Solarpunk magazine. Now, Solarpunk declares itself to be 'a publication of radically hopeful and optimistic science fiction and fantasy'. My drabble concerned a bioengineer who solved the climate crisis, leaving her empty and depressed. So, she lit the fuse of an even bigger problem, giving her life renewed focus, even if it left the rest of us like boiling frogs in a cauldron.
I sent it to them as much as a joke as anything; it fitted their brief, if not their ethos. I sent it to them mainly because I enjoy being awkward and contrary (see above), but also to prick the smug 'it'll all be all right in the end' bubble that I see regularly. Because, and this is what's driving this posting's title, I do wonder whether we, science fiction writers, do not carry an iota of responsibility by being a little too good at our game.
Yes, let me repeat, perhaps some of us, not all of us, are just a little too prescient.
I'm looking at you Mark Twain, inventor of the internet. And you, Douglas Adams, father of ebooks. Stand up, Hugo Gernsback, and admit you gave us Facetime.
Science fiction is littered with examples of predictions that actually came true. And I think this may have fooled us into thinking that if we all hang around long enough, there'll be some magical technological solution along in a moment. That Apple will save the apple, along with all the other flora, plus the fauna, including us. Just look how we invented a vaccine whilst living through a live, interactive, global performance of Soderbergh's Contagion.
Just because we can write the solutions, and get really, really lucky every so often, doesn't mean we have, or ever will have, the solutions. For every self-driving car (ta, Ray), there's faster than light travel or time travel. Even those who don't make this basic category mistake are, I think, lulled into a false sense of security. I know it isn't true, but I bet I'll be responsible for more carbon going into the atmosphere than coming out today, and I should be panicking more about it than I am.
Now, you may have expected Solarpunk to have batted my piece straight back to me. But no, they liked the writing, and asked me to expand it and align it to their philosophy. Make it positive. Make it hopeful and optimistic.
At first, I guffawed - they'd misunderstood, hadn't got the joke, the snowflakes. Rewriting as requested would negate the whole point of the piece. Then I thought about it, tossed it over in my mind, saw it from the other side. And now my drabble has doubled in length - still a quarter the length of this post - but guess what: Alex the bioengineer has solved the second problem she set herself, and has made the world an even better place. I'm going to send it off to them today.
If it ever sees the light of day, I'd like to be clear that it's utter hokum, but optimistic, positive hokum. Don't be fooled into thinking any of my hand-waving science signals a possible solution to the environmental crisis within. But I rather like it. We need more of it as the water levels rise and the trees catch fire. Help take our minds off things.
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2084. The world remains at war.
In the Eurasian desert, twenty-year old Adnan emerges from a coma with memories of a strictly ordered city of steel and glass, and a woman he loved.
The city is the Dome, and the woman... is Adnan's secret to keep.
Adnan learns what the Dome is, and what his role really was within it. He learns why everybody fears the Sickness more than the troopers. And he learns why he is the only one who can stop the war.
Persuaded to re-enter the Dome to implant a virus that will bring the war machine to its knees, the resistance think that Adnan is returning to free the many - but really he wants to free the one.
24 0s & a 2
Twenty-four slipstream stories. Frequently absurd, often minimifidian, occasionally heroic.
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