Re: Holy Optimism!

[Eric Scoles]

Optimists? Bah! Who needs 'em? What have they ever done for the betterment of mankind? I mean, other than building things, bearing children, and promulgating the idea of progress. Seriously, though: I don't really buy the idea of SF as a principally negativist enterprise, or even (which is really S.W.'s point) that it changes that much in positivity or negativity with economic trends. Analog, at least, tends to the positivist as far as I've ever been able to tell, and it seems pretty consistent over time. It would be harder to say one way or the other about Asimovs. If she's talking about her own editorial focus, that would be different, but that doesn't seem to be what she's talking about. What might be interesting is to contrast the stuff that's successful within the field to the stuff that attains more popular success. Or even what's successful in terms of awards (Nebula or Hugo) with what sells. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that on the mode, "negativism" sells more and "positivism" wins more awards. Rather than settle that hypothetical bet with myself, though, I'm going to go back to working on my grim novel about the corruption of democratic society through the growth of the surveillance state... Also, Jonathan's response highlights how difficult it would be to classify what constitutes optimism versus pessimism. It's really a pretty grim story -- "Cold Equations" taken to school and made to work harder, if you will. But it's got that one optimistic sub-premise. The problem is that the optimistic premise (as Sheila points out) is critical to the story, because without it, the amount of effort required for the scenario is just not plausible. So is it that the premise is optimistic because Jonathan is optimistic, or because he needed it to support the scenario? (Jonathan? Is there actually an answer to that question?) delancey wrote: July Asimov arrived today. Sentence 1 of William's editorial: "In his February 2006 story, 'Under the Graying Sea,' Jonathan Sherwood imagines a future where, for short time, 'the world was at peace, economies were expanding, and generosity chic.'" It goes on from there. Who is this Sherwood she cites? Let's make him an honorary member of R-Spec. He could balance our famous pessimists. cd --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to r-spec@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to r-spec+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---