| Re: Future fiction
I deliberately used the term 'future fiction', not 'science fiction' because there are such strictures about what SF is and isn't and what SF writers do and don't do. But to make sweeping generalisations about what writers think and mean to do with their fiction is impossible! As a writer, and reader, of speculative fiction I don't relate at all to the idea that I only set stories in the future 'purely for the purposes of making the setting of (a) work of fiction appear plausible.' Thankfully, it's much more complex, intangible and fascinating than that!
Yes, many writers' visions of the future are 'wrong'. But it doesn't matter that the detail of, say, Gibson's cyberspace is out of date or 'wrong' or where exacly it was seeded. What's far more interesting is that the whole world uses words and concepts invented in works of fiction; that a writer's vision can colour the real world. I suspect thee is a very dynamic, intricate relationship between reality and what we imagine. Fiction is far more subtle and potent than your cut and dried vision of it suggests! |