I’ve got a confession to make: Science Fiction as a genre doesn’t resonate with me. Neither does Fantasy. I enjoy some fiction, but it seems that it’s primarily Literary Fiction – old-school classics like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Kafka, Barthelme, and the like. Mostly, I prefer non-fiction.
I’ve just finished reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer, having read The Peripheral at the end of last year. To be fair, someone recommended Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, which is in the same genre – cyberpunk. I’d been advised that Snow Crash is better written, but I thought it might be best to start at the start of that genre.
[EDIT: After writing this post, I read the first two chapters of Snow Crash. The opening scenes of samurai swords had me thinking I needed to give up on this genre once and for all. But no, this was simple character building—fingers crossed. It quickly—and I do mean quickly—changed into a rapid montage dripping with ironic satire. I was in my element. I’ll take sci-fi wrapped in irony. It’s like stuffing a pill in cheese to trick your pet into taking medicine. I don’t want to jinx it, and I don’t know how Stephenson can control the pacing. I’ll let it unfold, and I hope it lands in a happy place. Now, I feel obliged to end with a motivational message on not giving up.]
These writers have good ideas. It often sounds appealing when someone tells me the plot summary, but the details bore me to tears. When I read reviews of these books, I frequently hear how immersive they are, but to me, they are cluttered and chockablock with minutiae. I find myself prodding, “Just get to the point.” But there has to be more than this. Short stories may fare better. I liked Ursula K LeGuin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, but that was more related to its philosophical, anti-utilitarian perspective rather than the story.
It’s not as if Dostoyevsky doesn’t circumlocute and pontificate, but it’s somehow different. I want to like it. I want to read it – first-hand, not just a summary, so I can feel that I’ve engaged with the material.
Over the years, I’ve been consoled by fans of the genre, who say, “I understand. What you need to read is” [fill in the blank]. I read Ender’s Game on this advice.
To be fair, Sci-Fi movies and television don’t resonate with me either. Star Wars? Nope. Star Trek? Nope. Firefly. No, again.
What people find amazing, I find trite. Often, there is some embedded Modernist morality that some view as profound. I roll my eyes. I cringe thinking of old Star Trek episodes about what makes humans so special.
I don’t tend to find movies or television very interesting in general. I’ve never owned a television. My partners always do. “But you watch streaming content,” you say, and you’d be correct. But I watch it on my own time and take a chance, if only to remain connected to contemporary trends.
My last engagement was Arcane on Netflix. I found Season One well done and entertaining, but I’m not sure Anime qualifies as Sci-Fi. I caught The Peripheral on Amazon a couple of months ago, which led me to the book, but they turned out to be different stories, though they were set in the same universe with (generally) the same characters.
Philosophics 