meme therapy har en veldig bra brain parade hvor ulike folk (forfattere og slikt) sier hva de mener er vitsen med science fiction sjangeren - hva som er science fiction’s jobb, for å si det sånn. Og dette er jo et tema som alle SF fans liker å snakke om, siden vi alltid føler at alle utenforstående missforstår hva det er vi egentlig er opptatt av.
Så, kjære venner som ikke leser science fiction, eller som ikke roper høyt hurra hver gang det lekker rykter om en ny sci-fi film fra Hollywood, vær så snill å les dette her! Du bør selvsagt lese hele innlegget på meme therapy bloggen, men her er noen høydepunkt:
“It has two jobs. One, to entertain. And, two, to boldly go where no other author has gone before.”
“..the ‘job’ of contemporary SF, if it has one, is to do what all good literature (or television, or film) does – entertain the viewer in a way that makes her think about something in a new way.”
“SF is Heinlein’s competent man. It’s a carnie, a geek, and a wise old fool speaking in tongues. It’s a biologist, a priest, an anthropologist, and a philosopher. It’s a political commentator joined up with a gee-whiz kid going, “OMG, Look at this because it is just so cool.” Sometimes it’s all of those and more rolled into one package (and goes by the name Charlie Stross).”
“Real science fiction doesn’t make stuff up. It turns reality up to eleven.”
Og til slutt en lengre forklaring - sitat Gardner Dozois:
“Today, the Pope interdicts cloning, the President of the United States pushes to make stem-cell research illegal, mention of the theory of evolution is banned from textbooks and explanations of “creation science” are inserted instead, and politicians of both political parties vote against money for space exploration, or any other kind of research where the instant up-front financial benefit to the bottom line is not immediately evident.
The battle of science against superstition is still going on, as is the battle to not have to think only what somebody else thinks is okay for you to think. In fact, in a society where more people believe in angels than believe in evolution, that battle may be more critical than ever.
One of the major battlefields of that war is science fiction, one of the few forms of literature where rationality, skepticism, the knowledge of the inevitability of change, and the idea that wide-ranging freedom of thought and unfettered imagination and curiosity are good things are the default positions, taken for granted by most of its authors.” (Galileo’s Children: Tales of Science vs Superstition)
Oppdatering i forhold til det siste sitatet:
New York Times kan fortelle at
evolusjon ikke lenger er et akseptert felt å studere på amerikanske colleges (mer korrekt: man kan ikke lenger få stipend for å ta evolusjonsfag). Utdanningdepartementet har sagt at dette er en feil, men vitenskapsfolk som burde vite hva de snakker om tror ikke på dette. “Dette er bare alt for tilfeldig,” sier Stephen W. Rissing, en biolog ved Ohio State University - og tenker på den voldsomme debatten som eksisterer rundt det at religiøse krefter vil forby evolusjonsteori i utdanningen.
Jeg har tidligere blogget om Peter Watts og hans bok Blindsight som slippes denne måneden. Mens du venter på å få tak i boken kan du lese et intervju med forfatteren på SFRevu.com,
Denne måneden slipper Alistair Raynolds sin første novellesamling, 
