The Five Horsemen of the Apocolypse: Fear and Loathing in SF
I find Steve Carpers’ essay on the current state of SF
is an eloquent response to those who are concerned about the apparent
disappearance of innovation from the field, and the salt-water intrusion of
techniques and attitudes from mainstream literature.
Every major future that SF has envisioned for humanity–nanotechnology,
genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, consensus
cyberspace–renders humanity obsolete in a future so close to us, most of us
will live through at least the leading edge. Steve observes that it is
natural for writers and readers to turn inwards when faced with such fears:
oblivion, overwhelming complexity, irrelevance.
I would like to ask us to reflect for a moment on what it means to the genre
and our world when we exercise this natural reflex: whether it is reasonable or even necessary. It may be a natural reaction to wish we could turn the hands of the clock
back to that gentler time before we looked inside Pandora’s box. But we are
not the first generation that has had to accommodate itself to the notion
that it could be the last generation of humans on Earth. The post-Hiroshima
generation get the “been there, done that” T-shirt. I leave it to others who
have more historical perspective on the genre to fill in the missing
information: how badly was SF set back? How long did it take to recover?
To the extent the genre is engaged in “head in the sand” literature, I don’t
understand why the fear of these Five Horsemen of the Neo-Apocalypse have
driven writers and readers of SF into a period of complacent nostalgia, nor
why we’ve stayed there for such a long time. SF dropped the nano bomb on
itself back in the mid 1980’s. That’s almost two decades ago, ladies and
gentlemen. If there was a need to put our literature on hold so we can go
see a therapist, I’d like to think that time is up and we can move on.
For those who wish to imagine that humanity will be destroyed or rendered
irrelevant by one or all of these threats that we are creating, that’s up to
you. For those who wish to indulge in a literature that adapts itself to
adverse situations by retreating into tales of comfortable past, that is
also up to you.
But I’m the father of two adorable daughters under the age of five. I don’t
have the interest or the luxury of retreating into a comfortable past. The
heroes I want to read about, the ones I will want my daughters to read
about, are those who confront the effects of technology. If the human spirit
is threatened, they rise to meet the challenge. Where our technology
threatens physical danger or extinction, they try to contain it or overcome
it. If there are cultural bridges which must be built with alien cultures
such as AI, I want to see them try.
Part of the concern is that a genre filled with stories set in a real
future–not that of the Jetsons–will be universally depressing.
Bollocks.
Of course, I’d like to see characters win some in stories based on a future
of Five Horsemen of the Neo-Apocalypse. I expect to see some of them lose.
But we humans adapt. We can try to make the world one we can live in. Maybe
not the kind of world that seemed ideal in Popular Mechanics of the early
60’s. We necessarily succeed. But the reality of even the most dark and
unhappy futures is that we will try. To the extent the genre avoids these
futures, we deny our strength, our resilience, our humanity.
For those who are convinced that the contest between Man and Machine is over
before it has begun, who want to avoid a never ending set of depressing
stories, each one like the last–”And then the lights went out.”–founded in
such a universe, take heart. The real struggle will be, as it has always
been, of Man against Himself. Fear, greed, hubris. These are the true topics
of a literature of the Five Horsemen. To the extent that SF is about the Now
and not really about the To Come, it doesn’t matter today the outcome then
will be. We can’t know for certain, and its most likely to take a form that
none of us can imagine from where we stand now.
Where I have no interest in a literature filled with depressing stories of a
barren future, I am also not interested in reading substitute stories that
walk around the dead skunk in the middle of the room, pretending this
frightening–possibly exciting–future isn’t gaining steam like a
locomotive. Even when they are so well written that I almost can’t tell,
they seem like simplifying tales told to console frightened children.
I am not a child.
I do not wish to be talked down to when the alternative is a vital
literature filled with excitement and danger and the added bonus of possibly
forestalling those unhappy futures. I hope the image of the human spirit
that lives in SF is large enough, great enough to rise up to meet the
challenges riding in the saddles of the Five Horsemen. I’m not sure what I
should conclude about a genre that fails to confront the fear, the
confusion, the discomfort.
Good writers write about people. But we don’t have to abandon the future in
order to have a literature that focuses on people. Avoiding either the
future or technology is the response of fear. The future–at least for the
short run–will still have people in it. Let’s hear about them with a
frequency equal to the number of alternate history stories. Technology, at
least until godlike AI take over, will still originate in the fertile,
creative minds of men and women with a passion to explore and understand the
unknown. I would like to hear about them, in between stories of regret and
lost innocence.
As a reader, I look forward to a mix of topics. I want SF to be an umbrella
of many styles, many approaches, many topics. But I just want parity. For
every clever story of time travel to the age of the dinosaurs, I want a
story where humans attempt to relate to superpowered AI. For every alternate
history story, I want to see a story in which we grapple with our fear of
the frightening, powerful other in the immediate future. For every story
based on an updated version of the Jetsons, I would like to see mankind
struggle with the notion that we may no longer be the dominant entity on
this planet, able to subject all other forms to our will.
If I were a young reader entering SF today through the big doors, I’d be
furious. Many of the people in this newsgroup, including me, belong to the
generation that spawned these problems that are being evaded in the genre.
Problems that my daughters and their generation will have to live through
and clean up. To choose the comforting stories of departed, familiar times
when we could directly face this world we are creating with each passing
day, verges on hypocritical to me.
Today’s writers are redefining the field. Let’s make sure that redefinition
includes both future and technology. Let us directly confront the fears
generated by these Five Horsemen, lest we remain ignorant as the villagers
surrounding Frankenstein, and in our ignorance, do harm where we could have
accomplished good. I invite writers, new and established, young and old, to
engage the future at this dawn of the next age of dangerous technology, and
let’s set aside rewriting what has already been written.
Best regards,
Alan Lattimore
This essay first appeared in the Tangent Online newsgroup.