my future historiography
I’m not really interested in ‘combating’ any review (it mentions “Walking Stick Fires”) which I don’t really think is bad anyway. But, broadly, this is a bad premise. Or at least not a very compelling one. For one the future is by definition is ‘incomprehensible.’ That is at least the starting point. The Yeats’ epigraph is also telling too: positing that we are at the ‘end of history’ for written SF/F. Perhaps it’s because the assumptions that have bedrocked the genre are in serious question. I think Kincaid would agree with this actually. But these assumptions have ceased to be of value; in fact I find them to be, you know, a reflection of the problems that are embedded in our 2012 America. Sure there is excitement/adventure/guns in my story, but the protags are, yes, bored imperialists. Resource exploitation is banal. And characterization, to this extent, is about ordinary things. That is perhaps the difference. “Confidence in the future isn’t about optimism or pessimism, it’s about having the confidence that the future is understandable, something that can be described, made sense of.” (1) the future is not understandable, (2) it can be described only hesitantly at best, (3) no, it cannot be made sense of. I think it’s good to at least not ascribe intentions that are simply not of interest to some writers. Of course I can only speak of myself.
It’s just a different historiography of the future.
