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Jul. 12th, 2010 13:08Saturday July 10, 2010 From Twitter:
omgjulia: "I don't think there's been a real problem with indigenous cultures appropriating Scientology." Michael Swanwick ftw #readercon
***To Everett's. It's a small grocery, the kind which would be familiar to someone who'd just time-travelled from the 1950s or earlier. Except for unfamiliar foods such as injera, and newfangled cash registered, and a few other details.
I went there for the Early Sunday Star Tribune -- the old Early Sunday edition combined with the Saturday edition, at the weekday price. Among other things, it has both weekday and Sunday comics. And this time, a couple of the comics were funny.
***Discussion, partly on LiveJournal, about science fiction and fantasy -- where the border is, which is better in what way, etc.
What interests me most is fiction about possible futures. Which means that even if I believed in magic, fantasy wouldn't include my preferred reading material. Perhaps especially if I believed in magic -- fantasy is written by and for people who are assumed not to believe in magic.
Unfortunately for me, science fiction set in the future doesn't have a good record of getting the future right. I'm told there are people who say this doesn't matter, because sf is about the present rather than the future.
Why it does matter: a major reason why writers get the future wrong is that they don't understand the present. Otherwise there wouldn't be stories from the late 1980s in which the Soviet Union lasted well into the future. And there would be more stories from the 1950s which mentioned crowded colleges in the 1960s and 1970s. (I can't think of any, but I might have missed three or four such.)
I'm not saying that speculative fiction writers should be writing what I want to read. There are people who read for reasons very different from mine.
***Out shopping again. One light rail stop south to Walgreens; two stops north from there to Aldi; one stop back home.
I remember when trolleys were being phased out because private cars (supplemented by buses) were so much better. Now urban railroads are a wonderful new form of transportation.
omgjulia: "I don't think there's been a real problem with indigenous cultures appropriating Scientology." Michael Swanwick ftw #readercon
***To Everett's. It's a small grocery, the kind which would be familiar to someone who'd just time-travelled from the 1950s or earlier. Except for unfamiliar foods such as injera, and newfangled cash registered, and a few other details.
I went there for the Early Sunday Star Tribune -- the old Early Sunday edition combined with the Saturday edition, at the weekday price. Among other things, it has both weekday and Sunday comics. And this time, a couple of the comics were funny.
***Discussion, partly on LiveJournal, about science fiction and fantasy -- where the border is, which is better in what way, etc.
What interests me most is fiction about possible futures. Which means that even if I believed in magic, fantasy wouldn't include my preferred reading material. Perhaps especially if I believed in magic -- fantasy is written by and for people who are assumed not to believe in magic.
Unfortunately for me, science fiction set in the future doesn't have a good record of getting the future right. I'm told there are people who say this doesn't matter, because sf is about the present rather than the future.
Why it does matter: a major reason why writers get the future wrong is that they don't understand the present. Otherwise there wouldn't be stories from the late 1980s in which the Soviet Union lasted well into the future. And there would be more stories from the 1950s which mentioned crowded colleges in the 1960s and 1970s. (I can't think of any, but I might have missed three or four such.)
I'm not saying that speculative fiction writers should be writing what I want to read. There are people who read for reasons very different from mine.
***Out shopping again. One light rail stop south to Walgreens; two stops north from there to Aldi; one stop back home.
I remember when trolleys were being phased out because private cars (supplemented by buses) were so much better. Now urban railroads are a wonderful new form of transportation.