Charles Stross just
came out with a new novel titled Empire Games. Although I
haven’t read it myself yet, (I’m just barely getting through his
Atrocity Archives of his Laundry Files series) the way he
explains it in his article at io9 makes the novel seem to do for global politics what many of Kim
Stanley Robinson’s later novels have been doing for environmental
issues: taking the realist approach. Because of this, it sounds like
it’s a little more down to earth than his Laundry Files novels.
Stross explains in
the article the difference between far-future science fiction and
near-future science fiction using his novel as an example of the
latter. He refers to far-future sci fi as mostly escapist fiction and
near-future as more realistic. That may be so on a social level, but
I’ve read a lot of far-future hard science fiction that gives the
best of both worlds. If there’s ever a time we need the
serious sci fi Stross talks about, it’s now in this dawn of an
elitist presidency. Do you think such science fiction can help us
through a difficult presidential administration?
Until next time . .
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