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Yesterday’s world-wide youth protest against climate change in no way occurred too soon. Our institutions needed to be wakened and made aware that the beauty spring brings around this time of year may not be around for too many more years if we don’t do something about the destruction to the environment. I was so impressed by the teens who took this stand that I shared a Washington Post article about it on Facebook. But the news about the protest also got me to look back on what author Kim Stanley Robinson said about acting against climate change in his talk about his newest book, Red Moon, last month at the Avid Reader in Davis, California. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Robinson’s work, he’s an advocate for environmental solutions which much of his science fiction reflects. Several posts back I talked about the various kinds of punk science fiction which solarpunk and ecopunk are two them. Both deal with environmental issues. Yet, Robinson’s work falls under neither.
Or at least Robinson
does not refer to his fiction as solarpunk or ecopunk. In fact, he
doesn’t refer to it as any kind of punk. When I attended his talk
and reading last month, I came into it about 15 minutes late and so
by that time there was standing room only. He’s not only a
best-selling and award-winning author but also a Davis resident. So I
was crammed into a corner among other people, if not mostly Davis
residents then Sacramento area residents in general, who were also
standing like myself. So I wasn’t in a position to pull from my
backpack my journal to take notes and so had to rely on memory and
write down the key points when I got home that evening. That said,
I’m not going to even try to write word for word what Robinson said
but I’ll give you the basic ideas he was getting across to us. I
asked him about his thoughts on punk science fiction and he said that most of that type of sci fi
is not punk in its truest sense. He basically said the events in punk
science fiction, especially the subgenres of it that came after
cyberpunk, are not radical enough in their demand for social change.
After Robinson read an excerpt from his Red Moon he answered questions from the audience. At some point he said that science fiction is limited in its subgenres. I asked him that with all the punk science fiction subgenres springing up--such as steampunk, atompunk, ecopunk and solarpunk--wouldn’t he think the genre is continuously expanding. To this he said something like that the punk suffix is used for marketing purposes and isn’t punk in the true sense of the word. He said he preferred calling sci fi that deals with social problems, including environmental issues, something like “reformative science fiction” rather than punk science fiction. When I asked if he thought there was at least a small degree of social rebellion in the punk subgenres or even just a suggestion of it, he said that the characters don’t go to the extreme that punk rockers in the 1970s did, such as destroying property and doing illegal drugs, and so there is no radical reaction to the establishment in the fiction of these categories. He said that his own fiction does not reflect that kind of reaction. This is because he believes that in order for there to be social change the people have to campaign for it through the democratic process and the establishment has to help with that change. If we try to push for change through a radical process, Robinson explained, like punk rockers have it could bring on worse situations.
I have to agree with
Robinson at least to an extent. Most people will not respond in an
agreeable manner to radical and spontaneous actions and will probably
counter-rebel. However, when it comes to punk science fiction, in my
opinion the characters themselves do not necessarily have to react
radically to bring about social change. In these kinds of stories,
there only has to be a call for change in society’s infrastructures
and a criticism of today’s status quo that keeps that change from
occurring.
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Now in many ways, Robinson is right about the punk subgenres being used to market various types of science fiction. And they have been used to market stories that aren’t about social change in the least. So maybe sci fi punk, whether it’s steampunk, hopepunk, solarpunk, ecopunk or atompunk, is just a passing fad. Books are marketed according to the times and “punk” is a term that today’s speculative fiction fans turn to when they see it in the names of their favourite subgenres. As far as marketing goes, these sci fi categories have been misapplied. However, as far as reader’s interest itself goes they can be very useful. Not everyone likes the same types of science fiction. Some people prefer military sci fi, while others prefer space opera or cyberpunk.
But what’s
important is not the term that’s used for a type of science fiction
but what the stories in that type are doing. The best kind of science
fiction is that which inspires people to make a better society. This
kind either depicts a better future society that promotes diversity
and equality or it shows what can happen if we don’t promote these
social values and so scares us into promoting them. The former is
utopian. However, for utopian sci fi to tell a good story that people
want to read, it has to involve challenges that the protagonists must
overcome in order to maintain that kind of society. The latter occurs
in a lot of apocalyptic and dystopian stories.
So punk science
fiction should do what all science fiction does: inspire readers to
contribute to a better future. The difference in punk sci fi from
other sci fi is that it more so emphasises social change itself,
criticising our present day institutions in doing so. The social
change can include environmental causes.
How much do you
think science fiction should inspire to create a better society?
Until next time . .
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