To answer your last question first, that we will discuss in the remaining episodes of the series. ;-)
Aldiss said what he did because we are all part of our times and every decade and style believes itself the best. I know that’s perhaps unkind but my experience tells me that it’s true. Just look at the Hugo Awards today. What we value right now was not what was winning awards at other times.
As for killing science fiction entirely, I think you can. If the world changed in such a way as there was no more speculation, such as in the movie, “Idiocracy” or in a dystopia so tight that there’s no room for creative thought, then it could happen. There’d be nothing left but xerox copies of old stories becoming ever fainter. Let’s hope we never get all the way there.
We've experienced something like this in socialist-communist countries before the Wall came down, where disemination of information unsanctioned by the state was prohibited and heavily monitored. All citizens had to hand in copy from their typewriters to the state so any found pamphlets could be traced.
I'd like to think that even if things reach such a dismal level, after a few generations a worn copy of Ubik will be found by a street kid. We won't get the science fiction we've enjoyed, but we'd get something that would cause friction.
Brian Aldiss got nasty to Hugo! I wonder why such hostility.
This is an interesting question. I'm coming from the place of can you actually kill science fiction? In the same way that rock has "died?"
Would there have been a greater dominance of Eastern-influenced science fiction if Hugo had gone silent?
To answer your last question first, that we will discuss in the remaining episodes of the series. ;-)
Aldiss said what he did because we are all part of our times and every decade and style believes itself the best. I know that’s perhaps unkind but my experience tells me that it’s true. Just look at the Hugo Awards today. What we value right now was not what was winning awards at other times.
As for killing science fiction entirely, I think you can. If the world changed in such a way as there was no more speculation, such as in the movie, “Idiocracy” or in a dystopia so tight that there’s no room for creative thought, then it could happen. There’d be nothing left but xerox copies of old stories becoming ever fainter. Let’s hope we never get all the way there.
We've experienced something like this in socialist-communist countries before the Wall came down, where disemination of information unsanctioned by the state was prohibited and heavily monitored. All citizens had to hand in copy from their typewriters to the state so any found pamphlets could be traced.
I'd like to think that even if things reach such a dismal level, after a few generations a worn copy of Ubik will be found by a street kid. We won't get the science fiction we've enjoyed, but we'd get something that would cause friction.
I'm looking forward to the next episode 😃