Calm Before The Storm
Feb. 5th, 2015 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribMy parents came up last night for a visit, and so we went out to dinner where I had a couple of drinks. Then I had a nightcap, while reading Brad Torgersen's latest post entitled the unraveling of an unreliable field. His theory is that SF has kept the "packaging" (covers) but subverted the contents thereof. Money quote:
Yet SF/F literature seems almost permanently stuck on the subversive switcheroo. If we’re going to do a Tolkien-type fantasy, this time we’ll make the Orcs the heroes, and Gondor will be the bad guys. Space opera? Our plucky underdogs will be transgender socialists trying to fight the evil galactic corporations. War? The troops are fighting for evil, not good, and only realize it at the end. Planetary colonization? The humans are the invaders and the native aliens are the righteous victims. Yadda yadda yadda.
My immediate response was WTF, over? So I asked for specific examples of this switcheroo. So far, crickets.
Yet SF/F literature seems almost permanently stuck on the subversive switcheroo. If we’re going to do a Tolkien-type fantasy, this time we’ll make the Orcs the heroes, and Gondor will be the bad guys. Space opera? Our plucky underdogs will be transgender socialists trying to fight the evil galactic corporations. War? The troops are fighting for evil, not good, and only realize it at the end. Planetary colonization? The humans are the invaders and the native aliens are the righteous victims. Yadda yadda yadda.
My immediate response was WTF, over? So I asked for specific examples of this switcheroo. So far, crickets.