Calm Before The Storm

[chris_gerrib]

My 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.

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Goblin Quest would probably fit into that box. But the idea that the genre as a whole is somehow permanently stuck there? Yeah, citations needed.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

May I link to this?

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

The humans are the invaders and the native aliens are the righteous victims.

Fwiw, I'm not sure there could be a more extreme version of this, than _Out of the Silent Planet_ (pub 1938).

_Babel-17_ might be a fair cop, as what I remember now is mostly the diverse genders.