...
What I would propose instead is that good science fiction transcends such
limiting boundaries, and in fact, frequently provides complex, rich, and multi
faceted scenarios of the future. Science fiction often delves into future culture,
politics, and society; transformations in morals, psychology, and the mind; new
and varied ecologies and biologies (human, earthbound, and otherwise); sexual
and gender transformations; and philosophical, religious, and spiritual themes
and issues about tomorrow. (God even sometimes makes an appearance in
science fiction, such as in Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker and Michael Moorcock’s
Behold the Man.)
Not only does science fiction address all the major dimensions
of the future, it dramatically weaves these elements together into holistic visions.1
An excellent example of the comprehensive and integrative qualities of
science fiction is the highly regarded, epochal Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.
This epic is a series of four novels, Hyperion (1989), The Fall of Hyperion (1990),
Endymion (1995) and The Rise of Endymion (1997), set in the twenty-eighth
through thirty-first centuries.2 In Simmons’ future universe, the earth has
presumably been destroyed, but humanity has spread across myriad star
systems and worlds, forming the Hegemony of Man. These
worlds are all linked
together by an intricate network of wormholes or “farcasters” through which
humans can instantaneously travel between planets and star systems. The first
novel Hyperion, winner of the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the
year, is modeled on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and features seven archetypal
pilgrims who set out on a “tree-ship” for the planet Hyperion, which lies outside of
the farcaster network. The pilgrims, including a poet, a philosopher, a priest, and
a warrior, tell their individual tales and their reasons for journeying to Hyperion.
Although set in a high-tech reality, Simmons stylistically models this first novel on
a great literary masterpiece, and creates vivid and psychologically compelling
portraits of the seven pilgrims. One of the pilgrims, the poet, in fact, artistically
and personally struggles, in this and later volumes in the series, with how to
create a great work of art chronicling the ensuing events on the planet Hyperion – hence, the book itself becomes a self-reflective exercise in how one goes about
writing a mythic drama of the future.
Hyperion is immense in its scope and deals
1
with religion, good and evil, time travel, artificial intelligence, and a plethora of
different planetary ecologies and human societies. Of special note, in this first
novel, the issue of the meaning of life and the value of freedom is raised in the
context of the promise of immortality – a question that will be further pondered
and considered in later novels in the series. Again resonating with literary
classics of the past, the novel ends with the seven pilgrims, marching hand-in
hand up a hill singing “We are off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
Re: Are SciFi Authors Prophets?
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks