Much ado about Mundane Science Fiction. (See: Wikipedia. )Here’s my take:
Mundane Science Fiction is a useful handle for sf stories of their type. What I don’t quite get is how Mundane Science Fiction (MSF) novels are better than, say, The Left Hand of Darkness or, say, The Sparrow.
As a caution against crappy sf, I like what the Mundane Science Fiction manifesto has to say. Glad someone said it.
My beef?
There is lots of crappy Mundane SF around too. There is no antidote for crappy stories, I believe, MSF included. That said, there is a more basic concern:
#1. MSF’s troubling stance that exploring off planet stories encourages an exploitative mind set, and even something as specific as “a wasteful attitude toward Earth.” An interesting idea, maybe. Worth discussing, maybe not worth a manifesto. Many environmental cautionary tales can be (and have been) fictionally set on extra solar worlds. I should know, I wrote one: The Seeds of Time.
#2, MSF’s bewildering sentiment that we tell better stories of people’s dreams, hopes and feelings if we avoid off-world settings and alien cultures. I always thought that I wrote about real people and their inner lives. I always thought fictional alien cultures can be the basis for an extended metaphor on the human condition. Why is it better to be in the realm of “reality?” If you want serious predictions of the future, sf is not always a good place to go. Even the best of our sf literature in the 80’s and 90’s missed the technological prophetic boat. The heck with predicting the future. Let’s play in it.
I want to emphasize that I don’t mind the category–although like Sean Williams,
I’m getting weary of so many. If you tell me your latest book is Mundane Science Fiction, great, I’ve got it ball-parked. But please don’t turn up your nose if I tell you I’ve just written about a world we’ll never see.
I just hope that MSF doesn’t provide the latest way to be With It: to be truly in tune with the Earth and human emotion. Isn’t that a shade condescending? Shall we revoke the awards for The Dispossessed?
And let’s all resolve not to write crappy sf. Of any sort.