Science Fiction often presents a coded commentary on the present. What current work of science fiction do you think delivers the most relevant/poignant message with respect to our present geopolitical situation?

MT There’s actualy a bit of talk along these lines going on in the SF blogosphere triggered by a recent essay by Charlie Stross titled Genre Neuroses 101. Charlie states that American SF publishing is engaged in a “mad collective ostrich-head-burying exercise” rather than engaging in the world as it is. As can be imagined this has sparked some discussion, notably this post at Lou Ander’s Bowing to the Future. We already had this Brain Parade in the works when Charlie posted his essay but it may as well be a response to it.

I think Charlie misses a fairly signifigant difference between Europe and the United States and that is how divided the two places are politicaly and the depth of anger over those divisions. Even a show like Battlestar Galactica, often praised for tackling contemporary politics has to throw a bone to both sides of America’s political divide. For example immediately after an episode on torture being bad (bone to the lefties) came an episode where it was determined that abortion needed to be banned because the population was aborting itself to extinction (bone to the right). One has to wonder if this is really an honest exploration into contemporary politics or just an audience pleasing excersize. Considering how strong and negative reactions can be when science fiction writers express their political opinions in the US I can’t blame american publishers for wanting to steer clear of the subject. For an example of what I’m talking about check out this post by Dan Simmon’s (in short Muslims are all out to get us) and the accompanying postive response and negative response. It’s also worth noting that one of last year’s Science Fiction movies, The Island, supposedly about the “evil’s of cloning” a very contentious and contemporary issue was a flop. I imagine most American Science Fiction writers and publishers are pragmatic enough to want to avoid splitting their audience down the middle. So it just may be that contemporary politics might be quite simply too hot a potato for American SF to comfortably handle.

Jeff Patterson:
I’m not a big fan of “SF as Allegory,” and wince when I hear that SF is best when it holds a mirror up to us. Even worse is the claim that the best SF is about what it “means to be human.” This statement is rubbish, bordering on the insane. I’ve been human for 40+ years and I think I’ve got the routine down pretty good: think, laugh, eat, and copulate. I don’t need SF to remind me of that.

That being said, I’d have to go with Accelerando by Stross. It really vivisects the currently prevalent idea that traditions need to be preserved, which seems to be the underlying theme of most of the world’s dilemmas right now. And I don’t know if it counts as “current,” but I would also mention Peter Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy, specifically because the biotech schism between the Edenists and Adamists is something we’re seeing the first spastic inklings of today, and it’s the book I think of whenever I hear a bioconservative shriek about stem cells, cloning, and vegetative states being a part of “human dignity.”

I’m certain someone will mention Battlestar Galactica. At the recent Readercon there was a panel on Galactica, and it was mentioned that at various points in the show we (the audience) have been put in a position where we support the proposed assassination of Cain, the elimination of the peaceniks, and the rigging of an election, as well as being at least sympathetic to Kara’s use of torture on a Cylon and Roslyn’s ban on abortion, and somewhat understanding of Tigh’s declaring martial law. One panelist said it’s funny what an economy of scarcity (on a war footing, no less) can do to one’s political views.

Jeff Patterson is the blogger behind Gravity Lens

John Scalzi:
None. Look, science fiction (at least, the portion of it that comes out in novel form) is on a time delay with respect to current events. It takes an author X amount of time to write a book. It then takes the agent Y amount of time to shop the book. Then it takes the publisher Z amount of time to get the book to the book store. By which time whatever event the author wished to speak about had long since passed, or had changed so particularly in its specifics that the original message the author wished to say is often totally irrelevant. The book publishing world is a really bad way to comment on what’s going on today.

Be that as it may, some books get lucky in that the authors have an idea and when the book is through winding through the publishing industry python and is pooped out into the book stores, the current cultural climate is ready for that idea. Heinlein got lucky in this way with Stranger in a Strange Land; William Gibson got lucky this way with Neuromancer. Those were really fascinating, excellent books which *also* had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. But would either book have been as epochal if they had been published two years earlier, or two years later? It’s a fun thing to think about.

Having said that, science fiction writers write in present time, whatever that time may be, and what goes in their world is going to affect what they write. The *advantage* that science fiction writers have over other writers is that they can *ignore* contemporary time and craft a story that allows their concerns to be, essentially, timeless. We know that The Forever War is based to a great extent on Joe Haldeman’s experience of the Vietnam War, but the fact the book is science fiction allows it to get past that place in time. The Vietnam War memoir genre has had its time in the literary spotlight, but the Forever War keeps on coming. I would be very interested in seeing how Haldeman’s sales numbers for that book compare to the numbers for Vietnam war memoirs of similar acclaim.

John Scalzi is a Science Fiction writer who blogs at Whatever

John Lanius:
I don’t know how to answer this precisely, as I don’t know how to really define our present geopolitical situation in any meaningful sense. Sometimes our current situation makes me wonder whether the liberal experiment has almost run its course. I certainly hope not, but can Enlightenment ideals survive long in a Hobbesian world? Beset from within by the nihilistic Left and the superstitious Right and from without by the medieval fundamentalism of the Dar al Islam, it’s hard to stay optimistic. What’s the individual’s fate in a world perpetually at war and under constant surveillance (by both governments and private entities) and in which we are always struggling to stay ahead of our ability to kill ourselves? And no current work really comes to mind that deals with the fascistic Islamic threat in any satisfactory way. I think Neal Stephenson’s forward-looking books have it about right, especially the description of a divided American society in Snow Crash. I also think Robert Sawyer has dealt with the issues of rationality, religion, and the essence of humanity in a very even-handed way in his Terminal Experiment, Hominids, and Calculating God (I expect the same from Mindscan, though I haven’t read it yet).

John Lanius, TexasBestGrok

Paul Levinson:
Actually, I would say Asimov’s Foundation and Herbert’s Dune series have the best relevance to the present geo-political world, even though they’re a half century old. But both deal with the exquisite difficulties of attempting to rationally construct a world and a future, the weakness of just physical force without moral fiber, the persistence of evil whatever the success of the good. Both are well-worth reading again in today’s world.

Paul Levinson is a science fiction writer and a former president of the SFWA. (Paul’s blog)

Update: August 10th: Velcro City Tourist Board weighs in on the subject.

Torque Control weighs in on this Brain Parade here.

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