The resurgence in all thing sci-fi comes as a huge wave of relief to most of us, and none more so than those of us who have been loving it in secret for years. In fact, it struck me the other day that the reason for this is that it appeals to the underdog in all of us. For instance, when I compare my search for a publisher to the struggle to acquit sci-fi of its geeky origins, I can draw a number of parallels.
I am a maverick – randomly educated, underemployed for years and still to hit my peak. I’ve been a music journalist, youth arts worker, cartoonist, landscape gardener, T-shirt designer, worked for charities, schools, NGO’s and small businesses, and throughout I’ve written and published comments which for the most part have fallen on deaf ears. I was either too radical, or too young, or too qualified for everything I tried. So I began to accept being side-lined and even took an obscure delight in the anonymity and freedom this gave me. Hey, I can write for anyone! Subsequently, I published articles in magazines in Canada, Spain and the UK, I began blogging, took a job working for the first English language national newspaper in Spain, wrote a film script and a novel , and started to enjoy the act of writing in a way that I never had before.
During this period we’ve seen sci-fi become viral across literature, TV and movies. Margaret Atwood can say she writes sci-fi now. JJ Abrams is laughing all the way to the bank. Blockbuster movies last year were almost unanimously tinged with spaceships, time travel and fantasy elements of inner or outer space. It’s time I stepped out of the closet and declared “I am SCI-FI”! (“No, I am Sci-fi!”)
Like the best trends, SF has come about now because we need it. We need to examine global issues, because our world has shrunk down to a tiny planet which can be traversed in a day. We’ll be out among the stars before you know it. We need to explore issues of identity and tolerance and boundaries. It is symptomatic of this genre that it tackles many issues and defies easy characterisation. Even the Bible of our times Wikipedia struggles to encapsulate it.
“Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty by stating that "science fiction is what we point to when we say it", a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you don't know what it is, but you know it when you see it. Vladimir Nabokov argued that if we were rigorous with our definitions, Shakespeare's play The Tempest would have to be termed science fiction.”
So we need this geeky grown-up child called Sci-fi to raise its head now. When Robbie the robot was a fiction, it was easy for the mainstream to laugh at SF fans, but now that robots, technological machines and global politics are in our daily lives, the issues explored weekly by Adama, Apollo and Starbuck are relevant and topical. And sci-fi is no longer just for the lads who want to be Superman. Heroes, Lost, Alias, Dollhouse, Firefly, Farscape, Fringe, and True Blood are series with diverse themes but all have had pivotal roles for female actors, and avoid being pegged as science-fiction. Instead they inhabit a reality that encompasses far-out plots, gritty action and tangible characters whose lives mirror our own. Sci-fi has got its mojo back, and all the major players in film, TV, books and graphic novels are banking on this trend to continue into 2010.
So who’s to say that I can’t write a column on the comings and goings of the characters who populate these brave new worlds? Or that I can’t find a backer for my ethical sci-fi movie script? Or that being a forty-something female should deter me from applying for a job at Blackfish? Come on guys, if you believe Laura Roslin had the balls to make a good President, give a girl a chance.
