<
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/books/kim-stanley-robinson-sci-fi.html>
"Last fall, the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson was asked to
predict what the world will look like in 2050. He was speaking at the United
Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, and the atmosphere at the summit
— billed as the “last, best hope” to save the planet — was bleak.
But Robinson, whose novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” lays out a path for
humanity that narrowly averts a biosphere collapse, sounded a note of cautious
optimism. Overcome with emotion at times, he raised the possibility of a near
future marked by “human accomplishment and solidarity.”
“It should not be a solitary day dream of a writer sitting in his garden,
imagining there could be a better world,” Robinson told the crowd.
It’s a hard time to be a utopian writer, or any sort of utopian.
Disaster-filled dystopian stories abound in movies, television and fiction;
news headlines verge on apocalyptic. Other masters of utopian speculative
fiction — giants like Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks — are gone, and few
are filling the void. At the same time, utopian stories have never felt so
necessary."
Via Bill Daul.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
