Hello, been a while since I was here.
School work piled on, then a complete burn out.
Anyway, before I get into the whole finding a job thing, I thought I'd pop in and say a few cranky, no-fun words.
Basically, these are a few points, perhaps even criticisms about this whole endeavor.
I hope that it will inspire healthy debate about the teleology of Fenspace.
Firstly: Why the Boskone War should have been total genocide for the entire human race.
Not knowing how or why the whole Boskone thing started, nor how it ended, it's a bit difficult to attribute motives and what-not to the sides. At any rate, ever since Napoleon or thereabouts, Total War has been the name of the game. Granted, we haven't had a full-scale nuclear exchange on Earth yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen.
Given this trend in human history, with no real sign of abatement, the Boskone War should have meant extinction for the whole human race. Here's why: weapons proliferation. Even with the censor that handwavium imposes, the most effecient and cheaply made weapon available to the combatants are their own ships. With enough firepower in just one orbital shuttle to take out a city (at least), and with the massive proliferation of ships/weapons, there should have been mass al-qaedaing of damn near every habitat, space station, asteroid, colony, city and biosphere.
The only reason why this hasn't happend is editorial fiat. Which really isn't that good of a reason.
Think about it. If we can start a venomous flame war about, I dunno, which battlestar galactica was better, then how would fans (or fens . . . which works as well as any other name, i suppose) react to each other when they have thermonuclear capabilities and a frightening lack of restraint?
Secondly: Suzumiya Haruhi is dumb, dumb, dumb.
Well, no, not really. It's a great anime/light novel series. She's a great character. However, what really takes you out of this shared universe thing is the idea of a single god-like character out there laughing it up while handing out handwavium goodies.
(not to get into the fact that the whole premise of the series was that she didn't know about her powers being the point).
It further takes away any real mystique that the handwavium could accrue if their origins were mysterious. Where did it come from? How does it work? Who else is out there in the universe? Etc. etc. If the answer to all this is: it's a god-like japanese school girl what did it, then, well, heck. There's not much more to say about the subject, is there.
It also goes against the, for lack of a better term, feel of the shared universe. What is the point of being semi-hard science fiction if it's the product of a god-like being? Doesn't that undermine everything?
Thirdly: Nostalgia.
I read an article (can't find it now, darn it), really an interview with charles stross and cory doctorow, in which it talks about how science fiction has grown afraid of the future. How it's either all elves and unicorns or space opera galactic empires in the year five billion. No near-term future think. A discussion of the singularity was also there, but the point stands that there is a genuine lack of novelty in science fiction.
A lot of it has to do with nostalgia; dangerous, corrosive nostalgia.
Look at how this world was set up, regurgitating the ideas and dreams of dead men like ideological necrophiliac cannibals. Where's the new, the outbreaks of future, in having your fictional avatar live in a world that people born in the ass-end of the last century would have found comfortable and explicable?
Anyway.
Ignore or respond or what have you.
-murmur
School work piled on, then a complete burn out.
Anyway, before I get into the whole finding a job thing, I thought I'd pop in and say a few cranky, no-fun words.
Basically, these are a few points, perhaps even criticisms about this whole endeavor.
I hope that it will inspire healthy debate about the teleology of Fenspace.
Firstly: Why the Boskone War should have been total genocide for the entire human race.
Not knowing how or why the whole Boskone thing started, nor how it ended, it's a bit difficult to attribute motives and what-not to the sides. At any rate, ever since Napoleon or thereabouts, Total War has been the name of the game. Granted, we haven't had a full-scale nuclear exchange on Earth yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen.
Given this trend in human history, with no real sign of abatement, the Boskone War should have meant extinction for the whole human race. Here's why: weapons proliferation. Even with the censor that handwavium imposes, the most effecient and cheaply made weapon available to the combatants are their own ships. With enough firepower in just one orbital shuttle to take out a city (at least), and with the massive proliferation of ships/weapons, there should have been mass al-qaedaing of damn near every habitat, space station, asteroid, colony, city and biosphere.
The only reason why this hasn't happend is editorial fiat. Which really isn't that good of a reason.
Think about it. If we can start a venomous flame war about, I dunno, which battlestar galactica was better, then how would fans (or fens . . . which works as well as any other name, i suppose) react to each other when they have thermonuclear capabilities and a frightening lack of restraint?
Secondly: Suzumiya Haruhi is dumb, dumb, dumb.
Well, no, not really. It's a great anime/light novel series. She's a great character. However, what really takes you out of this shared universe thing is the idea of a single god-like character out there laughing it up while handing out handwavium goodies.
(not to get into the fact that the whole premise of the series was that she didn't know about her powers being the point).
It further takes away any real mystique that the handwavium could accrue if their origins were mysterious. Where did it come from? How does it work? Who else is out there in the universe? Etc. etc. If the answer to all this is: it's a god-like japanese school girl what did it, then, well, heck. There's not much more to say about the subject, is there.
It also goes against the, for lack of a better term, feel of the shared universe. What is the point of being semi-hard science fiction if it's the product of a god-like being? Doesn't that undermine everything?
Thirdly: Nostalgia.
I read an article (can't find it now, darn it), really an interview with charles stross and cory doctorow, in which it talks about how science fiction has grown afraid of the future. How it's either all elves and unicorns or space opera galactic empires in the year five billion. No near-term future think. A discussion of the singularity was also there, but the point stands that there is a genuine lack of novelty in science fiction.
A lot of it has to do with nostalgia; dangerous, corrosive nostalgia.
Look at how this world was set up, regurgitating the ideas and dreams of dead men like ideological necrophiliac cannibals. Where's the new, the outbreaks of future, in having your fictional avatar live in a world that people born in the ass-end of the last century would have found comfortable and explicable?
Anyway.
Ignore or respond or what have you.
-murmur