Michael Moorcock on Sci-Fi luminaries (web.archive.org)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I know this is a little outside the normal scope of this community. However, I think it’s undeniable that a contributing factor to the ideas and behavior of contemporary tech oligarchs is their love of older sci-fi and fantasy literature. Seeing the authoritarian and sometimes even straightforwardly fascist ideals hidden in those works can be helpful in understanding how these people think.

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The concerns are legit. :(

Then again, empires and wars make for great story material. Persistent peace... not so much. So I believe science fiction has a bias towards epic messes.

As for when this was written - wow, 1978. Probably before Iain M. Banks brought a typewriter home and started typing his first Culture novel...

...but as a result of his typing, even libertarian / socialist viewpoints of science fiction contain empires (often defeated) and wars (sometimes resolved without mass casualties, but not always). The damnable reality of literature tends to be: if there's no gun on the wall in chapter 1 and someone isn't shot by chapter 3, you have to figure out what sells the story. :(

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I think Moorcock does recognize the value of having empires in fiction, his point is more about the underlying philosophy revealed by the protagonist(s).

this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025

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