this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
10 points (100.0% liked)

collapse of the old society

1339 readers
1 users here now

to discuss news and stuff of the old world dying

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
10
Michael Moorcock on Sci-Fi luminaries (web.archive.org)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

top 3 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

It took me a while to read it because it's written in a style I'm not used to, and it felt very rambling and messy. Despite that, I liked his rants against Heinlein, Lovecraft and Star Wars, and it conveyed quite a great point on what science fiction should be about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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] 1 points 1 day 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).