So, everyone thinks the things they Love are important. It becomes all-consuming to the point that we don’t get how other people don’t get it.
Historians believe history will save us. Christians think Christ will save us. Musicians think music can change the world and football fans probably think this great gladiatorial sport draws people closer together while releasing the ancient aggressions and tribal passions of our species. Or something. Also nachos.
And I’m a geek. I think science fiction and fantasy is important. Whether you grew up with the underlying message of coming together to battle fascism in the Lord of the Rings or the little-guy’s Rebellion in Star Wars, the theories of government that Robert Heinlein explored in Starship Troopers, the broad explorations of sex and sexuality brought to you by Ocatavia Butler, the fear and paranoia and altered-reality of Philip K. Dick or the environmental collapse and corporate ownership of Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Windup Girl”. Fears that don’t occur to us, heroes that are outside of us, aliens that aren’t so alien and humans that are. I learned the word “jihad” not from the news cycle or my history classes, but from Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and since “fear is the mind-killer” and “fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration” I didn’t learn to fear these strange things, I yearned to understand them.
I’m re-reading “The Expanse” series by James SA Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). It’s big on SyFy right now, hailed as the new Battlestar Galactica and NPR hails it as “the best and most important piece of science fiction to appear on the small screen in a decade”. And I just can’t get over the lost opportunity.
It’s the nature of fandom to claim ownership. To have seen it first. To be a truer convert.
To not be a fan of the movie but the original series. To not be a fan of the original series but to Love the comic book. To not care about the comic book but the original 1930’s pulp novel. This isn’t about that.
Go read the books. Whereas the series enjoys making an ugly universe pretty with high production values and a brooding Kit Harringtonish version of James Holden in the starring role, dumbing down orbital physics and science to a couple of token shots of sideways pouring alcohol – the books do a beautiful job of explaining the math, grasping the implied reality of a universe defined not by getting from point A to point B, but defined by the gravitational pulls of A and B and C and D, everything is constantly in motion.
Go read the books. Whereas the series enjoys making the relationships strained and harsh and dramatic, there are beautiful friendships and banter in the books that feel like good friends feel.
Go read the books. Whereas the series has focused on a half-assed version of political drama and high-space adventure, the first three books focus on racial identity and self-sacrifice, alien THINGS too vast for humanity to comprehend and humans being all-too-human in the face of them. And the second three books seem almost prescient as we watch a charismatic but small-minded man rise to the fore and launch a vicious, short-sighted coup against his people – destroying everything within reach and lying about his methods and desires, presenting false facts and dubious misdirections, lashing out at those who dare to challenge him with facts and figures. Maybe that’s a message that should have been more blatantly popularized in the past year. You know, before the election of a charismatic but small-minded man launching a vicious, short-sighted coup against everything we hold dear…
