Future history
Blog entry supplemental sixteen: Future history
My plan to write a series of short stories filling the background of the Lights in the sky universe went awry (after three stories), when one of the stories decided to turn itself into a novel!
So I’m now writing my sixth piece of extended fiction with the current title The Great Flood. If this sounds like historical fiction then that’s the point; writing about a putative future as if it were history, a common approach in science fiction!
As ever the intention is to write something that will appeal to the general reader, to a mainstream readership, in fact!
We’re in recognisable world (a possible criticism is that it’s a bit too like our own!). I think this is inevitable and a commonplace in fictional works set in a supposed future! I’m not futurologist, nor do I have clairvoyant powers! Most futuristic fiction reaches an accommodation with its audience… It’s different from the present day, but not too different! This provides reference points for the reader…
The trick would appear to be to introduce a number of technological, cultural, and social changes while maintaining a recognisable milieu…
This is complicated in the current times by the sheer pace of technological and related social and cultural transformations, but nothing is worse than supposed future world filled with supposed ‘developments’ which prove laughably wide of the mark (personal jetpacks and flying cars anybody!).
Science fiction reflects the time that it is written, anyway; and mine reflects a suspicion of and an apprehension with unchecked technological advance and economic change which is a part of the current zeitgeist! Obviously, another strand within the same zeitgeist welcomes this change with open arms…
This schism forms part of the ideological and cultural wars that characterise our times. This is very much a work in progress and it will change, as I modify and customise the text through the writing and editing process…
As ‘historical’ fiction the past is very much present in the world of the novel, manifesting both in the preoccupations of the main characters, and in the thematic elements and symbolism I intend to employ…
Stephen Clare January 2018