{"id":3628,"date":"2002-10-15T17:39:46","date_gmt":"2002-10-15T22:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3628"},"modified":"2002-10-15T17:39:46","modified_gmt":"2002-10-15T22:39:46","slug":"sigh_fi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/15\/sigh_fi.html","title":{"rendered":"Sigh Fi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among those signing one of several Internet petitions against military involvement in Iraq are a bunch of SF writers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More power to ’em, of course. That’s everyone’s right, and they are to be lauded for actually speaking out, regardless of how you feel about what they’re speaking.<\/p>\n

That having been said, I’m not so sure about this part:<\/p>\n

“Science fiction writers have a special interest in the future, and the U.S. policy on Iraq is putting our future at risk,” said Douglas Lain …. “It’s no wonder that so many fine writers in the genre are coming out in opposition to Bush and his war.<\/p>\n

Do SF writers really have a more “special interest” in the future than, say, housewives, DBAs, or jet pilots?<\/p>\n

Should we pay more attention to what SF writers have to say than, say, bankers, statisticians, or school teachers?<\/p>\n

Should we poll SF writers to see how many of them are opposed to a war, vs. how many of them do? If more SF writers back Bush, does that mean that war on Iraq has some sort of special blessing?<\/p>\n

Are there other, more qualified genre writers, perhaps? Military fiction and Techno-thriller writers might have some special insight into the military outcomes. Romance writers might better understand the heartbreak of separation in wartime. Mystery writers might have figured out whether Saddam is really hiding WMDs or not. Epic Fantasy writers have a special interest in Grand Wars between Good and Evil. Western writers might comprehend more fully the idea of a showdown in the hot desert sun. True Crime writers might chime in with reports of the depredations of the the Baghdad regime. Historical fiction writers …<\/p>\n

… well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among those signing one of several Internet petitions against military involvement in Iraq are a bunch of SF writers. More power to ’em, of course. That’s everyone’s right, and they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/13\/lost.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":0},"title":"Lost","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jun-03 4:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghost of a Flea posts about The Starlost, an sf show from 1973-74 that should have been truly fabulous -- great \"Bible,\" high-powered special effects talent, premier sf writers in...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12582,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/18\/rendezvousing_with_rama.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":1},"title":"Rendezvousing with Rama","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Mar-08 6:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"RIP Arthur C. Clarke. He was one of the classic sf writers I grew up on -- various shorts, as well as novels like The City and the Stars and...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32806,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/07\/bad-publishing-contracts.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":2},"title":"Bad publishing\u00a0contracts","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-Mar-13 2:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"John Scalzi rips into what sounds like (to me) a truly awful contract Random House is offering through its Hydra imprint for SF.\/F ebook writers. \u00a0(He follows up with an equally egregious one from their Alibi imprint\u00a0http:\/\/whatever.scalzi.com\/2013\/03\/06\/a-contract-from-alibi\/) Embedded Link Note to SF\/F Writers: Random House\u2019s Hydra Imprint Has Appallingly Bad\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131455,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/08\/a-golden-anniversary-for-the-show-that-changed-sf.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":3},"title":"A Golden Anniversary for the show that changed SF","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Sep-16 8:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's hard to believe, but it was 50 years ago today that the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC television. Presaging airing order weirdness for future SF shows, the first episode was \"The Man-Trap,\" not the (second) pilot that had sold the series.The article below tries to speculate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8557,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/12\/a_star_shall_gu.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":4},"title":"A star shall guide them","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Oct-05 1:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is old hat stuff to sf writers, but evidently something new under the sun (or under a sun) for Official Church Types: what would be the implications of extraterrestrial...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11839,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/22\/we_are_lookink_for_nuclea.html","url_meta":{"origin":3628,"position":5},"title":"“We are lookink for nuclear wessels!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Jan-08 1:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Fascinating story (part 1, part 2)\u00a0about a 1944 SF story by Cleve Cartmill\u00a0published in Astounding Science Fiction that got military intelligence all a-twitter over its depiction of an atomic bomb...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}