I feel like I'm swimming upstream in polluted water when I read other works out there for purposes of trying to see how something I would want to write might fit in.
It's bad.
A lot of what I skimmed over were Mass Effect clones, but somehow further right wing than Mass Effect already was, with the names changed and the numbers filed off.
A lot of what's left involves "humanity fuck yeah" space imperialism, grizzled tough guys with cold piercing stares and powerlifter physiques well into old age and their adventures with brilliant and hot scientist women that are defined more about who their father is/was and less by their actual job, that try to prove they are Independent Strong Willed Women but of course swoon for the timeless grizzled ego insert's blandly stoic charms. Also, a space bureaucracy usually interferes with the grizzled tough guy's very important imperialistic mission and his only chance to save humanity is to go rogue with a ragtag bunch of renegades and kill those filthy aliens before they threaten colonial interests. Or something.
I got some pretty harsh negative feedback for my inclusion of ideas in my own work. The idea that billionaires wanting to colonize Mars aren't actually going to save humanity by doing that and it would be an insatiable resource sink that would further accelerate Earth's decay was especially incendiary. Maybe I should have already become a rich and influential writer first before trying something like that, but that seems like it might have involved writing one of the above reactionary works instead and hoping another off-brand Mass Effect got more traction instead.
I'm demoralized, but I'm also nearly done with the third book in my self-published trilogy. It's a weird place to be.
EDIT: I may as well post a link to the website my wife and my friend helped set up. It has the first five chapters available for free and some other stuff.
https://www.tulpatrilogy.com/
Sci Fi's golden age was defined by American engineers writing stories about how cool engineering would be at some point in the future. During the Golden Age of Science Fiction most of the engineers writing science fiction were 1.) Ex-Military, usually WWII or Korea, 2.) Building weapons for boeing and 3.) Middle class Americans.
What I'm trying to say is that science fiction is really, really fashy because most English language science fiction was written buy white men with military experience working as engineers in the US war machine, aka it was written by fascists. And when they were writing the kids reading Golden Age sci fi were mostly boys, because women were systemically excluded from engineering and science (despite always making important contributions in the shadows). And those boys grew up and went to Vietnam or Iraq, and came back and wrote more fashy science fiction about how awesome space America was and how dirty and evil space aliens are and blah blah blah John Ringo.
There's always been outliers and counter-narratives, but the cheap paperback main stream Science Fiction has largely been written by fascists for an audience of fascists.
Mass Effect is a basically just a fascists spank fantasy, with handsome and noble militarized empires fighting off ethnic inflected aliens until, oops, a big horde of totally alien monsters decides to destroy Space America for literally no reason, because Space America is perfect and there is no justifiable cultural, economic, or practical reason to go to war with it.
I really hate Mass Effect. "Hey, there's this species of super hardcore aliens who breed super fast but they're also bigger and stronger than us and totally warlike and we really have to do a genocide it's our only choice! But ooooh it's morally complicated because we're liberals! But we did it anyway."
It's just American Racist fantasies IN SPAAAAAACE
I'm sorry you're not getting a better reception with your books but in a decade where Halo and Mass Effect are the dominant Sci Fi properties the odds were always stacked against you.
Thank you for your reply.
I haven't given up yet; how could I, when I have the third and final book in the trilogy nearly completed? Next time, I'll write something one book at a time so each work can stand on its own instead of being dependent on contextual awareness of the previous books in the series.
Until that time, all I have is what I got. I challenged a lot of assumptions and delusions in the genre, went in swinging, and the algorithm did its thing.
Yeah, I think the archetypal example of the US imperialist writing sci-fi is Cordwainer Smith (a cheeky pseudonym). He was a literal spook, working for the OSS and CIA after, then the State Dept. He hated the hippie movement in the US However, like a lot of fash authors, his works inspired some great stuff. Cordwainer Smith has been cited as an inspiration for Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Evangelion.
but if it's just licensed sci-fi paperback shit like mass effect or star wars or whatever, i don't think there's anything other than its on-the-face entertainment value there
edit: some choice quotes from Smith's wiki page (real name Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger)
he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations. When he later pursued his interest in China, Linebarger became a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek.
He was recalled to advise the British forces in the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. Eighth Army in the Korean War. While he was known to call himself a "visitor to small wars", he refrained from becoming involved in the Vietnam War, but is known to have done work for the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1969 CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. wrote that Linebarger was "perhaps the leader practitioner of 'black' and 'gray' propaganda in the Western world".[5][6] According to Joseph Burkholder Smith, a former CIA operative, he conducted classes in psychological warfare for CIA agents at his home in Washington under cover of his position at the School of Advanced International Studies.
He used his experiences in the war to write the book Psychological Warfare (1948), regarded by many in the field as a classic text.
Because society is reactionary, thus producing reactionary works of art
You are cool, of course fascist nerds wont like reading anything that irk their stupid ideology. U.K. LeGuin didn't cater to those idiots and look at her, while nobody remember cookie-cutter-B-movie-plot #23674 made by Dexter McWhimp
Offtopic but i liked how in God Emperor of Dune some guy defeats homophobia with facts and logic (in a weird way but hey, it was the 60s) and then it turns out that the author was a massive homophobe so maybe i read that part of the book in the opposite way it was supposed to, lmao.
It's surprisingly common for reactionary sci-fi authors to write speculation about how an imagined society should be, and come to good conclusions... and then seem completely oblivious about what the implication are for the society they actually currently live in.
Here's looking at you Orson Scott Card. Maybe just fuck your sister and stop trying to make everyone else as miserable as you are.
"Haha, don't you see Mr idaho, is perfectly normal for men in the army to experiment with their sexuality and fuck each other. Also women soldiers are ok."
"(angry homophobic noises, then character 1 defeats him easily in a fight)"
"actkually it's ok for men soldiers to engage in homosexuality and stuff. Also women soldiers are good due to the nurturing disposition of the female"
Then he humiliates the main character in a fight.
naw, no naked 6 year old duels to the death in dune
at least not that i recall
Why? Because the right realized that higher education was turning their kids librul post WW2, so they deliberately defunded and undermined the education system.
We, the readers, are dumb. We need to be told what is reactionary, why it's bad, why the people writing it are bad, and why thoughtful sci fi is good. Smash the fourth wall.
Yes, most post WW2 sci fi was written by conservatives, but so much cold war funding was sloshing around education there was some for alternative voices like LeGuin.
Can't imagine trying to compete in that writing environment tbh, a lot of it probably reads like it's algo generated. kudos to you for trying to introduce some logical ideas. Promoting your work in the best spaces as something different in sci fi, and why it's different to the reactionary stuff, is key imo.
You mentioned negative feedback btw. Did you mean from readers? Or editors?
I self-published. The negative feedback was political in nature and from two beta readers, and also a few that did leave reviews.
Interesting. Just personally, if I was in your position, in the current online environment, I wouldn't be paying much attention to online feedback in a direct way, if that makes sense. Direct online reactions to your work should maybe only reach you through the filter of a couple of trusted, extremely online people that are close to you. Much less chance of your train of thought getting derailed by whatever the week's op is. I
We're only riding on the coat tails of truly brave leftist authors like Ursula Le Guin
Speaking of, for a really good modern sci-fi series I will never stop shilling for the 'Murderbot Chronicles'. The author isn't a leftist herself, but the text could be taken as one.
Also, also, the Ancillary Justice series is equally good. Although not as pulply as I would like.
I'm hoping to finish my own novel's second draft sometime at the end of this year. First in hopefully a four-part series. There's absolutely an audience for leftist readers who are begging for books which could imagine a better world. They just have to know they exist! Don't give up the struggle! :stalin-heart:
the series ends with a solar system wide socialist revolution which is sweet.
Haven't read Dune, but saw it in the cinema a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed it except the whole "we're the good feudal-imperialists cos the Harkonnens are evil and we're not the evil ones so please accept on faith that we're therefore good. Also we're gonna make a point of giving a shit about the lives of productive workers for this one scene, but then demand that dangerous production resumes immediately afterwards. I promise we're the good ones tho look at our jawlines, btw did we mention the other ones are evil and inhuman?" (admittedly they do have sexy jawlines, but that's not the point)
For clarity: I'm just irritated that because of the disproportionate emphasis on making atreides sympathetic the majority of people, i.e. non-marxists, watching this film will have taken away that house atreides are the “goodies”, and I just wish that more care was taken to not let that happen
If you don't want spoilers don't read this.
spoiler
In Dune: Messiah, Paul becomes just as grotesque and evil as the Harokonnens, though the knowledge of his own transformation wears on his psyche, further depressing and fragmenting him. Essentially, it emphasizes that there is no such thing as a 'good' empire because empire comes with its own set of rules and contradictions that not even a chosen one can overcome.
Yeah it's awesome that the message gets better as the series progresses, but the initial framing of "here, this one is the good empire" is still pretty cringe (to me, though I haven't read the books so this opinion is purely based on the film)
Well, yeah, Hollywood is still Hollywood, we'll see if they get the message across in this series.
Yeah, I imagine the writers room will be sweating buckets at the mere prospect of using the word jihad so I'm really interested to see how closely they stick to the (from what I've heard and intend to read soon) religious complexity, especially given how propagandised western audiences are toward Islam
I don't want to hate on idiot leftists but i'm already dreading the "oh, so these muslim-coded people are doing a jihad? How problematic" discourse.
I've seen them complain about how none of the main fremen actors were arab but i honestly think it's for the best given what will happen later in the series.
You need to see several steps ahead when engaging in discourse. Just like Leto II, the most powerful poster.
If they're following the books then it mostly depends on how many movies they get. Since this one is basic the first half of a five hour movie and they just didn't make the second half yet, I'm okay with waiting and seeing on it.
Yeah it’s awesome that the message gets better as the series progresses
That was kind of the point. The message doesn't "get better," the message of the series was always "Oh, but what if you really aren't helping as much as you think you are?"
but the initial framing of “here, this one is the good empire” is still pretty cringe
This is not the case, the Empire is never "good" at any point in the series, at it's best point it could be described as "the least-bad version of the future as interpreted by the subjective analysis of a demi-god." This premise exists to be subverted within the story; but you just have to read all the books and analyze it as one work to reach this point.
Also fuck Brian Herbert.
That was kind of the point. The message doesn’t “get better,” the message of the series was always “Oh, but what if you really aren’t helping as much as you think you are?”
This is not the case, the Empire is never “good” at any point in the series, at it’s best point it could be described as “the least-bad version of the future as interpreted by the subjective analysis of a demi-god.” This premise exists to be subverted within the story; but you just have to read all the books and analyze it as one work to reach this point.
Mate very good points, you're absolutely right. I guess I'm just overly excited for the message about all empires being evil, and wanted more of that payoff ahead of its time! As I said in another comment I'm more worried about the book-less watcher's interpretation becoming that house atreides are the good guys since most of them are killed off whilst still highly sympathetic characters. Btw you've convinced me even more that I can't wait to read the books!
Sorry if what I said doesn't make sense btw I just got home and I'm quite drunk :bird-screm1:
I hate this take. stories are better when they're not morality plays. the Atreides are more principled and humane and that's about it. you can decide on your own whether or not they're worthy of being sympathized with. I think neither Herbert's writing nor Villeneuve's adaptation try to influence you into doing so.
Did we watch the same film? House atreides was portrayed pretty much exclusively by sympathetic characters, and the Harkonnens displayed almost exclusively through 'evil' stereotypes and were also framed as such by our sympathetic heroes. I can't remotely see how you watched that film and feel like it doesn't try to influence a sympathetic view of atreides. Maybe you can come away with that perspective after reading the source material, but I'm not convinced you could do so after watching the film cold. I also hate the morality play shit which I thought was evident in my post, and is exactly the reason I found this aspect of the film cringe.
I think it's important to distinguish between the Atreides being "better" than the (admittedly cartoonishly evil) Harkonnen and them being "good". the film very clearly portrays where their interests lie. we're shown how Leto isn't careless with the lives of his subjects (at least when he has the opportunity to intervene directly) and that's well and good, but we're also shown how his willingness to cooperate with the Fremen is entirely self-serving ("cultivating desert power") and how they're willing to run deep psyops to facilitate that. we're also shown how the Fremen view them as just another clan of outworlders come to exploit the land and fuck with their right to self-determination and you and I would probably agree that their assessment is correct.
conversely the Fremen will execute you and turn your body into a dry raisin if they judge you incapable of surviving the desert. they're not exactly "good" either (and without getting into major spoilers, this is putting it lightly). Dune isn't a black and white story.
reasonably speaking, you're likely expected to sympathize with Paul, who is a teenager forced into strenuous circumstances and who has little to no agency for most of the story. that's about it. the rest is what you affixed, and while that's perfectly normal, it's also not canon.
Yeah I agree with all of this. I was responding to the point that the film doesn't try to influence you into sympathising with atreides, but the film spends a disproportionate amount of time showing them performing sympathetic actions and stating their 'better' moralities even if it does also show they have other motives, which is all set against the backdrop of some cartoonishly evil alternative. Like I do get it and agree with what you're saying, but the majority of people i.e. non-marxists watching this film will have taken away that house atreides are the "goodies", and I just wish that more care was taken to not let that happen
it does give the audience plenty of room for confirming their own biases, that's true. I wouldn't put it past Herbert or Villeneuve to believe in such a thing as "good imperialism" either. with that said I feel like the goals of writing a credible story and coaxing readers into adopting a single objectivist interpretation of it are in conflict with each other. that, and "death of the author" as a concept is useful not just in experiencing stories with sufficient detachment as to examine them astutely, but also in allowing yourself to enjoy them.
Oh yeah for sure. I'm just very interested in reception studies, so usually when I'm talking about any type of art it's through that perspective. It's hell
:kitty-cri-screm:
House atreides was portrayed pretty much exclusively by sympathetic characters, and the Harkonnens displayed almost exclusively through ‘evil’ stereotypes and were also framed as such by our sympathetic heroes.
One reason why I think earlier movie adaptions did a better job of it.
House Atreides has a very Liberal Democracy vibe to it, in so far as its got the trappings of modernism and progressivism and rationalism. But they're still doing the same evil shit. Leto Atreides seeks military alliance with the Fremen in the same way that the CIA sought military alliance with the Bin Ladens. The Evil Harkonnens rule with an iron fist while the Benevolent Atreides attempt the same with a silk glove. But they both play the same game, courting the Emperor's favor while obliquely maneuvering to unseat him.
One aspect of the novel that often gets overlooked is the viewpoint of the Planetologist Liet-Kynes, who posits that - absent the constant scouring of the sands for Spice - the planet might become a bountiful ecological paradise. Further, various characters note the rather stagnant state of the Empire, particularly in so far as it remains reliant on Spice long after technological advancement should have rendered it unnecessary.
In Text, the Atreides are the "Good Guys" and the Harkonnens the "Bad Guys" and everyone else is just a bit player. But go to the subtext and you'll get a very different story. This is very much a book about the Cold War and the Gas Crisis of the 70s. That's why it resonated so strongly after it was written. And it requires a second look at the Bene Jessuits and the Spacers Guild and the Emperor himself as prime movers in this Space Opera. The Harkonnens and the Atreides are merely playing their roles within a much grander game. Their relative morality is as much a consequence of deliberately engineered genetic breeding, economic pressure, and political horse-trading as it is of their own personal virtues.
Apply a little materialism to Dune and you'll find it resonates strongly.
I mean we are literally introduced to the Atreides by the line "Who will our next oppressors be?"
Yeah, but Paul also sees a vision of how him becoming their leader can have nasty consequences.
A big part of the book is how little he can control a social movement once it's begun, even as their messiah he is bound by the will of his people.
If they get a third movie out of it then your problems will be resolved. The movie is a pretty small chunk of a really really long story. Not to spoil things, but everyone is an asshole.
I've just finished Nemesis Games from The Expanse series and holy shit, how overtly Fred Johnson turned to civility fetishism as he grew "older" and "weary" absolutely reeks of James S. A. Corey trying to write in an analogue for "more centrist and therefore wiser" without actually having to say it. Also I know he was always pretty lib, but given his reasons for defecting to the OPA it'd be nice to still hear him actually fucking analyse the power dynamics he panders to
I couldn't get into the Expanse. The show version lead its presentation with a torture scene and went straight into capitalist realism ideology after that. I've seen that song and dance too many times.
Coming of age during the Bush years, so much reactionary propaganda was mainstream, not least of which were the Halo games. Reading the novels was a splash of cold water on my face, as it made Text what was before subtext: that human society was controlled by a military junta, that they subjugated everybody that wasn't part of the imperial core, that our hero is a kidnapped child twisted into a killing machine by some mengele-tier mad science, and that all this is necessary because of this ominous external threat, and that the only solution is extreme violence against that threat. Halo has some bad politics, and we've been marinating it in for two decades now.
ONI and the controlling powers of Earth are never cast as morally acceptable or good in my eyes (it's not for nothing that the black-ops branch of Earth's governance is named 'demon' in Japanese). It's made pretty clear that Halsey and her program are deeply evil, regardless of their outcome. It's not made explicitly clear, but it seems pretty self-evident that the anti-Earth human rebels are in the right and that their hatred of the colonial government is fully deserved.
Halo 5's promos seemed to be indicating that the main source of conflict was going to be ONI and the UNSC vs chief, but they backtracked on that.
I thought there was real promise in a story like that. Especially since from what I recall it's ONI propping up Covie remnants to weaken the Elites and the Arbiter's new government. But Halo 5 ended up touching none of that if I recall.
Yeah, the franchise is struggling with what it wants to be, I think. The UNSC is basically a mirror of US foreign policy, which means it has the potential to be a critique of imperialism, but the games keep going for safer discourses, for now. Wouldn't be shocked to see the series slowly turn to the problems presented by UNSC and ONI as John becomes increasingly distanced from the people pulling his strings.
I hope they do, it seems to be a large part of the story outside of the games. They really need something to spark the franchise up again. I thought 4 was ok in terms of setting up something after the main trilogy, but for me at least 5 shit the bed. Only played it once and sold it immediately to buy MGSV. I'll be interested what the reviews for Infinite look like when it finally comes out.
It would actually be interesting for Halo's politics to be seriously explored and acknowledged, but it's been such a staple of pop culture that all we get is Armored Man Cool.
Halo has some bad politics, and we’ve been marinating it in for two decades now.
Counterpoint, tho. Red v Blue had some really good politics. And I feel like that endured as a trope better than anything Bungie's writer's room churned out.
When I read those books as a kid, I knew the human society was very fascist but I didn't read it as like an endorsement, just kind of a background. I wouldn't be surprised if something in one of those books was like "And the fascism is awesome" but I was able to enjoy that universe without feeling like I was rooting for the hellish society.
I think some of the earlier books talk about how bad the junta was, but it gets kind of swept aside due to the whole external forces committing genocide thing. Which is honestly kind of realistic, like if literally Covenent showed up literally today and started glassing the planet, it would be a little weird to fixate on how bad this country is, even though that's no less true than it was yesterday.
Obviously we'd come out of an alien invasion even more fascistic, but fascism is I suppose better than being completely wiped out by other space fascists.
I don't translate this into "sometimes collaborating with fascists is good" because it's such an outlandish scenario it's stupid to even factor that into literally anything.
It would be so fucking cool if a Halo game decided to have a revolution against the UNSC, but that'll probably never happen. I can hope though.
Every government in media being authoritarian monsters was key to me realizing the same about real life. For that the Halo novels get my thanks for making John-117 the victim
Always has been. People write sci fi out of sexual pathology like 90% of the time. Dunno why. So even the big classics have themes that simply aged poorly.
There is a specific breed of self consciously shitty politics in scifi now, but that tends to stay self contained in the toxix berd bro world.
my guess is because western culture has become so trapped in capitalist realism it is no longer able to imagine a better future
my guess is because western culture has become so trapped in capitalist realism it is no longer able to imagine a
betterfutureftfy
The site was from my wife and a few of my friends. They're good people.
Well, on one hand we have neoliberalism so profoundly and throughly surrounding us, that most of the stories we have ultimatley revolve around preserving the status quo and stopping any change. Any change is then shown as a bad thing, as evil and something that evil people do. And the funny thing is this approach not only serves capital as a propaganda tool, but also as a profit making one - if nothing ever changes you can continue milking the franchise with more and more empty content.
A lot of scifi also touches on action thropes, that are sometimes good in their origins, but because they must exist within the above mentioned neoliberal substrate, these thropes need to be changed and adapted to fit to the general ideology. Inevitably this leads to very fascistic things. And then we even have stuff like Warhammer, where the sort of good guys, or the ones that people end up identifying with are outright evil... but you see, because the characters are actually good and fighting chaos or whatever, this somehow erases the system that they live in. The surrounding world is never examined, only seen as a setting, as a background into which all these individuals do their isolated individual stuff.
