Contemporary space fantasy is not escapist, since the direction of escape is toward freedom. I can't think of a modern spacefaring IP that posits anything other than space capitalism or endless torment by monsters (usually caused by space capitalism). There are some escapist arcs and ideas in stuff like The Expanse or Shipbreaker, and there are older properties (KSR's Mars trilogy, Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish Cycle) that imagine worlds beyond (and better than) our own. A great deal of modern sci-fi (literature and other media) is "protagonist with gun and quirks" or "team of gun people with quirks" or "space virus plus twist". It doesn't even have the Asimovian flirtation with (but ultimate rejection or lib-brain-ization of) real materialist/emancipatory themes.
Does escapism usually have direction towards freedom? The usual stereotype of escapism is tropy fantasy with feudalism and what not. The protagonists get to have freedom because they're super special badasses, but the ship captain you play in the space game is also like this.
Sword and sorcery fantasy is escapist because it puts the reader in the person or company of a heroic figure doing great deeds in a world of magic and danger. This is a world where, were you a party to its events, you would be more than who you are now because practically everyone is special and even mundanes can be blessed by God or a sexy lake monster or whatever and ascend to MCdom.
Compare to something like Tom Clancy's oeuvre. These are power fantasies, and that's certainly present in some genres of fantasy, but ultimately the escapist elements are diminished because the protagonists are Tier One Operators (rare, theoretically requires specialization and training) and have a Boss calling the shots who is usually not a POV character (diegesis rather than agency/embodiment). This is the sort of fiction you read when you want to read about a cool guy doing cool shit because of how cool he is. Cf. the Master Chief from Halo. You can shoot the gun, but you can't decide who it points at.
Both types of fiction aim to disconnect the reader from their current reality, but one lets them embody something greater than themselves while the other merely holds up a funhouse mirror to some facet of the existing hellworld and changes the background.
It doesn’t even have the Asimovian flirtation with (but ultimate rejection or lib-brain-ization of) real materialist/emancipatory themes.
You think any of the people making these games have actually read any Asimov? I think you'll find 1 or 2 people in a team of 300 contractors that might possibly have. I don't think reading books is very common among videogame devs, their spare time is spent almost exclusively with videogames and writers for these games are always an afterthought rather than the core that the project is built around.
I'd say worth the read if you like the genre, if only to see who everyone else is ripping off. He's not a bad writer by any means, but he's politically a product of his time. Also valuable so you can dunk on Rationalists:tm: quoting the laws of robotics at you.
Escapism indeed
Contemporary space fantasy is not escapist, since the direction of escape is toward freedom. I can't think of a modern spacefaring IP that posits anything other than space capitalism or endless torment by monsters (usually caused by space capitalism). There are some escapist arcs and ideas in stuff like The Expanse or Shipbreaker, and there are older properties (KSR's Mars trilogy, Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish Cycle) that imagine worlds beyond (and better than) our own. A great deal of modern sci-fi (literature and other media) is "protagonist with gun and quirks" or "team of gun people with quirks" or "space virus plus twist". It doesn't even have the Asimovian flirtation with (but ultimate rejection or lib-brain-ization of) real materialist/emancipatory themes.
Does escapism usually have direction towards freedom? The usual stereotype of escapism is tropy fantasy with feudalism and what not. The protagonists get to have freedom because they're super special badasses, but the ship captain you play in the space game is also like this.
Sword and sorcery fantasy is escapist because it puts the reader in the person or company of a heroic figure doing great deeds in a world of magic and danger. This is a world where, were you a party to its events, you would be more than who you are now because practically everyone is special and even mundanes can be blessed by God or a sexy lake monster or whatever and ascend to MCdom.
Compare to something like Tom Clancy's oeuvre. These are power fantasies, and that's certainly present in some genres of fantasy, but ultimately the escapist elements are diminished because the protagonists are Tier One Operators (rare, theoretically requires specialization and training) and have a Boss calling the shots who is usually not a POV character (diegesis rather than agency/embodiment). This is the sort of fiction you read when you want to read about a cool guy doing cool shit because of how cool he is. Cf. the Master Chief from Halo. You can shoot the gun, but you can't decide who it points at.
Both types of fiction aim to disconnect the reader from their current reality, but one lets them embody something greater than themselves while the other merely holds up a funhouse mirror to some facet of the existing hellworld and changes the background.
You think any of the people making these games have actually read any Asimov? I think you'll find 1 or 2 people in a team of 300 contractors that might possibly have. I don't think reading books is very common among videogame devs, their spare time is spent almost exclusively with videogames and writers for these games are always an afterthought rather than the core that the project is built around.
I don't disagree, but I'm also talking about sci-fi literature and film. The whole genre is very fucked vibes, at the moment, across every medium.
"Haha what if we fuck up space the same way we fucked up our planet?"
Aw shit I was about to start reading Asimov
I'd say worth the read if you like the genre, if only to see who everyone else is ripping off. He's not a bad writer by any means, but he's politically a product of his time. Also valuable so you can dunk on Rationalists:tm: quoting the laws of robotics at you.