[lbo-talk] Brit lit goes to hell

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Mon Jul 9 19:48:49 PDT 2007


Gar Lipow wrote: In the U .S., Science Fiction is a sub-genre with a whole of lot socialists, S. Brust, Terry Bisson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Maureen F. McHugh, Gregory Feeley, Eric Flint have all explicity identified themselves as socialists. Also I can think of a number who are at least left-liberals completely devoid of market worship the late lamented Octavia Butler was at least radical if not socialist. Charles Stross. Cory Doctorow, John Barnes, (It would not surprise me of Corty Doctorow had actually used the S-word, but I canotn find anything offhand.)

I guarantee that I've left out many times the number of socialists I've included, not mention the more or less radical non-socialists. *****************

Mack Reynolds was one of my favourite socialist sci-fi writers.

Mike B)

************** Being an active Socialist, about half of Reynolds's stories were for the misused and down-trodden. His work reflected a suspicionof power. All of these stories, though usually containing clever and witty satires, focused on a mis-trust of mono-maniacal groups and what would happen if they gained control of the world. Maybe SF for Mack meant Socialist Fiction, which, in no small degree, it is. However, he would laugh at that. Mack's intellect was full spectrum and he blew hot and cold on various issues at various times. Stories can become static snapshots that never change and should not be taken as an absolutely true view of the author.

A lot of what Reynolds wrote dealt with humor. "It is surprising how little there is of it (humor) in our genre. I suspect that we take ourselves too seriously. Possibly, this is as it should be, for the future is a very serious place. It is either that, or perhaps we will have no future."

full: http://www.gwillick.com/Spacelight/reynolds.html

An injury to one is an injury to all http://www.iww.org/

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