Mundanity in Science Fiction

Courtesy of Bruce Sterling's blog, we have Geoff Ryman's Mundane SF Manifesto:

- That interstellar travel remains unlikely; that Warp drives, worm holes, and other forms of faster-than-light travel are wish fulfillment fantasies rather than serious speculation about a possible future.
- That unfounded speculation about interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth. This is also viewed as unlikely.
- That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth.
- That there is no evidence whatsoever of intelligences elsewhere in the universe.
- That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence -- however, it is considered unlikely that alien intelligences will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.
- That interstellar trade (and colonization, war, federations, etc.) is therefore highly unlikely.
- That communication with alien intelligences over such vast distances will be vexed by: the enormous time lag in exchange of messages and the likelihood of enormous and probably currently unimaginable differences between us and aliens.
- That there is no present evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that there are whole alternative universes to be visited.
- That therefore our most likely future is on this planet and within this solar system, and that it is highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system. Any contact with aliens is likely to be tenuous, and unprofitable.
- That the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

I have mixed feelings.

First of all, I rather like it when artists- whether writers, painters, filmmakers or whatever- develop a code that guides their work. When such codes are designed intelligently, they can lend useful structure and a kind of context to art.

But I love me some space opera. Star Trek, Star Wars, Iain M. Banks, you name it. I know that the first two are goofy science fantasy, and the latter tries to compensate for the lost wonder of space by going for Really Big Effects; but still, I love it. It's the closest thing to a real sense-of-wonder effect that I'm likely to see in SF.

The tone doesn't help much either- it's basically a concession that sf is escapism, but that they will be different. They will be serious, responsible, and relevant. They will address serious causes, not just in their explicit writing, but in the subtle psychological effects of their writing.

I'm not sure that this can possibly work. But i have to give them credit for trying.