sci fi and modern fears

[javasaurus]

Have you noticed that the rash of nuclear disaster sci-fi has been missing for a while? Back in the 60s, 70s, maybe the 80s, we had all sorts of sci-fi that was based on WWIII or nuclear disaster. Space:1999, Logan's Run, Mad Max, A Boy and His Dog, Planet of the Apes -- all dedicated to what happens when nuclear goes bad. More recent sci-fi has replaced that theme, it seems, even though we have North Korea with the bomb, Iran almost with the bomb, and we've seen real nuclear accidents (remember Chernobyl?)

When it comes to modern sci-fi, the choice for man-made self destruction has moved from nuclear to environmental -- e.g., Waterworld and The Day After Tomorrow.

Also, the dystopia subgenre has changed. We used to have 1984, Brave New World, in which the government had gotten so powerful that individual rights were gone completely. In modern novels we have Jennifer Government (by Max Barry) and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (primarily cyberpunk, but in a world dominated by corporations -- which reminds me of the game Shadowrun), in which it's not the governments but the corporations that have taken over

Feed, by M.T. Anderson, combines corporate take-over with complete intrusion of the web into our lives (set against a backdrop of environmental wasting).

So our modern fears have moved from nuclear bombs and goverment intrusion to environmental holocaust, corporate control, and loss of self to the web. Why? Perhaps the former fears just aren't fictional enough anymore...

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

and none of them reflect the real future, when corporatism takes over.

Max Headroom is the future, and nothing in the past 20 years since it came out is coming close to changing my mind on that.