You should join the mailing list, we are a lively bunch - don’t even have a goat or squid
Again, come over to her mailing list =) doesn’t cost anything but I will crosspost =)
Drabble has a specific meaning [the entire story in 100 words or less] so fanfic would be more inclined to be correct, though I would more call it work in a shared universe because it probably wasn’t a ‘named’ character being used, more a generic human and a generic klingon.
Hello .. yesterday’s rapture debacle? anti-vaxers? rabid creationists? Super new ager crystal magnet bunny huggy woo types?
Actually Baen does not believe in locking with DRM, and once you purchase a book you get to download it in any and all formats, and redownload it if you need it in a different format. They have them in pretty much every format you can name. Well I don’t think they have it in PDF but I may be wrong, I’m too lazy to surf over and check. I have to admit I have both a kindle and a nook, and can read on my laptop or desktop, but my preferred read is still on my cell phone [droid]
There are plenty of stable, functional, effective democracies in science fiction. It’s just that in the stories that have that, there’s little or no mention made of the government, since a stable government that does what it’s supposed to do is boring. That’s a great place to live, but it doesn’t make for a good story.
In Ben Bova’s Grand Tour series, the puritanical and anti-scientific “New Morality” movement takes over Earth’s governments by largely democratic means.
I think decisions in writing Science Fiction, like a lot of fiction, boil down to “What’s more readable”?
I mean, what’s more interesting: “A guy, in a democracy.”
Or…
*
[movie trailer voice]** “One man. Alone. Against the might…of a nation. In a world where a dictator has enslaved his people, one man…dared…to dream. Of freedom.” *[/movie trailer voice]
If I recall correctly, we had a series of SF movies that dealt with a quasi-democratic society (well, at least the Senate) which does the job of answering the question why SF doesn’t do democracy: Because it’s boring. Just ask anybody who watched all the sitting-on-plush-chairs scenes in the last three Star Wars movies - it seemed that 95% of the time that you saw Samuel L, he was sitting on his ass, talking about various policy and military strategies.
So, I agree with the others in this thread who have argued that, many times, the “anti-democratic” nature of sci-fi comes from the fact that it is easier for the author to devise societies where it is more plausible that a few movers and shakers really make things happen, i.e., a monarchy or dictatorship.
Stargate incorporated democratic governments. It kind of had to, being an alternate universe of modern day society. But, again, because a working government is boring, the action usually centers on the military forces working offworld that need to make immediate decisions without consulting the chain of command. Still, SG-1 certainly did a good job of showing how the Stargate program was answerable to the government.
Stargate: Universe incorporated more aspects of democracy directly into the plot, and it hurt it, I think. At the very least, I certainly wasn’t rooting for the citizens who demanded a vote and that the military characters answer to them, when the military characters were the ones who were getting shit done in an emergency situation.
Of course, Starship Troopers has a democracy. Of sorts. And it works pretty okay. (I mention only the book, the movie is a separate story.)
arvuqan, I’ve known of the Baen Free Library since it was instituted, and of the Baen Boards and… well, I donated a few books when Mr. Baen died. None of them went on the shelves, probably, but I hope a kid bought one at the next booksale. I’m just… I barely have the time to keep up here anymore.
I think there is some truth to this idea – it’s not present in all science fiction, of course, but I think you can say there is a distinct element of anti-democracy in some strains of science fiction. I think pinning it on libertarianism is a bit too narrow though. It’s really better described as elitism. Let’s face it, there’s a prototypical science fiction writer or reader, and real actual people partake of the prototype to different degrees, of course, but the ur-reader is better at science and technology than socializing. Naturally, they like to read things that value science above socializing.
And a government that values technical expertise above socializing will of course think that there are objective technical solutions to all of society’s problems, and any kind of politicking is just pandering to emotions. Naturally, that means democracy is worse than a benevolent dictatorship of the smart technical people.
I recently read the sequel to Cyteen and the plot definitely focuses for at least part of the book on the democratic process as it works in the world the story is set in. It’s representative democracy organized along functional rather than geographic lines (Science rep, Military rep, I’ve forgotten the other categories; and a Citizens rep for all not in a functional group). It’s definitely in the “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others” camp.
A World Between by Norman Spinrad was a favorite novel of mine back in my late teens (I’m mid 40s now). This is a novel whose main characters are leaders of a world democratic government when their world is invaded by representatives of two opposing political factions set on taking them over by swaying the population’s votes! So it’s definitely a science fiction novel all about democracy, and with a positive view of democracy deeply in the story’s theme and topic. It’s really more about sexism but via a democratic means. Other books of Spinrad’s usually have democratic governments assumed but more in the background of the stories.
Democracies are boring. There’s not much democracy in fantasy literature either, but that’s also partly because it uses medieval times as a basis for its setting
Think about books set today, where a democracy is perfectly normal and decent. Many plot points I can think of off the top of my head has to do with a corruption of that democracy, either some rogue government group abusing power or one man fighting the system. You hardly ever read a book where the government plays a prominent part and there’s NO corruption
The novels that came to provide “backstory” for the tabletop boardgame “BattleTech” used the same excuses. Travel times to the outer edges of settled space, coupled with a general backsliding of technology (but not quite eliminating “jump” drive tech) prompted the various spheres of influence to revert to some kind of fuedal structure.
The Retief series by Keith Laumer is largely about bureaucracy. Likewise, Heinlein’s “The Star Beast” has as a main protagonist a career bureaucrat, and much of the book is spent discussing how bureaucracy works and how smart people work within it.
I do think that Democracy is difficult to deal with in all fiction (not just science fiction) because it doesn’t lend itself well to strong protagonists who are taking action to resolve a plot. Even in movies ostensibly about Democratic leaders, they often behave like dictators when the situation warrants it.
To be fair, a large part of the novel DOES deal with how spontaneous order arises when there is no central authority. The Luna under the Warden is run in a laissez-faire way (i.e. the Warden lets the loonies do whatever they want so long as the grain keeps flowing). As a result, a whole raft of customs rose up to take the place of regulation. The legal system is self-governing, the medium of exchange, even the way line and clan marriages work (they evolved to look after children, the retirement and care of the elderly, and to create a stable financial unit in the absence of government assistance and legal protection).
And while the Loonies do form a government in the end, it’s clear that Mannie and Prof are skeptical of it, and ultimately believe they’re likely to just trade one master for another. If there was a sequel, it might be called “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress II: The Rise of the Yammerheads.”
Or, y’know, it might be called The Rolling Stones, or The Cat who Walks through Walls.
To the OP or anyone else on that side of the argument, here’s a challenge: Can you come up with any genre of literature with what you’d call a positive depiction of democracy? It seems to me that most literature ignores government entirely, or if it does dwell on it, it only does so with respect to the differences from what the reader is used to.
Good call on Retief. But there’s some positive democratic appearances in comics. There were a few superhero politicians in the 40s, like Black Condor.
In the 70s, Barbara Gordon was a congresswoman for Gotham.
In the 60s, the Teen Titans worked to help with one of Kennedy’s initiatives almost every issue.
I’m pretty sure Archie had some stories about running for student government.
It’s been too long since I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for me to comment on that. But the reference to Doctor Who in the excerpt in the OP is totally off point. Vengeance on Varos doesn’t criticize democracy, it’s a satire on mass culture and the role of violence in public entertainment.
