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dustydigger
Posted 2015-10-22 5:59 AM (#11538 - in reply to #9182)
Subject: Re: Pick and Mix 2015
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Location: UK
Just thinking about readers disparagement of old science fiction techology and the like. They find it laughable or annoying. If you only want the latest in technology you had better not read anything more than two years old! lol.Todays cutting edge SF premises will be old hat very soon. I dont mind if the science is outdated. For instance,I get a lot more pleasure exploring the ochre plains of Barsoom riding with John Carter and Tars Tarkas,green and many armed,than the turgid boring political conspiracies etc of Kim Stanley Robinson,which is probably heresy in most people's eyes! It was fun back when characters would nonchalantly pop out ,jump in their own little rocket and jet off across the universe. Once the expense,complexity and sheer immensity of preparing for real space flight became obvious,a whole swathe of delightful old SF subgenres almost completely disappeared .I like reading SF for the adventure,the often serious and still pertinent themes, and working out the angst and preoccupations of the times the books were written. As for the dodgy science,hey,we can always claim that this book depicts an alternate universe where certain things never happened. After all,we have a whole subgenre,Alternate History where Hitler won the war,there was no Reformation,etc etc.
I am now researching my reads for next year,and the vast majority are from the 50s and 60s.I find the oddities fun quaint and charming. ,and I enjoy staying in the past with my SF reads. To each his own.

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