Writing my sniper story has been an interesting project. I’ve recently realized that it provides me with a way to escape from the repressive environment that we find ourselves in. I can imagine a world where people find a way to escape from the Left’s stranglehold on our lives. Science fiction was often described as escapist fiction; an escape from the real world. Dreaming of a trip to the Moon or Mars was a highly enjoyable pastime. I remember as a kid going to the library and taking out the Heinlein juveniles one by one and wishing there were a hundred instead of a dozen or so. I guess it’s human to dream about a richer or more exciting or a better world.
And when I was a kid, we then got the Apollo program and we really did go to the Moon. Well, maybe we actually will revolt from the Left. After all, it’s been done. The Soviet Union fell. Communism or Wokeism or whatever anti-freedom regime we find ourselves under is no godlike entity. It’s just people who crave control over others to enrich themselves. Surely such an enterprise can be swept away if it ceases to provide the population with a reason to keep it going.
So, I don’t flatter myself that whatever MacGuffin I invent to carry my story forward; whether it be nuclear powered drilling equipment or fusion reactors or giant lasers; has any special rationale for really coming true. But that’s not really important. Just as the terra-forming capability that Heinlein’s stories are based on, is completely fictitious and the Earthlike conditions on his Mars and Venus stories are completely erroneous does nothing to ruin the enjoyment that these stories afforded and still allows a fan of these stories to imagine that actual planetary exploration is an exciting and worthwhile human endeavor. After all, a manned mission to Mars is something being seriously discussed and planned.
So, I plan to write a series of stories in a fictitious future where a band of plucky heroes upset and upend the oligarchs who currently run our world and make a fight out of regaining their freedom. As with Heinlein’s Future History, not all of the stories may be aligned with each other. I can always cover up my mistakes by pleading alternate realities in the “multiverse.” Sure, why not? If Marvel can have multiple spidermen then why can’t I play fast and loose with the future?
Now I’m not doing anything that isn’t already out in the world. In about two weeks a movie is opening up called “Civil War.” And this movie has the United States broken into warring factions and a ground assault on the White House. So, my stories will be well within the mainstream. The only difference is that probably this movie and any other movies or “best sellers” that come out will cast the Left as the heroes and the Right as the awful traitors. Well, that’s alright. To each his own I always say.
So, thanks, to Uncle Bob Heinlein for his inspiration. I’m officially in the future prediction business. But in the words of L. Sprague de Camp “It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.” So, I better learn to be vague.
Remember, “Between Planets”, which referenced both Venus and Mars was published in 1951, and “Podkayne of Mars” was published in 1962 in the pulps.
We didn’t know a lot about either planet then. Back in ye olden days of the 50s, if you demonstrated a modern smart phone to a scientist, they’d have simultaneously soiled themselves and foamed at the mouth. We hold in our hands the equivalent of the entire planet’s computing power in the 60s.
Exactly. So being gloriously misinformed in a work of fiction is a hallowed tradition.
“We hold in our hands the equivalent of the entire planet’s computing power in the 60s.”
I remember the stories of multistory buildings filled with racks of hot primitive WWII era equipment all served by squadrons of lackeys running around frantically trying to keep up with the failing vacuum tubes. All that for a computational power that would have been beggared by a 1982 Commodore 64.
The scope of how far computer technology has advanced is a little staggering.
Though it seems obvious in retrospect, I never thought of writing fiction as catharsis.
It’s weird but reading something I wrote a year ago let’s me enjoy it almost as if someone else wrote it. But yes there is an enjoyment to writing something I’d like to happen.