I'm rereading Neuromancer and am moved to comment on what makes the superior writer of what's called science fiction such a boon to those who love to read.
All know William Gibson as the creator of cyberpunk, the man who named cyberspace, the matrix, who coined so many words and phrases now in common use when the Internet as we know it did not yet exist. But reading this early work I'm struck by the imposing realness of the world he creates in this novel, and detailed in the subsequent novels Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. As far as I'm concerned, our Internet is far less interesting than the artificial reality he described as accessed by his computer cowboys, though it is not (yet?) here in our world. But the world in which his cowboys lived and, sometimes, thrived, bears considerable resemblance to the one in which we live.
Consider the ubiquity of drugs use in that world, the omnipresence of new and interesting technologies, the significance of money, the grittiness of the urban landscapes in which people live and die, deals are made and information obtained and traded, the twisting of medicine and genetics to doing service in making money and pursuing and exercising power though the enhancement of physical and mental abilities. The latter may not be here yet, but one feels that it will come; that it must come.
For some reason, when I try to visualize the world that Gibson shows us in these novels, the landscapes we see in the movie Blade Runner always comes to my mind. That's what I see when the Sprawl or Chiba City are mentioned. I'm surprised that a movie hasn't been made of Neuromancer. I would prefer such a movie to the sword and sorcery epics we're being dubiously treated to instead in the form of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and their imitations. Odd that we obsess over faux castles and kingdoms, swords and magic; there's something adolescent about it.
Which is not to criticize either Tolkien or George R.R. Martin, both of them being superb creators of worlds themselves. Other such creators are (or were) Frank Herbert who made the Dune universe, and Philip Jose Farmer for his Riverworld. C.J. Cherryh has made more than one interesting world, as has Dan Simmons, the maker of Hyperion and the Shrike. Orson Scott Card, when he is not busy moralizing, has also manufactured fascinating alternate realities.
It is unsurprising that it is in science fiction and fantasy that the worlds are created and live and are experienced. Nowhere else is the imagination given such free reign; nowhere else is it the case that new and different realities are expected. But it is the gift of Gibson and others to make these realities simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. Outlandish worlds somehow turn out to be uninteresting. It's impossible to picture oneself in worlds that are entirely unreal, and one must picture oneself somewhere in order for it to hold one's interest and attention; in order for it to be worth the effort of reading or thinking, or dreaming.
Science fiction is a curious genre, though. Great science fiction can fascinate in a good way, but science fiction that is not great can fascinate in a bad way. The many versions of Star Trek and Star Wars are examples of science fiction that is not great. They are not bad, really, but they are silly. This may come of the need evidently felt to come up with aliens who always seem to be far too much like human beings, but human beings who are comical or irritating or mystical in one sense or another and used as expositive devices. We see the results of the fascination with science fiction that is not great in conventions and cosplay, in a devotion to the Klingon language or to The Force, in dreaming one is a Jedi Knight or superhero.
The worlds of great science fiction are disturbingly real; those of science fiction that is not great are cartoonish. It's regrettable that the science fiction we see translated into visual media these days is that science fiction which generates cartoon realities, primarily those of the superhero. This suggests we desire to escape our own world, which is understandable. But to escape into cartoons is only to escape reality, not to reimagine it and think of it.
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2014
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Ruminations on Walking in New York City during the Christmas Season
I must assume Christmas is not the best time to visit this remarkable metropolis. To do otherwise would be unfair, I think.
I will say, though, that I am glad to have escaped it before New Year's Eve (no comparison with Snake Plissken or his New York is intended). I am no stranger to big cities, and the holiday crowds which can infest them, and am enormously fond of the city of my birth, Chicago, which I will say with Norman Mailer is a great American city--indeed, I will go so far as to say Chicago is the great American city. But unless you are fond of being part of a vast, slow moving, confused, and often unresponsive herd (there is no better word) of people, you would be well advised to avoid certain parts of Manhattan during the festive holiday season.
Well advised to do so if it is your desire to walk, that is, from one location to another. The mere presence of crowds was not surprising. What I found surprising was the fact that so many in the crowds seemed to have no intention of going somewhere.
For all I know, the herds roaming the streets and sidewalks of the wonderful town between the Bronx and the Battery this time of year are made up primarily, if not entirely, of tourists. So, they may be taken up with gaping at the sites, or photographing the many signs in Times Square. Real New Yorkers may find them appalling, and avoid parts of the city during this season like the plague. One has to make exception, though, for the many vendors and hawkers who block passage so effectively. They, presumably, are not mere tourists.
There is something perverse, I think, in simply being on a sidewalk, stationary, preferably in the middle of it, generally encumbered with a large backpack, or perhaps holding onto a stroller encasing an infant catatonic with fear or confusion, while those who want actually to walk try to do so by bouncing off you and others like so many pinballs. Perhaps worse yet are those who seek to walk but do so in a horizontal file which often extends the entire width of all available space.
This is something I haven't experienced before. For example, even on Michigan Avenue at its most crowded the majority of people using the sidewalk walk north and south with genuine regularity, and according to a discernable pattern--those going north use one portion of the sidewalk, those going south use another. During the Christmas season in New York, though, they seem to move, or stand, without purpose or intent; if they move, they do so sporadically, and then in various directions which cannot be anticipated, causing collisions.
I was reminded horribly of an episode of the original Star Trek series, about a planet so over-populated that they created a mock-up of the Enterprise (who knows why) and sent Kirk there where he encountered the usual beautiful female alien who was placed with him in the hope and expectation that he would pass along to her some kind of disease which would kill some of them off. Every once in a while he would get a glimpse of the people of the planet, pressed up against one another, slowly trying to move but being nearly prevented from doing so. That's what I was reminded of, tripping over people, if not the lights fantastic, on the sidewalks of New York.
I will say, though, that I am glad to have escaped it before New Year's Eve (no comparison with Snake Plissken or his New York is intended). I am no stranger to big cities, and the holiday crowds which can infest them, and am enormously fond of the city of my birth, Chicago, which I will say with Norman Mailer is a great American city--indeed, I will go so far as to say Chicago is the great American city. But unless you are fond of being part of a vast, slow moving, confused, and often unresponsive herd (there is no better word) of people, you would be well advised to avoid certain parts of Manhattan during the festive holiday season.
Well advised to do so if it is your desire to walk, that is, from one location to another. The mere presence of crowds was not surprising. What I found surprising was the fact that so many in the crowds seemed to have no intention of going somewhere.
For all I know, the herds roaming the streets and sidewalks of the wonderful town between the Bronx and the Battery this time of year are made up primarily, if not entirely, of tourists. So, they may be taken up with gaping at the sites, or photographing the many signs in Times Square. Real New Yorkers may find them appalling, and avoid parts of the city during this season like the plague. One has to make exception, though, for the many vendors and hawkers who block passage so effectively. They, presumably, are not mere tourists.
There is something perverse, I think, in simply being on a sidewalk, stationary, preferably in the middle of it, generally encumbered with a large backpack, or perhaps holding onto a stroller encasing an infant catatonic with fear or confusion, while those who want actually to walk try to do so by bouncing off you and others like so many pinballs. Perhaps worse yet are those who seek to walk but do so in a horizontal file which often extends the entire width of all available space.
This is something I haven't experienced before. For example, even on Michigan Avenue at its most crowded the majority of people using the sidewalk walk north and south with genuine regularity, and according to a discernable pattern--those going north use one portion of the sidewalk, those going south use another. During the Christmas season in New York, though, they seem to move, or stand, without purpose or intent; if they move, they do so sporadically, and then in various directions which cannot be anticipated, causing collisions.
I was reminded horribly of an episode of the original Star Trek series, about a planet so over-populated that they created a mock-up of the Enterprise (who knows why) and sent Kirk there where he encountered the usual beautiful female alien who was placed with him in the hope and expectation that he would pass along to her some kind of disease which would kill some of them off. Every once in a while he would get a glimpse of the people of the planet, pressed up against one another, slowly trying to move but being nearly prevented from doing so. That's what I was reminded of, tripping over people, if not the lights fantastic, on the sidewalks of New York.
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