I want to talk about worldbuilding in sci fi and dystopia. And just the qualities of sci fi itself. Lately it’s my favorite genre of television, but I can’t quite figure out why. It’s pretty elementary to identify social fears and how they transfer into imagined technological advances, but that’s part of what makes it such an ever-relevant genre. There are always new societal fears and scapegoats and advances and changes that lend themselves well to commentary in the form of fantastical re-imaginings. But when too much sci fi or dystopia comes out during the same era, especially when that era is also characterized by fast, serial publishing, hyper-commodification of literature, and technology-dominated culture, it ends up all the same and ends up being derivative of itself, rather than clever or astute.
I know I’m kind of writing my own dystopia right now, but I’m satisfied that it’s more speculative than outright sci fi dystopia, and I think it’s fairly different from a lot of other YA dystopia. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be better, but we’ll see how it goes when it’s done. But in the meantime, I still want to read in my one of my favorite genres, and I get disappointed when it all starts to be the same old story: society controls teens as far as who they marry, and some plucky young girl decides that that’s not right. Touchscreens run everything, people have silly names, and daily life is controlled by a faceless, totalitarian government. Obviously that’s the hallmark of most sci fi because it’s the fear of most societies, but the plots are starting to run so similar that it’s dull as doornails. Not even the execution of the same old ideas is unique anymore. Continue reading
