Writing The Future - Essays on Crafting Science Fiction edited by Dan Coxon and Richard V Hirst

Publisher – Dead Ink Books

Published – Out Now

Price – £9.99 paperback £4.99 Kindle eBook

For as long as humans have existed, they have asked: What if? Science fiction was a defining genre of the postwar era, and its current boom across books, film and TV shows no sign of slowing. Space ships, time travel, aliens and artificial intelligence continue to obsess us, and dreams of the apocalypse haunt our own post-pandemic age. But what is it that compels writers to imagine the future?

Writing the Future gathers some of the best contemporary writers of science fiction, speculative fiction, dystopia and eco-fiction to explain their craft and explore the many worlds upon which our imaginations might land. Authors such as Toby Litt, Nina Allan, Adam Roberts and Una McCormack reveal how to balance scientific research with creative freedom, examine the different forms the written text might evolve into, and offer practical advice on giving life to your own vision of the future. Whether you’re a reader, a seasoned writer looking to hone your skills, or a beginner who's just starting out, Writing the Future provides valuable insights into the craft of imagining the worlds of tomorrow.

Science Fiction can be seen as the genre investigating what’s next for us humans? Shiny empires, spaceships, virtual reality, environmental destruction, brutal dictatorships and occasionally alien invasions. But all genres are really catch-all terms that contain multitudes and how can we interrogate that further? Following the successful Writing The Uncanny  this time editors Dan Coxon and Richard V Hirst have brought us Writing the Future – Essays on Crafting Science Fiction with a series of essays investigating what Science Fiction can be, often in debate with each other and providing a fascinating series of insights into the genre’s past, present and potential future.

The collections starts with ‘The Novel of the Future’ by Oliver K Langmead exploring how SF is a genre that often plays with the format  of the novel itself. From Hellsans to XX and House of Leaves this story asks the reader (and the potential authors) to consider pushing the boundaries of what stories can fit into. How so many for many authors the rules of what a novel is can often be played with to create something quite different be that in poetry, using ancient dialects or manipulating the linear flows of time. It’s a reminder that we can really push things and makes you consider where we go next with what a novel can be.

Then we move into what starts to be in a recurring discussion – how SF interprets the future. In ‘Soothsaying In The Modern Novel’ TL Huchu challenges the idea of SF being prophetic. Huchu wonders if we like to resd how bad things can get as a coping mechanism to look away from what goes on in the now. Authors are seen as soothsayers as The Handmaid’s Tale gets praised for predicting modern American developments on women’s rights but actually used many examples of elsewhere places of the world. Huchu explores our optimistic belief that the future cannot go backwards is quite unaware of history’s many challenging examples to the contrary.Its a thoughtful counter-intuitive but persuasive discussion.

Another fascinating discussion occurs in ‘Right Now The Building Is Ours’: Affinities of Science Fiction and Historical Fiction where Una McCormack does a very good job of showing how SF and the Historical share similar structures and approaches. The idea that any SF novel has to carry the weight of some form of previous history. Another very persuasive discussion with examples from Star Trek and ASndor explaining how stories hang on the past (and sometimes even their future) to add depth and explore the ramifications of the overall story.

The first of the two Author Spotlight comes from Anne Charnock applying a spotlight on Margaret Atwood with a key focus on impact of The Handmaid’s Tale. It feels a very personal exploration of the book’s impact by someone who has read this several times through the period since the original publication . Its an interesting compliment to Huchu’s essay as it shows how one book can change in the reader’s head over time and even if using the past to make up a future showing you what is possible is still a powerful effect.

The next section of the explores dystopian fiction. This starts with the great ‘Avoiding the Puddle:An exploration of Dystopian Fiction’ by Rachelle Atalla here we explore the contradictory instincts that we readers have to see the end of the world but also that some semblance of normal order must be sought. The beauty of dystiopia gets explored in tales from The Road, Lord of the Flies and more. Dystopia here is both a  mixture of warning light and comforting nightlight.

Another dystpia gets explored by Maura McHugh in ‘The Eternal Apocalypse: How British Comic 2000AD  Remains Relevant’ The explores the Cold War/Punk period the comic originated in and how the series has stayed relevant over the coming years reflecting our past back at us. I’m not a 200AD reader but still found it a fascinating walkthrough.

I really enjoyed “It’s About to get crazy, it’s about to get loud’ Weird Ecopetics At the End of the World by Marian Womack. This explores how authors have found ways to make us considerable the huge and often incomprehensible threat of climate change. As humans tend to put their heads in the sand authors have instead seek using the power of the Weird to make us feel and experience the terror and dangers that may be lurking closely in our future. It’s a fascinating exploration of technique and pleasingly Womack explores newer books with authors such as Naomi Booth being cited. A fascinating discussion of technique and why it’s being used to give us such disturbing stories.

There is always bound to be an essay that perhaps doesn’t chime with a reader and for me ‘How To Imagine The Future When the Future Does Not exist’ by James Miller feels more a personal theory and taste with little actual back-up. When the main citations are Ballard and just the author’s own books it feels quite lacking.

Then we have the second spotlight with Adam Roberts discussing HG Wells. This explores how an author’s perspective on the future changes with Wells moving from early in his career from quite pessimistic futures such as the Time Machine but then with fatherhood and weirdly the rise of fascism and nuclear energy he moves to more optimistic futures – sometimes in defiance of what was going on at the time. It neatly pulls a lot of the essay threads so far into a wider context and the longing debate as to what the future can be and here all from one author over many decades.

We then have. trio of more technique focused tales in the next section. I’m not a writer so can’t vouch for the accuracy of these but I found this section very interesting. We have Aliya Whiteley in “A Crash Course in Black Holes’ which tells us of the power of research. The subject is how it also explores how research can also send you in different valuable directions – not just the story but also the type of author you then want to be and also importantly not be. Then Adam Marek in “Imagining the future. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” has some thought experiments to look at subjects and how to explore the wider implication of an idea. Finally Toby Litt in ‘On Alien Aliens’ which asks you to explore how does an author describe to a reader something that does not exist? It sounds simple but this really explores how this effect is created and the weird transience alienness can be as we grow used to it.

Finally and in many ways another reflection of these various discussions is Nina Allan talking about JG Ballard’s science fiction career. Here an author not interested in the traditional problem solving nature of SF and more just plunging characters into strange situations. I have never read Ballard and the highest compliment of this is I was severely booktempted to try them.

Writing the Future obviously will be of interest to SF writers but I think also those fans (and lets face it those reviewers) who are interested in how science fiction novels have come about and are still evolving. It’s a really thought-proviking series of essays and I hope this series has many more genres to explore. Strongly recommended!