Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 11, 2014

Fed2 Star last page Fed2 Star: Official News page 9 Fed2 Star next page

ON THE WEB: PAST FEARS ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION

by Hazed

Once upon a time, science fiction was a marginal genre. Beloved of teenagers and nerds, it was mostly ignored by”ordinary” people, and only occasionally troubled the TV schedules or cinema screens.

Now, of course, it’s everywhere, and it’s fashionable to be a geeky sci-fan fan.

Back in 1975, just before Star Wars and Close Enounters were released, Newsweek Magazine predicted that this would happen – and they hated the idea! In an article about how science fiction was taking over, writer Peter S Prescott sounded alarm bells about the rise of science fiction.

He doesn’t much mind the old”golden age of science fiction” stuff, what he abhors is the idea that the new writers of the time were tackling issues of race, gender, social class and so on.

Viewed with hindsight his scaremongering is risible. Read about it on the io9 website here.

Fed2 Star last page   Fed2 Star next page