I read an article recently about the current state of science fiction where the thesis was basically that the field doesn’t have a clear vision of the future anymore and isn’t providing the service that it used to to the culture at large. I have qualms about this point of view because I’m a pretty optimistic person and the amount of books being published under the umbrella of science fiction make it hard for me to make a coherent argument that covers all of them (it also strikes me as reactionary and a bit of a bemoaning tone about how much better the field used to be, which is always a red flag), but there is a point in there that I resonate with about how the vision of the future being argued for via science fiction feels diffuse and vague right now. Maybe because we’re all so atomized and there isn’t one unifying movement like the New Wave, there seems to be a more siloed subgenre existence instead of an overarching sense of excitement and movement. People are writing in their corner of space opera or solarpunk or cyberpunk — although this is not true for everyone and there are plenty of people writing sci-fi that I find exciting and broadening (Ann Leckie in particular).
I’ve enjoyed Becky Chambers’ other books and liked her ideas about where humanity might go. I’ve been circling these stories for a while and was glad to get the collected edition because I thought the previous editions were overpriced for how slim they were. I tore through this in a day (long train rides to and from work). However, I didn’t enjoy this book for a couple of reasons. I feel like a jerk writing that because everyone loves Becky Chambers and as stated, I’ve liked her previous books that I’ve read. I like a cozy book, so it is not a tone issue, and I like the overarching idea here about a world where humanity has rebuilt after messing up their planet. Dex is a monk who lives on a small moon called Panga where a long time ago, the robots became sentient and went to live in the woods. No one has seen them since and the people are living a very ecologically sound existence. It’s very in line with solarpunk and luxury space communism — most of the planet is wild, there’s one city, solar panels everywhere, equal access to food and healthcare, etc. Despite living in a utopian society, Dex feels restless and leaves the city to become an itinerant tea monk (essentially a mobile therapist) and eventually runs across the first robot anyone’s seen since they all vanished hundreds of years ago. The robot, Mosscap, has been sent to see what humans need and how they have been doing. They then go on a journey together to fulfill Mosscap’s quest.
My biggest problem here is that while we’re all ideologically driven and I don’t think there’s some sort of politically untouched fiction, this was such a polemical work that it was exhausting for me. The worldbuilding felt like it was dragging me along through a point by point explanation of how this utopian world works — the solar panels, the biogas, the barter/money system….I think there’s a difference between presenting an alternate world organized around a political argument like LeGuin or Butler do where it feels living and realistic and where you can see where we could do that, and plopping me down in this lecturing experience where it felt like she was trying to hit all of the examples of solarpunk tropes and force me to agree that it’s amazing and it works so well. I didn’t find most of the characters to be realistic and had trouble believing that people were existing in such harmony. There didn’t seem to be any sort of justice system or way to deal with issues that might arise. Everyone was just very cheerful and ready to dialogue, even when they go to visit the community that doesn’t like technology. I guess personally this made me feel like I was trapped in an earnest committee meeting about how amazing the future will be once everyone gets on board with their specific series of action steps to improve society, and my cynical heart is listing all of the reasons that it will be hard to get every single person to go along with the overhaul of society. Don’t get me wrong, there is a need for fiction that is cheerful and cozy and points to what can be, but I think it also has to be balanced with some nuance and thoughtfulness. I don’t enjoy being essentially lectured for 294 pages about the having the right to exist without earning it. I’m glad that so many people have enjoyed it and I hope it inspires people moving forwards, because it’s a lovely image of a potential future, but it was just too flat and polemical for me.