[ SECRET POST #2911 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2911 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #416.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 (same words, different image) - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[sarillia]

Can I get some recs for these humanist speculative stories? What I'm tired of is cynicism and pessimism so obviously I'm not looking in the right places.

I'm just so tired of the casual assumption that when disaster strikes people will all revert to their basest instincts and society will break down and have trouble rebuilding ever again. I kinda wonder how people who have this attitude think societies started coming together in the first place. I'm sure many people do react to those situations in terrible ways but I don't get why it's so often considered the standard and takes the place of showing the huge variation in humanity.

And now OP is making me wonder if I'm making no sense to anyone because apparently I have a very different frame of reference from them at least.

[cushlamochree]

Well, it kind of sounds like you're reading dystopian post-apocalyptic stories and OP is reading more technological future societies and space stories, and I suspect that probably has a lot to do with it.

You're right, though, that probably does make a big difference & tbh I didn't even think of that kind of thing when I was responding. Although even then you have optimistic stuff like canticle for leibowitz.

[sarillia]

You have a good point. I do love dystopian fiction. I just realized I've probably missed a lot of what OP is talking about because I'm wary of books that seem like they care more about the science than the story and I've probably gone too far to avoid that.

[esteefee]

I don't know if I'd call Canticle optimistic... :D Now Mockingbird, there's a nicely optimistic dystopian post-apocalyptic story.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no recs, but I share your grievances. There's a lot of that in survival video games-- which kinda makes sense because you need challenges/enemies, but then there was The Last of Us, which just kept piling horrible stuff upon horrible stuff and people praised that story so much when things got kinda pointless. Up to a certain point it does make sense but then it's like, jesus there's a pedophile in here, as if the mutants and the suicide and the oppressive government wasn't enough.

[sarillia]

I feel like that about Game of Thrones sometimes. That's why I love Sansa so much. To me she represents idealism and romanticism being tempered by reality without succumbing to cynicism and misanthropy.

[(Anonymous)]

Ursula LeGuin is who you are looking for, methinks.

[sarillia]

I definitely need to read more of her writing. So far I've only read the first Earthsea book, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Lathe of Heaven but I enjoyed each one more than the last.

[philippos42]

No, you're right. Near-future SF is full of apocalyptic pessimism and has been since the New Wave--in the 1960's.

Granted, that's about human society, or a teenager's idea of a parody of it. So it doesn't fit OP's desire for a work that takes Stephen Jay Gould's scientific non-teleological universe and marries it to H. P. Lovecraft's pessimism about a cosmos where the great and powerful forces care not at all for us.

Then again, the reason may be that in editors' eyes, a little nihilism goes a long way, and trying to come up with excuses for human self-regard and power fantasies gives more stories (and those are probably more commercial much of the time).

Hope is socially useful even if nihilism is actually true on a basic cosmic level.

Pessimism is useful in anticipating ways things can go wrong, but stopping at pessimism is ultimately socially counterproductive. SF editors probably are right to encourage the meme of facing a new challenge and trying to triumph over it; but this can go too far into woolly-headed optimism and triumphalism, which then undercuts the point by making optimism look unrealistic.

[sarillia]

You know, I just realized I'm actually complaining about something different from what OP is talking about. I'm used to seeing humanism at odds with pessimism about humanity--basically a celebration of the best of humanity versus a condemnation of the worst of it--so my mind went off in the wrong direction, but what OP is talking about is the universe's total apathy toward us which is something that I actually find interesting.

[ketita]

Not exactly humanist speculative, but Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is a hell of a lot of fun. It's a future that's got some awesome tech that makes things better, and some awesome tech that makes things worse. People are people - some good, some really bad. Lots of epic space adventure, but rooted in the cultures she invented (not lone-wolf Han Solo types), and it's all humans - no aliens to fight.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you just want book recs? Because if you have any interest in anime, a show called Stellvia might be to your taste. It has Earth be utterly devastated by a cosmic wave in the backstory, and then rebuilding society back up to a level of technology that can, when all of humanity is working together, hopefully stop the second projected wave from doing the same thing again (by creating a series of massive planetary shields and training several schools worth of mecha pilots to run interference behind them and catch any debris that gets through). These aren't spoilers, they're the opening premise. The show itself goes past that premise after a while, and characters still do bad things, but overall it remains hopeful about exploration and contact with the universe and humanity's ability to work together when survival is on the line.

It can be watched on youtube in dub. First episode here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYziXFDb7s

[cloudtrader]

How do you feel about classic sci-fi? I'm a big fan of Heinlein specifically for his humans-are-kinda-terrible-but-we-can-totally-overcome-that approach to character building. The entire plot of the novel Time Enough for Love is about trying to convince a suicidal immortal that there is stuff to live for.

David Brin is similar, without sugar-coating the badness that people cause. Try Earth or his Uplift series.

Sherri Tepper can be very hit-or-miss for me, but you might check out Beauty, which is a fantasy/sci-fi/fairy tale fusion that I find completely masterful. There's also The Fresco, which is just fun.

[lb_lee]

Did someone say humanist spec fic? *arrives with a load of books* 8D

Okay, Spider Robinson is my go-to, though his work is... lumpy. At this most humane and empathic, I recommend his Callahan's series (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is the first) and The Free Lunch. Some of his work is much darker, and I actually couldn't read it.

If you're okay with 90s kiddie sci-fi, Bruce Coville's Alien Adventure series might fit the bill. (The first book is Aliens Ate My Homework, and in my opinion, it's the weakest of the books.) Also bonus alien gender and sexuality stuff snuck under the radar!

ysabetwordsmith does a bunch of stuff that might fit the bill for you. (She writes story poetry; I don't like poetry, but I like her.) Tons of series you can look around in, but Frankenstein's Family might work. (It's about a trans guy Frankenstein joining forces with Igor, because though they aren't gay, they do like each other a lot and REALLY want to have a kid.) So would Kung Fu Robots, which is about robots built to destroy saying, "nah, fuck it," and wandering off to do other, more productive things.

Uhhhhh let's see. *digs through comics for things you have good odds of finding in a library* If you're okay with comics, Grease Monkey is pretty great. It's about humans banding together with 'uplifted' gorillas after their planet gets wrecked, and mostly focuses on a gorilla mechanic and his new human apprentice going about their daily lives.

Zot! by Scott McCloud is a classic, focusing on the conflict between optimism and pessimism, through the story of a few teenagers scattered over a couple dimensions. It looks like a superhero story at first glance, but midway through totally reverses.

Artifice is a gay romance comic about a killer robot finding a human boy he falls in love with and deciding he doesn't want to do his stupid job anymore. I own the big print book and love it.

A lot of Finder might ARGUABLY hit the notes. You'd have to be careful which parts you read, though, some parts are way darker and more depressing than others. The "Mystery Date" sequence (in vol. 2) is pretty gentle, at least, and can be read fairly stand-alone.

Also, *cough* I do try to write it myself. A lot of my work is free to read, so feel free to wander around. Maybe Infinity Smashed would be your thing?

My main goal is to write about survival and recovery and earned happy endings, without it necessarily being an easy journey.