Sci-fi embraced by cultural shift

Writes Amy Biancolli in the Houston Chronicle:

"It's everywhere now. Everybody has some exposure to it — it's much more respectable than it used to be," says David Wellington, a sci-fi/horror author ("Monster Island," "Thirteen Bullets") and aficionado who recalls the bad old days of fandom. "Back in the '80s, when I was a huge science-fiction fan, it was very marginalized. And we always complained about that: 'Why can't other people understand why we like this stuff so much?'"

Wellington is one of several devotees who, given the chance to vent, expresses enthusiasm as well as skepticism at the current state of the genre. Many view the landscape ahead with caution, fearing a post-apocalyptic vista mottled by computer-giddy graphics and the blunt force of mainstream taste. Some see it fragmenting. Others see it thriving.

But fans reach consensus — sort of — on a few key issues. One is that fantasy novels, once joined at the hip with science fiction, have enjoyed huge success since venturing into their own sizable niche. A second is that the film and publishing industries should take more artistic risks. A third: "Blade Runner" rocks. Fourth: so do "Pan's Labryinth" and "Children of Men."

A fifth point, expressed with varying degrees of disappointment and annoyance, is that advances in digital technology have made for gob-stopping eye candy that doesn't always satisfy the mind or the heart. From a visual standpoint, "there's no better time in the history of films for science fiction," says Dave Dorman, an in-demand sci-fi/fantasy painter based in Florida best known for his Star Wars renderings. "On the other hand, I think the writing of science-fiction films is not up to what it was back in, say, the '40s, '50s and '60s."

Craig Elliott, an animator for Disney ("Treasure Planet") and DreamWorks (the upcoming "The Princess and the Frog"), puts it even more succinctly: "There's too much bling on the screen."

In publishing, contemporary science fiction has splintered into a zillion little subsets, running from alternate history and space opera to hardcore, urban fantasy, movie and TV tie-ins, cyberpunk and the boundary-stretching "New Weird."

Call it what you will, but great science fiction can be cosmic or minimalist, outward-looking or inward. It expands or contracts, pushing humanity into the farthest reaches of space or reducing it to cinders. [READ]