I always like Heinlien growing up. He took more of a “Classical Liberal” view in that he was more Libertarian.
The Man who sold the moon :)
I also liked Ben Bova and Issac Asimov.
For a while, SF writers were drinking deeply of the Global Warming Kool-Aid. Maybe they are taking more interest in basing stories in genuine science, now. :)
I’ve read quite a bit of Science fiction, and most authors have never seemed conservative in the least to me. Not that they necessarilly were overtly liberal, but collectivism and such were almost always promoted and individualism unimportant. To say the least.
I’ve read some of Pournelle’s collaborations with Larry Niven. Based on those, I’d say he leans right...
Funny you mention Heinlein’s libertarian leanings. My wife is a modern “liberal” who owns almost everything he ever wrote.
SyFy is still making new destruction movies; destruction, of course, caused by global warming.
Who has time to read sci fi? Little kids? NASA deals in fantasy and fiction by pimping global warming.
Libertarian, maybe, and it’s telling that the two “new” authors in this piece write for Baen which is probably the biggest seller of right-leaning, libertarian SF.
It’s nice not to have SF be automatically liberal pap but I think the libertarian bent is missing something too.... I need to figure out a good story to fit a Christian-influenced Libertarian world-setting, and then write it.
I love Tom Kratman, you never see him in Conventions anymore, but he and John Ringo are a blast in person. He happens to live right here in Blacksburg.
Last moon mission was 1972. Either our author is a prodigy and remembers things from age 1, or he's too lazy to look up the dates for Apollo because "Skylab" doesn't make as cool-sounding a story.
No thanks.
I think one of the components of most sci-fi is the setting is a futuristic dystopia, with usually a despotic leader or a group of elite thinkers. The story follows someone trying to break free of the chains and open people’s eyes to liberty.
Without having to say it is conservative, the plot is conservative.
I’ve read Spinrad, and found his politics objectionable and his writing leaden.
Why should I believe that he has any idea legitimate thoughts about trends in SciFi literature?
Just another blogger trying to convince a miniscule readership that he and his blog is relevant. Pfft.
I just began reading Card’s Xenocide.
(Thanks for posting this interesting article. )
“In the end, all four men seemed to see science fiction as a place where ideas like individual freedom could be freely examined and explored.”
... Or where LOSS of individual freedom could be freely examined and explored.
Hopefully they can continue to do both. Unfortunately, we live in a time where there are those who would take away the individual freedom to write a book about ‘loss of individual freedom’, claiming that such books ‘destroy’ their own ‘individual freedom’ (as if they were being forced to read those stories).
“Meanwhile, planetary history has shown that vast powerful central bureaucracies don’t generally produce either general welfare or freedom or wealth, and science fiction writers have sort of noticed that
Even liberal writers have noticed that and they write dystopian stories where corporations run amuk in place of governments. lol.
Some of my favorite conservative sci-fi writers would have to include David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers series (and his other works); Robert Adams’ The Horseclans series and; Adams’ “Stairway to Forever.” I never finished the 2nd Adams’ series, but from what I remember it started off very conservative.
I have not read much Sci-Fi fantasy in years and have probably enjoyed many stories regardless of their political affiliation, but w/out a more comprehensive search of my memory/library those come to mind as good examples of conservative sci-fi writing in the past.
In addition to classics like CS Lewis and Tolkien of course. Even LeGuin’s Earthsea series I would characterize as conservative in it’s social mores.
They tend toward the liberal side of things and nothing shocks them ... except maybe someone with a conservative viewpoint, which is stunning because they'll have a live-and-let-live attitude toward all sorts of deviant behaviors that they personally wouldn't be involved in.