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The title is not referring to secret CIA trips into Cambodia that are seared- seared into memory.
Its about books that 'go political'. Obviously there is a market out there or these books wouldn't sell.
Tom Clancey Rainbow Six had environmental crazies trying to kill off the human race to "save the world". There are a lot of books with 'bad guys' being politicians from one side or another.
Someone just wrote a novel called "The Assassination of Rush Limbaugh" that is apparently little more than a political wet dream of the author.
That last one will probably never be considered anything but a political attack. But can a book make a bad guy political without turning off large parts of the potential audience?
As a never published writer would it probably be a good idea to find people on all sides of the political/social spectrum to tell me I haven't gone over-the-top?
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Just wondering about some of your thoughts as I write my story about the Peace Enforcement Mission invading worlds for the good of human kind.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Science Fiction has always attacked political ideas or promoted others. Fiction back to Aristophanes has had political motivations.
I got turned off of Clancy when in one of his books he had the terrorists shipped to Saudi Arabia for a legal beheading. THis was decades before 9/11.
What I'm saying is having and promoting political ideas in your writing is not bad, unless it is all you are doing.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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In my story the bad guys think they are doing good things. They believe they are benelovent in thrusting their system on all of humanity.
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Actually, didn't the terrorists responsible for the nuclear explosion in the US choose to be tried under Islamic law thinking it might go a bit better for them?
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Animal Farm, Gulliver's Travels and Les Miserables are all great novels with blatent political goals.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Actually I think there is a huge set of Sci Fi stories chronicalling a time traveling police force that stops bad events from happening based on their ability to mathematically calculate their ultimate outcomes.
Doesn't the short story "Sandkings" deal with a man deciding how to raise and cultivate an alien species?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Fiction is a wonderful tool for the transmission of ideological concepts, and it is often used for that purpose. You create the world, you define its borders, and you establish how certain concepts absolutely work in your approximation of reality. The audience watches as Valentine Michael Smith saves sexuality, Peter Evans saves the environment from the environmentalists, John Galt saves the free markets, Wu Ching-hua liberates the proletariat from their capitalist enshacklers, etc etc. They act, and the universe acts accordingly to the hypothetical demonstration intended by the author.
That, and you have an audience. Countless numbers of people have found their ideology through works of fiction and fantasy,
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Imagine a future where Earth's global government feels entitled to govern every human no matter how many lightyears from Earth. Still colonies are set-up by those fleeing farther and farther.
The United Earth Alliance invades and set up their 'benevolent' rule on colony after colony. They say they alone are the rightful government of the human family, or human solidarity. They say they rule for social justice and for the "common good".
I am only on page 17 of the first draft so there will be a lot of revisions but I am using a lot of the language of modern politicians.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Aug 2006
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It's from a ballet, one of the bā gè yáng bǎn xì, "Eight Model Plays," the allowed onstage performances of the Cultural Revolution in China: The Red Detachment of WomenPosts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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GeronL: Have you read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? Aside from the fact that it's a great book, Heinlein addresses a similar topic and you may find your views on the matter refined for the effort.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Does your story have FTL travel? I think that without that, light speed constraints doom any large interstellar government or empire, except for perhaps a very loose one that focused on trading rights. Whatever powerful fleet and army is sent to rule a rebellious colony could too easily become independant itself under the admirals of the fleet. Then what does Earth do? Send another fleet? They don't come cheap, and it wouldn't get there for many years anyway.
With FTL travel, the same fleet could visit many colonies and a large empire would have a chance to govern. Of course, there's more to empires than the military. For example, you could have unbreakable or almost-unbreakable loyalty ties through some futuristic psychological techniques. Larry Niven covered this well in A World Out of Time and other works.
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