The flickering light of the flames, the pulsing red of the coals, the sheer sensuous pleasure of the radiant heat.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the first major change to their environment early Hominids made was the taming of fire. And then they evolved to better take advantage of that warmth in the cold, the delicious food that happened when things were exposed to fire. The safety from predators in the night, a relatively safe way to drive animals over a cliff.
Oh, we evolved to fit better to agriculture, as we invented it, and cites, industry . . . but even now, I sit tapping at a computer, producing some blather that I’ll post on a world-wide web of high tech connections . . . and I am doing it while sitting here in front of a recess built into my house for the sole purpose of enjoying sitting close to a low wickering fire, with one arm warm and one cold. Something I inherited from some primitive ancestor is content to sit here, some sense that this is a safe place where I belong.
We’re now in a time of rapid changes to our environment. No, I’m not talking about climate change—climates has always changed, and we used our tame fire to deal with that.
No, I’m looking at technology, at culture clashes, at hostile political factions.
It’s all happening too fast for evolution to deal with, too fast for cultural evolution—I look around and see a society that is breaking, not adapting.
Do we have the resilience to adapt? Or will we fall apart and have to rebuild. Will we emerge on the far side to the final death of Communism and the bright future of individual freedom, responsibility, and striving?
I think one reason I both read and write science fiction is to explore those possibilities.
What if humans became the perfect soviet? Like ants, toiling as one, for the Hive? Sometimes I swear that is the goal of the would-be Hive Masters. I don’t think they’d actually like the results, even if they were on top. Because, speaking of hostile political factions, ants do go to war. Hmm, haven’t read any of that sort of SF lately . . . Although my Cyborgs are actually quite close, even though I was working more toward the next sub-genre.
What happens as we become our machines? Will we become dependent on the tech parts? Will we lose something that makes us who we are when we change what we are? I have so many friends that I think I know so well, on line. Haven’t met half of them in the flesh, but I want to. Bunches of them met online and now married or making wedding plans. Will we continue to value that last real world physical touch, or will it become more rare, until we’ve forgotten how wonderful it is to deal with others in the flesh?
And speaking of technology, what happens when we move to space habitats, other planets, other planetary systems? As travel times stretch from days to months, years, and many decades between groups of people will we evolve into different species, or will we be more like breeds of dogs? Incredibly different looking, but still dogs? The Founder Effect in interstellar colonies will be strong. I regret that I can only play with it in fiction, and will not live to see even the start of it.
What if we go out there and find other intelligent life? Friends, enemies, incomprehensible . . . SF is rife with our meetings and what can happen. I think this is where I see the most variety in SF. Thousands? Millions? Lots of people exploring all the possibilities. Mind bogglingly odd sometimes. I mean “Shakespeare in the original Klingon?” Really?
Genetic engineering. Still in its infancy, we’ve fictionally explored its use in creating horrible plagues or supersoldiers. We do love those unintended side effects, and things escaping into the wild that should never have been created in the first place. But we’ve also explored changing ourselves to fit alien environments and uplifting other species into sapience, for better and much worse. This is a field much loved by Horror writers.
And then there’s Time Travel. An exploration into the past, a study of what else might have been. It’s odd, that the least likely field to ever happen is one with the most real world applications to the here and now. Because we can look into the past and see where action could have avoided a horrible war, or a tragic disaster—and we can see where our current situation leads, if we just stand by and let something just starting, continue.
Science Fiction is often denigrated as “Escape fiction.” A way to not deal with the real world. I think that is exactly wrong.
Home / Meet the Mad Genius Club / Navigating from Writing to Publication
Mad Genius Club 
10 responses to “Fire”
My Friday already? Have something from a couple of yeas ago . . . .
“Imagine a human termite colony. Every worker born and raised to do one specific job and nothing else. There is no art, no music, no literature; those would be distractions. Even the elites are trapped in their roles, unable to deviate or change the system.”
“You might ask, ‘How did this happen? What catastrophe befell them?’ but there was no catastrophe, no conquest by enemies, no revolt by rogue machines. They did it to themselves, step by step, in the name of ‘Equity’ and ‘Fairness’, that no person might have more than any other. They soon found that they were unable to turn failure into success, so they settled for turning success into failure, for everyone.”
“We were created to fight them, given augments and enhancements, with great care taken not to compromise our humanity. Our enemies, however, had no qualms about making their soldiers utterly inhuman. It placed us at a tactical disadvantage, which we had to overcome with greater flexibility and individual autonomy. We wound up being quite evenly matched.”
I absolutely agree about SF. That’s why I write it. Many stories of SF are just adventures in an unusual setting, like Burroughs’ John Carter stories. If they’re good, they still have stuff to teach us about love, honor, and what it is to be human.
When you question, “Do we have the resilience to adapt?” to our new virtual over physical environment, I feel you describe my book Advance Guards.
When you write of us, “…changing ourselves to fit alien environments,” I think of MCA Hogarth’s Her Instruments Series, and even Sarah’s latest No Man’s Land.
And, of course, when you talk of time travel, I think of my wife’s thriller China Harbor: Out of Time, an intriguing and subversive time travel book, where she easily deals with all the usual time travel paradoxes, partly by showing with a true scientist’s touch that if time travel were possible and were the way she describes it, no one would ever do it.
As to the revolutionaries who think they’ll win once they’re finally in charge, they should read a little history. The first action of any successful revolution is to kill all of their former allies in causing the revolution. Hitler’s first action was to kill all the Communists, Lenin’s was to kill all the Mensheviks and other socialists. Stalin did not rest easily until Trotsky was murdered. Come to think of it, Stalin never rested easily. He just killed almost everyone. Just read how well things went for Robespierre. Thus has it always been, and thus shall it always be. You only have to look at Bluesky to see how the American revolutionaries are just waiting for an excuse to destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with them 100%.
TXRed as Mod: Frank, between the length of the comment, and the multiple links, your comment went into the Spam Trap. I’ve freed it. If you break comments into smaller pieces, it seems to keep from triggering the trap. YMMV.
Thanks guys!
Especially split it up to put one link per post
“Time Travel… We can look into the past …” The truth is that though we may see moments that look like tipping points, and actions that could have been taken or not taken, we cannot ever know “what would have happened”. This at least was the view of C. S. Lewis who put it in Aslan’s mouth more than once. I’m not saying don’t do these thought experiments. But I am saying we need to be very careful about believing the results.
Oh yes, changing the past would be amazingly foolish.
Studying it, on the other hand, in a attempt to not make the same sorts of errors?
As a mental exercise, in what to do or what not to do, time travel SF can be illuminating. Without *quite* as much current politics intruding.
“Science Fiction is often denigrated as “Escape fiction.””
Yes, and most commonly by people who can’t do it themselves. Couldn’t do it if their lives depended on it.
Personally, having seen some of this “commentary” over the years, and looking at the works those same people praise [omg so boringzzzz], I think it is more that SF/F is running off across the fields, away from their little fenced area that they want everyone to stay inside of.
Some of us like to moon them from a distance, and lob horse apples over their white picket fences.
Not just delicious. Nutritious. Cooking made it easier to absorb nutrients, and more of them, from food. Thus, more energy — AND less energy put toward getting and digesting food.
Energy enough for intelligence.