Remembering Why I Love Superheroes!

    This age of deconstruction saps the will to create. Everywhere I look? They all want to be the Next Watchmen. Well if that's the case? No one is Watchmen. If that is all that's on the wheelhouse table? No wonder it feels like pushing a rock up a nihilistic mountain to get heard over the din. I get that many will chase the gold rushes.

• They want to earn money. 
• They want to access an audience that is already built up.
• Shortcuts to Cultural relevance. Even if its just for a fleeting second or two.

    So any newbie on the block will be confronted with the constant barrage of old IPs that have been built up over decades. Some might be nearly as old as my grandma by now. (She just hit 92.) Certain pulps have been buried on purpose. (Click Here) Those stories influenced all the cape and spandex comics here in America. From the plains of Barsoom to the jungles of Tarzan.

    The reality of taking shortcuts? You get skinsuits. Characters no one really wants. I've been so flooded by people taking the crumbs of the mainstream that I lost sight of why I loved superheroes in the first place.

    For the zany cosmic aspects! Here

    

    The what-if setups! I know what my nostalgia blinders are. I want a setting where Clark Kent is the standard level of human. Is it "Pie in the Sky?" Sure. But I don't care. I want a place where I can escape to where virtues are valued more than flaws. A setting where putting your best foot forward isn't seen as a "weakness" to exploit. 

    It does come down to what a reader will endure as their personal preferences dictate. Me? I value consistency so I don't mind a setting where pink Kaiju invade the USA. Where superheroes fight magical beings, demons, and other empowered characters that knowingly do evil. I don't mind explosions in space.

• 20 suns inside a Dyson sphere. 
• Planets the size of Jupiter that are submerged in magical divine waters that pause time. 
• Yellow Sharks that swim within the depths of space. Dragons too.
• Talking swords!
• Cosmic mysteries that can devour planets. (IE: In Eden's Zero? Wraith-like dragons eat the planet's time.) That way you can have different characters exist in the same timeline if you want. Or it completely resets a planet to its pristine age. 

Give me the power of WHIMSY! The Fantastical! Things that wouldn't exist in our Universe! Or at least what we don't know about yet. The power of "What IF!" It's what keeps me writing. Besides giving myself what I want.

• Space Dogs
• Fishbowl Helmets 
• Pew Pew (Retro 50s style even!)
• Heroes who Know Who they Are. The Flat Arc inspires others to do better!
• Forget Realism for a few hours in the day. Superhero settings are perfect for that.

    I needed to remind myself why I was inspired by superheroes. Specifically? The ASPIRATIONAL ones. We need them. Even more so than the Cathartic Street Level heroes that most prefer. Its why Ill keep writing. I will build my library of Static/Flat Arc Heroes and Heroines. I don't want a world that's just like my own. I don't need to see myself 1 for 1 in any characters.

    I want heroic men rescuing people they care about.

    I want men and women as a team.

    I want to escape to another world for a few minutes a day. 

    With the fantastical nature of pulpy offerings? I am more than willing to suspend disbelief. My verisimilitude factor? Consistency. It's all I really need to dive into a new setting. If I wanted realism I'd read a biography or historical offering.

    A few fantastical settings that I recommend:

• Pinkertons Ghosts: Here
• Star Warden: Here
• The Camelot Cycle:Here
  

The Quest for Fun Sci Fi

I took a look at  this a while back:

https://sfgenics.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/geoff-ryman-et-al-the-mundane-manifesto/

So that's part of the equation why the Hugos and other recent award winners have been boring as hell. The most important part of this manifesto:

This bonfire of the stupidities includes, but not exclusively:

• Aliens: especially those aliens who act like feudal Japanese/American Indians/Tibetan Buddhists/Nazis or who look or behave like human beings except for latex.
• Alien invasions
• Alien Jesus/enlightened beings
• Flying Saucers
• Area 51
• Any alien who is a vehicle for a human failing or humor
• Aliens who speak English
• Devices that can translate any language
• Radio communication between star systems
• Traveling between galaxies without relativity effects on a consistent scale
• Slipping sideways into worlds other than this one where just one thing or all of history is different, only the clothes look a bit better, the hero is more powerful, the drinks are more delicious, and Hitler…
• Continue at will

That's what I love about Sci Fi, what this movement finds dull or irrelevant, I find to be the bread and butter of what I look for in the genre. Based on those points, these workshop individuals probably found B5 to be out of date or very basic droll entertainment. The fact that people paid money to attend this workshop astounds me.

Hard Sci fi isn't supposed to be infected with the Mundane Manifesto but some of it is. Luckily I have found quite a few series that have ignored this roadmap and went all out on excitement and character arcs. Akin to Interstellar or the Martian.

We also recognize
The harmless fun that these and all the other Stupidities have brought to millions of people.
The harmless fun that burning the Stupidities will bring to millions of people.
The imaginative challenge that awaits any sf author who accepts that this is it: Earth is all we have. What will we do with it?
The chastening but hopefully enlivening effect on imagining a world without fantasy bolt holes: no portals to medieval kingdoms, no spaceships to arrive to save us or whisk us off to Metaluna.
A new focus on human beings: their science, technology, culture, politics, religions, individual characters, needs, dreams, hopes and failings.

What's funny is that most real Hard Sci fi will have a very human focus but also showcase whats great about humanity too. Not just focus on the frack ups like most "modern" sci fi. When I say modern I mean most stuff after 2005 or so. The Boring Rate didn't get really bad until after 2010. Based on how my own reading and recommendations tapered off from Trad Publishing. Besides Baen.

If they are going to call my flavor of science fiction fun Stupidities, then Ill return the favor, the Hive of Lackluster Entertainment.


To produce a collection of mundane science fiction consisting of stories that follow these rules:

• No interstellar travel – travel is limited to within the solar system and is difficult, time consuming, and expensive
• No aliens unless the connection is distant, difficult, tenuous, and expensive – and they have no interstellar travel either
• No Martians, Venusians, etc.
• No alternative universes or parallel worlds
• No magic or supernatural elements
• No time travel or teleportation

These guys really hate the Pulps don't they. To me, that's what will save sci fi. To make future scientists and engineers. To make something like Babylon 5 a reality. You have to engage the children in order to create the future. Forcing kids to read mundane books will kill that passion of reading. I almost lost it to a "Tale of Two Cities" in High School. Thank goodness dad gave me John Carter of Mars.Then he gave me Dune. Goodbye to the mundane. Say hello to the Fantastic and Entertaining.

Hmm, should I put more recommendations in? Why not! Almost done reading more Galaxy Ascendant goodness. Will probably have the review up in the next day or so. Keeping to my promise!

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 Read More Space Operas 2020!

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