Let’s Not Envision A Future Without Google And Facebook, Okay?

The book was published in 2010, and purported to be about the distant future.  And yet its opening chapter was based on a premise that wouldn’t have flown in 1995.

The book was about an antiques dealer, sitting at his desk, when a customer came in with some effects from a dead celebrity.  The antiques dealer had not heard of said celebrity, and as such told the woman that these items weren’t worth much.  As it turns out, the dealer “doesn’t get out much,” and the celebrity was in fact very big news in certain circles, and was later called upon the carpet by his boss.

Note what did not happen in this crazy future-world: not one fucking Google search.

Back when I was editing for StarCityGames, I’d get articles by people I’d never heard of.  And even as scattershot as SCG’s editorial focus was back then, I Yahoo-searched every name to make sure they hadn’t won a Pro Tour or something.  Sometimes they had, and that saved me much embarrassment.

So what we have is someone presented as a competent employee, who doesn’t think to type a name into a goddamned computer.  Which is a social failure on the part of the author, who also references a lot of old-school printouts and books hanging around in a future rife with AIs that can talk and evolve.  Won’t e-books and bookmarks have consumed those wholesale by then?

I don’t think that it’s that she’s bad at writing (the book’s quite fun otherwise!), but that she’s so busy envisioning a future where black holes and time travel matter that she’s accidentally skimming over the very changes to society that technology has wrought right now.

As a science fiction author, that vexes me.  I think it’s our job to look at how technology changes people, and part of that has to be looking at the society that we’re becoming.  Facebook is causing all sorts of havoc in the college field, because you have some sleazy hookup with someone, and wham!  Tomorrow, an embarrassing friends’ request.  That person’s now connected with you, a part of your life in a way you didn’t necessarily want but would now be a dick to refuse.

Things teenagers say are now amplified in weird ways.  Drama spirals out of control so much quicker when it’s all in the public arena, dogpiles of crazy waiting to happen.  Dumb photographs you took when you were fifteen now lurks in your Facebook archives, waiting to be revealed by employers at the worst possible moments.  And always, always there’s the possibility of your idiocy going viral, where in the blink of an eye your fun weekend project becomes the next Rebecca Black.

As people who are looking at the future, we need to examine that, and extrapolate, and figure out where all of this enmeshing of society goes.  Maybe that’s a part of my history, because at the age of 25 I started writing crazy sex stories that opened up my personal life, and twenty years later that’s such a part of my identity I can’t imagine what it would be like to not be a blogger.  But the choices I made when I was young, dumb, and full of cum are still influencing my life years later in massive ways I could not have anticipated…

…and that’s the future.  This having every word on the record.  This me, changing the details of the book so I’m not calling out another author in public, because I don’t want to start a flame war with someone whose book I think is otherwise quite good.

This is the new society we live in, where all information is just a touch away, and I think as authors we need to examine that warp and weft of our fabric more closely.  To figure out how our culture will either adjust to this craziness, or to figure out how we’ll start to bend the rules so that it becomes healthier for everyone.

Either’s okay.  My first pro-published story, Camera Obscured, is all about a boy trapped in the web of social media.  Sauerkraut Station is about a lonely girl who’s too far from the social networks, but note that there’s at least a nod to the expense of sending emails.  I’m not saying they’re works of genius, but they’re at least making concessions to the future that’s spinning off of today’s headlines.

I think the singularity is coming, but it’s not what you think.  I think it’s going to be a hideous snarl of concentration-shattering advertising and reptile-brain attention grabs and selfishness ego-shouting, and when it comes it’s going to shred us apart because the corporations will have learned how to pander to our worst desires out to three significant digits.

That’s my vision.  Yours will be different.  But please.  Apply a little thought to what’s going on now, and don’t just have the next generation of people be just like us.  They will have a lot of similarities.  But they’re growing up in science fiction now, so honor that by viewing it through a lens that is flexing and distorting as you read these words.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

The Actors Who Win In Game Of Thrones

I have a weekly date with Kara, which is a little weird, because we’ve never met.  Or even talked. Yet every Sunday, we watch Game of Thrones together and text snarky observations to each other, and this time is inviolable as my weekly date with Bec.  (It helps that I’m curled up on Gini’s lap, sharing the greatest hits.)

The weird thing about Game of Thrones is how some people stand out because of the actors.  Honestly, I never paid attention to Littlefinger in the book – which is a trick, because we see all of his plots and discussions, know who he talks to, and yet somehow I keep forgetting that he’s pulling most of the strings in Westeros.

Yet in the series, Baelish is such a screen force that they give him extra time to masturbate on-camera.  Thus are the delights of HBO.

That said, Jon Snow was one of the big guns in the book series, yet on screen he comes off as petulant and ignorant.  Part of that’s the age shift, where Jon Snow’s four years older and as such he’s having an on-schedule adolescent rebellion during his sophomore year in college.  But part of it is that the actor who plays him has a confused face and this unfortunate pube mustache, and so much of the inner dialogue that highlight’s Jon Snow’s maturity is lost.

Baelish: Win.  Jon Snow: Loss.

Likewise, Tywin Lannister is a strangely likeable figure in the series, not quite fatherly but rewarding intelligence and cunning… Which few do.  I could just watch “The Tywin and Arya show” all week, because I love the subtle interplay between the two of them.  And so what if Tywin should have recognized Arya by now?  Who’s to say he hasn’t, and is just playing it far better than his idiot grandson?

Whereas I barely remembered Theon Greyjoy from the book aside from him as a plot device, but the actor who’s portrayed him has made him wonderfully craven and snivelling.  Which is a wonderful talent, because you’d think Joffrey would have sewn up that particular avenue, but there’s something about Theon’s insecurity that just trumps Joffrey’s boiling arrogance.

Daenarys, however, is dropping for me.  She used to be strong, and now she’s just sort of whiny.  “Give me what I want, or I’ll…. pout!  And be poutier.  Say, did I mention I’m the Mother of Dragons?”  She had a nice moment of dry realization with whats-his-butt, but then was back to “Give me because I said!”

(This is a rare case of the books and the TV series intersecting, because I got fed up with her antics around [book X] and decided, dragons or no, I’d be happy if she got axed.)

It’s kind of fascinating.  I mean, Tyrion’s always been the star, but I suspect the fan base is different among the books-only fans and the series-only fans just because of the magnetic pull of the actors.  Some do better in translation, others do worse.

Meanwhile, I’m rooting for Stannis.  He’s a dry, humorless fuck, but he’s at least vaguely competent.  He might not fuck up the kingdom too badly if he wins.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.