Try the Lokians series. It revolves around unique races of aliens, unraveling the secrets of life, the universe, reasonable technology, and weirdo humor.

One question to ask is: Why do science-fiction writers seem to hate space and space travel so much? Outside of existing properties like Star Wars, Star Trek, and other non-bookbased, cross-media properties, I fail to see where this 'horrible' morass of easy FTL space travel is coming from. People say they are tired of reading about 'easy space travel' and 'space opera', but I'm having a heck of a time finding out what books they're talking about that they dislike so much. Okay, fine so we don't have warp-speed or hyperspace, that doesn't mean we should discredit stories that include them. As for the idea of them not being explained how they would work, well if anyone could actually do that, then we would have them already! It wouldn't be sci-fi, it just be reality. And frankly most of this social sci-fi, that seems to have this erroneous idea that it is better because it is better explained doesn't stop if from still being FICTION. The biggest problem I find with sci-fi writing these days is too much of an inward looking at ourselves, too much Earth, too much focus on digital tech, and too little imagination about finding those strange new worlds and lifeforms, and too little imagination to boldly go where no man has gone before. Instead it's all this pretentious social sci-fi, that possesses too little imagination, and too much crippled emo 'Facebook' look at me and my digital tech storyteling. There are some 200 billion stars in our galaxy, and easily as many galaxies beyond ours. Like much of our Western society, we need to stop looking inward, and start looking outward. Light years are just a matter of distance and how fast we can traverse them. Saying that we're not supposed to write about doing so in an easy(ier) fashion, at least in fiction, is the exact type of self-censorship that has so destroyed the optimism and fun (yes fun, any of you know what that is?) that made so many of us science fiction fans in the first place.

But his Hieroglyph project is pessimistic! It says not to engage speculative technologies and no talk of them. In fact, he requires the use of "steel" - that people should only use technologies that are available today and not to waste time thinking about future possibilities. Now, there is a logic to this but in the end Stephenson is anti-future and anti-visionary. Why? This trend in cyberculture SF writers is a backlash from their own guilt for having been so dystopic. I wish they would get out of the way of the rest of us who are visionary and want to solve problems on a large scale.

Science fiction isn't really about people in the future, it really is about us in the present. Science fiction is a device to project our present hopes and fears a comfortable distance away. In times when people are feeling upbeat, you get science fiction that is mostly "optimistic", while when people are downbeat you tend to get dystopian visions of the future. Things haven't been going that well for us lately, which is undoubtedly why sci fi has taken such a pessimistic turn. Unfortunately, and contrary to the thesis of this article, I suspect that sci fi follows rather than leads. Optimistic sci fi isn't going to be written until there is a market for it, and there isn't going to be a market for it until times get better and people are feeling more upbeat again.

The answer to this is simple. Not only is it a reflection of how we feel and the world we currently exist in, but the simple fact of the matter is nihilistic and dystopian futures provide something that stories need to be interesting. CONFLICT. In a perfect world, where everything is happy and shiny, guess what? NOTHING HAPPENS. People just live their happy lives and there's no story to tell. Logan's Run is supposed to be an idyllic future, yet it isn't really, there's a darker truth to it. Same with The Time Machine, paradises don't have conflict or obstacles to over come. The simple fact of the mater is that even the most perfect of futures is going to have darkness. The world ISN'T a nice place, it's full of death, corruption, greed and horror. Fiction in general reflects that. That isn't going to chance, regardless of how hard you "authors" complain about it, because stories about ideal futures go ignored and unread because they just aren't interesting to read about.

i love you neal.x

Two problems with much of “futurism” and science fiction is that they tend to assume there is a technological fix for human problems, while also ignoring the cost of their “solutions,” not only in money, but in natural resources. It is possible to devise optimistic futurism and science fiction, but even dystopian writers are frequently too optimistic, in that humans are often saved from a dystopian planet by earthlings blasting off into space. A dystopian civilization would no longer have the resources and social-scientific wherewithal to send themselves zipping off into space, which would also need to include the gargantuan cost of resettlement. Another convenient escape hatch frequently popping up in sci-fi is when the hero and his significant other will, as in one version of Blade Runner, escape into some vast lush limitless Eden–somehow still existing on a burned-out dystopian planet? Also often ignored is that in a future world that would continue today’s runaway overpopulation, particularly that of the USA, now almost totally fueled by post-1965 in-migration and offspring, temporary technological fixes tend only to make it possible for population numbers to continue their skyrocketing arc in a position of ever greater resource overshoot, becoming ever more unsustainable, making the eventual population crash ever more devastating–and not just for humans. In other words, realistic futurism rewards. Utopian futurism kills.

Hey Neal, love your books--Snow Crash and The Diamond Age helped restore my faith in science fictional wonder.

Now, I'm an author with two books out (Winning Mars from Prime Books--near future positive SF, and Mecha Corps from Penguin/ROC--big robot mid-future with a very interesting universe to play in.) I've long been a proponent of positive SF (and have been ostracized for it.) Check out my Positive Science Fiction Manifesto at http://strangeandhappy.com/2008/09/27/stranger-and-happier-a-positive-science-fiction-manifesto/

Also check out the Shine anthology, edited by Jetse de Vries, who shares a lot of our same points of view.

I think there are reasons a lot of SF ends up dystopic these days.

First, it's easier to write. Lots more potential for gut-wrenching conflict when you're launching off the current crisis du jour. It's an easier sell, too. Publishers want stuff that resonates with the stuff people are angsting about. And yeah, it can be a signpost to warn us off Really Bad Outcomes. But there's a whole lot of it.

Second, the authors have changed. In the past, most SF was written by people working in technology, seeing the massive changes around them firsthand. Now it's typically written by people with lots of literary cred (or looking for same), who may not ever have been in a development lab at all. Again, it's a reflection of what publishers want--visionary stuff that doesn't pass muster on the lit side of things doesn't win SF awards.

Here's to more positive SF!

Whoa, WHoa, WHOA! Just ran across the reason why post-apocalyptic entertainment is all the rage today. (I saw "The Hunger Games" last week and can attest that this genre is alive and well). It's because people have lost faith in the future. I said "faith" because as it turns out you need a reason to think that the future will be brighter and better. A Christian belief system that focuses on Jesus' promise to return to earth and take his followers to heaven matches that requirement precisely. It also fits with the Biblical view of time as linear. Both are requirements for science to develop. So it stands to reason that since much of Western Civilization has given up its faith in Christianity, it has ultimately lost its faith in progress and linear time, and therefore science and a better tomorrow. In which case Neal Stephenson's project is doomed to failure.

The "no magical technologies" works fine for the very near future, but when you get farther out? Imagine it's 1890 and you're a physical scientist. Someone approaches you with the following: "I have here two lumps of a material called Uranium 235. If you slam them together correctly, they will release energy with the explosive force of more than one hundred million sticks of dynamite." You'd laugh at him. The very idea is preposterous. First off, what's this "235" business? Uranium is Uranium. It doesn't come in types. You're familiar with the atomic theory of matter, right? Atomic. From the Greek atomos. It means "indivisible. A Uranium atom is a Uranium Atom is a Uranium atom. And this ridiculous release of energy? Energy can neither be created or destroyed. You've can convert from one form to another but that's about it. If there was so much energy, whether chemical or mechanical, in Uranium to do as you suggest, it would tend to go off at the slightest provocation--Like, say, sneezing anywhere in the same county. What you suggest is flat out theoretically impossible. Now, instead, suppose someone approached you with the following instead: "You know, if you applied a force to something, like say with a rocket, and continued applying it for long enough, there is no ultimate bar to how fast it could go. Enough force, for enough time, and one could travel between the stars in weeks, if not days. Of course that much acceleration would crush most things and the engineering challenges are probably prohibitive, but there's no theoretical bar to it." You'd probably have to agree. After all speed is simply acceleration over time, and acceleration is simply force divided by mass. Enough force, applying enough acceleration, for enough time and any speed could be achieved without limit, at least theoretically. more at: http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2012/03/science-science-fiction-and-possible.html

The real problem is not that Science Fiction Writers are so pessimistic. The problem (from what I've heard) is that too many of the publishers want pessimistic Science Fiction.

Contrary to the last poster's conclusion, there is nothing 'realistic' about assuming that what happened yesterday will happen tomorrow or the day after that. Indeed, technology has given us the tools to know that the mode of living we have constructed over the past few decades is entirely unsustainable. In light of this, it isn't really a reason to feel optimistic that in the rich West progress has been achieved on the measures the last poster mentions, because this mode of living cannot be sustained. By all means this isn't to say cultural progress requires the hugely wasteful system we have currently, and can't be done (better) without it, but it is to say that the last few decades have been a rebuke to technological optimism. Far from solve our problems, in that time technology has only exacerbated our unsustainable practices. Perhaps this is why sci-fi writers have such trouble envisaging future techno-utopias. We need a cultural-political solution underpinned by technology, not determined by it. I suspect the hard part for intelligent sci-fi writers trying to be optimistic is, in our claimed "post-ideological" times, imaging such solutions. Its very easy to look at the data and conclude capitalism has no future. Imagining its replacement when we've had 30 years being told "there is no alternative" is the hard part.

We need a constant reminder that technology is a double edged sword. It increases both our capacity to do good for one another and to harm one another. It is important that we have these novels as reminders of what technology will eventually be capable of, so we can avoid these outcomes and work towards doing more good with technology. To anyone here who loves the dystopian/apocalyptic novel, but of a different variety, read the book Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. She terms the genre as speculative fiction, because the technology is mostly that which we have now which is cutting edge (genetics and energy), simply developed and made widespread.

I felt the same way I began to write a recently published sci-fi story. I am tired of stories where the space ships just go to "jump speed" (faster than light speed) without explanation. I set out to go beyond the tech improvements to the discoveries in astrophysics (proof of a multiverse system) that allows a ship to travel in space at a faster speed than we can now imagine at this time and the paradoxes it creates. I hope to see other sci-fi writers do this. Hieroglyph Project is a go for me. Let's see some stretching the imaginations and going beyond horror and space opera.

The indisputable fact is that mankind has progressed over time and continues to progress both technologically and culturally. Whether your view takes in the last 40,000 years or only the last 400 years the result is the same. It is not steady progress or universal by any means. There have been temporary declines, but the trend has been toward peace, prosperity, mutual respect, and discovery.
Now may be the most peaceable time in our species’ existence. People today have a much lower chance of being the victims of violence than at any time in history, or probably even prehistory. Individuals regardless of their social class, beliefs, gender, or ethnicity are almost universally regarded as having the same basic rights. Think of things not only common but considered normal not all that long ago such as slavery, genocide, the burning of heretics, gruesome executions, blood sports, debtors’ prisons, foot-binding, torture, mutilation, animal cruelty, wars of conquest, colonialism, and subjugation. Now think about how such things are considered today.
The rejection of acts such as these, which I think most of us would see as barbaric, did not happen all at once. From a historical perspective it has been fairly rapid, though, and each of these cultural advancements has been built on those that came before it. We didn’t go from genocide to racial and ethnic equality or from the Inquisition to religious freedom in one step but we did get there. Humanity seen on the large scale has progressed and continues to progress.
Much of current science fiction, if not fiction in general, seems to take the opposite stand, that continued progress is either unlikely or will lead to irresolvable problems. Despite the fact that history shows otherwise, these dark tales are often touted by critics as being more realistic. Clearly, they are not. Based on what mankind has accomplished and continues to accomplish, fiction that carries a positive mood and image of humanity is more realistic.

As a writer of Future Fiction my 2 current novels, IN SEARCH OF A VISION and BATTLE FOR THE VISION, do take place after a planetary disaster. However, I try to show my characters as people who except everyone for who, and what, they are, united in trying to rebuild the world of their ancestors as they oppose those who whould enslave those who are weaker and unable to defend themselves.

When I want to imagine a happy and productive future of progress and the achieved symbiosis between mankind and his mother planet, I write fantasy.

When I want to be realistic about how technology will be used in the future to control people, limit human choice, create the last dark age, the last world war and the irradiation of the planet with nukes, I wrote science fiction.

Perhaps contemporary science fiction writers are pessimistic because the 'powers that be' have forced us down an avenue of human self-destruction and sci-fi writers insist up on being somewhat realistic.

I wish our future was not self-destructive. It is nice to dream it to be otherwise. In the meantime, we all have the opportunity for personal growth. I for one use that opportunity every day and enjoy writing if only to encourage others to do so as well.

Calling The Walking Dead science fiction is absurd. It's horror, and as far as I am concerned, the zombie craze can't end soon enough. As for negative visions of future, that had always been with us. For every Stranger in a Strange Land there is also a Starship Troopers. The magnms opus of sci-fi is probably Dune (although it could be classified just as easily as fantasy), and it details an incredibly bleak future of the human race.

I think many commenters here are missing the point. It's not that there ISN'T any new positive SF. Clearly there is. It's just that the SF that tends to get noticed by the public at large appears to be dystopian. Perhaps it's the article's author's fault for not drawing that (rather fine) distinction.

We can all point to the Greg Egans and Ian M. Banks's of the world and say "Nuh uh! There's some positive SF right there!" Meanwhile The Hunger Games is set to rake in $150 million this weekend.

SF remains as rich and varied a genre as it has ever been. The public however (not just the SF-reading public), is ever changing. And right now the public appears to prefer nihilism. Shrug. I applaud Stephenson for his current work to change that.

Ha, give me a story about how we can fix climate change. Or one in which we keep huge corporations from knowing every intimate detail around us and using advances in neuro-science, manipulate us into doing as they wish.

To me there are two things: 1) As a society we cannot handle the speed of scientific advancement and are destroying ourselves 2) technology empowers the modern aristocracy more than the people.

Hear, hear! Speaking as a science fiction author, I would especially like to stress SF used to be an optimistic medium with respect to social and moral possibilities as well as technical ones. About a year ago I broke with the "dark" trend to take a stand for optimistic SF. And I'm always looking for interested contributors. Let's not be the bad guys, folks.

The dystopian movies and most of the more recent novels are to capitalize (or monetize) the 2012 doomsday predictions. This, too, shall pass.

Science fiction holds up a mirror to the present as much as it does to the future. Right now, people see huge problems in the present that our political systems seem incapable of even recognizing (let alone solving), and are naturally very anxious about the future. Dystopian fiction recognizes and addresses these fears; furthermore, it usually shows individuals who find some way to resist them. This is especially true for YA fiction, which is reaching kids who've come of age amid constant talk of war, recession, and environmental catastrophe.

Yes, science fiction does tend to be more realistic than romantic novels when it comes to the negativity of human nature. However, science fiction is largely positive, particularly the better classic works. One example: the 'Foundation' series by Asimov. But it's deep. Another example: A very beautiful award winning short book that I recently read is 'The Graveyard Book' by Neil Gaiman.

It's all a matter of selective biases. You can always go back and find inspiration from the "old" works and authors. For example, even though I've read Dan Simmons many years ago, his Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are still a huge influence on how i see our future. And though you can try to argue that his vision is not positive (at least not until the end of the fourth book), it still makes me feel more optimistic and hopeful about our potential. The World Web, the fatline, hawking drive, farcasters, datumplane, the Hegemony, the Allthing, the Technocore, - everything is simply breathtaking. That was a real, all-encompassing vision of future. Will there be conflict, bloodshed and strife - sure, so long as we remain human. But that is not any reason to think that nothing better comes along - that's the problem with both left and right. No one is nearly open-minded - they all want to stand in the way of progress for their own reasons and denounce occuring changes because they don't fit with their mood affiliation. Pitiful.

1984 was about totalitarian savagery, whether from the right (Fascism) or left (Communism). Think of the context at the time Orwell lived. Tyler Cowen has written of the "great stagnation." Maybe people in general are less optimistic about the prospect revolutionary new technologies?

Read a novel by Greg Egan. Almost entirely optimistic worldview, breathtaking views of a posthuman future, loads of hope for meaningful life beyond mortality, and fairly hard-science oriented.

I kind of disagree with the other posters here, most modern dystopian science fiction is a knee jerk view of how technology & civilization are bad. generally dystopian writers preach that technology is self destructive, the free market is slavery & remissness upon the noble savage fallacy. some have such an irrational love of untouched nature that they believe we should never gone to the moon (our presence despoiled it, some how). for many the future is now about conservation and Luddites, not stretching for (and coping with) new horizons, about fear not curiosity. It is sad.

"can we have some sci fi that shows us how to deal with greed, right wing savagery and ignorance etc? 1984 and Animal Farm laid it out for us but it still happens, now more than ever.." What? You do realize that those two are much more obviously classic examples of 'left wing savagery', don't you? Overall I agree that SF authors have to be as true to the limitations of human nature as to the limitations of time/space (not 'hyperspace') if they want their stories to be perceived as technologically relevant/predictive. If written for another reason (philosphical/moral), speculate away, hyperdrive included -- I just think the genre line between SF and Fantasy (which isn't just swords and sorcery) starts to blur at that point. R

Having hope is being a Pollyanna? Please. Those without hope have just given up, and deserve to fall out of the evolutionary tree. SF in the past has been a source of inspiration to countless readers, giving them something to dream about and work toward.

Cautionary tales are good things, but when they lead people to believe that "ALL of the current global trends are leading to a very bleak future" then they start to wonder what the good is of trying.

Take a lesson from the psychology of depression. It has been shown that depressive patterns wear into the mind like rivers into bedrock, and after a while, those are the only paths thoughts can follow. We need *variety* in our books and movies and ideas. That's the only way to prevent that from happening. It's the only way to insure a brighter future.

How about the science fiction work of Iain M. Banks, Neal Asher, Peter Hamilton, Charles Stross, Peter Watts, and other recent writers who portray a big, optimistic future? Oh yeah, those are mostly not American sci-fi writers. But they are writing exactly this sort of science fiction. The worlds created by these writers almost all involve strong AI, ubiquitous nanotechnology, effective immortality, and a united, dominant humanity which is going to the stars. It is compelling, hopeful, and mostly unknown.

I have been a reader of science fiction for 55 years and I agree with Mark that protraying bad outcomes can help to avoid those extreme negative outcomes and the opposite is also true positive potrayals give us a vision of the future and what could be a benefit for humanity that we cannot see from where we are now.

@Craig Frey Actually it's the complete opposite. Most of the global trends, whether they're environmental awareness, global conflict, worldwide standard of living, global food supply, etcetera... are trending towards the positive. Think about the standard of living for most of humanity in the 1880's, then the 1930's, then the 1970's, then compare it to the present. Think about the way we treated and viewed the environment in the 1880's, then the 1930's, then the 1970's, then compare it to the present. Change doesn't happen overnight, but everything is slowly getting better. There's an industry of self purported Cassandra's penning apocalypses and waving banners that proclaim the the end is nigh, but most (e.g.Ehrlich) have been proven false prophets time and time again.

Trying to Polyanna-ize science fiction? I was inspired by the scifi stories which stretched scientific possibilities to the limit with great writing mostly from the 60's and 70's in my case. There always seemed to be an undertone of humor and faith in the success of technological solutions in the most inspiring stories of the golden age of scifi, but also the sad reality of how human folly and hubris can destroy any technological progress. These are lessons to be heeded and perpetuated - they should not be ignored or suppressed for fear of depressing future readers. Scientists and engineers of tomorrow need to temper enthusiasm with responsibility. Hackers and holocausts are part of reality and cannot be ignored. Hyperspace remains to be experienced.

The underlying problem is that Science Fiction writers are not idiots. Anyone paying attention can see that ALL of the current global trends are leading to a very bleak future. Ignoring that is very difficult for anyone with an intellect sufficient to pen Science Fiction.

Interesting proposition. Sci fi writers as generators of new technological ideas from Verne to Banks etc., a great tradition. I wonder who gets the credit and the cash if a writer comes up with a new tech idea, or is it just a given that the idea is there for anyone to grab and exploit. But, writers, all writers inc sci fi writers are a barometer of social change and a conduit for the suffering that results from human tragedy, you can include composers, visual artists and other practitioners of the arts too. I don't think this will change. New tech sometimes includes weapons, possibilities for new kinds of bloodbath. So morally where do you go from there, can we have some sci fi that shows us how to deal with greed, right wing savagery and ignorance etc? 1984 and Animal Farm laid it out for us but it still happens, now more than ever. So whats the point of writing new sci fi tech when those that benefit are of doubtful moral character. Sure, some new tech is enabling for all of us but the economic scene is heavily weighted in favour of the obscenely wealthy. Get a grip Neal, show us how to create a moral human, or maybe that would be too boring for the reading public.

In spite of some science fiction writers following in the footsteps of mainstream journalism and capitalizing on the mantra "Bad News Sells," I actually find science fiction, in general, to be much more positive than other genres of writing. In particular, notice that religious and racial conflicts are almost never present in science fiction. Even those depressing books that depict a post-nuclear-disaster world, or an alien invasion, appear to assume that humanity will someday move past its religious and racial conflicts.

Science fiction's portrayal of the many possibilities of very bad outcomes serves the incredibly important function of *avoiding those very outcomes*! Consider how Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe raised the consciousness of what could happen. The pessimism is a good thing. I agree with the "no hyperspace" rule. There could be a more generic "no magic" rule. Keep the science in science fiction.