I regard "near-term SF" as time set within the next five or so years forward of the originally intended publication year, or with a strong feel of taking the present and extrapolating the social setting forward from the current society most as-is and basing things on the current status quo and values.
Hmm, there's a qualitative metric I can't quite put words to... perhaps its that there's more the sort of thing that makes a book feel like "near-term thriller" with most of the contemporary social limits and tech limits and attitudes and institutions, as opposed to different social structures and mores and tech base and expectations--there are those generational things involved, perhaps.
The old trope of SF had people going out exploring the universe, traveling through time/space/to alternate worlds excited about going out and exploring... there isn't all that much of that today, what the bulk of SF/F and related material is these days, is fantastical, particular there is a huge onslaught of paranormal romance/urban fantasy (there is a very large overlap zone in them) particularly contemporary ones which involve some degree of alternate reality. The old go-out-to-the-stars-and-explore stuff is mostly absent these days. There's still exoticness to paranormals/UF to some degree or other, but most of the near-term stuff has very little exotic content to it.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
2008-06-23 21:51 (UTC)Hmm, there's a qualitative metric I can't quite put words to... perhaps its that there's more the sort of thing that makes a book feel like "near-term thriller" with most of the contemporary social limits and tech limits and attitudes and institutions, as opposed to different social structures and mores and tech base and expectations--there are those generational things involved, perhaps.
The old trope of SF had people going out exploring the universe, traveling through time/space/to alternate worlds excited about going out and exploring... there isn't all that much of that today, what the bulk of SF/F and related material is these days, is fantastical, particular there is a huge onslaught of paranormal romance/urban fantasy (there is a very large overlap zone in them) particularly contemporary ones which involve some degree of alternate reality. The old go-out-to-the-stars-and-explore stuff is mostly absent these days. There's still exoticness to paranormals/UF to some degree or other, but most of the near-term stuff has very little exotic content to it.