A poll for science fiction masses

[kinzel]

As someone who went to Clarion West thirty five years ago I'm participating in this years Clarion West Write-a-Thon ... see my page at: http://www.clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/SteveMiller

alas, my stated goal is to write a new near-future science fiction story and now it turns out that the phrase "near future" creates different expectations for different people. So, I need help figuring out what's near future. I also hear that all near future sf "should be mundane" but ... I dunno.

What's your take:

[Poll #1209566]

Comments

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

I can see that the closer one considers nr future to be, the more restricted the subject matter may appear but I don't think it specifically has to be mundane. There's no reason near future SF couldn't include alien contact stories and we can't make assumptions on potential alien technologies based on our own progress. The main thing about nr future SF is that you get to assume that cultural values and social behaviour is close to what we see today. I wouldn't call Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer mundane, but it's as much valid near future SF as KSR's Fifty degrees below.

Mundane SF mostly frustrates me. I don't mind reading realistic near future stuff, but I certainly don't want to give up a future where at some point we can do things we never imagined would be possible today. I think there's a certain point where you have to admit that we cannot know what kind of break-throughs of theory or technology might occur.