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

[lensedqso.livejournal.com]

To me, near future is anything that's recognizably a close offshoot of the current state of the world. It can be five years from now or fifty as long as the base technology and starting point of the universe can be reasonably extended from where we are today in the interim timeframe without sudden unexpected leaps of discovery (which may not be fair because sudden unexpected leaps of discovery are part of the natural process). From that point I'm okay with veering off - unexpected alien contact, discovery of something that moves us forward faster than natural progress, some apocalyptic event, the launching of a generational starship, or whatever the thrust of the story is. It doesn't have to be social commentary on the state of the world today (even though many people seem to assume it does) nor does it have to assume we're stuck on Earth or alone in the universe.