The Future is NOW

At least part of it is.

I recently had the privilege to spend some time leading my niece through the fantasy and science fiction section of a bookstore. I was hoping to pull off the biggest flex possible (since my books aren’t in regular stores) of spotting a book by someone I know and have hung out with at cons and recommending the book to her. “Oh, yeah, I know this author, you’ll LOVE her stuff!”

Sadly, that didn’t happen this time.

What did happen, was that I saw a bunch of books that I had read before, and was able to talk about what made them important to me with great enthusiasm. They had a ton of Gibson novels there, so I got to go on about how his earlier cyberpunk works stand up to his later works like the Blue Ant trilogy, or the Peripheral series (the third book of which we are still waiting on!)

I may have gone on for a while about how cool I think Gibson is. Maybe too long. I dunno.

Not sure if I encouraged or scared her off…oh well.

There was the first Monster Hunter book by Larry Correia, which I was super excited to see out in the wild like that, and whole heartedly recommended the series to her (with a warning about all the profanity, so she should probably hide that one from her mom, my twin sister).

We talked about the kinds of stories she likes, and I made recommendations based on her past reading based on authors I had read (for the record she likes fantasy, urban fantasy and sci fi, so the lass has got the genres on lock). It was a good time with a remarkable young lady whom I don’t get to see very often because they live a little far away. Closer now than they used to, but still…

It occurred to me that this is how it works. Not just the passing on of stuff that impacted our lives when we read it, but guiding and shaping the way the next generation can see the world, the lens they put in front of their eyes to filter it through.

And that is important. The best stories give us a sort of mirror to look at humanity through, and we can learn things about our species as a whole, and especially about ourselves in the process, which is why reading stories is so important. It truly saddens me to see how reading isn’t really encouraged these days, and how entertainment has been, in many cases, reduced to mindless fluff that is only designed to get your heart rate up, and not make you think, or worse to make you think something the way someone else wants you to without being allowed to make up your own mind.

Stories should give the reader the opportunity to make up their own mind about the characters, and the events, and how they allow them to affect them. I thought George Lucas was nuts to do Vader’s whole backstory, but over time, and subsequent viewings, it was a fascinating descent into villainy to watch. The appeal and the dangers of dictatorships are lessons we shouldn’t forget, so we recognize real ones when we see them. There’s a lot in Gibon’s work about how humanity creates art, and allows art to influence us, and how those influences can be good and bad. Humanity and our interactions, and obsessions with tech are also big themes in his work, and there are valuable lessons there as well. We can pass those lessons on with our recommendations to those who are starting out, and the traditions continue and thrive, and thus, so do we.

Who knows? In ten years, maybe she’ll be wandering the stacks of a book store somewhere, extolling the virtues of Gibson, or maybe even some other lesser author she knows of…

That would be cool.

YOU have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of some wonderful space opera that explores what it might be like when humanity encounters the ruins of alien civilizations and explores the past of a race besides our own.

This is where we were as of this morning, and there are 15 days left to get over to https://mgherron.com/ruins and check out the Kickstarter campaign. Check out that “campaigns we love” badge we earned! Is that cool or what!?

PERSONAL APPEARANCE UPDATE:

If you find yourself in Memphis Tennessee over the weekend of March 20^th-23^rd, and you have a hankering to hang out with fellow sci-fi and fantasy nerds, you should drop by Midsouthcon 41! If you wanna have a conversation about William Gibson, or anyone else you’ve read, or think I should, stop by the table in the Dealer Room where I will be hanging out with the creator of the Lunar Free State series, John Siers, and shouting insults at and watching the literate carnival barker magic of William Alan Webb as he hawks his wares a table or two down.

And don’t worry about the guy in the Gladius Leagues hat wandering around passing out book marks with my name and info on them…that’s just my dad.

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you next time.

Michael