More Sci-Fi Meta-Posting

I know I said narrative and point of view were next, but I find myself randomly inspired to discuss some other issues instead. I came across an old issue of Reason from last year the other day and got to reading about Octavia Butler. She died about a year ago after falling and hitting her head.

She was a very talented science fiction writer or so I am told. I was familiar with her due to many references I had seen to her books, and because I had seen her interviews at least once on TV. I never read her stuff because the themes struck me as pessimistic.

It seemed as though she often created worst-possible-scenarios that arose out of the present state of things. However after reading more about her I sort of wished i had. This is because I realized after reading the article that she wrote on many similar themes to what I have written about. I found myself relating her in a sort of obscure way.

Her work reminded you that you can be very sci-fi without having a focus on either science or technology. Sometimes explorations of future societies are more about social ideas, and how social structures can conflict, and evolve.

As I am a fan of character-driven fiction the social themes strike me as being an important realm of science fiction that I certainly do not intend to neglect.