The World Science Fiction Convention of 2080
like that just to meet up with other SF fans. (Or else make the journey in full Klingon garb and makeup. That should keep the pirates and Indians away.)
Other obstacles that those traveling to the 2080 Worldcon faced included: Badlands, mercenaries, outlaw bands, pietist communities, army induction centers, and plague zones.
In a world like this it's hard to believe SF could exist. In our own reality
it isn't until the end of the 19th century that the genre really begins taking
form. You would expect any SF that exists under these conditions—in the absence
of scientific research and technological advancement—to be more along the lines
of fantasy. Well, you'd indeed be right; and what's more, that's the way the
fans and writers of 2080 like it.
SOME THINGS DO NOT PASS
Jerry Meltzer, Guest of Honor at the 2080 Worldcon and recipient of that year's
Hugo (which is awarded every three years, and is a carved beachwood rocketship)
for his novel Whither, Starman? says:
"'Some things do not pass. Some things increase in truth and beauty. Science Fiction is one of these. I say this because Science Fiction is a fiction: it is a making, a forging of the legends of our tribe, and the best legends of all humanity. Now that research and probing have ceased'—he grinned dismissively—'we can indeed freshly and freely invent our science and our worlds. SF was always being spoilt, having her hands tied and the whip cracked over her head by scientific facts.'"
Later he goes on to add:
"'We really own the stars now. We really do. Never would have done, the other
way. Dead suns, dead worlds the lot of them, I shouldn't be surprised—dead universe.
Now Sirius is ours. Canopus is. The dense suns of the hub are all ours. All.'"
SAY WHAT?
This, my friends, is not science fiction. The whole point of SF isn't to reveal
or imagine what variety of little green men lie beyond the next nebula, or to
dream up an imaginary world circling one of the dense suns of the hub where
purple slime creatures cast magic spells on travelers as they pass through.
The purpose of SF—what indeed makes it SF and not fantasy—is to examine ourselves;
to
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