But that's not what I'm after. The primary thing that science fiction and historical movies have in common is that when it comes to the genre's respective real-world subjects of science and history, neither film genre actually strives for accuracy. Rather, what they strive for is plausibility -- something that is "good enough" to get past the audience, for the purposes of the film.
While reading through his latest blog entry, Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money, I could picture a guy (though since I've never seen a photo of him, I just imagined Kevin Smith for some reason) talking and gesturing and otherwise being quite animated. And this Smith-Scalzi guy wasn't boring either, but really interesting. Considering I'm not interested in being a writer or managing a writer's finances, he must be doing something right.
Anyhow, he (Scalzi, not Smith-Scalzi) is a scifi author so I think I'm going to pick up a book or two and contribute to his savings. Now he can say for certain that his blogging sold at least one book.
Oh, look, another newspaper writer is digging a deep hole to shove Robert Heinlein's reputation into, mostly by intimating that no one takes Heinlein seriously anymore anyway, trotting out a bookseller to intone about Heinlein being a fascist, and even hauling up the New York Times assessment of moi last year to wonder if being sized-up for the "New Heinlein" mantle is actually a compliment.
Uh-huh. Well, since I am, after all, the author who is the subject at hand for the NYT piece, I think I'm allowed to pipe up here and ask a question. Which is: If being compared to Heinlein is such a liability, then why am I selling so many goddamn books? Because you know what? I am. Ask my publisher, he'll tell you the same thing.
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Beyond this point, science fiction has a long and proud tradition of irascible loners with contrary politics, and there are more of them than you think. I doubt there's a single Ron Paul supporter in the land who doesn't have a well-thumbed copy of either Farnham's Freehold or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or both. Being politically incorrect is not actually a liability in science fiction.
Not necessarily a Ron Paul supporter, but I find him interesting. And I just finished The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and now Allie is reading it.
