Are you trying to say I'm reading too much into a science fiction author's work? Maybe. It's fun to think about it. He wrote it for me to have fun with it, no?
I have always understood that everyone agrees that he is one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever. His writing and philosophy has depth and he understood the future would be interaction between the society and technology.
Maybe he is underrated in the sense that while he is considered a great, many of his writings are still relatively unknown.
His nonfiction is also remarkable (Golem XIV is technically sci-fi, but it's so philosophically heavy that it can be seen as philosophical work).
I forget who, but in the early 90s a famous SF author was asked by a fan if he thought he was put on earth to write his books. He replied that he was put on earth to play Sid Meier's Civilization, writing books was what he did to pay the bills.
Although Asimov was actually trying to predict the future here, SF writers generally aren't in the prediction business—they are in the speculation business[1] (many modern SF writers claim the 'S' in SF would be for 'Speculation' rather than 'Science').
I find it unfair when SF writers are held to account for their more fanciful speculations—they should be free to ask "What if?" without later ridicule.
[1] In reality, they are in the entertainment business and should therefore be allowed to entertain without later ridicule, too.
I guess it tracks with him being able to write intricate and detailed sci-fi, the man knew what he was talking about. There's a reason he's still revered as one of the greatest examples of the genre.
I'm a little skeptical of the "sci Fi author X predicted Y" claims.
Well known sci Fi authors predicted a lot of things.
Not sure it was Clarke, but video calls appear in 2001 (movie) from 1968. Heinlein has cellphones in 1957's Citizen of the Galaxy. Finding a "prediction" from a prolific author is just a matter of thrashing out the chaff.
"He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then" made me think with amusement of caveman science fiction [1].
I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my attention.
As background: Charles Stross is a prolific science-fiction author. He's a smart guy with a lot of interesting things to say about the future of technology.
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