I heard a most interesting comment today about news and “fake” news: “Toe-may-toe, Toe-Mah-Toe!” followed by a nonchalant shrug. I was so taken aback, so gobsmacked, I stood there with my mouth open and no reply. What could I reply?
As a published author, I’ve always paid due deference to the difference between non-fiction and fiction. Okay, so in my thrillers, I’ve dabbled a bit in the nebulous realm of Truman Capote-style “historical fiction” – the IN COLD BLOOD “novel.” Never having been a fan of pure fantasy or unbridled fiction, I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, not as a science fiction or fantasy work, but as a science-based futuring work (a new genre that I take full credit and responsibility for inventing – and I don’t mean SCI-FU in the earlier sense of a “model for pursuing full visible unity in Scotland”).
And I do take umbrage with not keeping reality and spin distinct and separate in everyday life. It can be “fun” in the mind to blur the distinction, but it can also be deadly, as people are learning in today’s world.
Toe-may-toe or Toe-mah-toe, it’s equally important to distinguish between SCI-FU and SCI-FI especially when reading a SCI-FU novel. And, yes, I use the word “novel” intentionally to further challenge SCI-FU readers to separate not only non-fiction from fiction, but the present from a plausible future. Humans typically learn not so much from their successes but rather their failures or mistakes. SCI-FU offers a hypothetical “mirror” in which one can peer into a plausible future and decide if what is reveled is a benefit, failure or mistake.
As a published author, I’ve always paid due deference to the difference between non-fiction and fiction. Okay, so in my thrillers, I’ve dabbled a bit in the nebulous realm of Truman Capote-style “historical fiction” – the IN COLD BLOOD “novel.” Never having been a fan of pure fantasy or unbridled fiction, I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, not as a science fiction or fantasy work, but as a science-based futuring work (a new genre that I take full credit and responsibility for inventing – and I don’t mean SCI-FU in the earlier sense of a “model for pursuing full visible unity in Scotland”).
And I do take umbrage with not keeping reality and spin distinct and separate in everyday life. It can be “fun” in the mind to blur the distinction, but it can also be deadly, as people are learning in today’s world.
Toe-may-toe or Toe-mah-toe, it’s equally important to distinguish between SCI-FU and SCI-FI especially when reading a SCI-FU novel. And, yes, I use the word “novel” intentionally to further challenge SCI-FU readers to separate not only non-fiction from fiction, but the present from a plausible future. Humans typically learn not so much from their successes but rather their failures or mistakes. SCI-FU offers a hypothetical “mirror” in which one can peer into a plausible future and decide if what is reveled is a benefit, failure or mistake.
The Edge of Madness
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