ob Funter STRICTLY PERSONAL ne FOR SEVERAL years now | have been gathering material for a science fiction novel. Four or five times, Ihave actuaily started the book, only to give up after 16 or 20 pages. This isn't because | lose interest or even that T get too busy doing other more iucrative things. And it isn't because the ides is justa whim, f began my writing career want- ing to be a sci-fi writer. Before | was 17, 1 had scribbled — and in one memorable (to me) case, typed -~ about a dozen such efforts. Since the age of nine, when I stumbled across Arthur C. Clarke's Sands of Mars and read it by flash- light under the covers at night — because I was supposed to be studying instead of reading “stuff like that” — I've been hopelessly hooked on sci-fi. One of the great tragedies of my life, right up there with the loss of my favorite boat (which sunk), was the Joss of my huge sci-fi collec- tion, which I gave away at one point to a total stranger to prove to my first wife that | had grown up. . OF all thé dumb moves a guy could make! It didn't save the mar- riage, ana, besides, { didn’t grow up, as it turned out, anyway. The dream never quite died. It was a glorious period, from nine to 17, I spent most of it, intellectually at least, out there in the galaxy and sometimes beyond. I painted, too. ~ All my paintings were of other worlds. For good sci-fi read the daily news But, by the end of that period, | had inevitably discavered life on Planet Barth; ie. sex and fove and politics and philosophy and psy- chology and economics and iavel and even nature. 1 found myself slowly becoming interested in history, of all things — in the past, that is, as opposed to the future. Those beenme the things | ended up Writing about, And, having said what little 1 had to say on those subjects, | find my mind turning hack to my original infatuation, the imaginary workd of tomorrow, The idea, as ft now sits in my mind, is to write an ecological sci-fi book. That is, to portray the future with special emphasis on the kind of ecosystem we can cousonably expect to see developing. The key is to pick a time, since, obviously, everything keeps evolv- ing, One can ieap a billion years thead, which ts easy, since nothing . dear t accurately predict what's going to happen an hour from now, 29 let alone 100 years. stops you from Cantasizing whatev- er you want, Bul, for some reason, ny instinct is to aim for, say, 100 years in the future, which is scarcely a few minutes, geologically speaking, and close enough so that something recognizable is still likcly to be left over from our own era. Maybe that’s the mistake: think- ing that a century from now there will be anything recognizable. It was, after all, only 50 years ago that the Second World War was drawing to an end, and the atomic bomb was being built. Of all the science fiction writers who were pounding away on their typewriters at the time, not onc that Ihave been able to find came close to describing the world we have actually inherited just five short decades afterwards. Allowing that there are more probabitity-bending snooker balls on the table of history than ever, and therefore more possible combi- nations, hooks and banks (and even, come to think of it, more pockets inty whieh you can drop your ball), than atany previous stage, calling your shot has hecome tougher than ever. {f you stick lo projections, i's easy. A hundred years from now, we'll have 12 billion people, global warning. ice caps melting, biomass entshes, loss of a third to half of the planet's biodiversity. You can even, [rm sure, project bow many virtual reality sets there will be. But. as we ail know, London would have long since been buried under horse droppings if Malthusian straight-line projections were to be believed, but nobody factored in the automobile, T want my sci-fi book to be as accurate as possible as the environ- mental picture is concerned, And therein lies the rab, We know (even though most people are in total denial about it) thal global reniperatures are rising. We know that this will mean massive disruption of some kind sooner or later, Hundreds of mil- lions of peopte, if not billions, will be dislodged from their homes as sea levels rise. forests disappear, and deserts expand. We also know that a key trigger- ing mechanism for lee Ages is almospheric pollutants, previously supplied by volcanoes, and now. by the burning of fossil fuels. The big question isn’t whether pollution leads to global warming which triggers an {ce Age, it's a matter of when. Will it be within 100 years? In other words, will the charac- ters in my story be fleeing Canada to escape the glaciers, or will they be tending their palm trees in the British Properties, fighting off the hordes trying to escape from the baked and inundated southlands? In the heady moments after the Cold War ended, there was talk of a peace dividend that would lead to a concentrated worldwide drive to reverse the destruction of nature. Instead, we seem to be descend- ing into a hell of neo-tribalism where it is only a matter of time before fanatics and criminals get their hands on nucléar weapons. Every day, it seems, I read or hear about some new twist in the plot. Massacres here, extinctions there. The harsh truth is that [can’t accurately predict what's going to happen an hour from now, let alone 100 years. Make that a minute from now. Maybe what's happened is that scientific reality has outrun science fiction by such a wide margin that there's no catching up, letatone any hope of getting ahead of the curve, Hell, f have trouble trying to seoond-gaess the present, never mind the future, You want great sci-fi? [give you the daily news. DRAPERIES BY S. LAURSEN mee «=6& SON PB custom BEDSPREADS, TRACKS AND VALANCES Labour $8.50 per panel unlined, $9.50 lined. GUSTOM DRAPERIES & BLINDS At low, low prices. For FREE Estimates call 987-2966 (Ask about Seniors’ Discounts) |__sevng the North Shore Serving the North Shore for 23 years With Your Wi.L.A. {Waet Yancouver-Capllano) Jeremy — Dalton Its his turn to listen to you! ; Jeremy Dalton wants to hear about your issues and your concerns - he wants to | stay in touch with you. 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