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kate_nepveuI'm at Arisia (no programming for me, I didn't make sure I was on their list in time after skipping last year, which is fine, very relaxing!). Just now I was part of a conversation in which I asked for recommendations of works that actually show how world-changing events would have widespread, structural consequences that affect people at the individual level. You know, the stuff the MCU conspicuously avoided doing in Endgame and that Steven Universe: The Movie skipped past in, what, two sentences?
Someone said that, despite everything else that could be said about them, the Pern series actually does this, going forward and back in time to show how the planet went from space colony to feudal society to back again. (My favorite of those was always the one where they discover the A.I. that walks them through becoming a spacefaring culture again.) Mercedes Lackey, too, is really into logistics as Valdemar's relationship to magic changes, again, despite everything else.
(I later remembered Becky Chambers' Record of a Spaceborn Few, which is about a particular community, which is in some ways a utopia, during a period of change (but not any especially dramatic one, because communities are always changing). It's told through the viewpoints of a handful of people, who cross paths but not in any major-plot-crescendo kind of way, just living their lives within a society and in relation to it. Somewhat to my surprise, I absolutely loved it.)
This conversation prompted someone else to say that I should write a list of stories that should be revisited, with less fail. And I am very tired and have other things I want to do tonight, so I'm not going to go beyond this, but I'm putting this up so others can chime in if they like. Is there some story you like that isn't as common these days, where the most prominent past examples have other stuff that you would like not to be there, so that it's ripe for revisiting with less fail? I'm not interested, for these purposes, in the core of a story being subverted or reclaimed; more like, gee, what about a Big Dumb Object story but with actual characters? Or The Grand Sophy without the moneylender? Or, as above, Pern without everything having to do with sex and romance?
Anyway, have at it. I'm going to see if I can catch up on Steven Universe Future because there's a panel tomorrow morning. Granted, it's at 8:45 a.m., so I may not make it regardless . . .
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
