Post #2479460

I suggest Peter Watts. > most SF stories there are usually one or two central issues to grapple with—an evil AI, an empire, climate collapse—but rarely the overwhelming stack of interlocking failures we see in reality. Even dystopias often feel strangely cleaner and more legible than real life. Writers try to build tight narratives. Portraying a polycrisis is hard. It's even harder if you want to focus on one or two factors. Decent editors try to cut extraneous stuff out of stories, so they'll try to trim out factors that aren't necessary to the main story arc. And then you need to consider the audience. Can a writer portray a polycrisis in a way that viewers or readers will stick with? Or will the audience get tired of a laundry list of problems? I suggest Peter Watts because he writes (wrote?) good genre fiction that's depressing *and* includes multiple reasons to be depressed.