What I find interesting in the “politics” of these three books is that “preachiness” is not a function of political messaging, but one of aesthetic integrity.
In a time when questions of choice are so volatile in reality, surfacing them in speculative fiction is vital for helping people grasp their own agency.
When Le Guin talks about genre writers as “the realists of a larger reality” we surrender the power of that when we narrow our work to only depict one type of future. We have great power to restore alternate narratives, to re-broaden the range of imaginable futures.
The first time I watch Everything Everywhere All At Once in theaters, I am struck by the way Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh are presented—not as the generic smooth-faced Hollywood types but decidedly middle-aged, grey hairs and pores and all. He looks like my former piano teacher, I think. She could be my parents’ church friend. And yet: the fanny pack swung with stunning agility. The bullet stopped mid-flight, the daughter pulled back from the brink. This is how I fight. No shame in having survived, here—in being the star of many lives, each branched out from a decision made in childhood or as a young adult: to go or to stay; to sing or chase scientific glory; to please the demanding parent, or break down, or break away.
Dragon fire on white bodies is sad. Dragon fire on not-Muslim bodies is cheered on the screen. We ache when the scimitar prows of not-Muslim ships cleave through a white human captain’s ship. But bombs sent by white admirals into not-Muslim countries are the only way to make these barbarians hear reason (and maybe also a chance to prove how nice we are, we of the civilized world). Don’t listen to the not-Muslim’s testimony of pain. He is probably lying.
Ultimately, while Classic is beloved in German science fiction for being long-running and well-established in its tradition of science fiction, it suffers from being a product of both its time and environment. It is not the first work that reads poorly in light of the world of today, and most certainly not the first in pulp fiction. Even its intent and ideology is sound, if misguided and colored by the environment and upbringing of its authors. What we see in NEO is a manifestation of Perry’s written intention but updated to a modern sensibility, an alignment that sees it running parallel to the current run of Classic. Perry Rhodan’s universes ask us to believe in one astronaut and his allies as they strive to make the galaxy a better, kinder place, while also grappling with the difficulties of doing so.
