A bit of a self indulgent post this morning, as it this is ultimately just about bringing together two of my personal interests.
One of my greatest disappointments though at Chester revolved around a potential anthology of science fiction stories to raise money for Asian Elephant conservation. I was delighted when leading UK Stephen Baxter ) turned up at our House of Lords event.
http://www.stephen-baxter.com/
The idea developed from there. Ian Watson and Garry Killworth also joined. Genre leader James Herbert provided a story, as did SF luminary Brian Aldiss. Arthur C. Clarke even supplied an introduction.But in the end, despite all these great names, the project failed to find a publisher - “anthologies out of fashion”… “the science fiction market too genre“, etc. Stephen Baxter did generously give the proceeds from an award winning short story of his to the Elephant campaign though So what have ’speculative fiction’ and the great zoo endeavour got in common..? Well, at the most basic ( almost vulgar?) level, I guess they are both about encountering “strange new life forms”. But, they are also both about “Deep Time” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/change/deeptime/index.html), the idea that we have to consider the challenge of preserving biodiversity in a very long time frame. SF themes have after all frequently touched on the frozen zoo concept or the ‘human zoo’ ( pilot film for Star Trek : ‘Menagerie’). Contemporary Science Fiction also often takes a strong environmental ( “the world does not just belong to human kind”) stance, rather than an anthro-supremacist view So is the interface between these two fields exploitable for the ultimate benefit of the biodiversity ethic we all support. I would be intrigued to hear of anyone in either professional field with any notions.
Best
John
Johnreganassociates.com
