4 ms·
I'm not sure it's possible to argue someone into enjoying a work of fiction. I explained why it didn't work for me. Any work of fiction- the successful ones,
by araneae 16y ago
I'm not sure it's possible to argue someone into enjoying a work of fiction.
I explained why it didn't work for me. Any work of fiction- the successful ones, anyway- will always be about people. If they're too different of a people (genetically engineered out of their humanness), then people simply won't enjoy it.
There's a reason that there are virtually no popular science fiction novels where the protagonist is an alien that has a completely different value/mating systems to us. I got like a page into a story about an alternate history of Earth where birds resembling jacanas (a species where the females are behaviorally like the males of other species and v.v.) were the intelligent species on the planet. Then I realized that no-one could ever relate to or care about my characters. They were just too alien. That isn't to say there can't be great fiction where the conflict between alien races is over that difference, like 3 worlds, (Ender's Game comes to mind), but the point is always to reaffirm what it means to be human. You just can't do that if the humans in your book are alien.
- derefr 16y agoI'm not suggesting that you should enjoy it. It's not escapism; it's not intended to pass mindlessly into your amygdala. It's meant to be a serious, critical analysis of the consequences of doing such a thing—a satire, in other words. you're meant to come away with it with an opinion on whether or not doing this—becoming alien in this way, having these irreconcilably different values—is a good thing or not. ...which was, oddly enough, the plot of the story itself! The protagonists decided that the values of the Baby Eaters were a bad thing; and, likewise, the Super Happy people decided that the values of the protagonists were a bad thing. One day, our future, alien selves might decide that our current values are a bad thing, and, likewise, if we see their (potential) values as bad enough, we might consider not allowing such a positive feedback loop toward new values to take place at all.