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As a songwriter, I wonder why I write so many sad songs. Like, a lot of them. Really, really sad songs. I just wrote one last week, inspired by a scene from a
by beat 8y ago
As a songwriter, I wonder why I write so many sad songs. Like, a lot of them. Really, really sad songs.
I just wrote one last week, inspired by a scene from a science fiction novel. It tells the story of a small fleet of spaceships fleeing a doomed Earth for the stars, and one ship attacking the rest and killing their crews in order to steal their fuel and spare parts. It's not just that what they did is a crime... they knew it was wrong, did it anyway, and feel terrible about it, but they also knew that if they didn't do it, another ship would have done it to them. So it's all guilt and shame from making a totally selfish decision.
Why would I write that way? And it's not like this is an unusual subject for me.
Part of it, I think, is that I do a very good job of covering up some deep depression in my day-to-day life. I'm a much sadder person than I appear to be.
- moosey 8y ago> they knew it was wrong I know which book series this was part of, and this action was the correct one to take. I feel as if the entire point of the book is that at some point, we need to make collective decisions, and when we do so, we all need to share in the responsibility of those decisions. The decision not to protect each human life as some kind of infinite well of value is an unusually narcissistic form of collectivism, I think, and only possible in highly developed nations. I believe that at some point, the reality of resource depletion or pollution, possibly war, will come to a head, and we will have to abandon this view.
- beat 8y agoI've heard some criticism of that series of "Can't relate to the characters". I suspect that it's because the perspective is so strongly Chinese, rather than American. The situation of the scene isn't something an American would even think of, y'know? A big part of the beauty and thrill of that scene, for me, was all of these people recognizing the problem, and the solution, and the horror of the solution, at the same time.
- amblingalpaca 8y agoDo you have any recommendations for other books, movies, or shows that "sparked horror" as well as that event did? The closest I think I've come since was Blindsight's revelation on how the aliens functioned, but it wasn't nearly as cinematic.
- beat 8y agoI would have recommended Blindsight! Along the same lines, I really loved A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, and its "sequel" A Deepness in the Sky has aliens that remind me in many ways of the Trisolarans. But A Fire Upon the Deep gets some of that horror.
- amblingalpaca 8y agoVernor Vinge (or his publishers at least) have just made another $20. Thank you so much!
- asark 8y agoBlindsight was great. The Martian Chronicles and The City and the Stars both reliably produce a kind of satisfying melancholy, if that makes sense, at least for me. Not unlike To the Lighthouse, actually. Might not quite be what you're looking for, but... similar-ish? There's a short story collection called Beyond Flesh that has some solid horror moments of the sort you're looking for, I think.
- amblingalpaca 8y agoSatisfying melancholy is the “cellar door” of vibes in my opinion, these recommendations could have been airport romance titles and I’d probably still have checked them out! Had no idea Bradbury fit “There Will Come Soft Rains” into a novel of sorts, that was probably one of the very first SF stories I ever read and loved. All have been added to my reading list (To the Lighthouse included) thank you!
- 8y ago
- beat 8y agoI thought you might enjoy this last verse, too... Sixty thousand years to get there Five ships waste fuel you need to stay alive Eden's just another word for graveyard So kill and steal, leave Eden and survive Light a candle in the darkness Drift forever in the gloom Four thousand comrades sacrificed to save you Their ships you gutted serving as their tomb.
- bloogsy 8y agoWhat book series is this from? Or even better, what specific book? I'd be keen to read it.
- beat 8y agoThe Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu. The scene is actually from the second book in the trilogy, The Dark Forest, but they are really meant to be read in order, and I don't think The Dark Forest would make much sense without reading The Three Body Problem first. Outstanding books, highly recommended if you like old-school hard science fiction. I'm currently reading the third book in the trilogy. But when I read this one scene... I had a song a day later. It really knocked me out.
- chipuni 8y agoThe book was probably Liu Cixin's _The Dark Forest_. If you want to read it, start with _The Three-Body Problem_, the first in the series.