Science Fiction

I tend to find science fiction stories that deal with and, in some way or other, end in failure fascinating. A lot of speculative fiction deal with dark topics, pessimism, and dystopia - we are a long way from the optimism that was characteristic for what’s now commonly referred to as the Golden Age of SF, after all - but while the bulk of these stories may not necessarily have a happy ending, they do not primarily deal with failure. When I think of stories that are about failure, I think of Joanna Russ’ We Who Are About To…, about Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games-trilogy, about the immensely pessimistic stories of James Tiptree Jr., the works of Peter Watts, and about Aurora.