this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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I can kind of see where he's coming from, but only if you're weighing it against an assumed future where we're going to die out tomorrow. That's a low bar for hopeful, and certainly not "100% positive".
I have a hard time seeing I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream or even worse, All Tomorrows, as "hopeful". I'd honestly rather just die.
Plus, not all sci-fi involves humans, and not all sci-fi is in the future. There's scifi with no humans in it, there's scifi set in the past or in an alternate present, and none of those qualify as "hopeful by default" in the way he defines it any more than any other fiction does.
This is my one of my favorites for exactly this reason. Agreed, other than the triumph of what little humanity Ted has at the end there's not much in the story.
But despite being a famous asshole it always seemed Ellison loved this story, right down to actually re writing a happy end to the "I have no mouth..." adventure game in the early 90s.
Speculation on my part, but I always thought for a famous pessimist he thought his warning might make a difference, which is its own kind of hopeful.