Walton reviews Harlan Ellison's Last Dangerous Visions

Jo Walton writes an intelligent, thought-provoking review of THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, edited by Harlan Ellison in 1982. “On reflection, not very dangerous,” she concludes. “…it wasn’t visionary and they certainly hadn’t seen the future. But we don’t condemn science fiction for not being prediction—and it’s just as well.”

She discusses each of the volumes stories in detail, from Ian Watson’s “Universe on the Turn” to Jerry Pournelle’s “Free Enterprise.”

The best thing here is Ian Watson’s “Universe on the Turn”, a darkly funny satire of a future Britain that has become a surveillance state where everyone is obsessed with watching a “reality” TV show about ordinary inane people trapped in a house together. Calling the show “Big Brother” is perhaps a little unsubtle, but the parallels between the claustrophobia of the show and the highly surveilled everyday lives is done with a light touch that recalls the author’s “The Very Slow Time Machine” and Whores of Babylon…

Jerry Pournelle is here with a story called “Free Enterprise” in which NASA pretty much abandons space to robots, the shuttle fleet is allowed to decay, and prizes are offered for the first private companies to meet various space goals. This has the usual Pournelle style and flair, but this is a very familiar subject for him—not dangerous, not visionary, not to mention so very much not what happened. I like him better in more upbeat romantic works like Exile and Glory.

On a day when SFWA has returned to the previous incarnation of its website because “the earlier website embodies tradition and also provides an important hurdle for new members. If they can’t figure out how to navigate it, we don’t want them,” a development that’s occurred at the same time as the announcement that Alan Smithee will be taking over as SFWA vice-president–it’s nice to read a smart review about the glory days of science fiction, even if those days weren’t so visionary after all.

Go to Tor to read Walton’s review or to Wikipedia for a different perspective on today’s events in science fiction.