A Quote by Paul Di Filippo

Its a heartening fact about the human race that utopian fiction precedes dystopian fiction in the evolution of literature. — © Paul Di Filippo
Its a heartening fact about the human race that utopian fiction precedes dystopian fiction in the evolution of literature.
It's a heartening fact about the human race that utopian fiction precedes dystopian fiction in the evolution of literature.
I never, as a reader, have been particularly interested in dystopian literature or science fiction or, in fact, fantasy.
Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes.
Science fiction and fantasy is a kind of literature that embodies the highest aspirations of the human race.
Although I write dystopian fiction, I don't believe in dystopian fantasies.
'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that's just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia.
What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.
Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
I suspect the popularity of young adults and dystopian novels has something to do with a desire for allegory and old-fashioned morality tales. In fact, you might find your religious framework here in dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction. Here, and in videogames, you find strict codes of authority, the "rules of the game," the life-or-death quest and struggle that people crave.
There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.
Science fiction, as I mentioned before, writes about what is neither impossible nor possible; the fact is that, when the question of possibility comes up in science fiction, the author can only reply that nobody knows. We haven't been there yet. We haven't discovered that yet. Science fiction hasn't happened.
As a result of reading science fiction when I was eight, I grew up with an interest in music, architecture, city planning, transportation, politics, ethics, aesthetics on any level, art...it's just total! It's a complete commitment to the whole human race on all the Earth. That's what science fiction is about.
Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.
My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.
Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)
All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.
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