It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Its limitations are those of the physical universe: it won't let you play with some really wild ideas that aren't possible, but are fun to speculate about.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

What SF can do better than anything else is show us the range of our possible futures, and what we can do to realize the good ones and avoid the nasty ones.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Ideally, I'd like every issue to include a diverse group of stories that meet the qualifications sketched above, but covering a wide range of specific matter and flavour.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

As for sticking strictly to presently known science, I will simply point out that we have already experienced at least two major revolutions in science in this century alone.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

And, of course, some SF is set close enough to here and now that Anglo and European do apply. Since many of the writers come from those backgrounds, so does much of the fiction.
quote by Stanley Schmidt
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
