Mundane science fiction
The MSF movement, which was inspired by an idea from British computer programmer Julian Todd, was founded in 2004 during the 2004 Clarion West class by novelist Geoff Ryman among others.
[5] Ryman and his collaborators believed that much of science fiction was too escapist, and they thought that setting their stories in a world closer to our own would give the narratives more political and social power.
He argues that in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, stodgy tales of space opera "bland prose" and "formulas of planetary romances, über-robots, and cold equations" dominated.
He also points out that SF writer Thomas Disch has similarly opined that the preference for weak, implausible depictions of science in sci fi is an "American aspect of our 'lie-loving' culture" used by readers for escapism.
Some Golden Age writers, however, such as Theodore Sturgeon, Philip José Farmer, and Ray Bradbury did transcend these formulas and developed nuanced characters and stories.
Ballard believed that the Golden Age’s focus on advanced interstellar spaceships was "clichéd and unilluminating", preferring to write stories about humans’ "next five minutes" and "near future", which is "immediately recognisable to us, but invariably with a pretty unpleasant twist or three.
[13] Ritch Calvin argues that the goals of MSF were predated by sociologist Wayne Brekhus, who in 2000 published "A Mundane Manifesto", calling for "analytically interesting studies of the socially uninteresting."
He argues for a focus on the "mundane" because the "extraordinary draws disproportionate theoretical attention from researchers", which weakens the development of theory and creates a distorted image of reality.
"[16][5] In his book review of "Dust", scholar Paul McAuley described Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park as an example of mundane science fiction.
She states that "[h]ard SF has several varieties, starting with really hard, which does not deviate in any way from known scientific principles in inventing the future"; she says "this is also called by some “mundane SF.”"[21] According to the Manifesto, MSF writers believe it is unlikely that alien intelligence will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.
The Manifesto states that alternative universes, parallel worlds, magic and the supernatural (including telepathy and telekinesis), time travel and teleportation are similarly avoided.
[26][5] In the March 2008 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, in writer Jim Kelly's ongoing "On the Net" column he agreed with many elements of MSF.
[5] Both Kelly and Calvin mention the criticism by British author Ian McDonald, and his fundamental objection, that much good science fiction is being written without any awareness of or need for the manifesto.
She also criticized Ryman for disrespecting SF’s tradition of creating prophecies, thus influencing real life, which she stated means he "completely misses the point of [science fiction]".
Jucha says that as "someone focused on our environment, I believe space exploration and habitation throughout our system will yield inventions that will aid our planet’s resource management, recycling efficiency, and environmental cleanup."
At the same time, Jucha supports "science fiction speculation" arguing that "[w]ho would have thought that sixty or seventy years ago, we would have landed on the Moon or [now] be planning a mission to Mars…".
"[35][36] In 2019, Roger Luckhurst, a professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London, stated the MSF movement was developed because writers did not want "…to imagine shiny, hard futures [but [rather] give a] sense of sliding from one version of our present into something slightly alienated".
[40] Brian Attebery argues that Air is "largely mundane", and he asserts that Ryman's use of some fantasy elements (an "impossible pregnancy" and "time slippage") strengthen the novel's themes and make the story more interesting, so he says that a "test" for MSF status need not be used.
[44] In Jeff Somers' 2015 article for Barnes and Noble, he identified six novels: Geoff Ryman's Air, which he calls "low-key, small-scale science fiction" that exemplifies the movement; Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, about "an attempt to terraform and establish a colony on Mars" that leads to a revolution; Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark, about "genetic procedures that remove disease and deformity"; Andy Weir's The Martian, about an astronaut accidentally stranded on Mars who has to learn to survive on the lifeless planet using leftover equipment; Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, an alternate future in which the "United States has experienced a communist revolution after a period of economic decline", and China has become the superpower; and Charles Stross' Halting State, which is set in a virtual world, enabling him to depict cyber-created orcs and dragons while still respecting the limits of MSF.
[46] In November 10, 2020, Nina Munteanu listed Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 as one of the top 15 eco-fiction novels, referring to it as "an impeccable climate-novel of mundane SF.
Paste reviewer Elijah Gonzalez states that the appeal of this film's "mundane science fiction" is that its "low-key" approach "shrink[s] the scope of conflict, [so that] relatively commonplace concerns gain increased impact, emulating the worries we deal with in the here and now."
Gonzalez states that by "combining the [sci-fi] genre’s ability to realize far-flung technology with Kogonoda’s precise imagery, After Yang proves that there is fertile ground for moving, mundane science fiction.
