All Tomorrows: "Trouble on Triton"

The first in my series of weekly columns covering some of sci-fi's most relevant and oft-forgotten works is up on Coilhouse, along with a pretty interesting comments thread. This one tackles Samuel Delany's "ambiguous heterotopia" Trouble on Triton

It was a time when society seemed both crumbling and poised for something new. Old barriers fell, including in the very writing invented to consider the future. To the new breed it was now a vehicle to explore endless possible societies, to consider and endless array of tomorrows: weird, wonderful or horrible.

During this period, lasting roughly from the mid-60s to the early ’80s, science fiction went through a sea change like no other. The resulting works tackled issues of culture, society, ethics and sex in ways that make them still fresh today. Some of the writers went on to fame (if rarely fortune), while others remain obscure. However, in this period sci-fi considered tomorrows that involved far more than just bigger machinery. Today, we face some eerily similar questions - and would do well to delve into their possible answers.
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Now, as for Triton, it struck me upon second glance that it describes a world that for many of us would be close to paradise. There are no such things as alternate cultures on the future society of Triton, ensconced in its domes, because there’s no such thing as a mainstream to begin with. Any lifestyle goes and all basic needs are provided. Dress how you want, live how you want. If you’re unhappy with your flesh, your sex, your body in any way, the technology exists to change it. Hell, it’s not even unusual (more like a surgical oil change). Want to see what attraction to a whole different spectrum of people feels like? There’s a machine for that too. If, after all this, you’re not satisfied with the few laws that do exist, each city has a sector where none of them apply (realizing such places develop anyway). Anything is possible.

Or is it? Look at the title.

Readers of this blog, interested in issues of social fracturing and possible futures are advised to check it out (along with Coilhouse, which you should be reading everything on, natch.)

Comments

[Chaosophy]

I love Samuel Delaney--most of the time, although some of the more transgressive novels push my limits.

[David Forbes]

Mine too, but I'm glad an author such as he exists, even for the stuff that's not up my alley.