Science fiction often shows a gloomy future world, a miserable place of political oppression and the downfall of democracy and freedom – kind of like the present push to deindustrialize our world and put us back to hunter-gatherer existence, only without fire and not allowed to eat meat – Frankly, I’m sick of the human-hatred that goes on in the name of environmentalism, and I’m sick of the destruction done to our planet by people who hate people and who would rather dig up entire forests and ship it as woodchips across the world to burn than burn the black stuff that comes out of the ground, you know, the stuff that isn’t an ecosystem – I’m also tired of seeing science fiction used to promote the idea that the human animal is some kind of an abomination on the world – So let me be perfectly clear – I write science fiction about HEALTHY WORLDS and PEOPLE WITHOUT GUILT, I don’t deliver green messages and I don’t do human-hatred.

Yes, there is still a challenge my characters have to face in my books, a threat of typical galactic proportion, but then that’s rather expected in sci-fi, yet people are people and planets are lush and thick with wildlife, most of which are uninhabited – just like our world actually is, if only people would pull their heads out of the cities and realize that urbanization isn’t the only thing out there.

I’ve lived in raw nature. I spent five years in the subtropics of Australia on a wilderness block with no house, no water on tap, no sewage or electricity mains. And I mean I LIVED there. I didn’t have a job to escape to every day, my job was the land, getting water, organizing power and dealing with wildlife that tried to take over our camp at every opportunity. And no, I was not part of a commune, nor was I one of those eco-loonies who call themselves Green, or worse, a Watermelon (Green on the outside and Red inside). It was just Greg and I living a dream.

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Nature is strong, our planet is robust, and believe me, we lived at the edge of wilderness, deep enough to feel it, isolated, but not totally cut off from society. There are places of such wilderness that are so remote that surviving there makes what we did look like a picnic in the park.

My point? I’m not a human-hater. My science fiction is about strength, not weakness. I don’t write to send messages about how “bad” we are and how we ought to stop this or that “before it’s too late”. I write enjoyable stories about adventure and fun, yes, and challenges and hopes and dreams and fears.

People – we have been taught to be self-denigrating. It’s worth remembering that any time someone pulls the guilt card on you, that person or organization has a vested interest in your response. Manipulators ALWAYS use guilt and they are after your donation or your compliance. Money or power.

Enough of them. I vote for, and write about, a future without doomsayers.

Cheers all!

Allyson