Over the vacation I read a few books. Sci Fi, because nothing clears the mind (okay my mind) like good old science fiction..
And I was struck by the lack of optimism. When I was a yute - great writers like Clarke, Bradbury, Silverberg, Asimov - even Philip Dick could get from now to the future somehow.
But there are now (seemingly) only 2 paths.
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1 - Optimistic novels skip the next hundreds of years and get to galactic / pan universe societies.
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2 - Novels that address the current political / social climate but quickly devolve into post-apocalyptic futures. A lot of books skip now, and go right into the sucky aftermath (The Hunger Games books, The Road, etc.)
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I am not counting Vampires and such as Sci Fi - because they change the current dynamic - so they don't count in this discussion (except allegorically - and that is too esoteric). None of this limits my enjoyment of the genre - but it is an interesting dynamic.
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Yes, "interesting" being a relative term.