Stanley Schmidt
Stanley Schmidt
Stanley Albert Schmidtis an American science fiction author. Between 1978 and 2012 he served as editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth21 January 1926
CountryUnited States of America
nasty realizing range
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.
character responsibility action
Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.
believe answers surprise
It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.
depressing ugly way
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.
doe fiction bedtime
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.
animal needs want
Through our entire history we have become accustomed to pushing [animals] around in ways dictated by our own wants and needs without much regard for theirs.
two revolution century
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.
thinking would-be way
Of course, the way writers think about those things is almost certain to be affected by their own cultural background, and it would be hard to deny that, for whatever reasons, a lot of SF writers come from Anglo or European backgrounds.
writing temptation style
Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.
real mistake writing
Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.