Shineanthology’s Weblog

An anthology of optimistic, near future SF

Optimistic SF Open Platform

October 5, 2008 at 2:59 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Welcome to the SHINE anthology website.

This site is intended to function as an open platform for optimistic SF. Hereby I invite everyone to post ideas, arguments, comments and links on this topic.

Optimistic SF is like the future: a work in progress.

Guidelines for the SHINE anthology can be found in the sidebar, under the “GUIDELINES” category.

There will be semi-regular posts about topics that touch optimism, near-future and SF. Those will, hopefully, prime your imagination.

As a starting point (not *the* starting point, but one of more to come) I´m posting a part of the official SHINE press release below:

SHINE is a collection of near-future, optimistic SF stories where some of the genres brightest stars and some of its most exciting new talents portray the possible roads to a better tomorrow. Definitely not a plethora of Pollyannas (but neither a barrage of dystopias), SHINE will show that positive change is far from being a foregone conclusion, but needs to be hardfought, innovative, robust and imaginative. Most importantly, it aims to demonstrate that while times are tough and outcomes are uncertain, we can still bend the future in benevolent ways if we embrace change and steer its momentum in the right direction. Let´s put the ´can´ back in “We can do it”, and make our tomorrows SHINE.

Feel free to bombard me with questions and comments!

8 Comments »

  shineanthology wrote @ October 19, 2008 at 11:21 am

Post your comments, questions, remarks, etc. here.

This to see how comments show up.

  A. Zanoni wrote @ October 29, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Hi, Jetse!

SHINE looks awesome! I heard through Lou’s blog. Am spreading the word. :>

Have Much Fun at WFC. Travel safe; try not to top poor Charlie Stross’ travel hades, eh?

Best,

Anne*—

  Madeline Ashby wrote @ November 2, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Ooh, I’m so excited about this that I’m doing the Tachikoma-wiggle in my seat. Enjoy WFC, and if you see Mike Skeet or Jill Lum there, say hi for me!

  shineanthology wrote @ November 8, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Hi Anne,

Thanks!

And congratulations on the assistant editing job with Electric Velocipede. I had quite a few drinks with John at WFC.

Madeline–

Thanks as well! I may have run into Mike Skeet or Jill Lum, but not recognised them. My apologies! Had a great time.

Looking forward to see stories from you both.

  GLP wrote @ November 10, 2008 at 10:10 am

“the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

– from John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

  shineanthology wrote @ November 10, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Gareth–

My father (who died twenty-three years ago) was a huge fan of John Steinbeck, and would have greatly appreciated this quote.

And so do I.

  gillian wrote @ December 2, 2008 at 1:59 pm

SHINE anthology is an excellent initiative. SF is said to be in crisis; people blame the Internet, they blame young people for prefering reading comics to SF ; they pretend that most people don’t like short stories any more.
Nobody says that for the moment, if someone wants to relax, he would prefer spending an evening in the company of a zomby or a banshee than reading a depressing-pessimistic SF book.
Whatever the problems it has created, science has also done a lot of ggod things. Think to all the new medical cures to some diseases which were lethal some years ago, think to all the possibilities it has created for entertainment , the facility to communicate and finding information in the Internet and so many other things.
Why are SF writers so ungrateful to science, so technophobic?
Why is Man so undermined – almost considered as an idiot – in most SF stories? (I will add to the quotation by Steinbeck, the one of ” The old Man and The Sea” by Hemingway: ” The man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”)
Many renowed scientists have a sense of humour (Einstein and Stephen Hawking are not the least of them).
Why HAS SF to be as gloomy and unpleasant as Wednesday Adams?
SHINE is a good initiative and necessary to face the current ” crisis” of SF.
The alternative solution is to treat all the readers who still have the courage to read SF with… antidepressors.

  Kindred Spirits, part 7 « Shineanthology’s Weblog wrote @ September 23, 2009 at 9:07 pm

[...] Where everybody can contribute and discuss, and is clearly and openly invited to do so. Hence the Optimistic SF Open Platform on the top of this very [...]


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