I’ve been loving my hard scifi recently. But I feel like it’s begun to demonstrate how much easier it is to imagine all the ways things could go wrong. If fiction is how we lay an outline for the future, I wonder if anyone can recommend some more uplifting stories to me? Rather than a cautionary tale I would appreciate a story with a setting where the author dares to risk being wrong about what’s right for us. Naturally this may simply be the setting for a somewhat unrelated story, but I’m curious what sorts of literature comes to mind that falls into this category.
None of these are Utopian but a trend towards being better.
One of Ted Chiang’s short stories The Story of your Life (the basis for the movie Arrival) perhaps?
Project Hail Mary
Contact
Though I wouldnt count the barely-avoiding-imminent-human-Apocalypse from Project Hail Mary a trend to the better for humanity 😆
Yeah. Each of these have some conflict or struggle but the ending is more hopeful.