Keeping it real - in praise of near-future SF

One of the things a reader needs to do to get sucked into the world of a story is to willingly suspend disbelief.  We need to accept and believe in that world for the duration of the tale.  And that's where many  SF novels fail for me.  I have a hard time believing in galaxy-spanning all-powerful civilisations that utilise tech that never malfunctions.  Or maybe the story portrays an all-powerful, all-seeing corporation.  Nope, I can't believe in those either.

These sorts of scenarios are common in SF, and I suspect they're the reason why so many people I meet say "I never read SF."  They can't believe in those sorts of worlds either.  I understand where those people are coming from.  Stories of the far future set out a way of living and civilisations which are totally alien to us today.  But sometimes it's a stretch too far, and I just can't imagine human beings ever getting to that situation.

Let's take that wonderful shiny tech, for a start.  I never cease to be amazed by the way the most complex gizmo ever invented by humans always seems to work perfectly.  It never seems to break down, despite no evidence in the story that regular maintainance is being carried out.  I just don't buy that.  It's up there with perpetual motion machines as impossible things.  I think human tech will always break down.

Then there's that all-knowing corporation.  Anyone who's worked for a large company (at least in England) will know that very often one part of the company doesn't know what another is doing.  They don't communicate too well.  So I can't buy in to an even-bigger organisation that knows what every outsider is doing as well.

Which is one reason why I like to write near-future SF.  I can envisage a world where communications break down at a critical moment.  It can provide me with dozens of ways to up the tension in the story. I can also envisage a world where the big corporations have moles, and rebellious employees.  Like today, they'll have employees who don't buy in to the company mission.

We humans are a fractious lot, and the conflicts we have today will move forward into the future.   However we organise our society in the future, it's not likely to have foolproof tech, or an ideology that every single member of a society accepts without question.  The rebels will always be there.