Techno-optimism remembered

Tom Swift and the birth of American techno-optimism � Climate Progress

I should be doing something else, but can't help linking to this post about the Tom Swift novels, which have a much longer history than I realised.

I read the later incarnation of these (written in the 50's and 60's) when I was a child, and remember enjoying them a lot. As I have noted here before, there was a lot of basically optimistic science fiction written for the youth market in that period. Now that's been replaced by futuristic novels set in dystopias or otherwise pessimistic about the future, social realism about children dealing with broken families and such like, or fantasy that may be well written, but only connects with reality when dealing with relationships.

If I were a commissioning editor, I would be very interested in trying to re-establish the genre of techno-optimism for the youth market. You see, I haven't quite given up on that idea; just become depressed about the lack of political and social will to pursue it. Telling children not to expect science to help in the future is not a good way to break that cycle.