Cool GUN, cool MECH, cool SPACE MARINE
Science fiction is a genre where anything is possible- human beings travel the stars, we create artificial life, we transcend the binary notions of gender, achieve equality, cure all illness, cheat death, find alien life in the universe, unravel the very fabric of being, traverse dimensions, read minds, and if we're not wise we destroy ourselves. When anything is possible, why do so many stories seem to only focus on war, weapons, soldiers and war machines? When I think about stories and authors that have stuck around my brain for years, I am not thinking about war for the most part- I am thinking about the worlds created by Ursula K Le Guin, Ted Sturgeon, Bradbury, Clarke, Vonnegut, Andre Norton, Sam Delany, etc. I don't mean those stories which act as commentaries on war or on human nature. One of the best contemporary sci-fi stories I read to date is Isabel Fall's I Identify As An Attack Helicopter, which is an incisive and controversial commentary of the military ind