The Case for Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi: A Manifesto

This manifesto post was originally published by Matthew D. Brown (author). Reproduced with permission (see license details at the bottom of the page).

The Case for Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi: A Manifesto

There is a sense you can get in some quarters that Sci-Fi that isn’t serious (Hard Sci-Fi) is (in some gatekeeper way) invalid. I’m calling BS on that right here. Soft Sci-Fi is still Sci-Fi. Fans of the hardest Sci-Fis might not like it but the world does not turn on what you like or dislike.

Serious Sci-Fi is all well and good. Serious Sci-Fi will always be important. But not all Sci-Fi needs to be serious. When did having fun start being the enemy? What is the world without a little playfulness? Boring. That’s what it is.

In this post, I am going to make the case that:

• Silly Sci-Fi is valid Sci-Fi.
• Sci-Fi as an escape is perfectly fine.
• We shouldn’t let the gatekeepers determine what we write.
• No, really. Screw gatekeepers. Put them in your story and blow them out of the nearest airlock.
• It is time to lock cynicism in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet inside a disused lavatory with a sign don’t the door saying, “Beware of the Leopard”.

Silly Sci-Fi is valid too

There is something to be said for Sci-Fi that is just fun. Silly even. Silly and fun Sci-Fi is the gateway genre that will lead people to the harder and more sciency Sci-Fi. Or not. There’s no rule that says that just because you like your Sci-Fi as hard as concentrated unobtainium the rest of us can’t enjoy something a bit more fanciful.

The reason that Sci-Fi is what it is today is because of soft pulp Sci-Fi. My first taste of Sci-fi was shoddily filmed with wobbly cardboard sets. The stories were daft sometimes, sure. But you know what, they captured my imagination. They made me want to write my own adventures.

It is a lie that good writing is serious writing. Good writing is whatever silly adventure that you read because it makes you happy. Life is too short not to be happy at least some of the time.

Bring back fun stories.

Sci-Fi should sometimes be an escape

Daft old Doctor Who episodes let me believe that there can be more to this world than just the hum-drum of everyday life. There were times when the imagination that those old TV programs awoke was what got me through some dark times.

Sometimes, that TV program, that book, that adventure is what keeps us hanging on. I believe that to deny someone that escape is wrong.

There are days when a darker and gritter version of now is too much. That’s when soft, silly, fun, and daft Sci-Fi comes to our rescue.

As Sci-Fi fans, we must not put limits on what is or is not allowed. As authors, we each have the potential in us for Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi adventures that could be what enables someone to enjoy a long commute. Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi that gives someone a moment away from the headaches of life.

Don’t we all deserve that moment of escape?

Writers of the world, embrace your Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi plots

Maybe our Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi won’t foretell the next great technology. But so what? Do we only write to be right or do we write to tell interesting stories? Stories only we can tell. It is time to tell those stories.

There is already enough super serious stuff in the world right now. Do you know what there is a shortage of though? There is a shortage of fun and playful Sci-Fi. There are not enough fresh voices bringing us fun adventures because of the lie that good writing is serious writing.

If you are reading this, I want you to make a promise. Not to me but to yourself. Promise to write something just because it seems fun. Not to win any literary awards. Not to impress your agent. Just have fun with a story.

Bring back fun stories.

Beware of the Leopard

It has become all too fashionable to be cynical. All our heroes have to be dark and edgy. The world must be grim. And no one had better have any fun at all. Otherwise, the literature police will come and arrest you or something.

We don’t need another cynical author with darker and edgier characters. What we need is something fun. Something to make us smile. Something to bring a little joy to our readers.

We need fewer byronic heroes and more people finding that the council display department is in a silly place.

The world needs more brave captains. More pop-culture aware wierdoes going on adventures. I want to read about two mates flying through space in a garden shed with a forcefield around it. I want time travel. I want dinosaurs and I want a few exploding planets, please. Where are the stories where the important MacGuffin was back at home all along?

I want silly. I want daft. I want fun. I want Saturday morning cartoon adventures. I want a fresh cup of tea. But most of all I want fun. The world would be too dark without fun. We need fun. Now more than ever.

What happened to those adventures where there never was any doubt that the characters would arrive home safe and sound in time for a cup of tea before the next adventure starts? When did writing fun Sci-Fi become wrong?

Bring back fun stories.

Some sort of conclusion thing

The point that I have so verbosely been making is this: We need more Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi.

We need more for Silly-n-Fun everything but especially Sci-Fi.

This is my challenge to you. Read more Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi. Just enjoy daft adventures unironically and without the slightest guilt. Let us stop being ashamed of our weirdness. Let us be proud of our love of fun.

For my fellow writers, I have another challenge. Write something not to be the next big thing but because a few other weirdos like you and me will enjoy reading it. Bring back fun stories as only you can.

And when you find something fun or you make something fun. Please share it with me. I too like fun. I am proud to loudly declare that I love Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi.

Let’s start a movement. A movement for fun fiction – #SillyNFunSciFi #BringBackFunStories

The Case for Silly-n-Fun Sci-Fi: A Manifesto by Matthew D. Brown is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

What’s your favourate obscure movie?

This Movie question was originally asked by endless-rooms.isbrill.com

#movies #QuestionOfTheWeek

Do you try to be a good person?

🫂 – This week’s question is from Matt’s social Node

Matt says:

🫂 Reply with a hugging emoji if you do

or…

😈 an evil emoji if not

From Matt’s social Node

• website

#QuestionOfTheWeek

What is the dogma of today that you are challenging?

Heretics challenge the dogma of the day. That’s how we get change and make things better.

#change #dogma #HeresyPrompts

Reform council brings in ‘British values’ flag rules

Leicestershire County Council’s new Reform leadership has scrapped the authority’s flag flying policy in its first cabinet meeting.

The move, approved at a meeting on Thursday, means a previously agreed schedule of flags to be displayed outside County Hall in Glenfield has been discontinued.

The list included flags to mark events celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month and Windrush Day.

New Reform council leader Dan Harrison said the changes to flag flying protocols were “to celebrate British values that unite us all”.

Some staff groups at the council, where Reform formed a minority administration following May’s local elections, raised concerns about the move.

Harrison described the eight-minute cabinet meeting, which had only the flag flying policy on the agenda, as “historic”.

Reform council brings in ‘British values’ flag rules, BBC

#flags #imaginaryProblems #Leicestershire #warOnWoke #InTheNews

This looks awesome! Six M.2 slots, and #raspberrypi pin outs! too bad it doesn't take a USB-C power supply.

> #Radxa NX150 is an #Intel #N150 #computemodule in an #NVIDIA #Jetson NX-compatible form factor

https://liliputing.com/radxa-nx150-is-an-intel-n150-compute-module-in-an-nvidia-jetson-nx-compatible-form-factor/

#IntelN150 #JetsonNx #NvidiaJetsonNx #RadxaN150 #Som #TwinLake

Attending the Homebrew Website Club later today with @anarodrigues & @artlung

Just looking at RSVP options sent me down the whole WebMentions rabbit hole and now I have an absolute need to implement it on my site. It's an open Zoom - so maybe drop in too?
https://events.indieweb.org/2025/06/homebrew-website-club-europe-london-BGblmFAv1LQU

Earlier today, @davew published a blog post titled WordPress and me. He talked about WordLand, his focused and fast editor for writers and bloggers. Through developing the editor, he’s discovered WordPress again.

WordPress as the OS of the open social web

I think WordPress has all that’s needed to be the OS of the open social web. We needed it and it’s always been there, and I saw something that I want to show everyone else, that the web can grow from here, we should build on everything that the WordPress community has created. It’s a lot stronger foundation that the other candidates for the basic needs of the open social web, imho.

@davew

I’ve been following Dave’s work with WordLand for the past few months, and it’s been really nice and encouraging to see him work on a product that aligns with my values. And now, Dave will get to present his tool and his ideas to others in the WordPress community! He will be talking at WordCamp Canada in October.

It should come as no surprise that someone so involved with some of the key concepts of the Open Web, like RSS, values ideals of openness and giving writers control over their content. WordLand’s approach to “what you see is what you get” is something that aligns so well with WordPress’ own ideals. It clashes with walled gardens like Twitter or Bluesky where you’re limited in length, format, content, and where you ultimately do not own your writing. It’s super motivating and empowering when someone newer to the WordPress ecosystem recognizes those shared values and the power of the platform.

Rediscovering WordPress

In his post, Dave talked about his journey of rediscovering WordPress through a new lens. The WordPress.com REST API, its endpoints and its authentication layer, gave him the tools to build the editor he needed, while still benefiting from everything the WordPress community has created in the past 22 years.

This is also what we had in mind when Automattic released Calypso 10 years ago:

Calypso is…

• Incredibly fast. It’ll charm you.
• Written purely in JavaScript, leveraging libraries like Node and React.
• 100% API-powered. Those APIs are open, and now available to every developer in the world.

Matt — Dance to Calypso

Calypso and its underlying API paved the way for the first REST API endpoints that made it to WordPress itself a year later. That API then became a cornerstone of the Gutenberg project:

WordPress has always been about the user experience, and that needs to continue to evolve under newer demands. Gutenberg is an attempt at fundamentally addressing those needs, based on the idea of content blocks. It’s an attempt to improve how users interact with their content in a fundamentally visual way, while at the same time giving developers the tools to create more fulfilling experiences for the people they are helping.

Matías Ventura — Gutenberg, or the Ship of Theseus

WordPress.com REST API vs. WordPress REST API

On a more technical note, the folks more familiar with WordPress will wonder why WordLand uses the WordPress.com REST API, and not the core WordPress REST API.

Dave chose to use the WordPress.com API for WordLand — and that makes perfect sense for the goals of the project. It provides built-in authentication and opinionated endpoints that would otherwise need to be built on top of the core REST API, and would need to be shipped to every site that wants to use the WordLand editor. That’s simply not what WordLand was designed to do.

Perhaps more importantly, the WordPress.com REST API is just one of the many ways to interact with WordPress. That’s the beauty of WordPress: it’s open and flexible, allowing different tools and solutions to thrive. In this case, it’s nice to see how WordLand, WordPress, and WordPress.com came together to empower writers, each bringing their own strengths to the table. It’s a great example of how open tools and platforms can work hand-in-hand to create something truly special.

It’s always exciting to see new tools emerge from old foundations — and even more so when they help bring us closer to the open web we want to build. Funny enough, the WordPress.com REST API still relies on XML-RPC — a technology built by Dave 27 years ago 🙂

Go write something!

If you haven’t tried WordLand yet, go give it a try! All you need is a WordPress site, either hosted on WordPress.com or running the Jetpack plugin.

#Automattic #EN #OpenWeb #WCEH #WordLand #WordPress