A mysterious disease is attacking humanity - a typical beginning for an entertaining science fiction book, but today we ourselves are in the thick of this story. And everyone is worried about the question, will humanity survive, will the world be the same after the pandemic? In their works, science fiction writers have repeatedly calculated various scenarios for the development of events, and now they have a unique chance to test their predictions in practice.
“Wait: what we wrote about has happened. But few were delighted,”Sergei Lukyanenko opened the round table of science fiction writers within the framework of the XV International St. Petersburg Online Book Salon. - How are we going to get out of this situation? From a medical point of view, everything will be fine - they will find a vaccine, learn to cure. But with everything else, not everything is so happy. After the pandemic, the world will definitely be different, we will have to reconsider and rethink a lot."
Science fiction writer Vadim Panov never expected that his books would suddenly become modern prose. But his forecasts are quite optimistic: “We will emerge from the pandemic stronger than we were. This is human nature: we can survive."
But Roman Zlotnikov suggests not to relax and prepare for the next epidemics, which will certainly be, and more than once. Kirill Benediktov also agrees with him. He even found his own, almost fantastic explanation for what is happening: viruses have declared war on humanity. At least that's how he rethought the present in his story for the Post-Epidemic literary project.
“Several events suggest that this virus is consciously active. One can, of course, assume that it was some villains who launched an artificial virus, but that would be too simple. Therefore, I assumed that viruses lived on earth long before cellular living organisms. And now they are fighting for their existence."
But in fact, his story is not about insidious viruses, but about a doctor and volunteers. “Their heroism, enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of patients is a decisive factor that allows them to count on victory over any virus, even a reasonable one,” Benediktov said.
Lukyanenko also wrote his story for the Post-Epidemic project. “You could write about anything - past, future or present. But we all agreed on one thing: we will not compose crap. No zombies on the streets and the remaining handful of people fighting over the last pack of medicine,”he says.
Benediktov added that when really hard times come, people need optimistic stories and good predictions, and horror and post-apocalypse are best left until better times.
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“For too long we have lived with the conviction that life will get better and better: progress is going on, medicine is developing. And the pandemic made everyone remember that access to glittering heights is not at all guaranteed. But, no matter how trite it sounds, an optimistic attitude and the belief that humanity will cope with any challenge will help to survive,”Benediktov believes.
Concluding the virtual meeting, Lukyanenko unexpectedly announced: “I would like this dialogue to not exist. It would be better if we got together to discuss how Elon Max flew to Mars and returned from there with magnets."
But seriously, Lukyanenko suggests treating the epidemic as a lesson to all mankind, from which, hopefully, it will learn something good. “But now we will live in a new way and with an eye on it. So we stock up on masks, anti-plague suits and batteries,”the science fiction writer summed up.
Author: Natalia Lebedeva