Grist (sic) for the Mill

[ecosophia]

Rejection slips are among the enduring features of any writer's life. In fact, I fielded one yesterday. It was from Grist, a glossy pseudoenvironmental rag that caters to the overprivileged, and it was in response to the story I submitted to their "cli-fi" contest back in March. 

Mind you, this came as less than no surprise. I discussed the contest, among other signposts in the strange landscape of thought we've entered in the last few years, in a post over on my blog.  My comments on it were, ahem, far from sympathetic, and the story I submitted to the contest -- "A Modest Contribution" -- was of a piece with that:  I set out to follow the rules of their contest to the letter, while flatly contradicting the spirit thereof. I was a little sorry to get a bland generic rejection slip instead of a scream of outrage, but then one can't be too picky in this business. 

Over on the blog, however, I heard from another reader who'd submitted something in the same spirit and also got a rejection slip.  It occurs to me to wonder aloud just how many readers were as unimpressed by Grist's display of overinflated entitlement as I was, and reacted to it in the same way, by writing a story. If there are enough of us, you know, it might be possible to produce a short book -- or even a not so short book! -- and get it into publication. (And I might be convinced to invite new stories along the same lines, for that matter; you can read Grist's bellowing orgy of virtue signaling disguised as a call for submissions here if you happen to need inspiration.) 

What say you, fellow writers?  Do we have enough stories, in the jargon of a vanished age, to pub an ish? 

Comments

[ecosophia]

The whole thing makes me scratch my head in disbelief. At least in theory, the whole point of the Grist contest was to come up with believable futures: that is, visions that might actually have some chance of happening. Estrogen supplementation does not alter the human body to enable it to breathe underwater, and human-coral hybrids are a biological impossibility -- check the respective chromosome counts sometime. If the point of this contest was to come up with futures that might actually happen, why is this story even mentioned? Virtue signaling?

[brenainn]

The last few years have left me scratching my head a whole lot. So many things that I wouldn't have imagined possible are now a thing. Satirical websites like "The Babylon Bee" seem to have been accidental prophets, or so I think. I've remarked to friends, on more than one occasion, that I sometimes feel like I'm walking around in the Matrix. Of course, the Matrix was just a modern sci-fi take on the ancient gnostic myth, so I can't help but wonder.

[mo_drui_mac_de]

It's virtue signaling, but it's virtue signaling that's so far past its pull date that it's hard to tell what leftovers were even stored in that tupperware dish at the back of the fridge underneath all the mold. It doesn't even make for a halfway interesting sci-fi story; it's just...incoherent whining. I mean, really--a future where only transwomen survived? How is that at all a hopeful scenario? Perhaps they think that coral budding and fragmentation will stave off the extinction of the human race, but, er...if everyone is dead except for the tiny fraction that has turned into coralfolx...humanity has perished. I'm pretty sure that doesn't actually fit the stated 'hopeful' qualification that Grist claimed to be going for.

If I had to classify this story genre, it would be as yet another tired iteration of the Christian apocalypse heresy, except the reward for the plucky survivors in this case is even more dubious and unlikely than in the Marxist version. Instead of the proletariat rising up to feast on strawberries and cream, it's troubled teens transitioning towards dinoflagellates and reefs! I suppose my real question is...why coral? Is it because in this author's mind, since transwomen are the Good People™ who are spared the apocalypse, they must also be destined to heal the poisoned oceans simply by virtue of being the extra specially special people that they are? Good grief...

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who's had to deal with them, I can say that you're seriously overestimating the Wokesters attachment to reality if you think they don't think this is possible....

[(Anonymous)]

The really scary part is that this is one of the more plausible stories....