Wondering about Ageism in Science Fiction

I read Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon this month. WOW! If you haven’t found this author yet, check her out. This novel ticked all the boxes of things I love in a sci-fi novel: deep believable characters, aliens who are complex and surprising, and conflict that mirrors some of my own struggles. I don’t know why I hadn’t found Moon before, but I picked up this novel for one reason and one reason only: I read a review that said the protagonist was an old woman.

Have you noticed that elders rarely star in science fiction novels or films? (Except, of course, for the sequels of Star Trek and Star Wars where characters we were introduced to at a younger age are folded into the story lines to keep the Baby Boomers hooked.) I’m wondering about the reason for that.

It may be because many sci-fi stories include the need for physical strength and prowess, as their themes center on overcoming dominant aliens or regimes. The recent Dune movies reminded me of how much fighting and blowing up of things is central to the plot. Not much room for the aged there!

It may also be because many writers of sci-fi are young and, like the bulk of our society, think little about how much older adults have to offer in terms of life experience and wisdom. Adventure stories are often staged as coming of age, i.e. young adults finding their identity, with an older person supplying some advice at best, and at worst, being the traditional stick-in-the-mud whom the hero must prove wrong.

Most of all, though, I suspect sci-fi authors see their reader demographic as 20 to 40-year-olds and stage their protagonists as people they can relate to. But, I’d like to protest, those of us who grew up on Star Trek are now in our 60s and 70s. Our love of outer space, our curiosity about the future of humanity and the world, our fascination with life beyond our known boundaries has deepened, not withered, over the years. Maybe it’s time for a revolution in science fiction that celebrates the elder as someone who can step into other worlds without blowing them up, i.e. someone who leads us to contemplate a radically different heroism. I envision the kind of innovation that Agatha Christie’s protagonist “Miss Marple” made popular in the genre of mystery — an older woman who solved murders that the best of the young police force couldn’t unravel. Now we have many older main characters in mystery books. Ofelia, the protagonist of Moon’s novel, saves her world with a combination of humility, inner strength, and clarity about what matters. She is the sort of hero who, like Miss Marple, challenges sci-fi’s singular focus on youth.

Lest you think I’m helping to fix this imbalance, I’m afraid it won’t be in my upcoming novel. The protagonist of Intersecting Eternity is a young woman, coming of age. Her great-great aunt, though, is a very prominent supporting character. My original plan was to make the old woman my main character, but Alice pushed her out of the way to make the story her own. Characters have a way of doing that. Maybe in the next novel….