"In the Media of Record"
(a 21st Century Elizabethan sonnet)

"What if?" the science fiction writers ask,
and then propose (as premise for a tale)
a fantasy unequal to the task
of passing off a minnow for a whale.
In revenue producers hope to bask
while in the empty theaters they fail.
No artificial gravity contrives
To keep feet planted firmly on the floor.
No alien intelligence connives
with venal earthlings to invent a spore
that kills its host but somehow still survives.
No drama now. Just one colossal bore.
It seems we’ve lost another war. So be it.
As long as paying customers don’t see it.