For those who don’t know, Rick is an SF author, award winner and (claims to) have read the entire Battlefield Earth series. His personal ‘have read’ list on his website includes what appears at quick glance to be a well-rounded grounding in classic SF.
Despite having read the BE decolagy, his blog posts appear to be those of a sane individual, so I’ll continue to make the assumption that Hubbard hasn’t affected him all that much.
Besides, he says he likes the title of my blog.
For those who don’t know ‘crotchety’ and ‘old’ are traits that I have evidenced since the age of six. They have little to do with chronology and much to do with what you might call ‘core personality’.
An earlier post of Rick’s touched on two themes that have been in discussion at conventions and on the blogsphere for a number of years. The first is the proposal that SF is dead or dying, or has gone astray or is lost. The second (a reaction to the first) is the creation of a sub-genre called ‘mundane SF’ – science fiction (if it can be called that) which sticks to near-term extrapolation, eschews anything not grounded in scientific theory (no FTL, no time travel) and seems to deal mostly with psychological/sociological themes.
I don’t think that Rick believes that SF is dying, nor is he a proponent of mundane SF. Rather, his concern focuses on what I’ll call a lack of barriers: he mentions Ellison’s challenge (from the 2006 Nebula Awards dinner) to explore new themes and to write about the untouchables. Novy states that what was possible in the era of Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions (the ‘new wave’ “where SF gained literary respect” – which I don’t think happened but I’ll come back to that) won’t be easy, if it is even possible now – “pretty much all the boundaries have been pushed out so far there isn’t much chance of pushing them anymore. I don’t think so, but horizon-pushing is going to become more and more rare.”
Many of the stories in DV and ADV introduced sexual elements. Sex with aliens, sex as space drive, masturbation as parallel-universe traveling device, people as farm-animals (that farmhands have sex with), etc., etc. Heterosexual characters kissing and touching (let alone having implied or actual sex, not to even mention homosexual characters just being present) was enough of a breakthrough sensation in the 60s and 70s that sex-plus-SF was enough to drive the ‘new wave’. In many respects, Ellison’s anthologies were nothing more than the (shockingly) first SF soft-porn.
That is of course, an absurd reduction, like referring to Maplethorpe’s imagery as ‘just’ pictures of guys and crosses. What the Dangerous anthologies did was provide SF authors with their first opportunity to sell a story that included those elements, elements that are very much a part of the human condition and very, very much a part of an author’s lexicon. Elements that had long been repressed by a perception that such was inappropriate for the science fiction audience. (For those thinking about Farmer’s Flesh and the few other stories that managed to sneak in prior to DV, well, there are always exceptions to the rule.)
Yesterday, Rick offered cultural diversity as one place authors can go to expand the genre’s horizons. Interesting for at least two reasons. First, human characters with cultural backgrounds that aren’t derived from white European histories now fill the role once taken by aliens. Instead of learning about the intelligent crustaceans from Sigma IV (who’s mores and ethics are a melange of various human cultures), we’re offered a tour of Caribbean or Asian or African or Polynesian culture.
I’ll mention one classic novel that immersed its readers in Inuit culture, not by featuring Inuit characters, but by making the whitebread characters rely on their imperfect knowledge of Inuit history and culture in order to survive (Dreampark). No doubt this experience was not as genuine as it could have been had it been written by an Inuit author. But it does illustrate that to some degree, we’ve been down this road (at least a little bit) already.
I’m not so sure that replacing non-human aliens with unfamiliar cultural backgrounds represents all that great a boundary push. Does it enrich the genre? Does it offer some new perspectives? Absolutely. Cross-cultural fertilization has almost always led to advances in the arts. (Actually, it has always led to the adoption of elements of the ‘inferior’ culture by ther ‘superior’ one and the eventual death and disapearance of the inferior culture as individual entities.) Expanding the genre beyond its WASP roots can only be a good thing – new experience is the lifeblood of authorship.
(Rick: I understand and readers ought to recognize that you were offering this example as a possible direction, not advocating it as THE answer to the genre’s dilemma.)
To return momentarily to mundane SF and the much-vaunted (and ill-considered) quest for literary acceptance. There’s no need to declare a separate sub-genre for pedestrian science fiction. If an author wants to write near-future stories that take place only within our solar system and deal only with near-term extrapolation of current technologies, they’ll be writing SF so long as what they write adheres to the themes and forms of the genre. Otherwise it will be a romance or thriller or mystery with a little tech thrown in as a plot device. And it will fall under the general genre heading of SF – no sub-genre needed.
On the other hand, if someone wants to advocate that all SF authors should ONLY write stories limited in the above fashion – good luck. That’s as pointless as pointless can be. Authors will write what they want to write – whether they get paid or not.
The point I think that the mundane SF advocates miss is that you can not induce literary acceptance (presuming for the moment that such is desireable). They seem to feel that SF will gain a wider audience and greater acclaim if more serfs were able to understand it. This is nothing more than a different way of saying that SF ought to be dumbed down. Which is an insult to both serfs and the genre.
Serfs are capable of understanding just about anything you throw at them. Intelligence is not the problem. Interest is. A person who lacks a familial literary tradition is just as unlikely to read mundane SF as they are to read Doc Smith; if you can light their literary fuse, the nature of the spark is relatively unimportant. All fiction is fantasy and to claim that some forms of fiction are so outlandish as to create a barrier to acceptance is to fail to recognize that just as many people view westerns or mysteries or romances or thrillers or espionage or horror or whatever as a ridiculous waste of time as do those who have the same reaction to SF. In terms of the greater market of all forms of entertainment, the differences in readership between those genres becomes insignificant.
Literary acceptance, to me, seems to come down to a quest for two things: a desire to hear praise from outside the industry (praise from others who’s position as literary authorities is largely artificial) and the concomittant higher pay scales that go along with such mainstream accolades.
That some have achieved this goal largely by shedding the mantle of ‘SF Author’ (either deliberately or accidentally) ought to be clue enough that the goal is unachievable. Another clue is the mainstream disconnect between mass media SF and literary SF. Almost every blockbuster movie since the word was invented has been SF or a closely-related genre; a high percentage of highly successful televisions shows, at least over the past decade, have been SF or SF-themed shows. Little, if any of that success has trickled down to the literary end of the field. (Some has in terms of options, but very little of that information enters the mainstream consciousness.)
As I’ve been writing this it has occurred to me that the failure may not lie in the genre itself but may in fact be found in the lack of proper marketing. I see little or no effort on the part of publishers of informing the public that ‘this work is just like ‘Lost’ or even ‘bet you didn’t know that your (insert favorite movie/television show) was science fiction and here’s a whole aisle of stuff just like it’. The only thing that seems to come close are the tie-in series of novels that have no appeal outside of a small subset of a small subset of readers. Until someone experiments with advertising the right novel during the right TV show (and yes, I know SF publisher’s budgets are limited), we’ll never know. (Now that I’ve gone and read MIchael Wentz’s piece after completing my dissertation, I see that I’m not the only one advocating a change in marketing as a possible answer.)
Getting back to Rick. Novy is obviously not someone who believes SF is dead – he’s writing it now. (The only other possible explanation would involve some weird variation on written necrophilia. Which is probably a boundary pushed too far. Unless of course you were to create some plausible and compelling reason for necrophilia…) That he is spending some of his time evaluating where the genre is and where it might be going is a good thing. Since he’s selling his work and getting awards for it would seem to indicate that he does actually have a clue.
He’s offered one possible expansionist direction for the SF of the future. I’ll close by suggesting that there still remain areas to explore that have languished in the plot attic and might be ripe for a re-do:
Aliens invade the Earth theme. The last ‘mega’ take on this one was Niven & Pournelle’s Footfall. It was an in-joke success. Gerrold managed a good re-do with the Cthorr – positing an alien planet-forming methodology that I don’t think has been equalled. There have been others – Turtledoves’ series springs to mind, but what I personally think has not been taken up seriously (recently) is an ‘Earth-under-the-heel-of’ – aka Tumithak of the Corridors (to draw on one from way back). Another interesting area to look into for military SF fans would be the problems inherent in actually invading a world – presuming you want it to be habitable and want to retain at least some of the existent infrastructure. Mil-Tec has taken some major strides in the past 30 years and I’m personally fascinated by and interested in the concept that low-tec can almost always beat hi-tec (if you are sufficiently creative – and patient – enough).
Practical and work-a-day visions of a developed solar system. If we’re stuck here by the limits of Einsteinian physics, let’s see some stories about what an inhabited Sol system will look like. Will the outer planets really revolt against the inner planets? Will the inhabitants of Mercury all be heavy metal miners (dipping their ore out of molten lakes)? Is it practical to develop the potential resources of the Kuiper belt?
How about near-term stuff? Looks to me like the Chinese are going to be giving the US a race. There’s a good opportunity there to show us another culture and another way of doing things. Will we inevitably cooperate or will it be Red Moon Rising all over again?
How about trying this on for size: let’s see a story about people who find a (practical, believable) way of getting the general US population all excited about manned space exploration again?
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
Thanks (and not that I said thank you before checking to be sure you were serious…)
[…] The Crotchety Old Fan talks a bit more about the SF genre and whether it’s actually dying […]
Nice essay. Some clarification though. The inclusion I mean isn’t really replacing aliens with humans from unfamiliar cultures. Buckell’s Caribbean culture permeating “Crystal Rain” is in play because that’s who settled the planet where the novel takes place.
Non-WASPS deserve to go into space, too. It’s pushing the boundaries in the sense that it’s not what we’re used to reading. The SF audience is predominantly white and male. There is opportunity to not only enrich the genre with other cultures, there is also the opportunity to expand the reader base. It’s like a company concentrating on increasing the black numbers instead of decreasing the red ones.
For me, it’s fairly easy to write with diversity because both my nuclear and extended families are racially diverse.
Regarding the “Mission Earth” series, I did read all ten volumes. I don’t remember much of the story line anymore, though. I do recall that “Battlefield Earth” was a much better story.
[…] July 22, 2008 by crotchetyoldfan Rick Novy comments on my comments and offers a couple of clarifications/corrections. […]
I’ve migrated here from Rick’s blog and enjoyed reading this piece. I’m sure I’ll be back regularly.
I have to address one particular point you mentioned, which I agree with:
“As I’ve been writing this it has occurred to me that the failure may not lie in the genre itself but may in fact be found in the lack of proper marketing. ”
Rick and I had been ping-ponging on his blog about Fantasy outselling SF and the reasons why. I suggested marketing as probably the biggest reason for this.
You can read that discussion Here: Frothing at the Mouth: More About the Future of SF
Thanks JR.
Good luck with the new job/writing hours.
😦 seems all my wordage is going to blogs these days…
but I am thinking about a new story. Really. If I can figure out what the ending is going to be…
The ending? That’s easy.
“The End.”
It’s the rest of the story that’s hard.
ok ok – the denoument then.
I have this issue from non-fiction writing. I need to know what the point of the article is going to be before I start writing.
The opening – catchy one-liner. The middle – it gets filled in – but it all has to point to the point.
With fiction – the ‘idea’ is not always the ‘point’. It may just be a character or a setting or a background against which things happen.
But for me to be able to take that anywhere, I still need to know what the point is going to be (and I can’t settle for ‘just having fun’).
Blogging is entirely different. I often do have a point to make, but sometimes I’m just having fun.
I understand about seeing the “ending” before hand. When a story idea strikes me, I tend to see how it will end pretty quickly. Then I get tunnel vision on that ending and (probably) try too hard to make sure it gets there.
^JR^
I usually see the ending from the get go also (usually it’s someone getting their due comeuppance). In this particular case tho, all I have is the raw idea and the main character.
I’ve done a little world building with the raw idea – its one of those concepts that could be ‘big’ (as in a huge number of angles to approach it from, lends itself to both short and long pieces and is fun to play with).
Until I can figure out exactly what I want to say about that character in that setting though, I’m treading water.