"Hard" SF better than fantasy?

[rufusruff]

http://benford-rose.com/blog/?p=3

Comments? Personally I smell the acid whiff of sour grapes, but YMMV.

[Daughter of Darwin]

So it seems that Benford's comments on this forum were only heralding a storm. 'Sour grapes'...perhaps. To me, though, he comes across more as a querulous old man yearning for the days of lore, finding anything that doesn't suit his old-fashioned tastes as fundamentally flawed. I really don't like his position that only SF can help readers see the future - it's arrogant. I also don't like his position that only stories that help us see the future are truly valuable; his disdain for people who want stories of magic and escape and myth - as they have since humans evolved - is only scarcely concealed ('some of my best friends write fantasy').

[Janet W]

Oh, I think that's a bit harsh. I'm not convinced that scifi writers accurately identify "our worries up ahead" (both HG Wells and Aldous Huxley seemed to see the main danger as an increasingly socially stratified and politically restrictive society, which just hasn't happened, though they correctly identified trends towards over-consumption, use of synthetics, ease of travel etc etc in a way which is quite remarkable (yes I've just re-read it)), but I think he makes a lot of good points rather entertainingly:

"Of course, part of this is that these are people who never worked on a farm. They have no idea what life was like even a few centuries ago—almost entirely grunt labor. So they think lords and kings are swell, romantic. Growing up in southern Alabama, I cut cane and sacked potatoes and worked on fishing boats—and quickly realized that the best jobs were indoors."

It resonates (good new age word, that) with the Francis Wheen book I'm reading at the moment.

[Dr Mike]

What did you think was too harsh, Janet - Benford's post or DD's reaction to it?

I think DD has a point, though perhaps I would have put it a bit more gently.

I think it's a bit odd that he's going to stop writing SF to address the perceived injustive via essay. Wouldn't the best way to help his cause be to keep writing brilliant and relevant SF? Can you mould a legion of readers into reading a genre you promote simply by writing essays about it?

[Janet W]

Not convinced we are in the golden age of Science Fantasy writing at present, either.

At least Tolkein lifted his ideas from Norse mythology.. everyone else just seems to lift their ideas from Tolkein.

Are there any modern SF writers (of either F) whose writing is of the quality of CS Lewis, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell or HG Wells, or whose story-telling (um, let's not dwell on his writing style) is as good as Tolkein?

If so, could you tell me who they are, so I can read some?

I want someone who writes like Penelope Lively but with science in.

I decided last year that I really should have another go at Science Fiction. So I tried a couple: Julian May, which seemed to be Jeffrey Archer in space, and a couple of late Arthur C Clarkes which were rather dull, though I guess some of the technology was interesting.

So.. what should I be reading? Any ideas?

[Janet W]

Dr Mike, I meant DD's comments.
Though I do agree with you that I'd be a bit dubious about anyone needing to justify a career change by attributing it to a global change in philosophy and literary tastes.

I do think an interest in speculation about extra-terrestrial life has become less respectable. I remember it being discussed on programmes like the James Burke one in the early 70s; everyone was interested.

But when someone at my dance class (this a place of detox and Reiki believers whose open-mindedness could be measured in light years) saw me reading Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen's "What does a Martian Look Like" , she looked quite nervous and said "er.. do you believe in that sort of thing then?"

[Daughter of Darwin]

Oops, suitably chastised for being harsh! Sorry Gregory, sorry all forum inhabitants. Something about that essay just touched a nerve; it sort of came across as if the world was about to end. I do agree with him that Rowling didn't deserve a Hugo; sort of reminds me of Joss Stone winning for 'best Urban act' in the Brits last year - a weird choice for such a privileged middle-class act. The category was all wrong. But I think that fashions come and go and at the moment, maybe SF is swinging the other way. I am sure someone has done a PhD on the fluctuations of lit fashions throughout the ages. Can one really fight the tide of fashion?

I think if you want to give classic SF a go, Philip K Dick is your person. The stories still seem to work because modern films adapted from the stories still resonate with today's audiences (e.g. Blade Runner, Minority Report). I reckon Andy Sawyer could recommend some stuff in his eminent capacity as Science Fiction Librarian. (gives me a thrill just typing that!). I used to like Heinlein. But its been so long, I can't trust myself.

[wheetabox]

Janet: try Connie Willis. She is modern and brilliant. You will laugh until you cry, but the thinking behind it is deep. I don't know Penelope Lively, but TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG is the most enjoyable book I've ever read, of any genre.

I promise you will not regret it!

[Andy Sawyer]

I think if you want to give classic SF a go, Philip K Dick is your person. The stories still seem to work because modern films adapted from the stories still resonate with today's audiences (e.g. Blade Runner, Minority Report). I reckon Andy Sawyer could recommend some stuff

If you want more contemporary stuff, try Gwyneth Jones (WHITE QUEEN and its successors), Iain Banks, Ken Macleod -- if big space opera might be your thing try Alastair Reynolds or Peter F. Hamilton (but you'll need to but aside a few weeks to read them and/or go on a weight-training course to life the books.

There's actually a phase for far-future stuff -- Justina Robson is a new author who comes to mind. But some people -- like Paul McAuley -- are writing more thriller-y near future stuff in a very interesting and readable vein. McAuley and Stephen Baxter are two of my favourite British hard-sf writers who might appeal to many on this list. (Baxter is less adept at character and generally more prone to big speculations about time and space than McAuley, although that said I recommend THE TIME SHIPS, a sequel to Wells's THE TIME MACHINE, and COALESCENT.

To throw out the name of someone who's one of my favourite writers of all kinds: Christopher Priest's THE PRESTIGE is partly centured around late 19th-century science (but more about conjuring and sleight-of-hand, literary and otherwise). It's being filmed by the guy who made MEMENTO.

For a wider view of the field, you'll find the short-lists for the Arthur C. Clarke award on http://www.appomattox.demon.co.uk/acca/shortlists.htm

To come in on the fantasy/science fiction debate, there are actually writers who are packaged as fantasy but, as science fiction does, write about knowledge and change. I think that GB is broadly correct when he's implying that people turn to Tolkienish fantasy out of refusing the future (or even the present) and that there's a worrying turn away from science. But it doesn't have to be the case that fantasy is reactionary, and the overall discussion on the site that rufusruff noted is much more nuanced. I'd cite China Mieville, for instance as a marvellous writer in this field -- technically, he's fantasy (his imagined world is not "another planet"; there's magic rather than science -- except that the magic is treated like science) and a lot of people have commented that he "reads like" good science fiction. Often the best writing blurs boundaries and challenges.

The problem -- as some people see it: hell, I learned to live with it a long time ago -- is that many people think they're "science fiction" fans because they really like STAR WARS and other comforting series which have virtually no science in them at all, and it's very easy to slip to fantasy from there. What's SW's "Force" but Magic? (I had a very embarrassing experience when asked to talk to a group that called themselves a "Space Science " group. I started by saying something like "Star Wars is great apart from all that mystical "feel the force, Luke" hogwash -- and then discovered that they believed that the universe was structured like that . . .)

But then, in the 20s and 30s people were watching Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and thinking they were cutting-edge. And considering I rearranged my life not that long ago to make sure that I watched the new series of DR WHO I can't be too critical about the softer edges of sf . . .

[Octavia]

I started by saying something like "Star Wars is great apart from all that mystical "feel the force, Luke" hogwash -- and then discovered that they believed that the universe was structured like that . . .)

Andy, that is too funny! Oh dear, poor you.

I'm afraid I am guilty of really enjoying a soft SF film if it's done well. I used to love Battlestar Galactica - remember that? I worshipped the first Star Wars film (though of course was a child); more recently, I though GATTACA and Minority Report were well done, and of course Blade Runner; Until the end of the world; even I Robot wasn't that bad. I am far more tolerant when watching films, but with books I'm much more fussy.

I think C J Cherryh is great, but I guess that's not recent at all. What ever happened to her?

[Gregory Benford]

Sorry if you take my musings as sour grapes. True, I hate to see sf become far less read that fantasy, for sf is a (not THE) major way to think about the future--and we're doing very little of that now, it seems.

I think we're headed for a tough century, with only science largely able to cope with the environmental and poverty problems that will grow. More science, less faith!

I do think the rise of fantasy may be a very telling diagnostic of a deep problem in our civilization--a form of pathetic nostalgia for the Middle Ages, which were actually a terrible times to live for almost everybody.
It's always about princes and lords and battles and dragons. Why do people find that intrinsically interesting? It may be that people are just finding that the perspectives of science are too hard to deal with in terms of horror. That's not good news for the West. Not at all.

Lablit fans should be worried, too.

Good science fiction doesn't offer an easy way out. Fantasy is escapist literature. You're putting yourself in a clearly impossible world where magic can save the day—it’s a form of wish fulfillment. Fantasy didn't even exist as a publishing category until around 1970. It was just a few occasional works. It's something about the zeitgeist—and it's not good news about the zeitgeist. It doesn't make me very happy.

The expansion of the Star Wars and Star Trek novels have had a negative effect on science fiction. The books aren’t very good, and when people look at the sf section of the bookstore, the first thing they see are light sabers and guys with pointy ears. Has science fiction allowed itself to become dumbed down over the years, in the eyes of the larger culture?
Star Wars and Star Trek showed that you could make a kind of low-level science fiction that everybody could enjoy, and it had all the props. Star Trek was better than Star Wars -- outright nostalgia, with kings and dukes and the power of the force. Really thoughtful and insightful science fiction will never be broadly popular, I think. 2001 was captivating and beautiful, but there are many more successful films.

Nothing to be done about this, I fear. There is good sf and I do read it, along with much more of mainstream stuff--fiction, non, & I even get two newspapers, LA and NY Times.

Maybe, if I'm coming over as sour grapes, it's time to move on to something more engaging to write...

[amy c.]

Well, iirc, literary and cultural-conservative types had similar complaints about fantasy in the early-mid 70s, except that fantasy tended to be more unicorny then.

I wonder how much of what you're perceiving is an artifact of changes in the publishing/bookselling industries, rather than in popular tastes. You could get a small book published much more easily 30 years ago, and a publisher would give a writer time to build a following. The economics & the misguided attempts at turning publishing into a moneymaking industry don't allow that now. You're going to get LCD wherever you go in commercial presses, unless someone's being unusually 'brave'. It's very timeconsuming and expensive for booksellers to stock books major distributors don't carry, and the few major distributors do tend to keep their lists leaner than they used to. In the last decade, the major chains have decimated the independent bookstores willing to do the work and eat the expense of ordering from small publishers. So again, smaller-market books and writers lose.

You can see something similar in children's books, which had a golden age in the 60s-70s, but could persuade you not to have children now.

In the US there's a recent Christian-fantasy phenomenon, along with neocon canonization of CS Lewis, but we do have these religious revivals every few decades.

I agree that there's a literary bias against science fiction. I don't agree that it's rooted in social realism, though, which has been unfashionable in literary circles for decades. (I know, because it's more or less what I write. Finding markets isn't easy. Something about being depressing and earnest.) Social realism's largely been supplanted in little magazines by metafictions, postmodernism, sarcastic games, etc. Those aren't genres in the commercial publishing sense, but the labels are applied happily enough within literary fiction.

[Dr Mike]

Amy, this is a very interesting point. Just as LabLit was possibly assuming that lab lit wouldn't sell because people weren't interested in buying it when it did its experiment, people worried about SF's popularity might be assuming that the trend is reader-driven when it may very well be not. What if it is all down to the industry? I wouldn't be surprised, based on some of the other alarming trends that have been revealed in this forum.

This may go for the film industry as well. Gregory mentions the film 2001, but when was the last time we even had the opportunity of seeing something like that, or Solaris, or any other 'literary' (forlack of a better word), 'sciency' film? They just aren't made any more. Is that because people won't go see them, or is it because screewriters can't sell their scripts?

Gregory, I think it's great you're standing up for keeping the science in SF, but perhaps you need to aim you wrath at the publishers? And of course, keep writing great hard SF yourself?

Also, I think the Rowling Hugo is sort of outside this whole debate - Rowling is a massive outlier on anyone's curve.

[amy c.]

when was the last time we even had the opportunity of seeing something like that, or Solaris, or any other 'literary' (forlack of a better word), 'sciency' film? They just aren't made any more. Is that because people won't go see them, or is it because screewriters can't sell their scripts?

It's not quite Solaris, but GATTACA was remarkably literary, I thought. Very sf-magazine from the good old days. And the beginning of Minority Report is also a literary creation. There's another one...Unbreakable. I never watched it all the way through, but the beginning struck me as quite literary.

I don't know what the market was for GATTACA, though. It seemed potentially mass-appeal, and it seemed to play forever in the college town where I was living at the time, but that place was already unusual for having three or four art-house theatres.

Other moviemakers still manage to pull off a major literary work once in a while. Kubrick did with Eyes Wide Shut, and there have been minor ones like Lost In Translation and Magnolia in the last few years. Literary nonfiction seems to work, too, like Errol Morris's recent McNamara movie. But I'd say they're all small-market movies, and I don't think anyone expected them to make big money. I dont' know anything about the movie business, but I'd guess they're akin to the books old prominent editors get to publish & be tony about in their own imprints.

amy


http://usrobots.blogspot.com

[Dr Mike]

Yes, it must actually be quite similar, but somehow I always have the impression that books have more chance to be literary - there are just so many more being produced. But perhaps the pressures are going to start squeezing out all but the - I was going to say, the best authors, but maybe I really mean the luckiest.

Andy, any more recommendations for those far future thrillers you were recommending in your last post, that is something that really appeals to me. Would Gregory call these SF though, I wonder.