Issue 28 of Jupiter SF is now available, containing another one of my Euripidean Space stories, ‘A Cold Dish’. Go on, you know you want a copy…
Category Archives: science fiction
Doing the Hugos 1
I did this last year, so why not again this year? Once again, I’m not a member of the Worldcon, so I didn’t nominate any of the works which appear on the various shortlists, nor will I be able to vote on them. But the shortlists are public, many of the novellas, novelettes and short stories are available online to read, and I have opinions which I am happy to share.
First up, the short stories. These are stories of less than 7,500 words, previously published in the US or online in the preceding year. The 2010 shortlist looks like this (click on the titles to read each story):
‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ (PDF), Mike Resnick (Asimov’s December 2009)
Nope. I don’t get it. After John Kessel’s clever Austen / Frankenstein pastiche, ‘Pride and Prometheus’, appeared on last year’s Hugo novelette shortlist, this year we have another entry riffing on Frankenstein. But this time it’s a simplistic short story by Mike Resnick. The narrator is married to Victor Frankenstein, but it is not a loving marriage. But, with the help of the monster, Frankenstein’s wife undergoes a change of heart. It’s hard to know when the story’s set – the narrator is married to Victor Frankenstein, but complains the castle has no electricity. So not the early 1800s, then. It’s implied that Gone with the Wind has just been published, so the story could be set in the late 1930s. Except the narrator uses the term “family unit”. ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ works as a lightweight throwaway piece – and it’s a little better than last year’s dreadfully old-fashioned ‘Article of Faith’ – but are we seriously supposed to believe it’s one of the two best stories published in Asimov’s during 2009, and one of the five best stories published anywhere in 2009? I refuse to believe that science fiction is so moribund.
‘Bridesicle’ (PDF), Will McIntosh (Asimov’s January 2009)
In the future of this story, those who have died and been frozen are revived by lonely people looking for love. Which could be considered a neat commentary on immigrant brides. But McIntosh adds more. He makes his eponymous Mira gay, so even if a man does fall in love with her and pay for her to be brought back to life, she’s never going to return his sentiments. And, in this future, the personalities of dead people can be uploaded into living people’s minds – these are known as “hitchers”. Mira is woken at intervals over a couple of centuries, makes friends with a man who later admits he could never afford to revive her, and also learns that her lover is a corpsicle in the same facility. I wanted to like this story more than I did. It’s well-written – although one or two phrases were a tad too much: “her jaw squealed like a sea bird’s cry”, for example – and Mira is a well-drawn protagonist. But it feels too busy. Either the “bridesicle” idea or “hitchers” alone would be enough. Having both seems to me to weaken the story, and so it turns into a future romance. ‘Bridesicle’ is not an embarrassing choice for the shortlist, but it doesn’t feel strong enough to win a Hugo.
‘The Moment’, Lawrence M Schoen (Footprints, Hadley Rille Books)
I’ll admit to being surprised at seeing this on the shortlist. But only because it appeared in a themed anthology from a small press. I wouldn’t have thought such a book would have received a wide enough readership to generate enough nominations for one of its stories to be shortlisted. But it did. And the story is… Well, it’s not bad. It’s a series of linked vignettes, showing the history of the galaxy through visitors to a human footprint on the Moon. Given the last line of the story, I don’t think the footprint is meant to be Neil Armstrong’s (and, of course, the famous photograph was taken by Aldrin of his own bootprint), or indeed made by any of the Apollo astronauts. The story is a bit of smeerp overdose, full of silly made-up words. It’s also somewhat over-written. Having now read it, I’m still surprised to see it on the shortlist. I don’t actually think it’s good enough for an award.
‘Non-Zero Probabilities’, NK Jemisin (Clarkesworld September 2009)
This story is so much better than the preceding three that it feels like a much better story than I initially thought it was. In fact, prior to the Hugo nominations being announced last month, this and the Johnson story from Clarkesworld were the only two of the shortlist I’d actually read. Adele lives in a New York in which wildly improbably events – disasters, mostly – happen regularly. It’s a slice-of-life sort of story, with some lovely writing and a clever central conceit. It’s not the sort of genre fiction I normally choose to read, or enjoy all that much, so I wouldn’t have nominated it myself. But yes, it’s good enough to be on the shortlist.
‘Spar’, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld October 2009)
And you’d think this story would be the sort of genre fiction I would read since it has aliens and spaceships in it. But. It’s a mood piece. It has no rigour. It feels like a writing exercise, not a story. I didn’t like it when I first read it, I don’t like it on rereading it. And I can’t understand why it was nominated, never mind received enough nominations to make it onto the shortlist. Johnson, of course, was on the Hugo short story shortlist last year – for ’26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss’ – so she clearly has her fans. I’m not one of them. Nor am I fan of the type of genre fiction she writes.
I thought last year’s Hugo shortlist for short stories was poor, and I’d hoped this year’s would be better. It isn’t. Two authors are back again – Resnick and Johnson – which only shows how incestuous the Hugo Awards are. I mean, there are a huge number of people writing genre short fiction, so I find it really sad that the same old names keep on appearing. This year, I think the Jemisin should win, with the McIntosh as runner-up. I expect the Johnson will win.
My take on the novelette shortlist will follow soon. It at least looks better than the above shortlist. Um, the same was true last year. Perhaps the best sf now being written is at novelette-length…
The Best Science Fiction Series
The gauntlet has been laid down, and I’m up for the challenge.
What do I think are the best science fiction series?
For this list, I’ve defined a series as more than a trilogy, or a series of standalone novels set in the same universe and sharing a linked chronology. I actually put together a list of twenty series I like a great deal – not all of which I will happily admit are good – so choosing a top ten was harder than I’d expected. But after much soul-searching, I managed to pick ten I not only like a great deal, but also have a high regard for. And which, I believe, show a reasonable spread across the many different types and styles of heartland science fiction.
So, in time-honoured reverse order:-
10 Dumarest Saga, EC Tubb
Over the course of thirty-three novels, Earl Dumarest travelled the galaxy, trying to find his home world, the mythical planet Earth. In each novel in this series, he landed on a new planet, had an adventure of some sort – which usually involved a) a beautiful woman, and b) a fight to the death – and discovered some clue which moved him one step closer to his home. He eventually reached it in book 32: The Return, which was originally published in French and later republished in English by a small press. The Dumarest saga was never intended as great literature – Tubb himself has said he was happy to churn them out as long as Donald Wollheim was happy to buy them for DAW – but that doesn’t mean they’re badly-written. There are no hamsters in wheels in this series. The Dumarest novels were formative books for me, and helped shape my view of science fiction. See here for the full list of books in the series.
9 Alliance-Union, CJ Cherryh
These books aren’t so much a series as a tapestry. In around thirty books, Cherryh has created a huge future history, stretching across thousands of years. Not every book is especially good, and Cherryh’s brusque prose can be an acquired taste. But there’s no denying the achievement such a future history represents, nor the rigorous internal consistency Cherryh has maintained throughout the books. This is truly immersive stuff, peopled by characters who aren’t cardboard cut-outs, and comprising stories which are not afraid to explore a variety of weighty topics. See here for the full list of books in the series.
8 Jurisdiction universe, Susan R Matthews
Andrej Kosciusko is a torturer for the Bench, a totalitarian interstellar regime. The first of these books, An Exchange of Hostages, appeared in 1997, but sadly all but the last book seem to be out of print now. Matthews created an interesting universe, peopled it with a well-drawn cast, and wasn’t afraid to tackle thorny moral dilemmas in her stories. I thought them very good; it’s a shame so few other people did. Books in the series: An Exchange of Hostages, Prisoner of Conscience, Hour of Judgment, Angel of Destruction, The Devil and Deep Space, Warring States.
7 The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
I reread this last year, and wasn’t as impressed with it as I’d expected to be. But it belongs on this list because it shows that science fiction can be clever and cleverly-written, without having to pretend not to be genre. The five books of this series are not easy reads – you need your wits about you – and there has probably been more words written about it than the Book of the New Sun itself contains. But this is a work likely to remain a classic for a long time. Books in the series: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch (my review of these four here), The Urth of the New Sun.
6 Eight Worlds, John Varley
The Invaders came and destroyed human civilisation to save the whales. The only survivors were those living off-planet at the time – on the Moon, Mars, the Saturnian and Jovian systems… Over the course of a number of stories and three novels, Varley fleshed out a future history in which humanity struggles to survive – using gifted alien technology – on the various inhospitable worlds of the Solar system. Most of the novels and short stories set in the Eight Worlds were written during the 1970s and 1980s, but they’ve held up pretty well. They were always, first and foremost, about people – yet Varley still managed to build a mostly convincing universe in which to place his characters. Books in the series: The Ophiuchi Hotline (my review here), Steel Beach, The Golden Globe, plus many of the stories collected in The Persistence of Vision, The Barbie Murders and Blue Champagne.
5 Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
Last year, Gollancz paid Reynolds £1,000,000, and with good reason. Few writers have managed the consistently high level of invention Reynolds has so far in his nine novels (five in the Revelation Space universe) and many short stories. He is, perhaps, the poster boy for New Space Opera, although his works are actually not all that much like New Space Opera as it’s now commonly understood. But the mix of Big Ideas and hard sf – something Stephen Baxter also does very well – is certainly representative of twenty-first science fiction. It’s the sort of sf which shows what the genre is capable of. Books in the series: Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, The Prefect, plus the novellas Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days, and the stories collected in Galactic North.
4 Dune, Frank Herbert
Well, you knew it was going to appear on this list somewhere… Of the six books – we won’t mention the execrable seventh and eighth books by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert – I actually think Dune contains the poorest writing. It has the most immediately-immersive story, but I consider the last two that Frank Herbert wrote the better books. God-Emperor of Dune is a bit of an obstacle, a massive tome plonked in the middle of the series, which seems to lecture more than it entertains, but it’s definitely worth reading. Herbert wasn’t the best sf writer of his generation, but he was certainly the most thoughtful. Books on the series: Dune (my review here), Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God-Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune, and some of the stories collected in Eye and The Road to Dune.
3 Hainish Cycle, Ursula K Le Guin
Some of the genre’s best novels belong to this informal series but, even so, together they form something that is greater than the sum of its parts. The early novels might be a little wobbly, but the later ones more than make up for it. Few sf writers can document cultures as convincingly as Le Guin, and she does it to great effect in each of these novels. These books, and those at #1 and #2 in this list, are very political books – and that’s proper politics: not good interstellar empire battling nasty evil aliens. Sf is as much about the real world as it is the invented world of the story. The best sf writers know this. Books in the series: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, The Left Hand of Darkness (my review here), The Dispossessed, The Word for World is Forest, Four Ways to Forgiveness, The Telling, plus a number of short stories.
2 RGB Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
This one is only a little bit of a cheat. Yes, it’s a trilogy… but there’s also the coda volume, The Martians. Besides, it’s simply the best series of books ever written about colonising Mars. But it’s not all hardware and the Right Stuff – the story expands to include the early centuries of the colony, discusses politics, utopianism, history and the future, among many other topics. Few sf novels can make you feel like you’ve been to the real Red Planet – Red Mars does that, and then continues on from there. Books in the series: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, The Martians.
1 The Culture, Iain M Banks
If Banks’ Culture novels occasionally disappoint, it’s only because he has set so high a standard he sometimes fails to meet it himself. But as a body of work the seven Culture novels know no equal. They are the space operas of space operas. They re-invigorated both space opera and sf, and they continue to show how it should be done. They have invention, wit, giant spaceships, shit that gets blown up, and excellent writing. Happily, Banks has not yet finished playing in his Culture universe – a new Culture novel will apparently be published next year. I can’t wait. Books in the series: Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter (my review here).
Now, let’s see you argue about this list…
Oops, I did it again
Long time readers of this blog may remember a piece I wrote back in 2008, in which I took apart Asimov’s ‘Nightfall’ and explained why I felt it wasn’t the greatest science fiction story ever – you can read it here. It received a lot hits. About two months’ worth in the space of a weekend, in fact. And it provoked quite a reaction.
So a couple of days ago, in response to a number of best sf series lists I’d seen, I posted a list of The Worst Science Fiction Series (here). It received a lot of hits. About four months’ worth in the space of two days. And the reaction this time was a bit more severe.
And yet that reaction was essentially for the same thing: I dared to suggest that Asimov was a crap sf writer.
There are other writers named in my Ten Worst SF Series post. Some people felt their inclusion was undeserved. Just as others felt they’d earned their place. But the biggest amount of bile was generated by those who were upset at my comments about Asimov.
For the record, I’ve been reading science fiction for thirty-five years. Yes, that includes Asimov and EE ‘Doc’ Smith. I also review books for Interzone (see the non-fiction tab above). So when I write about science fiction, I do know what I’m writing about. I’ve even written the odd bit of science fiction myself, and I plan to write more.
For those whose reading comprehension is clearly wanting, I shall say it again: Asimov owed his high place on my list because he so frequently appears in best of lists. “Best” means “of the highest quality”. It does not mean “seminal”. It does not mean “made a good fist of it for his debut”. Let me repeat that: “highest quality”. In other words, the writing is the best the genre has to offer, as is the invention, characterisation, world-building, etc.
Do you really think that’s true for Foundation, and its sequels and prequels and mid-quels and side-quels and inter-quels, etc.?
That’s why Asimov was at #2 in my list. Because it is not of the “highest quality” but is repeatedly claimed to be. Yes, the Mission Earth books are worse than the Foundation books – but no one is stupid enough to suggest they’re the best books in the genre.
I wish I could respond to all of the comments that were made about my Ten Worst SF Series list, but a great many were just too stupid. (There are one or two such in the comments thread to my actual post.) However, I do want to make one important point: I did not include the Wheel of Time, or David Eddings, or Terry Goodkind, because the list was “Ten Worst Science Fiction Series”. Not “Ten Worst Science Fiction and Fantasy Series”. I titled the piece The Worst Science Fiction Series because it was about science fiction.
I’d also like to point out that my list was intended to be light-hearted. There were clues in the phrases I used – “powered by a million hamsters running around a million wheels”, for example – which is not an expression typically used by critics or reviewers. I stand by my opinions – I have a low regard for Asimov’s writing – but my list was written to amuse.
Having said all that, I’d like to thank everyone who dropped by, and everyone who linked to my post. It’s clear to me that Asimov is some sort of sf sacred cow, and you tip him at your own peril. That kind of uncritical adulation is not good – for readers, or for the genre. We need more debate – proper debate, the sort that doesn’t involve calling the other person a moron, questioning their sexuality, or confusing opinion with fact (people do that all the time. Fact.).
Finally, for my next trick I will post articles here explaining why: a) the Dune series books actually increase in quality after Dune, b) Robert Heinlein is plainly a fascist, and c) The Search For Spock
The Worst Science Fiction Series
Yet another site puts together a list of the “greatest science fiction book series” and has Asimov’s Foundation series in the number one spot. (I won’t link to the site because my anti-virus software didn’t like it.) Sigh. Do people honestly think that’s the best the genre has to offer? A badly-dated trilogy with perfunctory world-building and cardboard characters, and written in prose which possesses all the charm of a dead badger? “Best” means “of the highest quality” – not something you remember enjoying when you were twelve and still believed in the tooth fairy. Foundation plainly isn’t “of the highest quality”, not by any sane or accepted yardstick.
However, in the spirit in which that original list posited Asimov’s lumpen opus as the best sf book series, I shall now present the very worst of the genre. The following are science fiction book series whose label as science fiction embarrasses me, whose continuing popularity puzzles me, and whose fans I feel deserve a smack upside the head with a very large and nail-studded cluebat.
10 Honor Harrington, David Weber
These start well enough but, like a well-known fantasy blockbuster series currently being demolished by Adam Roberts on his blog, they soon turn obese, turgid and dull. The title character also becomes increasingly implausible, and I would not be surprised if the final book in the series – should it ever appear – has Harrington magically transform into a goddess and create an entirely new universe using some wildly implausible authorial hand-waving. Read the first two or three by all means, but ignore the rest unless you want your will to live to be slowly drained from you.
9 Four Lords of the Diamond, Jack Chalker
I could have chosen any Chalker series, to be honest. They’re all pretty much the same. And every series feels like a novelette stretched out to fill three or four novels – with this happened and then that happened and then they all sat around and talked about it for a bit before that happened and this happened. The rambling plot usually leads to a weak resolution, which makes you wonder why you bothered reading the books in the first place.
8 Grand Tour, Ben Bova
I like the idea of these books: a series of hard sf novels about the gradual colonisation of the Solar system. But they’re a real slog to read. Bova’s prose is not so much workmanlike as bolted-together. If prose should be a sleek and powerful Italian sports car, then Bova’s is a great lumbering tank powered by a million hamsters running around a million wheels.
7 The Adventures of Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler
Although sold as thrillers, these are pretty much science fiction – they’re set a few years ahead of their year of publication, and the plots often feature technology that doesn’t exist. To say Cussler is not a prose stylist would be an insult to writers everywhere. His prose was poor in the first few books, but the plots overshadowed it. Then Cussler’s writing got worse… and worse… By book ten or eleven, they’re all but unreadable. The series is now continued by his son, and has spun out an uncountable number of side-series by other hands, slowly drowning published literature in leaden prose, formulaic plotting and ever more risible characters…
6 Projekt Saucer, WA Harbinson
The central premise of this series is a well-documented conspiracy theory and quite loony. It goes like this: during World War II, the Nazis invented flying saucers and they used them to flee in 1945, and have, variously, either a base on the Moon or in Antarctica. In Harbinson’s series, written in the finest deathless prose, the saucers were actually invented by an American genius who went to work for the Nazis, and he is now the head of a secret scientific organisation with a hidden headquarters in the Andes. From there, he plans to take over the world, muahaha. Despite their cool premise, these books are painful to read.
5 Lensman, EE ‘Doc’ Smith
I could have picked any of Smith’s series, but the Lensman series – despite being out of print – still seems to be popular. It was written a long time ago. A long, long time ago. And it shows. Back in those days, sf was written by dirty old hacks or spotty teenagers. Women were either alien creatures or centre-folds. They certainly weren’t as clever or resourceful as men. A lot of them were naked too. These books are in no way representative of sf in the twenty-first century. They’re not even representative of sf as a genre.
4 Saga of the Seven Suns, Kevin J Anderson
Sadly, this series might well be representative of sf in the twenty-first century. Kevin J Anderson is a fiction machine. He churns out books by the metre. And his prose has all the wit and grace of prose written by a machine. Except he doesn’t actually write his books. He dictates them as he hikes around his backyard – otherwise known as the state of Colorado. It shows. These books do not contain carefully-chosen words, but the sort of words you pick as you scramble up a hill being chased by a goat.
3 Mission Earth, L Ron Hubbard
Anyone who thinks that Battlefield Earth is the greatest sf novel ever written is either a Scientologist or brain-damaged. Or perhaps both. But Battlefield Earth is, amazingly, better than the Mission Earth “drekology”. Rumour has it Elron was dead when he wrote the Mission Earth books. It shows.
2 Foundation, Isaac Asimov
This trilogy, while not as actually bad as some of those lower down this list, deserves its high place because it appears as number one in so many “greatest sf book series” lists. It’s not the greatest science fiction book series ever published. It’s not even very good. Asimov’s prose is like tofu – it is bland and tasteless, and when you find it in your food you’re never entirely sure what it is.
1 Legends of Dune, Kevin J Anderson & Brian Herbert
These books get the number one spot not only because they are badly-written, were cobbled together out of sf furniture stolen from 1930s pulp magazine covers and 1950s B-movies, and feature characterisation on a par with Dan Brown… No, they get the number one spot because they took a large dump from a very great height on a very good series of books. Frank Herbert’s Dune novels are excellent; I would happily include them in a list of the greatest science fiction series. But the Dune books were never completed – Frank Herbert died before starting work on “Dune 7”. So KJA & Herbert Jr wrote it for him. In order to bolt on their own ending – it was all the fault of a Giant Computer Brain, apparently – they first had to rewrite Dune‘s back-history. And they put brains in jars in there. That looked stupid back in the 1930s. It’s even more stupid now. There are many, many things wrong with these books – every single word in them, in fact.
Yes, there are worst books than those above – and some of those I picked are no longer in print for, one would hope, good reason. But whenever people promote science fiction, some of the series I’ve chosen are the ones they use. And I find that incomprehensible. When there’s so much good stuff out there, why push the badly-written crap you liked once upon a time. It may well have been your entry into the genre but you were a kid at the time. The ten series above are, I suppose, an anti-list. They are the books which should never appear on any “best of” or “greatest” list.
Those who don’t know their science fiction are doomed to repeat their history
While there are between three and thirty-six plots depending on your source, and no such thing as a new idea in science fiction… that’s not what this post is about. Those are topics for another day. Possibly.
Instead, consider this: if a One True Science Fiction FAQ existed, it would consist of a single question: “what if?” Of course, this pretty much holds true for all fiction. But there are two particular types of story, common in sf, that “what if?” inexorably leads to: the thought experiment and the cautionary tale. (Which is not to say that a story can’t be both types.)
The author posits a situation – an invented future, or an invented world – and then tells a story set in it. It might be what will happen, or what has happened. Whichever it is, the author is offering insight into the consequences of the fictionalised situation. The usefulness of that insight depends on whether or not you accept the author’s argument – even if the author’s sensibilities run counter to your own. At the very least, it should provoke thought.
Some people think fiction should be solely for entertainment. It should have no greater ambition than to keep the reader amused. Rubbish. No artform should be just bread and circuses. It needs to engage with the real world, not ignore it. “You watch your X-Factor while we assemble this police state around you.” Why on earth would an author encourage people to turn their backs on what’s happening around them? Good fiction has something to say, whether you agree or not with what is being said.
Science fiction, as a genre, was initially created to do more than merely amuse. Hugo Gernsback intended sf to be both didactic and predictive. It’s no longer either of those – which is not necessarily a bad thing. They were limiting. But that doesn’t mean sf readers should privilege escapism over “message stories”. Besides, there’s no such thing as a “message story”. There are stories that engage with the reader qua reader, and stories that don’t. It’s the ambition of fiction to do the former. Yes, entertainment is important, but it shouldn’t be the one and only aim of a piece of fiction.
Yet despite its infrequent moments of outspokenness, sf’s cautionary tales and thought experiments are often taken as nothing more than amusements. And they’re then pillaged for terms to label the very situation they cautioned against. But if readers are unwilling to attach real-world significance to a sf story, then it’s hardly surprising its concerns are only validated after the fact.
Perhaps sf needs an agenda once again. Perhaps the genre needs to shine a brighter light on the real world, and then document what it sees.
The Gatekeepers of Genre
My friend Bob approached me the other day. It’s not his name, but I call him that and he doesn’t seem to mind. Bob reads a lot, but he’s not an adventurous reader. In fact, he tends to avoid anything that smacks of genre. His preferred reading material is contemporary fiction. That’s what he likes and that’s what he reads. So, anyway, Bob comes up to me and tells me he’s decided to give thrillers a go.This is something of a shock. Perhaps it was a full moon – I couldn’t tell as it was a bright sunny day. But, whatever wires had crossed in Bob’s brain, the ensuing conversation went something like this:
“You know all about them, so what book do you think I should read?”
“That’s easy. Moonraker by Ian Fleming.”
“Sounds interesting. When was it published?”
“1955.”
“So it’s over fifty years old?”
“Er, yes.”
“Why would I want to read a book over half a century old? See this book?” He brandished a copy of A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks – somewhat threateningly, I thought. “It was published six months ago.”
“But Moonraker is a classic. Everyone’s heard of it. They even made a film of it.”
“Ah, right. I think I remember that. James Bond? Space shuttle in the Amazon jungle? Space station?”
“That’s the one.”
“Actually, that sounds pretty cool.”
“Er, they’re not in the book.”
“The book’s different?”
“Yes.”
“Surely Bond is the same?”
“No, not really. He’s, well, he’s pretty sexist in the book. And racist too. And there aren’t any gadgets.”
“But it’s a classic?”
“Oh yes. Everyone’s heard of Moonraker.”
“I’m not sure. What else do you suggest?”
“Um, well, there’s Live and Let Die.”
“When was that published?”
“1954.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Ian Fleming.”
“So it’s another Bond novel?”
“Er, yes.”
“I don’t want to read a book about a racist, sexist spy from the 1950s.”
“But you said you wanted to read a thriller. The Bond books are the quintessential thrillers.”
“Oh well, in that case… Now where did I put my copy of Ian McEwan’s Solar…?”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a conversation that takes place about science fiction on a regular basis. I’ve said before – on many occasions – that sf fans who recommend old (alleged) “classics” to readers new to the genre are doing those readers and science fiction a disservice. Old sf bears little resemblance to media sf, and those wanting to move from film and television sf to book sf are going to be turned off the genre if recommended Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein or EE ‘Doc’ Smith. No one does the same for fantasy – ask a fantasy reader to recommend a novel, and you’re as likely to hear Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson, as you are Tolkien, Robert Jordan or Stephen Donaldson. Is it any wonder science fiction is suffering from declining sales? We’re our own worst enemy.
Nineteen Turns: authenticity and appropriation
The dictionary definition of “authentic” is “entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience; having the origin supported by unquestionable evidence”. At first glance, this doesn’t seem relevant when discussing science fiction or fantasy. Where are the “known facts or experience” in an invented world? Where is the “unquestionable evidence”?
Authenticity determines how immersive a story’s world is – the more real the world feels, the more immersive it is. Any wrong detail which trips up the reader prevents immersion. And, conversely, any detail which has the ring of authenticity makes immersion more likely. Because for an invented world, the story and its setting has to feel real. It has to convince, from large to small. The world of the story has to seem hermetic, a thing in and of itself. It has to seem as though it would continue to exist independently of the story set in it. (Unless not doing so is a deliberate artistic choice, of course.)
In October 2008, I read We Have Capture, the autobiography of astronaut Thomas Stafford (see my review here). In that book, Stafford describes the death of Soyuz 11 cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov. He writes:
Seeing that the front hatch was still sealed, the crew realized that the leak was probably coming from that ventilation valve, which was located under Dobrovolsky’s seat. They tried to crank it shut – there was a backup master valve, but this unit, like a basic steam valve, was mounted over the crew’s shoulders and took nineteen turns to close.
That “nineteen turns” is authentic. It’s the sort of detail which tells you the author knows what they are writing about. It’s not a commonly-known fact; nor do many people have experience of the Soyuz spacecraft. But by including that one small detail, Stafford’s description is “entitled to acceptance or belief”.
But not all sf or fantasy stories are set in invented worlds. Equally, those invented worlds might well be based upon something real. In such cases, authenticity will to some extent be inherited from the real world. Yes, there’s still room for “nineteen turns”, but the broad strokes of the world are likely to be known by most readers. The little-known details will only add verisimilitude, and the authenticity is a product chiefly of those broad strokes.
But there’s another issue which has to be considered in such cases. Artistic integrity demands that the story’s setting be as close as possible to the real world, or real-world model, for “acceptance or belief”. It should not rely on clichés, myths or misinformation, or pander to prejudices or stereotypes. Bad research is bad research. If a writer is going to appropriate another culture for their world or model, courtesy alone suggests they should do so as accurately and as considerately as possible.
To most sf fans, “hard sf” refers to the branch of science fiction which is rigorous in its use of the “hard sciences” – physics, chemistry, biology, etc. But for genre writing to be authentic, all of it has to be “hard”. Science fiction or fantasy. The selfsame rigour that hard sf authors used with the sciences has to be applied to every element of world-building. A successful story has to convince in every aspect, and if it takes “nineteen turns” to do that… then the author has to go and hunt down that detail.
To do otherwise would not only insult any appropriated culture, but the readers too.
It’s time for… “dark science fiction”
Now that Waterstone’s has decided to shelve urban fantasy / paranormal romance separately as “Dark Fantasy” – and I’ve also heard mention of a “Dark Romance” book shop category – I thought perhaps it might be time for…
“Dark Science Fiction”.
We’ve had Mundane science fiction and optimistic science fiction and New Space Opera, so why not a new one?
I see “dark scifi” (which is no doubt what it will be shortened to) as a very specific subgenre. It will feature feisty kick-ass heroines battling rogue robots and having cybersex with AIs. Lots of cybersex. And maybe a few cyberdates as well. The stories will take place in futuristic cities, which may not necessarily be on this planet. Some stories, I expect, might even be set in space stations. Or on mile-long spaceships. Wherever there are rogue robots that need their asses kicking.
You may be thinking there’s not much that’s actually dark about “dark scifi”. Well, no. But then there’s not much that’s dark about “dark fantasy”. Yes, it’s all werewolves and vampires and zombies, rather than Peasant Heroes and Hidden Kings and Dark Lords, but…
Um, perhaps, our feisty heroines should kick rogue zombie robot butt, then. And maybe we should throw in some cyber-vampires and were-aliens.
It’s the literature of the future. I think it could be a winner.
Getting to grips with the short stuff
This year, a number of people in the sf blogosphere have vowed to read more short fiction, or are blogging their way through issues of sf magazines. I’ve decided to do something similar. But I’m not going to blog about every short story I read, I’m just going to try and keep up to date with the magazines I subscribe to/follow. And if I come across any stories I think are particularly good, then I’ll mention them on my blog.
The magazines I read include Interzone, Jupiter, Postscripts, The Hub, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Futurismic, Daybreak… plus any others I might stumble across.
I’m now up to date with my short fiction reading. Three stories from the magazines named above have especially impressed me. They are – and this wasn’t planned – of three different genres: science fiction, fantasy and steampunk. All three are also from online magazines.
The stories are:
- ‘Dali’s Clocks’ by Dave Hutchinson – Daybreak Magazine (January 2010)
- ‘Gizzard Stones’, Garth Upshaw – Beneath Ceaseless Skies #35 (28 Jan 2010)
- ‘A Serpent in the Gears’, Margaret Ronald – Beneath Ceaseless Skies #34 (14 Jan 2010)
I’ll probably post something like this again in another couple of months. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to suggest sf/fantasy magazines I should try – online or print – or has a recommendation for a short story published in the last two months that I should read…
It Doesn't Have To Be Right... 