Punking Everything in SF/F (Part Two): The Past (Punk)
Wouldn’t it be amazing if the strange words and concepts we have so gloriously accepted into pop culture were actually understood as the culturally/socially complex entities that they actually are by the same people that pass around the suffix “punk” like a beer keg at a frat party? Indeed, it would, but the curious thing about modern (or perhaps postmodern) culture is that much of the youth, the very ones who so readily claim to exist within the subcultural group called “punk,” who rage against the machine of authority without realizing that their vocal and visual forms of resistance (and even auditory through the likes of Green Day and their ilk) are nothing more than a continuation of consumer culture at its worst/best, have no idea, and no intention of learning, what the word “punk” actually means, or what its placement in human history entails for their strangely lucrative subculture. If that seems like a mouthful, it is, because the very nature of consumer culture is itself a conundrum of modern and postmodern ideals, clashing and wandering through a wasteland of personally useless nonsense, filled with people who are either dolefully aware of the pointless nature of their consumption of things or unwittingly a part of it. This is not to say that consumer culture, or, perhaps we should use its proper name, capitalism (late or otherwise), is necessarily bad. Rather, this paragraph begins to illustrate the reality of our existence in America and other Western capitalist democracies (or fascist states, where such things exist) and how pervasive capitalism is in our lives, so much so that many of us fail to notice its pull and tug on our pocket books. Teenagers today, for all their eccentricities and attempts at genuine resistance, have simply adopted a lifestyle or perception of the world that has been just as commodified as any other movement, ideal, and substance we have thus far conceived. Where am I getting at with this? The very nature of “punk,” as I conceive it, is that it cannot ever truly reject the dominant culture, capitalism, not if it, as a movement, expects to survive. Here you might ask: what is “punk?” You would be right to ask that. Punk originated, somewhat, in music in the 1970s or so, as many have claimed. True punk, the real, commodity-rejecting monstrosity that emerged quite literally as a counter-culture rather than a subculture, was largely a response to globalization, urbanity, and post-industrialization, an inherently commodity-rich point in our history that readily acknowledged the corporation as almost human. Curious as that may sound, it seems to make sense, because as capitalism began to spread across the globe, largely not by its own steam, but through the hands of those with the guns, so to speak, it gave new powers to the corporate entity to represent itself as a thing that could “speak for itself.” More curiosity abounds here as to why it took hardly any time at all for something inhuman in nature, almost robotic, to assume the vocalized subaltern without having had to shed blood in the process; well, at least not the corporate blood, but certainly the blood of pre-nationalist societies consumed into globalizing nationhood. Punk, to try to simplify here for brevity, invented for us the teenager as a market niche. Now, once relegated to the status of children, the budding adult had a place of his or her own, a place of music, bad or good, you pick, and protest against the “man.” How silly, then, that punk itself vied to create its own subculture as a consumer aggregate, with no real interest in affecting change at all. In its non-conformist nature, punk literally created a subculture that would eventually have its own marketplace, its own capitalist structures a la Hot Topic and other such gothic-ally obsessed teen hideouts. And teenagers bought into it, hook, line, and sinker, not necessarily through some malicious attempt on the part of punk itself, but because punk provided a place for them to go, where their voices could be heard by someone, even if that someone could do nothing to alleviate the perceived issues of society itself. Punk was at the cusp of subcultural America/Britain/Australia. In some ways, it was one of the first to take off, to become like a living thing embodied in the mind. It rejected the establishment (monarchy, democracy as fascism, etc.) and sought to ironically being non-conformist by conforming to non-conformism itself (and that might take a moment to contemplate, because punk’s survival relied quite literally on non-conformism to be a form of conformist thought, without reservation). You might view all this as a push against the nation state, a sort of anti-intellectual, anti-authoritarian monster with a chip on its shoulder. It is, because punk’s response to the world of the 70s and 80s relied almost exclusively on a resistance to the hierarchical structures of the nation, a rejection of what the nation state was doing or had done, and where it would go in the future. Punk style is forgettable, but its history, its move from a seemingly obscure subculture to universally recognized and commidified almost-dominant-culture, is not. It sat at the dawn of the invention of the goth, the black honky-tonk, the Christian rock movement, the punk music we are familiar with today, and various other movements that otherwise might not have existed if punk itself had not seized capitalism by its throat and wrangled the life out of it until the two could finally agree that they could work together. Too bad that punk got the raw end of the deal, because, after all, for something so dead set against capitalism and the nation state, punk has easily assimilated, if not without the occasional angered retort, into the dominant structures of nationhood and commidification. That is what punk is. It is not Green Day, for the punk music scene is nothing more than a dilution of what used to be legitimate attempts as subversion
Punking Everything in SF/F (Part One): The Present
Cyberpunk, steampunk, biopunk, and now greenpunk? When will it end? Fans have been punkifying science fiction and fantasy for decades, and it doesn’t seem like it will let up any time soon. With each passing moment, new ideas spring into the collective consciousness of SF/F fans, who, in turn, impart their selective, subgenre-crazed minds on all of us by bringing to task the next stage in science fiction and fantasy’s evolutionary ride. But are we getting ahead of ourselves, and is this constant segmentation of SF/F pointless or, at least, premature? What flaws are inherent in the frequent punking of speculative fiction? Publishers have yet to grasp onto the punk genres, and neither have bookstores, independent or otherwise. Subgenres have little use outside of the relatively isolated, and sometimes rabid, fanbase. Realistically speaking, it would be impossible to incorporate even a pinch of the subgenres in existence today into bookstores, with logical exceptions to the Internet–after all, Amazon has been kind enough to narrow the science fiction and fantasy sections into nebulous, cross-pollinating subcategories. So what is our obsession with subgenres (and sub-subgenres)? Are we inherently segmentative, meaning do we have an innate desire to categorize? That might be true, because it is without hindrance that we can see the makings of our own segmentarian nature in the desire to isolate ourselves. But here we might consider the distance of prejudice, which exists only insofar as personal grudges permeate the subgenre sphere. How many of those sub-subgenres are created simply to get rid of an unwanted swath of books? None? Perhaps we can only see prejudice as it exists in the academic, the purist academic who longs for the demise of science fiction and fantasy with an unhindered gaze. You can see the joy in his eyes when he looks down upon those who so willingly accept Margaret Atwood into their ranks. Or maybe he is a she, and the bitterness is just as strong. Who knows? What we do know is that punk, in its newest, and historically disjointed (disconnected) form is science fiction and fantasy fans’ greatest tool. Isolate the good, the bad, and the ugly, put them in the little jar of context-less wonder, and consume them as readily as a meat pie (or a veggie pie, should your personal inclination be to the earth). Punk is dead, perhaps, but alive too, reborn as a suffix with a mysterious past. And all this, the thoughts presented here, the continued arrival of punkified sub-subgenres, makes me wonder if we need to educate ourselves as to what punk actually is, or was, to properly evaluate whether our suffix-obsessive punking nature is well served in a genre so clearly complicated by its weaving in and out of popular culture and literature itself. Yes, that is where we should go next. To the punk-mobile. Let’s take our Peabody-and-Sherman-style journey into the past to unravel the not-so-distant history of a forgotten genre (forgotten, at least, by those not steeped in the rather confusing realms of cultural criticism and literary theory). Expect that post soon. For now, consider, if you will, the nature of subgenres, the drive to create them, and the question of whether doing is has a purpose other than for our amusement. And if you have thoughts, share them here, because your thoughts are of interest to me. I must consume them, like candy. Creepiness aside, comments are welcome. ————————————— Continue to Part Two (Punk), Part Three (Cyberpunk A), Part Four (Cyberpunk B), and Part Five (Cyberpunk C).
Reader Question: Lingual Formalities, Schmalities
If memory serves me, this question comes from Bowie of Young Writers Online: In most science fiction and fantasy stories, people speak in a more formal way. Why is that? Is it to reinforce the idea that it’s a different world than we know? Firstly, it’s not true that most SF/F resorts to formal modes of communication. A great deal of classic SF/F does, but modern derivations of the two genres have seen a remarkable, and much appreciated, shift from the trappings established by Tolkien all those years ago. And this is where we get into the unfortunate side effect of Tolkien’s brilliance. Despite writing what most consider to be the greatest fantasy trilogy of all times, Tolkien hammered into new and past writers several unfortunate habits. You see, Tolkien was trying to recreate something in The Lord of the Rings, a certain feel, if you will. He was successful on all counts, not only in fabricating a detailed, elaborate fantasy world, but also in trying to fashion an imagined, realistic history of an England that might have been (though the fact that, as far as I can tell, Middle Earth looks nothing like England could make for a good counter argument). In doing so, Tolkien fixed into the minds of fantasy lovers everywhere what were the defining characteristics of the genre, despite his setting out to create an effective, mythologized, and complex historical novel. The language, thus, is exceptionally dated, even for his time, and the clichés were snatched up by fans without hesitation. It has taken the fantasy genre a long time to work out of the habit of writing in absurd formal dialogue. But it has happened, and it has, in almost every instance, been to emulate Tolkien rather than to produce something truly original. There is nothing wrong with emulation, insofar as such emulation is still trying to impress upon readers an experience, despite its biased leanings. What is problematic, as is true of all tropes, clichés, etc. in fantasy, is that these sorts of staples effectively damage the genre when done poorly. Of course, to call a lot of published works “poor recreations” is somewhat unfair, particularly because readers have varying expectations, and what I want or expect in fantasy literature will almost always be at least slightly different from what other readers want. Readers do like Tolkien-esque fantasies, a lot–and that’s really an understatement. Sometimes there are reasons (they have read a lot and prefer that style) and other times it is due to ignorance (some might say that most Twilight and Eragon fans like those works because they have no read “good” fantasy yet). Invariably, it is hard to argue with how things actually are in this instance: derivations exist and will continue to do so, provided that readers are still interested in such things in the future. There is also the healthy obsession with medieval literature that most fantasy writers have, whether they are willing to admit it or not. That contributors to the persistence of this form of dialogue. Now the question is, are these sorts of formal dialogue stylings good or bad, in your opinion? I view them as either/or, because, in some cases, it works. But that’s me, and I want to see your opinion. Leave me a comment with your thoughts! ————————————————- If you have a question about science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related you’d like answered here, whether silly or serious, feel free to send it via email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, tweet it via Twitter to @shaunduke, or leave it in the comments here. Questions are always welcome! If you liked this post, consider stumbling, digging, or linking to it!
Fantasy is Colonial, Modern Science Fiction is Postcolonial?
Examining trends in genre fiction is an impossible task. Fantasy and science fiction are constantly moving, the latter more so than the former, and yet I have been noticing something within both genres (a shifting theme for the latter, and a staple for the former) that I want to examine and understand. Readers are welcome to challenge me on this, and in fact I hope you do, because I have not been reading in these genres as long as some of you have, and you may, as a result, see trends and themes differently. One tendency I have seen in fantasy is that of the building or collapsing of empires/nations/peoples via a colonialist or imperialist method. Recent examples include The House of the Stag by Kage Baker and even Karen Miller’s The Innocent Mage/The Awakened Mage duology, along with a great many epic fantasy series, in which invasions of empires play a prominent role. Villians, thus, tend to be imperialist in nature, interested in one of two things: 1) the subjugation or destruction of a people, and 2) the acquirement of new properties (i.e. land) for an existing or emerging empire. Looking back brings us to The Lord of the Rings, which contains an example of a colonialist extermination/enslavement that ultimately fails, except insomuch as the Hobbits are concerned, since they are not only colonized by the forces of Mordor (or, more specifically, Saruman’s forces, if memory serves me), but also subjugated as a people. Science fiction, however, has a shifting agenda. Its early and middle-aged works focused heavily, as I have described before, on imperialist or colonial issues, particularly in relation to galactic empires. Some newer works have done much the same, such as Old Man’s War by John Scalzi and a handful of other authors doing what might be called “tribute” works, though no offense is meant by that term. But recent developments seem to point to a more postcolonial approach. By that, I mean that the story deals more with the after effects of a cultural rupture in which the colonist, whoever that might be, has either ceded control to the indigenous body, or collapsed its colonialist structure and turned into something less concerned with matters of empire and more concerned with what you might call “traditional governing.” So, the colonized may not longer be colonized because the colonizer is no longer there, or because power has shifted, for whatever reason, so that the colonialist structure no longer exists (though the latter is, for all intensive purposes, a rarity even in our world). The best example I can think of this occurring is in Tobias S. Buckell’s novel Sly Mongoose, which, while not always directly focused on the fallen empire, manages to offer a science fiction view of the end of empires and what the colonized goes through to survive or re-establish control. There’s a certain brutality to it, because Buckell’s novel is not set in a world that is distant from its colonial past. Other novels, I’m sure, exist, though I have to admit that I am blanking on them at this time. The point of this is that there seems to be a far more likelihood of postcolonialism existing within science fiction as a theme than there is for fantasy. Fantasy seems to be occupied with the act of colonizing, in some for of another, while science fiction seems to want to dismantle the colonial structure. It seems fitting that fantasy cannot imagine its postcolonial future, and that its cousin genre must do so. One reflects an imagined past, a medieval fantasy (outside of urban fantasy), while the other is almost always looking forward. The genres compliment one another, even if it was never meant for them to do so.
Reader Question: Unexpected Expansions and Expectations
My dear friend Carraka recently asked me the following question: Are fantasy series more likely to expand, unplanned, than science fiction? Actually, you’d be surprised to know that science fiction is the more likely genre to have unplanned expansions. Unlike fantasy, science fiction is not as readily susceptible to series-itis. This has quite a lot to do with the kinds of stories being told, the history of the genre, and loads of other factors which won’t be uttered here due to space constraints. But I’ll talk about some of the important bits here. There’s a fundamental difference between how fantasy and science fiction novels are sold. Due to an obsessive need for long, epic trilogies, stand alone fantasy novels are relatively rare in comparison to series–in the eyes of the public, at least. There are, of course, authors who thrive on stand alone books, but the series is the name of the game. Typically fantasy authors write a duology, trilogy, quintet, etc. and sell it to the publisher either one piece at a time (such as Patrick Rothfuss seems to have done) or in bulk. Some of them succeed and are published in full, and others do not. Science fiction, however, is a lonely road. Few science fiction authors get published based on the proposition of a series. But where did all those sequels and what not come from? Some are the result of the publisher’s request, some due to fans, and others due to perceived unfinished business by the author. Most sequels aren’t planned. They might be lingering in the back of the author’s mind, but it’s not often that a science fiction author actually sits down and plans out a series of science fiction books (a few have, of course, and there are several science fiction series out there, from David Weber to Isaac Asimov). The differences between the two is important to note, because while fantasy is intensely series-based, it is not expansionary in nature. Science fiction, however, is. It is rather uncommon to hear of a fantasy author deciding to expand a series that was planned to stop at three books. Christopher Paolini is perhaps the highest profile example of a fantasy series expansion, but science fiction is littered with examples of stand alone books expanded either by sequels or longer series–a good example would be the recent addition of C. J. Cherryh’s Regenesis, the long-awaited sequel to Cyteen. Fantasy will continue to be dominated by series, though, and people will typically recognize it for its long, drawn-out epics rather than for its stand alone gems. Science fiction, however, will be the exact opposite, and every so often we’ll get an outstanding series to drive a little of that epic feel into the science fiction landscape. But I’m just one person with one perspective. If you have something to add, or a different opinion, let me know in the comments! ————————————————- If you have a question about science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related you’d like answered here, whether silly or serious, feel free to send it via email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, tweet it via Twitter to @shaunduke, or leave it in the comments here. Questions are always welcome! If you liked this post, consider stumbling, digging, or linking to it!
Reader Question: Vampires and Elves and Dwarves, Oh My!
(Yet again I have forgotten to write down who asked this question. If the person who asked sees this, let us know who you are in the comments.) Cliches in fantasy (and science fiction) seem to be a hot topic these days, what with urban fantasy paving the way towards over-saturation of the market, and science fiction apparently losing some of its appeal amongst certain groups of readers (though claims that science fiction is dying are premature at best). The question that has prompted this post asks a very important question: Should writers stay away from the cliches of fantasy? The kneejerk reaction should, for anyone, be “yes.” The problem with fantasy as a genre has always been its tendency to repeat itself to excess, with writers of talent essentially spouting rehashed Tolkien-esque stories and continuously mining Tolkien and the select few “original” authors that followed him for those staple creatures we have come to identity as clearly “fantasy”–elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. Urban fantasy has, unfortunately, been saturated with similar levels of repetition; vampires used to be fairly powerful creatures to insert into fantasy novels, but these days they are, for the most part, little more than furniture items without substance–if you want a better vampire, read the original Dracula. But kneejerk reactions are rarely efficient or proper. As in politics, immediately reacting to something without considering the larger picture is not only a bad idea, but dangerous. If you spend your days worrying yourself over whether or not you’re using a cliche, you’ll end up getting little done whatsoever. Writers should spend time writing, not considering the implications of using such-and-such creature or such-and-such trope. It’s quite impossible to avoid the cliches of the genre with any efficiency. Some may argue against this, but this is true of all fiction. No matter how hard you might try to write a truly original novel, you will most certainly fail. Cliches are a part of the human brain, and have been for a while. Certainly being aware of the cliches you’re using is important, but fretting over them is counterproductive. Instead, pay attention to how the cliches are used. Are you using elves in exactly the same way as Tolkien? Why? Injecting difference into the mix can help alleviate obvious repetition. Twist Tolkien’s elves on their head and see where it goes. Or, there’s always the more adequate method of dealing with cliches: write well. Nobody with any sense reads a well-written fantasy novel and says, “That is the most cliche thing I have ever read.” Good writing can, and does, completely change how a reader perceives a cliche. If you can tell a good story, then it is irrelevant how many cliches populate your fiction, because ultimately what the reader wants is a good reading experience–obviously. What do you think? Should writers avoid cliches? Why or why not? Feel free to leave a comment! ————————————————- If you have a question about science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related you’d like answered here, whether silly or serious, feel free to send it via email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, tweet it via Twitter to @shaunduke, or leave it in the comments here. Questions are always welcome! If you liked this post, consider stumbling, digging, or linking to it!