Literature Rants

I had a rather strange and characteristically “me” conversation with my friend Adam the other day about the state of science fiction as a genre.  One thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is how fantasy has seemingly abandoned the trappings of respectability for the more lucrative pursuit of market share, while science fiction has done the exact opposite.  I’m not sure why science fiction lovers (not all, but a good enough chunk) have doomed themselves to respectability at the sake of readership, nor am I altogether certain that SF is weakened by its bid for respect (in part, yes). But it does make me wonder why there are so many fantasy authors that fans can’t stop talking about, while there are so few science fiction authors who seem to have the same impact.  Adam often brings up The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi as an example of SF that could revitalize the genre.  But are people paying attention, or are the only ones looking at The Quantum Thief the same people who were looking at SF before?  I’d guess the latter, as sad as that makes me about the state of the genre I love so dearly. Perhaps the problem stems from the absence of SF in YA and children’s lit circles.  There are hardly any SF novels in those categories, and the few that exist are more often of the dystopian variety than the space opera kind (which seems silly to me when you consider how much space opera is like the epic fantasies that dominate the YA shelves). The question becomes:  who is our new SF messiah?  Who can revitalize the genre by bringing in new readers and give back to the reading world all that glory and sensawunda that made the genre what it is/was?  Or will SF sink into a smaller market share and stay there? I’m not saying that SF is dying.  It’s not.  It can’t die.  Not while a huge chunk of the most successful movies these days are SF.  Not while Star Wars and other franchises are doing just dandy.  But I do get the sense that SF has become almost elitist in its pursuits.  That there aren’t many gateway tales anymore (those we point to as gateway tales are often old, stuffy, and not exactly on the advertising list for publishers).  I suppose I’m just worrying that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot here.  Maybe this has something to do with what Damien G. Walter said about critics and the Hugos.   Or maybe it just has to do with being embedded in academia.  I think SF has its respectability.  We just don’t need it.  We don’t need to keep looking for it and trying to get more of it.  What SF needs, it seems to me, is an awakening.  A new renaissance.

I won’t profess to understand the full history of the Lambda Literary Foundation (to which the award belongs). As a Foundation that has in recent years honored lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, and other-sexuals (genderqueer, etc.) writers, the place is near and dear to my heart.  But then they announced this: LGBT authors will be recognized with three awards marking stages of a writer’s career: the Betty Berzon Debut Fiction Award (to one gay man and one lesbian), the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize (to one male-identified and one female-identified author), and the Pioneer Award (to one male-identified and one female-identified individual or group) – Awards for the remaining Lambda Literary Award categories will be based on literary merit and significant content relevant to LGBT lives. These awards will be open to all authors regardless of their sexual identity – All book award judges will be self-identified LGBT The above is the result of a lot of discussion and arguing among differing camps of the LGBT community (supposedly, though I’ve yet to hang out with any LGBT people who disagree so much as to make a concession like the above remotely rational).  But it is also the third major response to criticism about how the awards are structured.  According to their 20+ year history, the award went from accepting submissions “based solely on a book’s LGBT subject matter” to being restrict to self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer authors” in 2009.  This, apparently, is what has created the divide.  Some believe the award should go only to writers of the LGBT persuasion (broadly defined), while others think that the awards should reflect LLF’s function to promote positive LGBT images, as their mission statement makes clear: The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers. But even more importantly:  the previous guidelines couldn’t be reasonably enforced, as Nicola Griffith points out in her post on the recent changes — “if you can’t substantiate (check, prove, police, ensure) eligibility, it’s pointless.” The problem, then, has to do with representation.  The new categories are oddly LG- and gender-normal-centric.  One of the new awards (for debut fiction) is oriented only towards gay and lesbian people (both of which would be associated with standard genders); the other two are geared towards people who identify as male or female.  The other categories, presumably, are open to just about anyone, so long as the content of their work is relevant to LGBT people.  But the new awards are oddly exclusionary, giving the T side of the “LGBT” label little room to “play.”  Where exactly to transgender or transsexual or genderqueer people fit into all of this?  While Cheryl Morgan and I have had our differences (in days of yore, as they say), I think people should read her slightly angry response to the changes, or at least this juicy quote: First of all, why is one award specifically restricted to “one gay man and one lesbian”, while others are for “male-identified and female-identified” people. At least the latter appears to include some bi people, which the former seems to exclude. As for trans people, apparently they are OK for the first award if they identify as gay or lesbian, but not otherwise, and they are OK for the other two awards is they are male-identified and female-identified, but not otherwise. Let’s face it:  When an important award which is supposed to celebrate LGBT issues in literature doesn’t get how its policies discriminate against its own target demographic, then something is seriously wrong…

Eileen Gunn was kind enough to put me in my place on Google+ last night.  And let’s face it, after a lot of what I said about categories I know nothing about, nor, obviously, have any connection to, I really should have taken my shoe out of my mouth and found a better place for it (or found a better use for my mouth?).  Ms. Gunn noted that I could bypass those categories rather than (and I’m paraphrasing and adding extra words here) malign them because of my lack of interest. And that’s what I’m going to do, because it’s really not all that fair to the folks who are nominated in those categories.  In fact, I have nothing against fan artists or anything of the sort.  I don’t really have anything against fanzines in the old PDF format either.  I just don’t “get” them, which seems to me to be a problem I should try to understand. Why don’t I “get” fanzines and why do I feel like I’m so out of touch with whatever is going on in these various categories?  Is it because I can’t attend many of the major conventions in my field (though I’ve been to small ones and anime conventions in the past; I simply can’t afford to attend Worldcon, and it would be a stretch to afford Dragoncon and maintain my academic “career”)? I don’t know who reads this blog in terms of fan engagement.  Maybe most of you are of the more “academic” side of things, for lack of a better word.  But I would like to know how people come to love fanzines or fan artists (or discover them before they show up on a Hugo nominee list).  Are there forums I don’t hang out in?  Are these things discovered at conventions or through secret club meetings in a dungeon?  And why do you love them?  What about The Drink Tank or File 770 or what have you compels you to read? I’ll shut up now, foot covered in drool…

(I’ve added an addendum to this post in order to pull my foot out of my mouth.  Feel free to read it after you read everything below.) I stayed up nice and late in order to watch the event live, which may or may not have been a mistake.  Now that I’m wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, I feel up to giving my thoughts about the Hugo Awards Ceremony and the winners in the various categories.  Hopefully my attempt at organizing these thoughts won’t deter you from reading them.  (Some of these are probably going to get me in trouble…) Hosting Matters I don’t think I’ve ever seen these awards before, so I assume having hosts in Academy Awards fashion has been a staple of the Hugos for a while.  For 2011, Jay Lake and Ken Scholes hosted the events, following a scripted set of jokes and jibes in order to keep the audience amused between awards.  It’s hard for me to fault them for what turned out to be a not-very-funny event; Lake, after all, has been battling cancer for so long now I can’t remember when it all began — as a cancer survivor, I sympathize and feel it’s fair to indulge him in whatever he is interested in doing, even if he’s not terribly good at it. But mostly the jokes and constant references to singing and self-deprecating humor were forced and excessive.  The ceremony is exceedingly long anyway, and it seems to me they could have cut down on the jokes to save a good 45 minutes.  Or instead of following a script, they might have provided more natural discussion points, with some humorous anecdotes from actual interactions they’ve had (at the Hugos or elsewhere).  Folks seemed to enjoy them, though, so I suppose I’m out of place on this. Now on to the individual awards: The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer Winner — Lev Grossmam Who I Thought Would Take It — Lauren Beukes I haven’t read Grossman’s novel, so I can’t say whether his book is any good.  A lot of folks seem to love Grossman for The Magicians, but I personally thought Lauren Beukes should have taken the award for Moxyland and Zoo City.  She’s bloody brilliant and I think it’s a shame that she isn’t being acknowledged as such through such an important award. Best Fan Artist Winner — Brad W. Foster Who I Thought Would Take It — No idea I don’t know who any of the people on the nomination list are, so I have no connection to either of them.  This is one of those categories that I just don’t care about, which may make me a jackass. Best Fanzine Winner — The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon Who I Thought Would Take It — StarshipSofa, edited by Tony C. Smith StarshipSofa is the only one of the nominees that I even know about.  I don’t think Smith should have won the award, though.  His podcast is not a fanzine.  It hardly produces anything of a fan-ish nature and is more accurately described as a micro-press and audio fiction joint than anything else.  But the other options on the list seem utterly irrelevant to me.  I don’t read them.  Most of them I didn’t know existed until they showed up on ballots in the last year.  Most of them are old format.  And to be honest, I think websites like SF Signal should be on this list.  But whatever. The amusing thing about this award was Garcia’s emotional response, which could be described as a uber-freak-out.  It was fascinating and amusing in a kind of “good for you, mate” way. (Edit:  You really should see Garcia’s response.  It was honest and, well, clearly winning the award meant a hell of a lot to him.  And you have to appreciate that for someone who has dedicated themselves to a fan pursuit and suddenly gets recognition for it by people who, largely speaking, are the objects of that venture.) Best Fan Writer Winner — Claire Brialey Who I Thought Would Take It — No idea This is another category I care nothing about.  I’ve never heard of any of the people on the list and am sure I never will beyond seeing them on this list. Best Semiprozine Winner — Clarkesworld Who I Thought Would Take It — Clarkesworld The real question is who I thought should take the award.  And that answer is easy:  Interzone, edited by Andy Cox.  I think Interzone is long overdue for some damned recognition.  It’s one of the few print magazines with excellent production values, both in terms of its look and its fiction.  They publish amazing stuff.  I don’t get why they haven’t won this damned award yet.  Not to mention that Clarkesworld, which is a great magazine (in general), has published some real stinkers in the last year.  It’s a good magazine, but this is not a banner year, you know? Meh. Best Professional Artist Winner — Shaun Tan Who I Thought Would Take It — Stephan Martiniere To be honest, I thought Tan would get an award for “The Lost Things” instead of this particular award.  I think he’s deserving of an award somewhere on the ballot, though, so saying that I think Martiniere would have and should have taken the award isn’t anything against Tan.  It’s more my confusion about his placement.  But good on Tan.  He damn well deserves an Hugo! Best Editor, Short Form Winner — Sheila Williams Who I Thought Would Take It — John Joseph Adams In all honesty, all of the names on the list are names that we’ve all seen before, which leads me not to care all that much who wins.  Oh, JJA took it?  That’s nice.  He’ll be there next year.  Oh, it’s Williams this time?  Nifty.  Then again, Strahan and Schmidt haven’t taken it yet, have they?  Hmm… (Edit:  Again, this is nothing against Williams.  In

Follow science fiction long enough and you’ll notice a trend:  most people, by default, associate the various generic traditions of SF with aesthetic or visual qualities.  We see a spaceship or a robot or an alien species or a ray gun or whatever and immediately think “this is clearly science fiction.”  In many respects, this is how fantasy with spaceships comes to be placed within the genre, despite lacking all the formal qualities of SF.  No subgenre suffers this fate more so than cyberpunk. I’ve often wondered why cyberpunk gets dumbed down so excessively.  Much of the genre’s history (where it came from, what its authors were responding to, and so on) is not exactly hidden from the public eye.  Yet we can talk about the formation of SF in the early 1900s and its immediate precursors in the late 1800s more accurately than we can the formation of cyberpunk — this despite having far less information about those periods than we do about the late 70s and the 80s (that’s not to say we don’t have a lot about the early 1900s and late 1800s).  The latest example of this dumbing down hails from two episodes of Writing Excuses (w/ Brandon Sanderson, Dan Well, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Taylor).  The first episode is an attempt on their part to define cyberpunk, while the second is an exercise in constructing a cyberpunk tale.   It’s the first I have issues with, since the hosts spend so much of their time applying aesthetic and visual objects to the genre or otherwise dumb down the heavily political momentum that made cyberpunk possible.  The hosts also apply a number of stories to their definition, many of which are falsely associated with cyberpunk precisely because they only bear visual resemblance to the subgenre.  Blade Runner, for example, is, at best, a proto-cyberpunk story (which one of the hosts, I think, points out), in part because the only things that tie it to cyberpunk are the environment and occasional bits of machinery, all of which are, once again, falsely associated with cyberpunk.  While cyberpunk is a very visual medium, it’s not the surface level of the subgenre that matters, but what lies beneath.  Any story can contain noir elements, hackers, evil corporations, and so on.  But just as having a spaceship does not make a story science fiction, so too do the surface level visuals not make something cyberpunk.  Akira is a cyberpunk movie; The Matrix is not.  Neuromancer is cyberpunk; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is not. The only thing the folks on Writing Excuses got right was the fact that cyberpunk is a near future genre (post-cyberpunk is not, since it tends to transplant the formal qualities of cyberpunk into broader spaces of engagement, such as other planets, space stations, and so on).  But they missed the crucial point that makes cyberpunk such a valid form of literature:  we live in a cyberpunk world.  Africa is cyberpunk with its manipulations of technology, its relationship to global capitalism, and its complex and troubled social conditions (and the interactions between all of these elements).  Many parts of the western world are cyberpunk too.  All you have to do is look around you to see cyberpunk in action. But you also have to be careful with such real world associations, because so much of what is problematic about defining cyberpunk can be unfairly applied to the now.  Cell phones and text messaging and phone hacking aren’t cyberpunk activities.  Anonymous is not a cyberpunk group.  It’s the “punk” that really matters to the “cyberpunk” label.  And if you don’t know what a “punk” is, then you really can’t talk about the “cyber” part… (For the record, I’ve written a bunch of stuff on the “punk” in cyberpunk and the formal qualities of the genre:  here, here, here, here, and here.)

One of the things I wanted to talk about in yesterday’s post on why the best fiction fits somewhere was my personal take on dividing books by generic category (in bookshops and elsewhere).  But then I thought:  why not offer my brief take and then see what you all think about the issue in general.  And that’s what I’m going to do. What do you think about the way in which books are divided in most bookstores?  Do you like that there is a YA section, a science fiction and fantasy section, a general fiction section, a mystery section, and so on?  Do you find them useful as a book shopper?  Do you find them inadequate?  Let me know in the comments. As for me, I find the categories in bookstores useful, but inadequate.  One of the things I think publishers should do is label books by their most obvious categories, which bookstores would then use to place books which clearly cross generic lines in multiple places.  I don’t see the point in saying a book like 1984 by George Orwell or Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell or July’s People by Nadine Gordimer (etc. etc. etc.) shouldn’t be placed in both the general/literary fiction section and the science fiction section.  Likewise, a book like Farthing by Jo Walton (and the other books in her series) should be in the SF/F section and the mystery section; the fact that it’s not is a failure to recognize how it plays with the alternate history and mystery genres so effectively. Cross-pollination is crucial to the success of literature.  I think people who love SF/F would also love David Mitchell or Nadine Gordimer, or Murikami and Ishiguro, or Rushdie and Ghosh, or Jackson and Winterson.  Books that cross genres should be in both places so that people with particular reading tastes can find them.  I don’t generally go to the “general fiction” section in the bookstore, in part because it’s impossible for me to find anything at all that I would want to read in there.  General fiction is the most disorganized “genre” bookstores have.  But if you had put Cloud Atlas in the SF/F section, I might have picked it up well before I realized academics were talking about it.  I might have recommended it to all my friends. But that’s my take.  I like the idea of cross-pollination because it opens up the reading circles of, well, readers.  And that’s a good thing. Now it’s your turn!