A Brief Linking to the Manifesto of No-Consequence
I’m contemplating whether I want to say something more about this fellow’s counter-boycott against those who have condemned Elizabeth Moon over her recent comments on Islam (you can read what I’ve had to say about consumer activism in relation to literature here). The level of hypocrisy, intellectual vacuity (the argument of no-consequence, specifically), and repetition of fallacious arguments is alarming, particularly considering that I’ve agreed with the author of the post in the past on issues related to what he calls the “fail community.” The fact that he can’t separate the truly awful from the misunderstood or mistaken is mind boggling to me. So, I’m going to throw the link to all of you for now. Read the comments if you dare. Maybe I’ll talk about it. There’s certainly plenty to be said about the rhetoric being forced there, but I don’t know if I have the stomach for it right now. Elizabeth Moon’s misguided and incredibly problematic rant is enough to swallow from the SF community at the moment. What do you think?
The First Amendment: The Separation of Author and Work
There has been a lot of talk recently over the problem of the separation of an author from his or her work, and this has largely been so because of some rather alarming words written by Elizabeth Moon on Muslims and citizenship (in the U.S.). Bloggers, such as Gav over at NextRead, among others, have wondered whether we should separate the author from the work, or whether what an author writes should always be read within the context of what they think on a personal level (which, oddly enough, is discovered through what they write). My only problem with this discussion is that it avoids dealing with the other side of the divide; namely, the economic one and its relation to politics. But we’ll get to that second part in a minute. In a lot of cases, it is easy to separate the author from the work, particularly when the author is channeling a particular kind of idea or character. If an author is pro-gay rights, but writes a book about an anti-gay character, one shouldn’t ignore the book simply because of the author’s politics; on the contrary, you should read it to see how he or she deals with an alternative viewpoint. To give a more innocuous example, if the author is a pacifist and writes a novel about war, such as about soldiers, it shouldn’t be difficult to separate an author’s personal opinions on war from what they’ve written about in their books. After all, it is the author’s job to write about characters and situations that may or may not be in-tune with their ordinary lives. One could even argue that an author who can channel multiple viewpoints is an accomplished one. (If someone can come up with a better example of how this works, please leave a comment.) In that sense, I think it’s silly to reject an author’s work simply because of their personal viewpoint. There is value in exposing oneself to multiple worldviews, particularly since doing so means we are better prepared to deal with those we might disagree with, or might feel different from in some way or another. But, even more importantly, many authors write books that have nothing to do with their personal politics–at least, in an obvious way. Lewis Carroll, for example, has been called by many a pedophile (he wasn’t, by the standards of the time, but that’s neither here nor there); his work, however, shouldn’t be read within that context precisely because, as far as I can remember, his work has nothing to do with his supposed pedophilia. The same is true of many other authors, dead and alive. It is also important to note that authors are not born in vacuums, or brainwashed from a young age to fit a “writer template.” They come from all walks of life, from every continent and, I would hope, every country. If there is any question that the United States is the melting pot of the world, then we can all take solace in the fact that the writer’s world is an unflinching melting pot. But where I diverge from most on this particular subject is on the economic issue. Authors (and publishers) need readers to earn “money” (both in the physical currency sense and in the readers-as-currency/voice sense), and they use that money for various things. What should be of concern to anyone who cares about their own politics is that the “money” authors earn from us can also be used against our interests–here I’m specifically talking about living authors, rather than ones that have been dead for centuries. If your politics are not important to you, then you can ignore such things and continue supporting authors who would use their voices to deny things you rightfully deserve. If your politics are important, however, then it should quickly become obvious that separating an author from his or her work is an economic impossibility. Providing “monetary” gains to authors also provides incentive for them to continue doing what they do. In most cases, this isn’t an issue, since many of us want our favorite writers to keep writing and talking to us. But some authors use their “money” to push their political ideologies, to speak against issues that matter to us in the most bigoted way, and so on. To support such authors is tantamount to saying “I’m okay with you using your monetary and reader-ly currency to combat my personal interests.” If you’re okay with that, then you should continue buying new copies of books written by authors you vehemently disagree with. But I think that by doing so you become an accessory, which would be an insult if one could say that there is such as a thing as being not-an-accessory–which, I would argue, there is not, since we all purchase things that, somewhere down the line, work against our interests. Regardless, with authors, we have a very clear choice: we can support the ones we disagree with by giving them royalties and an audience, or we can cut them off like the diseased limb that they are and give more “money” to those who are both great writers and great people. I’ve made the choice for option two a number of times, such as in the case of Orson Scott Card and John C. Wright, both of which have said many an ignorant, disgusting word about the LGBT community, and both of which are good writers. I still own books by both of them, and will continue to do so, but I won’t purchase new copies of their books in the future, nor will I review their works, or provide them any sort of positive feedback which might, in some way, be used as “currency.” That’s something I’m not willing to do so long as their politics are so vehemently opposed to mine, and so long as they are so outwardly for the destruction of what matters to me–my family. I may make the same choice with Elizabeth
Emotional Attachment, Aging, and Books
A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend about book obsession. Specifically, I was curious about Harry Potter and similar franchises, which developed a fanbase of obsessed kids and adults, all open about their excitement about the next book in the series. I experienced the same obsession, as did a number of my friends, though to varying degrees. To this day, I can’t quite explain why that series drew me in. The topic of book obsession came up because I was concerned (or, perhaps, curious) about the relative paucity of excited feelings about books released since the Harry Potter. By “excited” I meant the “ravenous desire to consume a literary product to the extent that it occupies a good portion of my daily life.” I wondered whether I could re-experience the “Harry Potter moment” again in what remains of my life (likely 20-25 years, but knowing my luck, I’ll live to be 150). I miss the obsession and the excitement. When the announcement came that the final installment of HP7 had an official publication date, I recall making silly sounds and bouncing up and down in my computer chair; my excitement boiled over when the book finally arrived in my mailbox, and the experience of reading the book in such a short period of time (48 hours) sticks with me today. But I haven’t had that experience again. There are plenty of books and series that I enjoy, and certainly books that I consume at alarming rates (for me), but since 2007, I have remained somewhat neutral about book releases, with some minor bumps on my excitement scale here or there. I’m not saying that I haven’t had interest in anything since 2007, because I have. Instead, I’m trying to relay my discomfort with a personal lack, and wondering where that lack develops from. It’s been suggested to me that this problem has to do with the process of aging. I wouldn’t say that I’m old, in terms of the number of years I’ve been on this planet, but I have certainly seen a lot of things, experienced much, and moved on from the childish teenage years (and the childish 20s that followed it) and found a more secure place in this thing we call “adulthood” (an absurd thing, by the way, because the name itself implies that one cannot exhibit anything from our “childhoods” without leaving “adulthood,” which is an unspoken rule that I refuse to follow). But does adulthood, or the process of being adult, or the security of being in a stable “adult life” lead one to the lack implied above? Does getting older mean we aren’t able to experience the utter joy in the moment of excitement for a literary product? Do we displace the excitement to something else (and what would that thing be–movies, perhaps, or ties)? I want to say that age has little to do with it for some of us, particularly myself, but maybe the world neutralizes with age, and you don’t have much choice in the matter. Or perhaps the field of books is shifting away from what Harry Potter created all those years ago, and what exists now are echoes, in much the same way that a great quantity of fantasy novels have been echoes of Tolkien. Echoes don’t necessarily inspire the same love as the original product–at least, not for those that once experienced that love with the original, which explains, perhaps, why we see cycles of excitement with each new generation. Or maybe I’m simply waiting for that next special book to come along that sucks me in and spits me back out impressed and shocked. Out of curiosity, how many of you have experienced this lack? I know many of you, like myself, do get a little excitement for the occasional book, and we all likely enjoy much of what we read, but have you been able to find many books to become obsessed over in the last few years? If so, what were they, and why did you latch onto them? And also pressing: what is it about Harry Potter, or *insert the series you became obsessed with once upon a time,* that creates that obsessive excitement, that sucks people in and spits them out impressed and shocked? Is there an objective quality we can look for, or is that just the nature of the beast?
Canonization and the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction
(I’m a little late to the “party,” but since I may be teaching a science fiction course in a year or two, and thus might consider the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction as a possible required text, I figure it might be a good idea to throw in my thoughts on the non-controversy–in the sense that the folks I’ll be citing aren’t treating it as a controversy, and so neither will I.) Last month, the fine folks of Wesleyan University Press released the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction in hardcover and paperback. I won’t post the table of contents here due to its length, but I will provide a link. The book also has an online teaching guide, which should make it clear that it is meant for the purposes of education, if such weren’t already obvious by the fact that an academic/university publisher is behind its creation. Overall, I think the anthology is a good one. The stories within its pages are fairly varied, although understandably limited by space. Correction: the page I link in the text that is stricken through does include some organization. I made the mistake of not scrolling down past the initial list. So, it doesn’t seem to have any significant flaws after all. and its only major flaw, at least as I see it, is that there doesn’t seem to be a clear structure beyond date for the placement of the stories. Other anthologies of this kind (educational, that is) offer greater historical context in much the same way as the Norton anthologies. Still, I suspect that despite its flaws, it will serve a useful purpose for academics and other kinds of educators. But what interests me about this book are some of the questions being raised about its table of contents. Specifically, the questions raised last month by Jeff VanderMeer about the presence of recent science fiction stories in the anthology (recent meaning the last twenty years, of which there are only seven stories–five from the 1990s and two from the 2000s): But I guess my point is…are these seven stories really the epitome of the last two decades of science fiction (as opposed to fantasy)? I don’t mean to call into question the quality of these selections–what I mean is, what’s missing? What else should be there? Why is there nothing between 2003 and 2008, for example? Was nothing worthy published? From a sheer statistical standpoint, I think there is a lot to be said about the issues underlying these questions. There are twelve decades represented in the table of contents, with a mean average of 4.3 stories per decade; if you take out all of the decades with only one story, the number jumps to 6, and it drops to 5.2 if you treat the 1800s as a full decade. This means that the 1990s are given fair representation statistically (either slightly over, slightly under, or just right, depending on which numbers you look at), while the 2000s are in the same ballpark as the 1840s, 1860s, 1890s, and the 1900s. Whether the stories selected from the 1990s are the right stories is not strictly relevant to the underlying assumptions (i.e. that the 1990s are underrepresented), and those relaying these assumptions should probably also question why an anthology that purports to be an introduction to the science fiction spectrum has so clearly ignored the pulp era. The 2000s, however, are where I think all of the meat for this non-controversy rests. VanderMeer is not the only one to suggest that the 2000s are underrepresented in the Wesleyan anthology. Matthew Cheney of The Mumpsimus has said a little about the topic, and I don’t actually disagree that there are very few stories from the last ten years in the anthology (again, there are two)–it’s hard to argue with numbers, after all. But I do think there is a good reason why, which is tied into VanderMeer’s questions related to the quality of what wasn’t published. We should be surprised, I think, that any stories from the last ten years were considered for this anthology, particularly since, I would argue, every book built specifically for the purposes of teaching is always engaging in the politics of canonization (in this case, the science fiction canon as compared and related to the traditional college canon or “Western Canon”). Whether the editors of this particular anthology were openly concerned with the canonical is, at this point, up to speculation, though it would be fair to say that if educational text production is tied to the political aspects of the canon, then underlying their selection process was an attempt to represent the canonical, even if that canon is not properly defined (though they have already acknowledged to Cheney that space played a factor in the poor showing of post-millennial SF). What is important to acknowledge here is that canon is not an instantaneous production. What might be considered an indispensable literary product today might very well become the future’s ignored projects (though, to be fair, a lot of “ignored projects” are sometimes dragged from the grave in academia for reasons that are sometimes clear–“it’s something ‘new’”–and sometimes not–such as when there’s already something fulfilling the same role). The fact that two stories from the 2000s have made it into this anthology suggests that the editors were taking a risk, though not a particularly dangerous one; if they had included ten stories from the 2000s, then one might say that the risk of failing to appeal to the modern reader would be greater, since students are often “trained” to recognize cultural, social, historical, and literary differences in older texts and set many of those recognitions aside for the purposes of “analysis,” which is not necessarily possible for texts which implicitly or explicitly reference the world we actually live in. (Larry Nolen, by the way, has apparently called the anthology “safe,” From this perspective, then, I think it makes sense that the anthology would contain fewer stories from the 2000s. The last decade hasn’t reached its
New Weird and Scifi Strange: Part Two — Invented Genres and Moments More
(See my previous post on New Weird here.) II. Invented Genres and Moments More A lot has been discussed in the last year about the “Scifi Strange” subgenre. One of the few people talking about it is its creator, Jason Sanford–contrary to what Adam Callaway says here, Sanford is, in fact, coining a subgenre, even if his intentions are not tied to the political reasonings tied into the business of genre-making. Sanford has made his case quite clear: he considers Scifi Strange to be an extension of traditional science (and science fiction) to its logical breaking point; stories of this genre seem to take a page from the theoretical and pseudo-philosophical fields of science (quantum mechanics, theoretical physics, and so forth) and imagine where science, in general, might go when directed under the same forward-thinking mentality. Understandably, many of the stories Sanford considers to be emblematic of the Scifi Strange genre reflect this quality (more of his thoughts on the subgenre can be found in this interview). I, however, have a few issues with the discussion, which I will try to elucidate here. A fundamental problem with “genres” seems, to me, to be that they are often poorly defined. For overarching genres, this isn’t necessarily an issue, but for small subgenres it presents a serious problem. Catch-all definitions seem to have more of a place for much larger forms (such as romance, speculative fiction, the novel, and so on), since they don’t require an excessive amount of exclusion to provide a reasonable category below which one can place related texts; subgenres, however, are meant to evoke one of two (or both) primary objects: 1) a period of writing (New Wave or Golden Age), or 2) a specific kind of writing, usually decided by a common theme or visual element, or the combination thereof (Cyberpunk or Space Western). Scifi Strange, at least how it has been defined most recently by Jason Sanford and Adam Callaway, seems to lack, in part, both of these elements. Specifically, I think a few quotes from Callaway deserve to be addressed directly, particularly since I am going suggest that Scifi Strange is not what people think it is in a future post–assuming, of course, that Scifi Strange actually exists. To start: SciFi Strange, on the other hand, attempts to evoke the sensawunda from the Golden Age, but combine it with the literary sensibilities of the New Wave, or, more accurately, writer’s who grew up reading the New Wave. The stories Sanford nominates as SF Strange do not sound like New Wave stories to me. They sound like stories written by people who read the Golden Age stuff young, and then the best of the New Wave during their formative teenage years. SF strange stories are like alchemical batteries combining elements that shouldn’t react with one another. If anything, the elements should repel each other. But give them the right catalyst (aka, the writer), and the elements respond in a barely controlled explosion. SF Strange stories are barely contained explosions. Callaway’s assertion, taken in part from Sanford’s various discussions of Scifi Strange, is less problematic than what he suggests moments before about New Weird, especially because he acknowledges, as do I, that the connection between Scifi Strange and New Wave is a thin one at best–although I say as much primarily because I think New Wave has become a catchall term in much the same way as other subgenres, rendering it somewhat useless to the discussion of science fiction “movements” and “classes,” since it should represent a specific group of texts, rather than a whole body of texts that simply do not fit together because they lack a connecting point. For me, I look at New Wave and think of Samuel R. Delany and writers like him who were unafraid to use dense or experimental prose (by science fiction standards), to expand the horizons of science fiction’s discussion of gender, taboos, and so on, and who were also unafraid to shove aside linear narratives for something else altogether. Maybe I’m wrong, but that is what the definition of New Wave evokes for me, and when I take that into account, I find the connection between Scifi Strange and New Wave almost non-existent. Scifi Strange stories certainly experiment, but their experimentations, to me, seem to have less to do with the expansion of science fiction’s social horizons than they do with a general blurring of genre distinctions. However, while I agree with Callaway on the New Wave origins, I disagree with his argument that Scifi Strange stories are somehow a successful conversation of disparate elements. Many SciFi Strange stories seem to blur the edges between fantasy and science fiction, albeit through the stretching of science to its mystical limits. While these two genres imply an opposition, they have historically been quite the opposite. One need look no further than the science fiction and fantasy bookshelf and early science fiction, in which the two genres blended almost effortlessly in the form of SF icons like Buck Rodgers, Flash Gordon, Andre Norton, and so on. Blending genre elements is a common occurrence in SF precisely because SF and F are not disparate genres. Both SF and F draw from a similar source, and while they do attempt to go in different directions with the elements they draw from that originary scourse, it is not unexpected that the two would occasionally overlap without creating issues with narrative cohesion and setting. There is no repellent nature to be exposed here, because SF/F are simply branches from the same tree and inherently complementary in their apparent differentiation. As Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Scifi Strange embodies this very idea: that truly distant futures might not resemble a world we know and might instead look to us to be composed of elements that defy our understanding of the present–i.e. a limited, sometimes only near-future-oriented understanding. But Callaway has a little more to say about Scifi Strange: SF Strange
Surprise Aside: The Oddly Genre-Heavy Alachua County School Reading List
While I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday, I noticed that there was a table for the reading list for Alachua county’s public schools. I’m usually quite curious about what teenagers and kids are reading in school, largely because I think schools should spend more time fostering a love of reading than forcing students to learn about books they’ll never read again and that will likely ruin them as readers. I’ll be honest in saying that I expected the table to contain no genre titles except those that have been on reading lists for decades (1984 by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley). Boy was I surprised. Yes, a number of staples appear on the list of forty-eight books, but also a whole lot of newer titles. Of those forty-eight, nine are either science fiction, fantasy, or related in some way to either genre. Those titles are: World War Z by Max Brooks Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz Alas Babylon by Pat Frank Watership Down by Richard Adams Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Most of the books on the list are older books, and a good number are considered by many in the SF/F world to be classics, but the inclusion of World War Z, The Lovely Bones, and The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao is really interesting. All are books released in the last ten years and each has either been released as a film or pegged for a film release (other titles on the list have also been turned into movies, obviously). Set alongside older “classics,” they suggest that, perhaps, the schools in this county are acknowledging the cultural importance of genre titles. Let’s face it, at least half of the nine books listed above are obviously genre books. Unlike with 1984 or Brave New World, nobody with any sense can argue that World War Z or Ender’s Game are not science fiction, or that Alice in Wonderland is not a fantasy. And if you look at The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao, you’re hit in the face with explicit science fiction and fantasy references. I don’t know if it’s fair to read anything into it. I haven’t been to high school or middle school in almost a decade now, so it’s entirely possible that I’m simply out of touch. Still, that’s pretty cool that they get to read those books, don’t you think? We never got to read anything quite so exciting when I was in school… (Note: There were also a lot of newer non-genre titles on the list, but I didn’t write them down due to a lack of time.)