Reader Question: Do you think science fiction is inherently liberal?
A friend sent this question to me the other day, along with a bunch of others. I couldn’t answer them all in one post, but this one in particular sparked my curiosity. One thing that has to be decided is what the word “liberal” means in a political context (since that is the context in which the question was asked). It would be nice to look at American politics, but the more you look into that, the more the lines blur. What is an American liberal or conservative? Is it a raging socialist vs. a mouth-foaming Tea Bagger? Can we reduce the political parties to less government vs. more government? For the purposes of this post, I am going to take liberal to mean a belief in reform, progress, equality in a broad sense, environmentalism, and moderate to significant government intervention to achieve social cohesion; conservative will, for me, represent a disinterest in change (i.e. maintaining traditional values), individual liberty over sanctioned equality, and valuing profit and capitalism over people and the environment. These are all debatable, but this is the closest I can get to addressing the liberal vs. conservative argument in SF without bringing in irrelevant stuff. For example, while liberals are typically for abortion (if not in every form, then at least on a basic level) and conservatives are typically against it, it isn’t an issue that regularly appears within SF (I can’t even think of an example right now). Other liberal/conservative issues are the same, and so I’m not including them in the definition. Now to the answer:Having read and watched loads of science fiction books and movies, and dabbled in writing the stuff myself, I consider myself well-versed in SF. Yet, when I think about this question it occurs to me that the liberal/conservative issue has never seemed to be, well, an issue. I’ll read most anything in SF, and have wandered around enough in the SF landscape to be considered an SF slut. But looking back at what has been applauded by the SF community, or enjoyed fervently by me, it does seem that the majority of SF stories are to the left of the political scale. James Cameron’s Avatar, whether great or terrible, is undoubtedly liberal; its messages range from environmental to racial and so on, with the bad guys clearly marked as the wicked militaristic capitalists, and the good guys the soon-to-be-tree-hugging whiteys (and the giant smurfs, obviously).Examples of similar liberal leanings exist throughout SF film: Star Wars, WALL-E, and so on. There are exceptions: Metropolis both critiques industrialization and scientific/social progress (after all, the workers’ revolt in the end leads to the workers’ city being destroyed, which is not exactly a positive for the anti-industrialization crowd); Aliens isn’t altogether clear what it is (on the one hand it’s about the evils of the company/corporation, but on the other it’s about the gung-ho “shoot before asking” mentality that exemplifies the rather conservative old west more so than the probable more liberal future); District 9 only sort of supports liberal anti-corporate interests in the end, but the rest is only liberal if you don’t agree with the point of view being presented (which is exactly what happens in the real world in Africa, in terms of corporations dictating what goes on); and so on. Literature is no different. Regularly SF novels play the liberal vs. conservative card (defined generally by the present-day political climate). Edward Willett’s novels Marsegura and Terra Insegura pit genetically augmented fish people against a rabidly religious post-apocalypse Earth; issues of race, religion, tradition, and so on appear in the novel and, despite some ambiguities towards the end of the second book, present liberal values as the “good” ones and conservative values (albeit of the most extreme kind) as the “bad” ones. There are certainly plenty of other examples, most less obvious than might be found in Willett’s work or in the work of the infamous Kim Stanley Robinson.Some examples of conservative SF do exist, though: Frankenstein (against unfettered scientific progress; 1984 (an easy choice, since it is a critique of extremist liberalism); some of Heinlein’s work (entrepreneurs fighting government restriction, and so on); and many more.The interesting thing about SF literature is that its political leanings are somewhat easily isolated by genre. Military SF, for example, tends to be rather conservative compared to other forms of SF, mostly notably because the military often is perceived as conservative (even if that perception is inaccurate). Most of this is hearsay, to be honest, since I am not altogether familiar with military SF as a reader (just as an academic). But (and this is a big but) none of this proves that SF is inherently liberal. It does demonstrate that much–perhaps most–SF is liberal, sure, but that is an entirely different thing that what is implied in the question: that a liberal view of the world is an essential characteristic of SF. There are only a handful of things that I would be comfortable saying are inherent to SF, but a liberal view is not one of them. The other side of this is somewhat more complicated: even when liberal views are present and emphasized, they are often in league with conservative values. This seems to reflect the wishy-washy way in which Americans deal with politics, because most of us are a collection of liberal and conservative ideals, with one seemingly more pronounced than the other. SF, in my opinion, is less about the flaws of any particular political position or belief than about human flaws, and if you think about the extreme future of any human flaw, you’ll end up with something worth critiquing. I think the much more interesting part of all of this is the relative paucity of conservative SF in film and literature. Are conservatives less able or less inclined to think about their own future? Are writers more often than not of the liberal persuasion? You’d think that the answer to these two questions would be
European Science Fiction: More Serious Than American SF?
I’ve been mulling over a quote I found over at io9 some months back from Franz Rottensteiner, a European editor of science fiction. When I first read it, I found myself disagreeing almost immediately, and only recently have I managed to disentangle that incredibly nationalistic “but America is awesome” reaction from the things I actually have a problem with. First, I’ll give you the quote: I think that the great difference between the mass of American SF and the (very rare) European masterpieces is their degree of seriousness, moral seriousness. Best exemplified perhaps by Frederik Pohl’s “Gateway” novels and the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic. Roadside Picnic is in essence an existential novel about fighting on and keeping your moral integrity in a corrupt world where life is constant fight for survival. Pohl’s novels are simply about winning in the lottery, hitting the jackpot. It may cost your life, but the rewards for winning are tremendous, and the universe is full of gifts. The Strugatskys adopt fairy tale motifs, but their stories are the realistic ones, and Pohl’s the fairy tales. Let’s get realistic with numbers before I try to address what I think is a gross oversight on the part of Rottensteiner: –The Publishing Industry in the United States brought in roughly $35.7 billion of net revenue in 2006. –Following the United States (in 2006) were Japan (about $10.7 billion), China (about $4-5 billion), the United Kingdom (about $3.6 billion), and somewhere in the mix is Germany (I couldn’t find an exact number). In 2006, the Federation of European Publishers, using figures from twenty-six national associations of publishers, reported that the total net revenue from the publishing industry of Europe was about $27.8 billion. –Popular fiction makes up around 55% of what is purchased (which explains why popular fiction, in all its forms, has so much of a presence in bookstores). When I looked at all of that and then re-read what Rottensteiner said about American SF, a few things popped into my mind: a) On some level he’s probably right. When you consider the issue of mass production, most of what comes out of the U.S. is what you might call popcorn or fluff literature. That’s not to say that those titles aren’t good reads or without value, just that the content of their pages is not what most would consider to be of “literary value” (however you determine that). b) “Serious” is a very subjective concept. For some people, gambling may very well be a serious affair, and reading a book about characters gambling with their lives or money or whatever, regardless of the setting, could produce the same impact on that individual as a character study in novel format might on someone who reads fiction for substance. Rottensteiner’s argument, however, has one fatal flaw: he’s comparing the mass of American SF to what he very clearly states are the rare European masterpieces. With that kind of logic, it’s easy to make any kind of blanket statement about the publishing industry of another country or continent. For example, if you look at the split of fiction by language in Europe, it becomes very clear that English is not in the majority in terms of overall size. Only about 21% of sales are for titles in English in Europe, which is beat out only slightly by titles written in German. Collected together, 79% of sales in Europe are for books not written in English. If you take the very generalized route that Rottensteiner takes, then we could assume that the majority of all books in Europe are of no interest to Americans simply because they are not written in English, and, thus, Europeans are, by default, very disinterested in having their work read abroad. A ridiculous argument, to say the least. But, even if you set all this aside and take Rottensteiner’s argument for what it is trying to say, the whole thing simply falls apart. One can’t possibly make the argument that European SF is more serious than American SF without immediately coming off as somewhat ignorant (or maybe extremely ignorant). This is like saying that American film is not serious simply because everyone goes to fun blockbusters like Transformers, which inevitably become representative of the industry, even though they aren’t. What about authors like Neal Stephenson, Jeff VanderMeer, Ursula K. Le Guin, John Crowley, Samuel R. Delany, Jonathan Lethem, Cormac McCarthy, Mary Doria Russell, and the dozens and dozens of others in the U.S. who are writing “literary” SF? These people aren’t names people recognize because they’re unimportant to the genre. They’re names because they’ve provided something to the genre that Star Wars novels have yet to do: a kind of original, well-crafted, well-written, beyond-pop supremacy that makes the genre so diverse and great. It all seems rather silly to say that somehow American SF is less serious than European SF. Maybe it seems that way when you look at the body of science fiction literature that has come out of Europe and made its mark in America. If you look at just that, then, yes, of course European SF looks remarkably serious by comparison. But that’s like saying that translated fiction in the U.S. is somehow representative of the publishing industries of other countries, which is something that anyone with a few braincells knows is ridiculous. American SF may very well have a vibrant popcorn fiction market, but it has an equally powerful and vibrant non-popcorn streak too, and it’s only invisible if you’re not really looking. Sources:The io9 ArticleParapublishing Book Industry StatisticsEuropean Book Publishing Statistics (pdf)The Field of Japanese Publishing (pdf) P.S.: I’ve taken the liberty of using current (as of 6/9/10) currency rates to figure out the dollar equivalent of the various figures listed above. Those rates were likely different at the time of the report and at the time of sales, so there are obviously some discrepancies present in this post. P.S.S.: I would love to include statistics for the number of books
Review Copies: Random Gender Distribution or Directed Traffic?
Recently I’ve been having a discussion on my podcast and elswhere on the Internet about the problem of gender balance in fiction, particularly the anthology that sparked a bit of a controversy a couple of weeks ago. One thing that has come to my attention due to that discussion and due to the list I posted the other day is that my own reading has been heavily skewed towards the male end of the spectrum. Why? It’s not a conscious or subconscious choice. Most of my reading is for school, so by default much of what I read are “classics” or subjects that are, unfortunately, heavily male. The other side of this, however, is something I want to talk about here: review copies. Looking back at all the books I have received for review, I can honestly say that only a dozen of those titles have been by women (not a terrible number, but also not ideal). On the one hand, I am very grateful to publishers who have been gracious enough to send me books for review, firstly because I have been exposed to a number new and amazing writers, male and female, and secondly because I like free books. On the other hand, however, I find it very curious that so many of the books I have received have been by male authors. Strangely enough, most of what I receive for review are fantasy novels, which is rather female heavy–at least, when you compare it to science fiction. This has raised a few questions:–Does my gender have something to do with what publishers decide to send me? Tor, for example, publishes a lot of books every year, and obviously can’t send them all to me, knowing that I can’t possibly read them all. So, they have to decide which books to send to me, and which books not to. Does my gender play into that? –Are certain publishers more male heavy than others? I know that men publish more SF than women (and I imagine that’s true of fantasy as well), but is it possible that certain publishers are more male heavy than others, and push male authors over female ones? I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it’s a question I asked myself anyway. –Who are the new SF/F female writers in the field right now? Not folks who have been at it for a decade, but folks who have only begun publishing novels in the last year. Who are they and do they matter to the genre? If not, why not or why should they? I’m asking this not because I think women don’t matter to the genre, but because I’m curious if they have an impact on genre right now or if they are sort of hidden in the shadows. Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this, or am I just talking to myself in the corner?
Genre Inclusivity: The Fundamental Paradox of the Love/Hate Relationship in SF/F
Last week, Weirdside and I discussed M.D. Lachlan’s article on the inclusivity of the genre community in the second episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show. While we both agreed that, generally speaking, the genre fiction community is far more open and welcoming than other segments of the writing world, we never properly addressed what I think is a potential destroyer of genre fiction. I’m not talking about disinterest in reading science fiction, or the lack of respect by academics, or the various other things that people cite as the downfall of SF/F or other genres. I’m talking about the internal conflict within SF/F, induced in part by the ability of the Internet to provide a space for any voice, opinion, thought, and so on, often without serious consequences for the speaker. The conflict usually appears with a “fail” at the end of it, such as GenderFail, RaceFail 09 (and 10), and so on. The problem with these moments in SF/F isn’t so much that nobody is addressing a legitimate issue. It would be foolish to claim that race and gender are not important problems in our culture. It’s unfortunate that we still have to deal with things like the casting calls for The Last Airbender or the fact that not enough women are being given their due in today’s SF/F book culture. Despite how inclusive genre seems to be, it still has a lot of problems that need to be worked out. This is part of the paradox of inclusivity, because the genre is not as inclusive as it should be, and moments when that inclusivity is questioned have created more uproar and divides than were present before (the result not just of the people on the “bad” side, but on the “good” side too; these arguments have no innocent parties, sadly). The problem with RaceFail and GenderFail is the way certain individuals have used these moments not to help solve a problem or bring attention to it, but to divide us further by ejecting innocent people from the discussion, disregarding key facts, and generally using these moments as soap boxes for a view that may or may not be as true as they think. Racism exists, yes, but one racist instance at one time doesn’t necessarily mean that other instances that are similar are inherently racist. Sometimes the dice just roll that way, and that’s life. The same is true of gender. Again, I don’t deny that racism and sexism exist; if the last year has taught us anything (and the last couple of months especially), it is that both are very much alive and well and on the rise, a fact that, for the vast majority of Americans, should be disturbing, but which has not been appropriately addressed by people in the various movements in which such racism or sexism are rearing their ugly heads. But, despite that, what I have said before, and will inevitably repeat somewhat here and in the third episode of the Skiffy and Fanty Show coming this weekend, is that the SF/F community is in need of a massive overhaul, not just in its publishing realms, but in its engagement among fans, producers of SF/F products (writers, editors, and so on), and academics. We’ve continued to become divisive in nature, and this is a problem that needs to be solved now before more and more people get shoved out of the SF/F mainstream or movements once regarded as legitimate are sunk in a sea of unproductive anger. Case in point, and an issue I recently discussed with Weirdside in our third episode (albeit not in as much detail as I would have liked), is the recent controversy over Paizo Publishing’s Before They Were Giants anthology. Bloggers and critics grew angry over the fact that the anthology contains only one woman and excludes a vast number of excellent big name female writers. The editor, however, came out of the woodworks and explained his editorial process, part of which involved a number of women SF/F writers turning him down for the anthology (many, we’re led to assume, rejected the offer for very good reasons); some writers who were mentioned in the comments were actually excluded by the editor not because they were women, but because they had been published in a series of anthologies with the same concept years before, and the editor didn’t want to create an anthology of repeats. These are only two of the points that the editor made, but bloggers and critics wouldn’t have any of it. Some went so far as to ignore the most important points made by the editor, as if desperate to keep the onslaught going. In all of this, only a few people came out with honest faces, and a number, some particularly prominent members of the critical/academic SF/F community, came out looking like ruthless trolls so sunk into the bitter world they’ve created for themselves that they can’t see what their actions are actually doing: creating more divide and solving nothing whatsoever. The one thing I have always wondered about these “fail” movements is whether it is possible for the SF/F community to take a step back and perhaps use the community itself as a vehicle to make the changes to publishing and production that need to be made, without all of the vitriol flooding the Internet and poisoning the community. How important is it to people to bring more women into the SF world? Or people of color? Or international authors? To me, they seem monumentally important, so much so that I can take a step back and think about ways to create change without alienating or destroying people. I don’t want more female or PoC writers and characters if the exchange is one of the following: Many good editors, perhaps who make a mistake or have legitimate reasons to have left out some female/PoC writers, lose their jobs and become ostracized by the community that inevitably wants them to change. It
Science Fiction Criticism: A Necessary “Evil”?
What is the value of science fiction criticism, both in its literary form and as a medium used by the science fiction community to dig into the good and the bad of the genre? If you buy Kyle Brady’s argument, its value is a negative number. Back in March of 2010, Brady wrote an article on True/Slant about the damage criticism is doing to the science fiction genre. Unfortunately, it seems as if Brady missed the point of criticism and its value within the genre community. Without criticism there is only praise, and when praise dominates the market, nothing has any value; you really don’t have to look much further than YouTube or Amazon.com to understand why praise without criticism fades into the background and contains no value. Brady seems to think that criticism–specifically, harsh criticism–is potentially catastrophic, namely because it supposedly removes the value from “undying love and devotion” to the genre. The more critical and harsh certain blogs have become–he cites io9 as a prime example–the faster the value of love and devotion decreases–to the point that said admiration fades from the background, leaving the genre with an empty hole. I don’t buy this argument, primarily because there is also so much meaningless admiration and praise flooding the Internet that any blog or news avenue trying to pay lip service to said admiration is really adding nothing to the conversation. What exactly do I contribute to the fans of Battlestar Galactica by writing about why I love Battlestar Galactica? I still write about it, but it’s more for myself than for the fans of the show or for people who’ve never seen it. My admiration of BSG is essentially an empty gesture, except to me. Criticism, however, does add to the conversation, even if it is nitpicky. Why? Because to look at science fiction through a critical lens opens a dialogue about what is good and bad about genre, what works and doesn’t work, and so on, which brings the community at large to the forefront, where they can question and demand better from the people who produce the things they love.In fact, I’d argue that we’ve become too nice in the science fiction community, giving so much space to the blindly devotional and not enough space to the deep thinkers. A prime example of this, I think, is Avatar, which Brady cites as an example of his argument.Of all the movies you could bring to the conversation, Cameron’s “masterpiece” is probably the one film that most deserved what it got from its critics and detractors. Here is a film with an absurdly large budget and also the most amazing visuals ever put into a film–so amazing, in fact, that they’ve already begun changing how we make movies. But, for all that–all the money spent ($200-310 million, depending where you look)–it also has the most derivative story ever conceived for a major motion picture–so derivative, in fact, that it is almost painful. That’s the problem with Avatar, and a point that Brady misses when he tries to indicate that all fiction and movies are derivative (they are, but that’s another argument). It’s not that Avatar is a derivative movie, it’s that it is a derivative movie that knows it is one, and that anyone who saw it or heard about it knew from the start. This is not good storytelling, but lazy storytelling. The fact that most of the film’s budget was spent on the visual effects is painfully obvious in the story. At least when Cameron tried to retell Titanic, he did so by adding something to it, by taking a story we already knew and creating unique, emotionally-engaging characters to spice things up (yes, I’ll admit that as much as I hate on Titanic, I do think it’s a good movie). Avatar was panned because those of us who write about the genre and were supposed to make up Cameron’s core audience expected more from the man who gave us Aliens, The Abyss, and so on. Cameron is a director who knows how to merge beautiful visuals with strong stories and characters, and the idea that he could fail so miserably to deliver anything other than a giant special effects test was a disappointment to pretty much all of us. The criticism was necessary, because otherwise we’re asking for more of this kind of garbage.Criticism isn’t ruining science fiction; it’s making it better. Without criticism, the genre can’t grow. Devote yourself to your television shows, yes, but understand the flaws and let people know about it. We are the audience. If we want better, we have to show it. Battlestar Galactica, overall, is one of the best science fiction television shows to ever play on our screens, and if we ever hope to have more shows that take character and narrative depth as seriously as Ron D. Moore and his league of writers did, then we have to look at the rest of the genre and make out opinions known, even if they’re negative. Science fiction had to earn the following it has today, and it didn’t get to where it is now by cutting out the criticism. Look back through the history of the genre and you will see all manner of harsh criticism against the genre from people outside of it. Without that, the genre never would have grown and become what it is today: one of the biggest genres in the history of the narrative storytelling. If that isn’t support for the value of criticism, then I don’t know what is.
Self-publishing Lies and Myths: Deception and Unethical Practices
I’ve railed against this idea before in smaller form, but I wanted to address this particular self-publishing issue directly. A whole lot of self-publishers and the people that support them have been advocating the practice of creating individual “imprints” to market one’s book. Sue Collier recently blogged about this very concept, albeit rather briefly, in response to another blogger’s rejection of self-publishing. While I agree with Collier that self-publishing is a better route for non-fiction than fiction, I take issue with the “imprint” model that so many self-publishers have now begun to use, and for good reason: In addition, if you self-publish properly—start up your own imprint, purchase your own block of ISBNs, and have the book well edited and well designed—as opposed to going the subsidy route (often incorrectly called “self-publishing”), reviewers should have no idea you are self-published. Your book is simply a title from a new independent publisher. And there is no stigma there. The problem with this very idea is actually its goal: “reviewers should have no idea you are self-published.” That, obviously, extends to consumers of all stripes, and the practice is woefully unethical. The idea that a self-published author should go the extra step to essentially trick the consumer on the foundational level into thinking that a particular book was published by a real publisher is nothing short of deceptive. Why? Of all of the self-published authors I have seen doing this, none of them are open about the fact that they are self-published. They play the “I’m published just like *insert NYT bestelling author here*” role, despite having done nothing remotely similar. Some of them even lie when confronted about it, so desperate to keep up appearances that they won’t even admit the lie when all the facts are laid out in front of them (I’m looking at you zombie lady, whose “publisher” has a website made by her husband and thinks I’m too stupid to put two and two together). The problem with pretending to be traditionally published is that it is disingenuous. People who do this are not traditionally published. Yes, they might have produced a good piece of fiction in a nice exterior package, but they did not submit the manuscript to a publisher or an agent or go through any of the numerous processes involved in traditional publishing. Nobody sat with the manuscript and decided it deserved to be in print. Consumers are not always aware of the processes, but they do know that there is a difference between traditionally published and self-published, even if they don’t always get those differences correct. Most consumers would avoid a self-published book, perhaps to the detriment of an author who actually produced something of value. But that’s part of the game. Misrepresenting what you are is quite literally a deceptive act. I would liken this to putting a science fiction book in a romance novel package. When a customer buys that book, they expect a romance novel, not a science fiction one. It’s one thing to create a nice product, but it’s another to pretend that that product is something it is not. I would even go as far as to say this is no different than lying directly to the consumer, and consumers really don’t like to be lied to (as we’ve seen before with authors who have lied, such as that fellow that Oprah endorsed, and Sarah Palin–although, perhaps people liked Palin’s lies due to the hilarity they created). As far as unethical business practices go, this is one step from the top of my list–right below flat-out lying by self-publishers to authors about self-publishing and by companies who do the same. Publishers publish other people; self-publishers publish themselves. It’s a simple distinction. The solution to this practice is perhaps not as radical as one might think after reading all of the above. Creating an imprint is entirely plausible, if done right. I think the best way to do it without reaching into the unethical/deceptive spaces is to create an imprint that is your name. Consumers are smart enough to put two and two together. But, I doubt anyone will buy into that solution. There’s so much fear over the legitimate stigma attached to self-publishing that, for some, being deceptive and lying is much easier than trying to battle for respectability–stealing it is quicker and less painful. What this has all taught me is to be very cautious about the books I buy. If I’ve never heard of a publisher, I look them up, and dig. I do this because I don’t appreciate being lied to or deceived. Ever. It’s a pain in my backside, but I’m not willing to throw my money on something unless I know who the publisher is and that said publisher is legitimate. Self-publishing can make purchases of books a risk to the consumer, and I know a lot of people, right now and in the past, who don’t like to risk their money. And nobody wants to risk their money on something that was presented to them as a lie. Thoughts? Let me know in the comments.