Random Rants

(A lot of this applies to fantasy as well, so that’s something to consider when reading this post) As per usual it seems like there is plenty of criticism of science fiction out there, especially amongst those who have some pull in the world of literature. Brian Aldiss has brought up the interesting question of ‘why are science fiction’s best writers so neglected‘? Why indeed? We have all headd of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, etc., but what about all those others who may have once written superb works that seem to have been lost in the wake of more prominent authors? And what exactly constitutes something being ignored? Does Aldiss mean works that aren’t discussed but still sold relatively well? Or does he mean any work that is actually good but for whatever reason never got any attention from sales or from the public? I think for this we’ll have to assume he’s mostly talking about works that have sold at least decently, but are forgotten.No matter how you look at literature there will always be something that is ignored. I think it would be impossible for any one person to read every single SF or F book that is printed in the United States alone. Maybe it could be done if such a person had no job or personal life. In any case, all SF books published can’t sell millions of copies or be critically acclaimed. So I think the crux of the matter is how books are chosen to be remembered. Do we remember Isaac Asimov because he was better than Kornbluth? Bradbury because he was better than Bester? Perhaps what makes authors like Asimov and Bradbury into science fiction icons is the stories that they told. Asimov developed the laws of robotics, which even today we consider with great interest as our technological achievements in robotics and artificial intelligence flood the market with new technologies. Bradbury presented us with a world where books are burned and it is illegal to read or own them. Do any of us remember the worlds of Kornbluth or Bester? What about Del Rey, Lafferty, or Gernsback? And why don’t we remember?Perhaps some aspect of this has to do with the fact that science isn’t taught as readily as it should be in schools. If high schools (or whatever would be in the equivalent in your country of origin) brought SF and F to the front, we might see a wider appreciation for the genre. More people will read Bester and Kornbluth, Asimov and Bradbury. College programs could really address the golden age of science fiction, an era that seems so forgotten in this ‘age of style’. For some of us the authors I mentioned are remembered, even if we have not read their work, but they aren’t remembered the same as the bigger names and I wonder why that is. Any thoughts? Any idea why we have forgotten Wagner in literature, but remember Tolkien? I’m interested to know what you all think out there. On a side note, Ridley Scott recently criticized the state of science fiction in film, which I found to be rather amusing. First, I have to make a point in saying that Scott didn’t write the novel that Blade Runner is loosely based on. Philip K. Dick did and it was called “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” On the subject of forgetting SF authors has Scott forgotten who is responsible for Blade Runner? All Scott did was bring the story to the big screen, and in a very artistic manner, which had to have been difficult back in the day. Regardless, it’s not Scott’s story and for him to pretend that it is, which he makes it very clear he thinks he wrote it in the above link, actually disgusts me. Maybe Philip K. Dick wouldn’t care, but I know I certainly would.But, that’s a difference discussion than what I was originally talking about. Now, Scott brings up a good point about how science fiction on TV and film is becoming almost repetitive–like horror films you might think. In a lot of ways this is very true. With shows like Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman, both remakes of originals which, while I believe different from their origins, still fall prey to common problems in science fiction film. Then there are the many Star Trek incarnations and the different Stargate series. We are seeing a lot of elements repeated in today’s SF that were original, or at least seemingly original, so many years ago. As Scott says, “where do all the writers go?” I don’t know either. I think there is a lack of truly deep SF right now in the media. We need to work on that.

    I recently found this link over at the lovely SF Signal. It’s an article in the Guardian by Brian Aldiss that discusses where the future of SF is. The article is called “Our Science Fiction Fate” with a caption that reads “The planet’s dire state makes the imaginative leaps of dystopian SF writers redundant”. First off, I don’t know if Aldiss is proposing that Al Gore is correct on his assertions that we, human beings, are screwing up our planet and it’s our fault that things are changing, or that the climate is changing, but the means by which this is happening are up for interpretation. He does posit that there are too many of us here, which is very true. Things are changing on this planet. People like Gore, who may think they are doing something for the betterment of mankind, are the wrong sorts of people to tell us about climate change. Why? Because when we first started listening to people who are hypocrites, we ended up with the skewed and failing governmental system we have today. Regardless, there are changes on this planet and it is ignorant for any of us–being humans–to assume that we know what the hell is going on. We know nothing. None of us have lived through a warming period and our history is nothing but a blip on the Earthen screen. The evidence that is constantly presented is skewed.    First it was those saying nothing was happening at all. These were the same people who took all the evidence that supported their argument and ignored anything that suggested otherwise. Then things changed, and we ended up with these Global Warming enthusiasts, people that don’t really know anything about the state of the planet, but ignorantly assume that everything told to them in the 100% truth. The sad thing is that the same narrow minded, oppressive view that their predicessors had is present here in these new world thinkers. There is a lot of evidence to show that the planet is changing, and some evidence to suggest that it has something to do with humans, but in the wake of that is a mountain of evidence that suggests that humans have little influence on the direction of the planet. This evidence is ignored. People assume that it is conservative propaganda when really it is evidence provided by a group of very well minded scientists that are more concerned for the well being of our planet than the Global Warming enthusiasts are. Why? Because they have taken into account that radically changing worldwide policies will have adverse effects on everyone. Wouldn’t you want to be 100% sure before making changes? Imagine this is making the decision to shoot someone because they are evil. If your evidence is 50% that he is evil and 50% that he’s not, would you feel okay shooting him anyway? I fully understand the logic that change needs to occur and I am in no way proposing that we don’t make societal changes. Inevitably we have to make changes because oil is growing thin and we need sources that can easily be replicated and will not disappear. But I also understand that if we’re wrong and we make radical decisions, we could inadvertently destroy millions of lives and have to live with that on our consciences when the truth comes to the front.    Now, Aldiss, it seems, is making the argument that science fiction writers have a problem with addressing what he calls ‘global threats’–Global Warming probably being the main thing to consider here–and with recycling ideas.    To the first point:    I cannot say that I agree with this, but only because I’m not overly familiar with any SF being written that addresses global catastrophes that we believe are around the corner. Certainly movies like The Core and The Day After Tomorrow–one that I refuse to see and one that I thought was rather entertaining–are examples of science fiction in the film industry. I can’t imagine that nobody is writing about Global Warming though. Perhaps what is happening isn’t that people aren’t writing about it, but that people who wouldn’t be considered SF writers are putting out books that are labeled as mainstream rather than SF. If that’s the case, then it’s no wonder we’re not hearing much about it in the SF world. I’ve seen some books that weren’t labeled SF about global catastrophe. So it seems that books on this subject exist, but perhaps not in the frequency that Aldiss would like, or at least not in the manner that Aldiss would agree is definitively SF.    The second point:    How does one avoid redundancy in any type of fiction, not just SF? When we look at fantasy, for example, there is a great tendency to be redundant because people constantly repeat the same basic things over and over. What makes it good is the writers. Someone can take a story about elves and make it really fascinating. Alternately, someone can write a story about traveling to Mars and do the same. But the argument seems directed towards dystopian redundancies–what I call commonalities. This is very true that dystopian ideals are repeated ad naseum. But this is the nature of SF. Our future seems very bleak, for good reason. Aldiss even points them out–the cold war, nuclear war, etc. When we look at it, we are constantly devising new ways to destroy ourselves, our governments are corrupt and manipulative, wars are being waged that shouldn’t, wars are dehumanized for those with technology, etc. We live in a world that is dystopian, as Aldiss has pointed out. Does this make for redundant SF though? I can’t say that it does, at least not in any different sense than the fact that fantasy is redundant too. The fact is that it’s human. SF simply addresses it a lot. There are still wonderful stories being told with gloriously fascinating futures intermixed.    Another question that should be asked is whether people are even interested in other forms of SF.