A New SF Manifesto of Bologna: Jetse de Vries and the Literature of Change (Part One)
(You can read parts two and three at the following links: part two; part three.) I struggled for hours on how to respond to Jetse de Vries’ post on whether science fiction should die. Part of the problem with the post is that it’s just another re-hash of several tired, inaccurate, and as-yet-properly-researched arguments we’ve all heard before. How do you respond to something that is saying the same thing over and over while simultaneously ignoring dozens of counter arguments that are not illegitimate or capable of being reduced to “part of the problem?” But, having thought about this, I think I know what it is that bothers me so much about his arguments about SF: they lack the ingenuity and strength that have made science fiction as a literary genre (and now a visual medium) so important and groundbreaking in the history of literature. It’s precisely because he is re-hashing tired arguments and pontificating about things that would be downright devastating to a genre he claims is having so many problems that I have an issue with de Vries’ arguments (SF is not actually having that many problems, but hey, if we say it is over and over, maybe it will become true, right? He also thinks that SF is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Forget all those bestselling Star Wars novels and Alastair Reynolds and what not; totally meaningless, the whole lot). That’s how I’m going to respond: by de-constructing de Vries’ arguments to point out what exactly is wrong with what he is saying and how it will do nothing but irreparable damage to the genre. (This will be broken up into three parts, because there’s a lot to be said, and I wouldn’t want to put you through reading 4,000 words of rant in one go.) Point One – SF should be the literature of change One of the things de Vries proposes is that SF should stop calling itself the literature of ideas (I disagree) and should instead become the literature of change, an concept that has no business being applied to SF as a genre. Changing SF from being about ideas to being about change is ridiculous on two levels: 1. His reference to addressing the supposed racism and general non-inclusive nature of SF is true of almost every single genre of written literature being produced today, regardless of the number of awards won by people of color and women within other genres. Hell, it’s true of every single entertainment medium. I’ll mention this later, but the simplistic route everyone takes to proclaim SF racist works for romance, mystery, general fiction (literary or what have you), movies, television, etc. Trying to say that SF should change its mission statement because of this is not saying anything new, and it’s not saying anything revolutionary either. 2. The idea that SF should be about change internally (i.e. in what it’s talking about) is like saying that SF should become the liberal scientist version of a preacher. Readers are not interested in being told “this is how we fix the world, yippee” anymore than they are interested in having their pastor come unannounced into their homes to tell them how to repent for their sins. If that’s not what this whole optimistic SF manifesto bologna is calling for, then they need to rework how they present their little movement; right now, it sounds like they want SF to become exactly what nobody wants (and I’ll talk about that some more later, too). Point Two – SF is racist (sorta) Well, we’ve heard this argument before, and it wasn’t (necessarily) any more true back then than it is now. Is there a problem of under-representation of people of color (and women) both as characters and authors in SF? Of course. Is this somehow indicative of institutionalized racism in SF? Nope. In fact, what de Vries and everyone else who has claimed that SF is racist miss are the real questions we should be asking: How many SF books are written by people of color and how many have people of color (or women) as significant characters? How many women and people of color submit SF manuscripts to publishers? (Nobody has an answer for this, and any time you ask you either get silence or someone blames you for contributing to the problem; honestly, if you’re going to talk about institutionalized racism in SF publishing, you have to have all of the data to support it.) What is the ratio of submissions and publications by people of color and women in the various publishing industries? There’s a lot of talk over at de Vries’ post about the Nobel Prize and the Man Booker Prize, both of which are irrelevant without appropriate correlating data. Has anyone actually bothered to understand the social and statistical conditions of the SF genre? No. This is why I’m tired of seeing this argument. If you think SF is racist, fine, but I’m less inclined to believe you if you’re unwilling to actually do the work necessary to actually prove that. Perhaps the problem with SF is precisely that everyone says it’s racist, and so people of color and women typically avoid it. After all, if people kept saying “that genre is racist,” would you continue writing fiction in that genre and submitting? Taken another way, if everyone told me that SF wasn’t for men, and that no men ever get published in SF, etc., I think I’d have a harder time justifying writing in that genre (I’d then write fantasy). I get the frustration, but it’s far more frustrating to want to actually affect change when nobody is a) providing the answers to do so (de Vries does not; he just says the same things that everyone else has said, without actual solutions, ironically enough); and b) actually understanding the larger picture (again, de Vries is not doing that either, but is instead saying the same things we’ve heard all year, all of which have
Academic Goodies: The Science Fiction of My New Year
Well, I said I would post the proposal abstracts for the various academic conferences I will be attending. All three of them deal with science fiction on some level, as indicated here. It should be interesting to present all of these papers and field questions from the audience. I don’t get many opportunities to talk about science fiction with fellow academics. So here goes: “Habitually Us: Battlestar Galactica, the “Android Personality,” and Human Preservation” (to be presented at the SWTXPCA Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico): Philip K. Dick, in talking about the rise of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s, suggested that society had fallen prey to what he called the “android personality,” a reflexive, repetitive personality incapable of making exceptions or doing anything other than what it had always done. There are obvious connections between this concept and his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and it is a concept that can readily be found within more modern forms of science fiction. Ron D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica imagines a future/past that mirrors many of the same concerns Dick imagined were present in the proliferation of the “android personality.” Not only does Battlestar Galactica question the very nature of humanity by juxtaposing it against the humanoid Cylon (literally and metaphorically), but it also imagines the interchangeability of the “android personality,” from human to Cylon, and the reflexive nature of both. In this paper, I will use Philip K. Dick’s non-fiction “philosophies” to analyze the relationship between the humans and Cylons of Battlestar Galactica and the “android personality.” I will argue that the reflexive nature of the “android personality” is both based on a purely selfish motive and is also a necessary, though not necessarily positive, human reaction to preserve human identity in the face of something human and not-human at the same time. “Otherism: The Dissection of Humanity and the Negation of the Human in Battlestar Galactica” (to be presented at the PCA/ACA Conference in St. Louis, Missouri): Science fiction film has had a curious history in relation to the human/other dichotomy. In its early days, science fiction imagined the other as the monstrous alien or robot, a vision that has now largely been adopted by supernatural horror and the less frequent science fiction horror. The re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, however, has offered a contrary and more complicated view of the other in science fiction film. With the advent of the Cylons as biological “machines,” the human/other dichotomy becomes not only an allegory for our current and past relations to the “other,” but also a force that essentially dissects humanity piece by piece by exposing the human to an “other” so like itself. Humanity’s understanding of what it means to be “human,” thus, is put in jeopardy. In this paper I will argue that Battlestar Galactica’s presentation of human-like Cylons effectively negates the existence of the category of the human. I will examine the literal deletion of the human as a distinctive entity, and humanity’s responses to the sudden disruption of its identity, from a past-reflective collection of human exceptionalist reactions to the acknowledgement of the emerging death of the human and the hybridization of the human/other dichotomy. “Shaping the Shapeless: New Weird, Bizarro, and Bending Genres”(to be presented at the “What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English–the first decade” conference in Lincoln, England): The past ten years have changed many things in science fiction and fantasy. The former has had what some have called a golden age in film, while the latter has seen a remarkable explosion of interest in literature with the power of the urban fantasy and young adult markets essentially turning the entire genre into one of the most lucrative and vibrant writing fields around–more so than it ever was. But what of science fiction literature and literature on the margins of speculative fiction? The new Millenium has resulted in a curious array of changes within speculative fiction. Two movements have been primarily responsible in what one might call the “weirding” of the genre: New Weird and Bizarro. Each places emphasis on an impossible-to-define exceptional weirdness, and the result has been the development of a cult following and a significant, if not unintentional, influence on the wider range of science fiction and fantasy being written today. The 2000s, as a result, have been noticeably experimental in form, style, and content, with new and old authors approaching speculative fiction from a odd, even surreal perspective. In this paper I will analyze the emergence of the “weird” through New Weird, Bizarro, and other as yet un-named categories and their widespread influence on speculative fiction, from the unique, spatially disconnected short fiction of Jason Sanford to the characteristically nonsensical atmospheres and concepts of writers like Jeff Vandermeer, Brian Francis Slattery, China Mieville, Steve Aylett, and others. There you go. Any thoughts?
A New Hope: Final Resolutions to the Power of Science Fiction
(…or why optimism in science fiction is not all that hard to find if you’re really looking) What is it about so much of science fiction that drives writers and film-makers to grasp the pessimistic (dystopias, end of the world schemes, et. al.)? I think I’ve finally figured it out. Whether or not this is a conscious element is irrelevant, because it is almost always there, and it is perhaps the most optimistic thought, idea, concept, whatever you want to call it that might ever exist in any form of fiction you can find (and I have no illusions that this thing exists in other genres too). It is so powerful that it overwhelms when you discover it, when you see it buried underneath all the flashy images and the downright terrifying futures imagined by writers of all stripes. And if you’re like me, one of those weird folks that actually cries in movies, then it is something that drives you to tears, because it is beautiful and uplifting and tremendous in ways that you might never expect. It is an amalgam of hope and perseverance, of spirit and resolve, of so many tiny things that exist in all of us, which we take for granted or ignore so often. It doesn’t really have a name, but you can see it come to life at the moment when all hope is lost, when you think that it might just be the end of a character, or our species in general, when humanity itself seems lost to its own devices (psychological that they are, they exhibit a kind of foreboding element that is both “proper to man,” as Derrida would say, and also terrifyingly destructive to the prospect of a salvagable humanity). It’s that flash that answers the question William Adama (of Battlestar Galactica) sadly recognizes: the question of whether we deserve to exist. In an attempt to display this, I have to show by example. Maybe you cried at these moments too, or maybe you think I am being absurd, but they are moments that show us just what it is that makes mankind worth saving. We can see, in these little moment of science fiction wonder, what makes fiction and movies so powerful in our lives, and what makes science fiction so perfect at displaying the human condition at its worst and at its best, and in that moment where we know, deep down, there we really are something more than what we see every day (more than all the othering, hatred, death, destruction, mutilation, mutation, and terror that is the human). Example One (from the end of Sunshine) – the SacrificeEverything has fallen apart. The attempt to resurrect the Icarus One so the mission to restart the Sun will have two shots has failed and a psychotic Icarus One captain has stolen aboard the Icarus Two after sabotaging the airlock. One by one everyone is dying and it seems like all hope is lost. Then Kappa vents the ship, stumbles to the payload for the Icarus Two after disconnecting it to start the launch sequence, and takes a crazy space walk (or jump, rather) to manually set off the fireworks, sacrificing himself and anyone else alive to make sure it gets done, while fighting off the crazed captain. That’s it. That whole moment, with the music accompanying it. Maybe it seems trite, or silly, but in that moment I get that feeling that so much of science fiction is trying to give me: that even in the worst of times there is something redeeming about us, that our sad, pathetic little species can accomplish something so beautiful in the face of destruction and despair that everything pales before it. All that our minds can create (all that art, philosophy, intelligence, and technology) can finally come together in the face of humanity’s absolute negation (a human self that is at once all that is humanity and all that is destructive of humanity) to spark the beautiful moment of birth (a rebirth, literally, of our greatest god–the sun). Example Two (from the end of Battlestar Galactica) – the Desperate Leap (or the Other Sacrifice)Cut out the last half hour of the final episodes and imagine only the lead-up to the final battle and the battle itself, right up until the random jump to Earth (New Earth, Other Earth, whatever you want to call it). That’s where I’m looking to. The Galactica is falling apart, literally, and yet there is something in the idea of Hera, of that little half-human/half-Cylon girl that Adama can’t let go. Whether she’s the future of humanity or Cylon isn’t relevant to Adama (not really), but it is what she stands for: she’s part of the crew, part of the ragtag gang of humans, and a piece of the very soul both human and Cylon, and a man like Adama cannot let a child, an innocent, be destroyed by the terror of the second-Cylon half (the Cavals, Simons, and Dorals). So, he sacrifices half of his own heart, the Galactica, and the other half, Roslin, and anyone else willing to take the risk, to get Hera back. The whole idea is suicide, but that doesn’t matter. It’s about the greater idea: what they are sacrificing themselves for. The whole scene is astonishingly littered with what I’m trying to talk about here, this intangible thing that is optimistic even in the face of impending doom (and the Galactica is, or should be, doomed). The end is the moment when the line doesn’t dissolve, but begins to break; humans and Cylons are still separate, but it is here that we see both groups (the “good” Cylons, anyway) beginning to eat away at the line. United not just in a common goal, but in a goal to revitalize one’s soul, the merger in the fight for Hera signals an answer: humanity is worth saving. And the final second when everything is falling apart again, just when it seems
The Twelve Days of Christmas, (WISB Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009 Remix)
We science fiction and fantasy fans don’t have enough Christmas songs to keep us happy. So, I submit to you my 2009 SF/F version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Enjoy:On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,An accidental time traveler.On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Two different Spocks,And an accidental time traveler.On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spocks,And an accidental time traveler.On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spocks,And an accidental time traveler.On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spocks,And an accidental time traveler.On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Eight transforming robots,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Nine voodoo dolls,Eight transforming robots,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Ten insect-like aliens,Nine voodoo dolls,Eight transforming robots,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Eleven blue giantsTen insect-like aliens,Nine voodoo dolls,Eight transforming robots,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler.On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,Twelve humanoid Cylons,Eleven blue giantsTen insect-like aliens,Nine voodoo dolls,Eight transforming robots,Seven braindead vampires,Six fledgling wizards,Five Terminators,Four furry monsters,Three neutron bombs,Two different Spock’s,And an accidental time traveler. There you have it. Have fun singing it around your family!
Seven Science Fiction Movies That Should Be TV Shows
There are a lot of fantastic movies out there that have the potential to be more. Terminator, for example, certainly had the possibility of a TV show built into it, and with the moderate success of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, everyone can see why (even if you didn’t like the show to begin with). But what other movies would make great TV shows? The following are my top seven movies that should be turned into TV shows: Galaxy QuestTim Allen is probably an easy pick for the small screen. For one, he’s already been there with Home Improvement, demonstrating that he knows the trade; and two, Galaxy Quest is a perfect fit for his comedic style both on the big screen and on our television sets. Add in the rest of the cast, some of them TV experts and some of them just damn good actors, and you have the potential for a great show. The only thing that has to be decided is this: do you tell a story about the actors going on space adventures, or the story of the fictional characters in the TV show?Problem: Daryl Mitchell is paralyzed due to a car accident; the way around that is to rewrite his character with the same disability.Pitch: America’s answer to Doctor Who. EquilibriumWhile the movie is fairly self-contained, it alludes to a lot of back matter that would make for an interesting television series (preferably on HBO or Showtime, rather than the networks). You could tell one of two stories: the prequel story of how the world turned into this emotion-rejecting, drugged up ninja clan, or the sequel of what happens after Bale’s character gets revenge. Both could work, but I suspect that a prequel would be somewhat pointless, since we know where things end up.Problem: There would have to be some damned fine writers to pull this off. You could say that of most of these, but I think Equilibrium requires the kind of writer who can manage the depth of character needed to make it interesting and powerful. Someone like Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica, perhaps.Pitch: 1984 meets Brave New World and Philip K. Dick. The OneAs one of my favorite movies of all time, this Jet Li action flick has a built in concept for a television series. All you have to do is cut out all the bits about “the one” and tell a show about the police officers who patrol the multiverse (multiple dimensions). Make it part police procedural, part action and you’ve got the makings of an awesome show.Problem: A TV version of The One can’t be anthology style like The Outer Limits or other shows (i.e. the terrible Dollhouse). It has to really get into the characters and provide more than a repetition of the same basic plot over and over.Pitch: Science Fiction has a love affair with Law & Order. Alien/AliensTwo classics of science fiction, the series has recently been bastardized in the Alien vs. Predator movies and is desperately in need of a proper revival. A TV show produced by one of the cable networks with quality writing, plenty of the dark, scary horror, and the military-style science fiction elements could remind us what was so awesome about the originals. There’s potential for an expansive look into the universe that gave us Ripley and the alien queen, with all kinds of social and political dynamics coming into play.Problem: Whoever tries to pull this off would has to realize that the only way Alien/s can work is with decent writing, good special effects, and realistic portrayals of the aliens. This means no TV-quality CG and a lot of attention paid to detail. While the original Alien was sparse, a TV show has to do more.Pitch: Aliens. That is all. The Fifth ElementCut out all of the heavy religious stuff (which worked well for the movie) and you could have a really interesting world to work with for a TV show. The Fifth Element is one of those weird, strangely lovable films that gives you so much, but can only develop a few of the important points before ending. A TV show, however, could take all of those bits that we only got a glimpse of and make a pretty weird, pretty fun story.Problem: Deciding what kind of story to tell in this particular universe would be a tough choice. Do you ignore the original characters in exchange for a broader, adventurous, slightly odd show, or do you stick with the God person and the cab driver? That’s a tough choice.Pitch: It’s Star Wars meets Red Dwarf and Total Recall. Serenity/FireflyYes, it’s already been a TV show. Yes, it was canceled. But the fact that Whedon’s fans helped spawn the movie Serenity should be reason enough to consider the possibility of a revival of a Firefly series. Just imagine what it would be like to see Reynolds and his crew firing up the sky with Serenity, causing mayhem and havoc wherever they go. There’s still life in the series, and fans would fall head over heels for the opportunity to see it back on their television screens.Problem: It’s already been canceled once. The solution is to host the show on another network, preferably one that has a healthy respect for science fiction. Besides, some of the original characters were killed off in Serenity, and Whedon would have to come up with some damned good reasons to replace them.Pitch: A western in space with your lovable ragtag group of smugglers, gunhands, and government experiments. Starship TroopersYes, I am well aware of the horrible animated show and the various craptastic sequels to the original movie, but if any concept deserves a shot at being blown up Band of Brothers style by HBO or Showtime, it is Starship Troopers. With a decent budget and some good writing, this classic science fiction satire could really take Heinlein’s original novel to new heights. All it needs is a little facelift and some good, honest
Nothing Belongs To Us: the Anti-property Universe
Human beings are funny creatures. I should know; I’m one of them. We have, with rare exception, an unhealthy obsession with ownership. The T.V. in my house? Mine. The books and shelves? Mine. The nine leopard geckos? Mine. It’s not unusual for us to claim ownership, to want to have control, psychological or otherwise, of objects and other living creatures (and if slavery isn’t a prime example of our own obsession in owning other people, then I don’t know what is). But isn’t it going to be a shock for all of us when/if we one day reach the stars and realize that, crap, all this stuff out there isn’t ours? We can’t even agree about who owns the Moon, so why any of us are under the illusion that somehow we own the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, all the asteroids and other planets/planetoids, the Kuiper Belt, or even the Milky Way Galaxy and all of its freedom-fighting black holes roaming around eating up planets and other stellar bodies without thinking twice (it’s a black hole, after all) is beyond me. And what if there are aliens out there, all with similar obsessions, or the lack of them, for that matter? Can you imagine us saying “well, actually, Earth is ours, and you can’t have it” to an alien species that a) has more firepower than us; and b) has no idea what the hell we’re talking about anyway? They’ll probably laugh at us, too, when we try to explain to them why the Sun is ours, why we have every right to take that uninhabited planet in Alpha Centauri, and that giant, resource-rich super-Earth in such-and-such star system. The reality is, the universe isn’t owned by anyone. Our claims to ownership over the Earth are the strongest ones we can make, and even those are flimsy at best; there are other beasts on this planet besides us, who share this world, who breathe the same air and eat the same food (technically speaking). The Earth is a place of many creatures and we’ve already seen what our silly ideas about ownership have done to our particular brand of creature: slavery, violent capitalism, religious wars (physical and psychological), etc. And the purely selfish notion of ownership will produce numerous problems for us in the future. We’ll meet aliens who may think like us, or may think differently. Science fiction says we’ll have wars, some of them we’ll win, and others we’ll lose. Will they be worth it? Maybe we should get over ourselves and think about the bigger picture. Even if we can claim ownership over the Earth, the universe won’t care. It’s all a pointless gesture, because all it takes is a flick of the metaphorical universal wrist and everything we know to exist will cease to be. Let’s do a little growing up. There’s nothing wrong with saying that car is yours, but in the grand scheme of things, we have control over very little.