Asimov's SF, September 2006
Page 2
The Japanese attached cameras to a long line, baited it with chopped-up shrimp and a small squid of a common species, and lowered it into the waters off Japan's Osagawara Islands, where giant squids were thought to seek their prey in a region of the sea that sunlight never penetrates. Sure enough, one of the monsters came swimming up, enveloped the baited line in a ball of tentacles, and—as the researchers had hoped—snared itself on hooks that were mounted on the rig below the camera. For the next four hours the squid struggled to free itself while the cameras snapped some 550 images.
Then it succeeded at last in getting itself loose, but left a nineteen-foot section of tentacle behind that the researchers were able to hoist up on deck. “It was still functioning when we got it on the boat,” one of the Japanese scientists said. Repeatedly it gripped the boat deck, and tried to catch the fingers of a scientist who prodded it: “The grip wasn't as strong as I expected; it felt sticky.” But the photographs of the hooked, thrashing squid, which was a relatively small one, only some twenty-six feet long, showed it to be a strong, energetic animal—perhaps not as fierce as the ones depicted in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but a vigorous, aggressive creature nonetheless and a dangerous predator.
And very strange-looking, too: the photos show us an eerie thing indeed, whose gigantic tentacles sweep the water in an oddly graceful way. Nor is it the weirdest deep-sea giant that marine scientists are likely to be spying on in the next decade or so. Perhaps the Lake Champlain plesiosaur and the much ballyhooed Loch Ness Monster are going to remain forever in the realm of mythology, but surely other astonishing discoveries await us. What these first photos of the giant squid tell us is that we are only at the threshold of exploration of the undersea world, and that the sea holds creatures every bit as bizarre as the denizens of other planets that science fiction writers have dreamed up over the years. I doubt that we will find any Krakens down there, but there can be little doubt that our probing cameras, dangling into those unknown lightless depths, will startle us again and again in the years ahead..
Copyright © 2006 Robert Silverberg
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* * *
ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION SALUTES THE WINNERS OF THE 2005 NEBULA AWARDS
* * * *
BEST NOVEL
Camouflage
Joe Haldeman
(Analog, March—May 2004)
* * * *
BEST NOVELLA
“Magic For Beginners"
Kelly Link
* * * *
BEST NOVELETTE
“The Faery Handbag"
Kelly Link
* * * *
BEST SHORT STORY
“I Live with You"
Carol Emshwiller
* * * *
BEST SCRIPT
Serenity
* * * *
AUTHOR EMERITUS
William F. Nolan
* * * *
GRAND MASTER
Harlan Ellison
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* * *
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS: BARBARIAN CONFESSIONS
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Author's Note: I wrote this essay at the request of Glenn Yeffeth at BenBella Books. He asked SF writers to debate the merits of Star Wars, taking a position for the defense or for the prosecution. In addition to the essays, the book has a “cross-examination” for each side, and rebuttal answers from each essayist. BenBella published the book in June, 2006. This essay differs slightly in form from the one that I wrote for the book: a few lines have been added for the sake of clarity. I also want to note that I'm discussing sf book publishing here. Magazine editors have the luxury of putting all types of sf into a single issue, without disappointing any of their readers.
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Since this book is titled Star Wars on Trial, and I am testifying for the defense, let me proceed as if I were sitting in the witness chair. No, you don't have to swear me in. I'll raise my right hand if someone wishes, but let me simply say that when it comes to the future of science fiction—one of my passions—I feel as if I'm always under oath.
First, my credentials. I am a Hugo-award winning science fiction writer who has, joyfully and without remorse, written nearly thirty tie-in novels. Since someone writing for the prosecution will probably mention the words “art” and “literature,” let me add that for more than a decade, I edited two of the most literary publications in the sf field—Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. My authors and I were nominated for dozens of awards. We even won a few.
I have received awards in a number of genres, not just sf. Of my mystery series, written under the name Kris Nelscott, Salon.com said, “Somebody needs to say that Kris Nelscott is engaged in an ongoing fictional study of a thorny era in American political and racial history. If that's not enough to get ‘serious’ critics and readers to pay attention to her, it's their loss."
“Serious” critics and readers have paid attention: I have received several literary awards—given by people who only think of writing as “literature” and “art"—and I have become a darling of book clubs. Meanwhile, I glam around in my secret identity as a romance writer (Kristine Grayson, for those of you who don't know), and I skulk through life as the sf/fantasy/ horror writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
All three of us (as well as several of my other pen names which shall go unnamed) read everything we can get our hands on. From classics to mystery novels, from literary short stories to the latest Nora Roberts, from science fiction novels to tie-ins, I read. And read. And read.
My catholic reading tastes (small “c") and my catholic writing tastes match my entertainment tastes. I record fifteen hours of television per week (although I only have time to watch six hours per week; I catch up during those endless months of reruns). I watch two to three movies per week, sometimes more during peak seasons like Christmas and summer. Last week alone, I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Good Night, and Good Luck—one at an art house and the other at the cineplex down the street.
I am one of the heretics who believes that art must be enjoyed first and analyzed later.
I am also a member of the Star Wars generation. Sixteen years old when the movie came out, at a first-night screening with a dozen of my high school buddies, I watched the world change right in front of me. Did I know that E.E. “Doc” Smith had done something similar thirty years before? Of course not. My small town library never had that kind of trash (their words, not mine). Had I memorized the science fiction canon? Hell, I didn't even know there was such a thing as science fiction. Or fantasy. Or genre, for that matter.
And I didn't care.
All I wanted that night was a bit of entertainment. What I got was an addiction that has lasted through my adulthood.
* * * *
I often say that I came to science fiction because, at thirteen, I fell in love with a classic Star Trek episode called “City on the Edge of Forever,” written by someone named Harlan Ellison. My best friend, Mindy Wallgren (one year older, two decades smarter) told me that Ellison wrote short stories, and if I liked the epi-sode, I'd love the short fiction. She gave me a Hugo-award collection edited by Isaac Asimov, and I read every story in it. Then books by every author. And then more books, and more books, and more books.
But you must remember: I had no idea what genre was so I didn't know where else to find wonderful stories like the ones I had just read.
Now fast-forward three years. I'm sitting in that theater and absorbing Star Wars like there's no tomorrow. And I buy not my first but probably my fifteenth tie-in novel (yes, we have to count those Partridge Family books [yes, there were Partridge Family books]). Next to that Star Wars novelization (which I should have kept, dammit!, considering how much the thing's worth now), I found a bunch more of those books like the ones I read in my Star Trek/Harlan Ellison phase. So I buy those too.
One of them is Dune, which had a
very Star Wars-y cover. I fall in love all over again.
* * * *
When Glenn Yeffeth asked me to contribute an essay to this volume, he sent me a list of topics, asking me to choose one and take the defense or prosecution position. There was no contest; I had to take defense. I love Star Wars, especially Episodes 4, 5, and 6. Especially Episode 5, known to you non-Star Wars buffs as The Empire Strikes Back, screenplay written, by the way, by a classic science fiction writer, a woman named Leigh Brackett.
My problem came in limiting myself to one question, because questions three, four, six, and seven intersect. Let me list them here.
* * * *
3. Star Wars and the battle for SF readers and shelf space—the shelf space and mindshare that Star Wars books take up; is this a positive or negative thing.
4. The impact of Star Wars on SFF writing today—to what extent is current sf writing influenced by Star Wars and how?
6. The impact of SW on the public's perception of SF/F—to what extent does SW define how the general public sees SF, and is this a good thing?
7. Star Wars as a fantasy—not really a pro or con issue, but many have argued that SW is really a fantasy and should be held to the standards of fantasy.
* * * *
I told Glenn that I would write about question four. But four and three and six are inseparable in my mind. Seven has to be addressed here as well because of the underlying assumption behind it, an assumption I'll address shortly.
First, the promised answer: to what extent is current sf writing influenced by Star Wars? The answer is simple: Not enough.
In order to make my case for that answer, however, I must address #3: Star Wars and the battle for SF readers and shelf space. There is no battle for shelf space because of #6: to what extent does SW define how the general public sees SF or, as I like to call it, the definition of SF.
If you'll notice in the questions above, Glenn has gone back and forth between SF, SFF, and SF/F. Those abbreviations, used in the sf field only, mean the same thing in his questions. Science fiction—as a marketing category—is called SF. Science Fiction the Marketing Category includes fantasy novels. Later reviewers and critics sometimes called the category SF/F to acknowledge the two different genres labeled as one. Because of that confusion, the Science Fiction Writers of America wanted to acknowledge their fantasy base, so they started calling themselves SFFWA, which led to SF being labeled, in the sf field, SFF.
Why is all this important to my essay? Because, in the dark days before literary tropes hit sf (which in my essay, lowercased, stands for science fiction only), the sf and fantasy genre had the same goals. Large-scope stories, in which worlds or universes were at stake, created new but oddly familiar settings that were far enough removed from real life so that readers could escape their mundane existences. The lead character was not the protagonist; he (and it was usually a he) was the hero. He often followed the hero's journey (see Joseph Campbell, whom Lucas says he gleefully plundered). No matter how dark the journey, the reader will follow the hero because, the reader knows (and is reassured on a deep level) that the hero will triumph at the end.
When literary tropes hit sf in the 1960s, solid characterization, good sentence-by-sentence writing, and dystopian endings became commonplace. “Realism,” both in character actions and in scientific approach, became more important than good storytelling.
Fantasy continued its heroic ways, promising—and usually delivering—those uplifting endings, those fascinating worlds, and those excellent (heroic) characters. But science fiction started resembling the literary mainstream. The novels became angst-filled. The protagonists, demoted from their heroic pedestals, lost more than they won. The worlds became as ugly or uglier than our own.
Suddenly, sf became unreliable. Readers had no idea if they would find uplifting stories or dystopian universes. They didn't know whether, once they plunged through six hundred pages of nasty, ugly world-building, they would ever emerge into any sort of light. Sometimes, the sf devolved into one long scientific exposition. Or into jargon-filled, hard-to-follow stories that realistically explored situations set up in the bad old days of pre-literary science fiction.
Science fiction editors and critics declared that something that had been done before—such as time travel to Hitler's Germany or space opera like E.E. “Doc” Smith's Lensman series—was unacceptable for the new generation of readers. The assumption was and still is that if someone in science fiction literature—anywhere or at any time in science fiction literature—had written a known work on a topic, that topic was off-limits to future generations of sf writers.
That assumption arose when publishing was small, when sf was a community of readers who numbered in the hundreds. Walter Jon Williams calls this community “the science fiction village.” In a marvelous essay published in Asimov's, he writes:
Along with the fiction, the [sf] culture grew more sophisticated along the way, but it retained a proudly self-made quality, standards that it considered unique to itself, and a specialized vocabulary to describe both the texts, the contents of the texts, and the special view of life that was considered particularly scientifictional. Fandom may not necessarily be a way of life, but it's definitely a point of view.[1]
[1. Williams, Walter Jon, “Thought Experiments: Science Fiction Village,” Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 2005, p. 22.]
A problem arose for sf fandom, which controlled sf publishing, when people like me entered the mix. We received our introduction to sf through the media. Williams explains the dilemma:
...electronic media brings science fiction to its audience free of Science Fiction Culture, the history and view of science fiction laboriously hammered out over the last sixty or seventy years.... Science Fiction Culture places the work in its context, relates it to other work, to traditional themes in science fiction, to contributions of individual editors and magazines. All of this is necessarily absent from visual SF, which—also necessarily—looks at SF as a grab-bag full of ideas useful to put Scott Bakula in jeopardy again this week.[2]
[2. Williams, Walter Jon, “Thought Experiments: Science Fiction Village,” Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 2005, p. 25.]
But the only way the Science Fiction Village can protect itself against Media Barbarians pounding at the gates is to keep the village small. Such a task was easy in the early years of sf fandom. It's not so easy now.
The world has changed since the Science Fiction Village was created. After World War II, countless people went to college on the GI Bill. Those people became readers who bought books and read to their children at night. Readership grew across the board. So did the book-buying public. Book sales expand every year from 1 to 5 percent, a phenomenal and consistent rate of growth not seen in most other industries.[3]
[3.Publisher's Weekly year-end statistics taken from their website: www.publishersweekly.com.]
Fiction markets have expanded. In 2004 alone, 2,550 books “of interest to the SF field” were published as originals or reprints. This total number of books does not include gaming novels, movie novelizations, or original novels written in a media universe (like the Star Wars novels).[4] The days of being able to read everything published in sf in one given year are long gone.
[4. Dozois, Gardner, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-second Annual Collection, St. Martins Press, July 2005, p. xxvi. Dozois got his numbers from Locus Magazine.]
So the new reader coming in, the one with a voracious appetite for SF, has a wide range of choices. The problem is that most of those choices respond to or build on ideas found in novels so long out of print that libraries and specialty used bookstores no longer carry them. Many of the sf editors still working today live in the Science Fiction Village. They are buying novels that appeal to a few thousand people, forgetting about (or ignoring) the barbarians at the gates.
It is impossible—physically impossible—to catch up on the language of Science Fiction Culture. I have immersed myself in i
t for thirty years now, ever since I discovered it, and I'm still reading the classics. What I didn't understand in the early sf novels and short stories that I read, I researched. I forced myself to pass as a Science Fiction Villager, and lo-and-behold, they actually took me in.
But I'm a barbarian. Of the 1,417 original books published in sf last year[5], I read ten of them. Six of those books were short story collections. Two of them I wrote. The other two were novels by people whose sf I'd read before and liked. Of the remaining 1,407 books, I probably handled 750 of them and replaced them on the shelf. Honestly, most of the 750 novels I put back looked like work.
[5. Dozois, Gardner, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-second Annual Collection, St. Martins Press, July 2005, p. xxvi.]
I read fiction for entertainment, relaxation, and enjoyment. If I want to work, I read the history, literary essays, biography, science, and legal books that grace my shelves.
Last week, for the first time in more than a decade, I saw an sf novel on the bookstore shelves that made my barbarian self reach for the book with joy. The cover had a picture of a derelict space ship. The back cover blurb talked about far futures and finding artifacts in outer space. The cover quote said, “In the old tradition of Astounding."
Because I had been burned before, I read the opening few pages, and a section out of the middle. And then I bought the book. I haven't read it yet, so I won't say the title here.[6] But I will say that I haven't been this eager to read an sf novel in almost twenty years.
[6. Okay. It's Jack McDevitt's new paperback Polaris.]
Why am I eager to read it? Because the novel promises the very things that Star Wars gives: An escape, a journey into a new yet familiar world, entertainment. A good read.
The things you still find in fantasy fiction. (There, as promised, #7: slain like the dragon it is.) The things that sf jettisoned in the erroneous cold equations practiced by the New Wave.