sci-fi fantasy lit column!

[rm]

So I'm going to be doing a column for Gather on the world of sci-fi and fantasy literature. My introductory piece is going on be on the ascendancy of this genre and why it's not what the people who aren't immersed in it generally denigrate it as. If any of you want to talk to me about why you enjoy this work and what it means to you and how the reception your interest in it as a consumer has evolved over the years, please leave comments and let me know if I can quote you if you provide this info in your comments. I am excited about this!

But, they want a catchy title to help brand it. What the hell should I call it?

Also exciting: a big check for some writing I did will be here exactly when I need it.

Comments

[dien.livejournal.com]

Hey RM. *waves* I friended you after Yuletide because I just enjoyed your piece that much (and you seemed like an insanely interesting person) but haven't actually said hi, so.... *cough* Hi. ;) And I'm de-lurking because I like talking about SF/fantasy too much not to.

Let's see: why I enjoy this work. *skritches head* By which I assume you mean why I enjoy the sci-fi genre. I think it partly has to do with the amazing freedom it represents for the writer-- in sf/fantasy so many of the things that must be dealt with metaphorically can just be shoved out not as metaphors but as realities. As an example, let me describe a short SF story I read years ago that made a mark on my mind. (Regrettably, I do NOT remember the title, or author, or the SF anthology it appeared in, which frustrates me ENDLESSLY, I assure you. If anybody here recognizes it from my synopsis, I'd love to know the name of it.)

The story was set in a future in which mankind had achieved the ability, through a drug regimen/surgical procedure, to arrest the aging process and become, essentially, immortal. They had also colonized other worlds and had what, at first glance, was a rather Utopian society. Only one human settlement still contained people who died of old age-- the community of Renaissance, on Earth. ('Renaissance' may have been the title, but I'm not sure.) Renaissance was a community of artists/writers/musicians-- those involved in the creative arts-- who voluntarily elected not to undergo the surgery to make them immortal. The immortal humans of the story could still create if they desired, but their work tended to be inferior, to lack the spark that would make the true masterpiece. The story focused on a young boy named David who was taken to Renaissance as a possible candidate, and his eventual choice regarding immortality/mortality.

The basic premise was that man creates in order to live forever-- that's why we make masterpieces, whether in music, art, or literature; in order that something of our selves lives on beyond death. This idea is not new, obviously; ars longa, vita brevis; but seeing that in a story that presented an alternative (of living literally forever) made the basic concept much more powerful to me.

Science fiction, and fantasy, rewrites the world in a form in which the merely hypothetical questions are no longer hypothetical; in which allegory is instead the reality. Science fiction and fantasy use the 'other', whether it's elves or aliens, to make us ask questions about ourselves. Science fiction and fantasy do the same thing as "regular" fiction-- holding up a mirror to show us what we are-- but in this genre, the mirror is warped, and thus shows us things the flat mirror never can.

Also, there's lots of explosions. Which I like.

Of course there's elements of escapism and all the rest of it, but that's hardly something unique to SF/fantasy. I think any form of fiction offers some level of escapism, or it's not fiction; and I think the spy or detective or romance novel can, depending on the reader, be just as much an "escape" from reality as anything with spaceships or magic swords. The fact remains that the best sci-fi/fantasy, the stories that change us, have, I think it's fair to say, considerably more range than the best examples of other genre fiction. To throw out another example:

The Sherlock Holmes stories-- arguably the standard by which detective fiction is judged (although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never believed that what he was writing constituted "literature"). Genre fiction or not, such issues as racism ("The Adventure of the Yellow Face") and gender (to a degree, in "A Scandal in Bohemia") did occasionally make appearances in the works. Some stories revealed social issues, others were impromptu history lessons-- but at their heart each was a puzzle-- a mystery, of course.

(con't.)

[dien.livejournal.com]

(...continuing)

In contrast, some of the best science fiction/fantasy I've read often deals with racism, gender issues, social issues, religion, politics, sexuality, philosophy, etc, etc, within what is simply the context of an SF/fantasy world. Only in the lowest-end SF/fantasy is the story about the magical sword or the spaceship or the aliens; what the outsider generally deems the "hallmarks" of SF/fantasy, in the same way that the Love Scene/Declaration of Love is the hallmark of the romance, or the Solving Of The Case the hallmark of the detective thriller. SF/fantasy treats its accoutrements not as the point of the story, even if those accoutrements happen to play a large part in the plot, but as merely a starting point from which to tell any type of story.

(Arguably there are other examples of (non SF/fantasy) genre fiction in which the story is not "about the hallmarks" as I phrase it; they may well exist, but I haven't encountered them.)

This is part of the reason I sometimes have issues with sf/fantasy being called 'genre fiction'-- because it's far more flexible and adaptable than that label implies. Nobody who's a fan of Lord of the Rings thinks it's about the Ring; nobody who's a fan of Firefly thinks the story is about the spaceship; yet those who are not immersed in these types of literature are perfectly content to judge it by the words "magic ring" or "spaceship".


Um. I'm trying to think if I had an actual argument with this or if I was just babbling. Probably the latter. *skritches head* Hopefully I actually answered a question somewhere in there.

You're more than welcome to quote if any of it catches your eye; is dien all you need for quote-y purposes, or d'you want real names?