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The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of
Thomas M. Disch was raised in Minnesota and started publishing science fiction in the early 1960s. His close involvement with the New Wave meant much of his early work was more closely associated with the UK than with the country of his birth. From the mid-1970s, he has been as well known for his poetry. Though he has not ceased to write, his increasingly large sphere of interest has reduced his science fictional output considerably, though he clearly remains in close contact with the authors and trends of the genre. His literate, intelligent approach is apparent in all he does.
The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of sets out to present a critical history of science fiction but is perhaps more interesting instead as a critical view of the American psyche. Disch's thesis is built on twin foundations -- that science fiction is an American form and that Americans believe they have a "right to lie." The first pillar is not thoroughly investigated -- at least, the argument is unlikely to convince non-Americans. The second idea is approached from almost every angle; its corollary -- and the reason for Disch's subtitle -- is that people want to believe. Disch's exploration of science fiction can decide that Edgar Allen Poe is "our embarrassing ancestor" because he has already reached the decision that SF is itself an American form. He dismisses Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a progenitor because her science is "fast talking and stage props" which serves to set the stage for classic melodrama, rather than as the real core of the book. Against this, Poe is set up as a prototypical American hoaxer and that his 'science fiction' is defined by a genuine desire to convince readers that what he writes is not mere fiction. It is thanks to this root stock that Disch feels able to discuss science fiction beyond its existence as a literary and visual form.
The book is primarily structured as a series of thematic essays, without much emphasis on timeline. Disch assumes a reasonably well-read audience, while making considerable room for those unfamiliar with his more obscure subjects. This is, of course, a necessary approach as it is often through early authors (with works unavailable to the general public) that Disch builds his background. Nevertheless, he does not rely on them to provide him with sacrificial victims; he would far rather tear pieces off the big names we are already familiar with. There is no shortage of diatribe in these pages. The invective is principally concentrated on those who have come to use the form for their own propaganda and those who present their fictions as fact. In the first camp, his principle targets are famous names who have spent the latter parts of their career attempting to reshape their work or the history of the field itself. Heinlein is an obvious target; Disch provides a good serving on this author's long march from Radical Socialist to Radical Libertarian. He has even less good to say for the "military strategist" members of Heinlein's circle and very little to the benefit of Ursula Le Guin. His concerns with Le Guin are based on her apparent attempt to mould not just science fictional histories and futures to her own ends but the history and future of science fiction. According to Disch, Le Guin has gained vertiginous regard in academic circles and is using this position to influence the manner in which SF is taught academically. A particularly tasty element of his case against Le Guin involves his Aunt Cecilia's recipe for lemon pudding -- you too can cook a footnote.
Disch prefers to see the blemishes of the field he loves than to remake it in his own image but he retains his greatest scorn for those who attempt to remake the world in the image of their own fictions. This is where SF is indeed in danger of conquering the world. The principal natures of this particular megalomania are the UFOlogists and the home-made religions. Readers familiar with Disch will know of his long-standing disgust at Whitley Strieber and can enjoy the thorough dismantling of Strieber's alien encounters. Disch returns again and again to the UFOlogists and their increasing hold on the American mind: he compares the nature of these tales with the stories of science fiction itself, he discusses the increasing complexity of the scam which constitutes the average abduction tale, he considers the place of such beliefs alongside other modern manias for recovered memory. The ability of the human mind to "entertain" belief is a vital element for the success of these alien tales. The desire to actually believe is essential to the success of the 'science fiction religions' and, Disch suggests, the most successful of these in the late twentieth century is Scientology. Like Strieber, he recalls, L. Ron Hubbard started out as a science fiction writer. Like Strieber, Hubbard wanted more. Unlike Strieber, though, Hubbard was supported -- at first -- by the SF community from which he came. His first public presentation of Dianetics was in Astounding Science Fiction, after Hubbard had apparently already suggested that "if a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion." Disch's final position is that, amongst the many deluded minds, there are those who have realized that the best way to make money from fiction is to present it as fact, and the fiction that people most want to believe in our era are fictions of a better future -- science fiction.
The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of offers hugely entertaining detail and such incisive insight that it earns forgiveness for its inevitable moments of contrariness.
You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek, and you may want to check out Thomas M. Disch's website as well. Me:
Come now... Americans don't own the corner of the market on lying. Denial and self-rationalization thrives in Europe as well, I'm certain.
Defecation occurs.
Disclaimer: No, I am not one of the people selling this book there. I just happen to really like half.com.
Let's not mince any words here. Disch is off his rocker. Sad thing is that he is a Sci-Fi writer at that. Americans, in no way, have a monopoly on lies when it comes to the literary genre. Point in case; Loki, Shiva, Ra, Jupiter, Tiki, ad nauseum. Lies and mystical tales designed to bedazzle and awe an audience are the original form of story telling. We used to call it religon/mythology/fantasy. Give these same stories a futuristic setting and you now have Sci-Fi.Nothing new here; not just American, we are talking age old tradition.
Second point; Sci-Fi is a writing style, not a genre. Sci-Fi does not stand on it's own. It is a wrapper for a mystery tale, a drama, a tragedy, a historical piece, a love story, a horror tale, etc. Should we all read only true stories or historical pieces; which always contain more than their fair share of lies? All works of fiction are based on lies.Dickens never stretched the truth in any of his books now did he? It is asinine to try and use Sci-Fi as proof of an arguement that all Americans lie, and that lieing is solely an American trait.
As I always say to American bashers; Billy Joel wrote a song called "We Didn't Start the Fire". Go listen to it. Use Napster if you must.
-natey doesn't have a grudge against Ellison
--- "No matter who or what, a box of flowers is better than a smack in the belly with a wet fish." --RAH
I appreciate your follow-up. That was a much better response than the people nitpicking over a misspelled word, or the use of cars vs. trains for transportation. That's another item - due to the vastness of the USA, mass transit is not economically feasible for most of our country - the population density is not high enough.
Next time you're going to be such a dick, you should make sure you're 100% correct...
Missed Blake's 7 BTW Red Drawf rocks
If you're going to take Disch's opinions seriously, then you should also read "Trillion Year Spree" by Brian Aldiss. His theory is that science fiction started with "Frankenstien" and stems from that seminal work. He also spends a lot more time on British and European writers than Disch appears to.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
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"what-if" book based on a scientific principle.
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This novel was written in the <A HREF="http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_c
of electricty between Franklin's kite experiment in 1747 and the electic motor in 1820.
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and Roddenbery did before that in the 60s :)
I will be curious to read this and see what he has to say about HG Wells. As far as "science fiction" is concerned, I have always thought it to be a reasonable projection, based on current technology, of where we will be at a certain time.
Look at some of the things that are basically unpatentable now due to them being pre-written about:
microwaves
waterbeds
heated floors
UV sterilizers for rooms when people arent in them.
(thanks RAH!)
Seems to me from the review, that he is more interested in attacking the politics of the authors than he is in wondering about "science fiction" itself.
I wonder what his take on Ellison is, the man who announced (after recieving several awards) that he was "no longer a sci-fi writer, but was a fantasy writer now, as there was no money left in sci-fi". (or so niven said, in "playgrounds of the mind") If ever there was a political mover and shaker, or one who tried to mold the genre to fit his personal views, it is Ellison. (and Bradbury to a lesser extent).
That has a lot less to do with "fiction" than it does with what the Author felt at the time.
Heinlein, himself, in the blurbs in his anthologies, explained a lot of his viewpoint changes and why they happened. Niven and Pournelle also have a tendency to do this. I do not need a reviewer telling me what they did, when I can read in the authors own words why their opinions and feelings changed.
Heinlein, as an example, was in the military. After watching a war, his attitudes changed. he also began writing on a lark, not for any great cause.. as a supplement for his money.. and you have to remember.. this man wrote for over half a century.. there is a *lot* of sociological change that goes on in that period, leading him to go from anti-nuke (mistakes happen) anti war (starship troopers) to group love (number of the beast) and multiple wives (lazarus long). His opinions changed a *lot* around the first heart surgery he had, possibly him coming to grips with his own mortality, and suddenly realizing there are other things in life to worry about. (though I could have done with a lot less of horny old maureen in the later books, and more with some of the other characters).
I will have to read this book, and see what is up!
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
The Dreams of Science Fiction are based on lies, and therefore *what*?
Technically, any fiction, anything invented, is, in a certain sense, a lie of sorts.
so do we now get all moral about this an decry this sort of lying?
maybe I read it too fast, or something.
But this type of creative thinking, these so called "lies" are the things from which we build our future. It gives us something to work towards.
Let's see - - - we look around and see an imperfect world. And so we create a story of a better world. We should say well that is all a lie and therefore we shouldn't even bother?
maybe I'm getting it wrong here, but it smells like a certain kind of FUD going on here, in the guise of being *so* intellectual.
I'm starting to wonder if being certain kinds of "intellectual" is just an excuse to FUD around.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In short, British/European science fiction is rooted in late Romanticism and is often concerned with the community. American science fiction is formed by a self-reliant streak that was part of the 19th century national character. Neither one is "better" in an objective sense, just different.
Today's sig brought to you by http://www.swankypimp.com
Which would seem to imply that elements of science fiction have existed since the first glimmerings of scientific thought.
If intellectual flavor is your criterion, then Conneticut Yankee is most certainly science fiction. It was written to critique the Romantic historicism being favored by elitists on both sides of the Atlantic. In the book, not only are the ancient nobles ignorant brutes, but technological knowledge allows the New England commoner to conquer them easily.
The idea that technology is a source of empowerment over social stratification is about as science fiction as you can get.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Thomas Disch is also known as the man who perpetrated _The Brave Little Toaster_ (and its sequel, _The Brave Little Toaster Goes To Mars_).
Make of this what you will.
Anyone noticed how Michael Crichton's novels all follow the same pattern? Here's how it goes:
I've found that most of Crichton's work follows this pattern, including:
The noteable exceptions that I know of are Westworld and Rising Sun, anyone know of any others?
Anyway, I'm calling it "Crichton's Law" ;)
"His close involvement with the New Wave meant much of his early work was more closely associated with the UK than with the country of his birth. "
As if he would only be dealing with American writers if he was around in 1890!
So far as I am concerned, the history of Science Fiction begins with H.G. Wells.
I don't really consider Poe to be a science fiction writer. His short story "Into the Maelstrom" was a very convincing tale of an adventure that he obviously never had, but sci-fi had little to do with it.
Props to old Edgar for writing the first great story that gives a detail account of encryption hacking ("The Gold Bug")... but I would say that he is a lot closer, in both style and substance, to Herman Melville than to Isaac Asimov.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I thought it was "Quantum particles: the dreams that stuff is made of" and I thought it was Paul Davies that said it...
Of course, the author also screws up by failing to note the most important thing to know about science fiction -- that as literature, most of it is abysmal.
This is true to a certain extent, but I think that bad SF is mostly perpetrated in other forms (e.g. TV and film) - mainly because production executives mistake it for "family entertainment", or the writers think that special effects are an effective substitute for bad dialogue and poor plots. It's funny, the production companies spend so much time and money developing SFX for SF tv and movies, when a bit of extra script development time would render it unecessary, and improve the quality at the same time!
These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air; and like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. -- Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV
They got addicted to Everquest.
--
According to Disch, Le Guin has gained vertiginous regard in academic circles and is using this position to influence the manner in which SF is taught academically.
;) lit classes can do is pretentiously pick over the bones of what has come before, fluffing each others egos in an ultimately pointless academic love-fest. Nothing useful whatsoever comes from their ponderings.
Who gives a flying hooey how 'SF is taught academically'? Brilliant science fiction is only rarely produced by 'students' or 'academics'. All those college sci-fi (yep, that's what I still call it
Someone, somewhere, will always be writing something brilliant.
**>>BELCH
**What was, I think, pioneered in the US was science fiction as a genre. That formed around Doc Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Amazing Stories and the like. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...**
.02
You are right. You mised Gardner, L Sprague De Camp, (dead on on the Lensman).
I also credit (believe it or not) Dixon with "the hardy boys" and the fellow who wrote the Tom Swift stuff. People who read this as children went on to read more mind-opening question asking fiction as they got older.. Conan, Pellucidar, ERB's Lost World, etc. This led in time to the other "antique" authors who were churning stuff out heavily in the range of the 1950's, when the boom *really* started to kickoff.
I still dont consider Bradbury to be Science Fiction.. he pretty much takes history and rewrites it into the future, AFAIC, which isnt much of a stretch. One I keep *not* seeing mentioned, is Anthony Burgess.. who tended to play with a bizarre and not-so distant future, based on trends obvious in the present.
Just my
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
1) all communication between airplane and control tower, anywhere in the world, is conducted in English
2) a lot of European companies conduct their business in English, even if none of the parties involved are from an english speaking country.
3) English is an approved language for official documents in China
"Quantum Physics - the dreams that stuff is made of" -- Michael Sinz
In case you're wondering where that joke came from.
Does my bum look big in this?
Max Headroom
20 minutes into the future.
Gimme the star
It's really nice to see something as literate and well-written as that posted to Slashdot.
:-).
Perhaps it will start a trend
On the American right to lie, I think it's a good point - Americans do think they have a right to lie.
But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's through the American arrogance that such a great nation has been built.
You don't make the greatest country on Earth by being nice to everyone.
Also, even though lieing is a positive thing from a success point of view, I think in many respects Americans have a right to lie - as human beings (the most successful animal), we have dominion over the animals, and as the most successful nation, I think America should be allowed a little leeway.
Of course it's viewed negatively by the rest of the world. If the US reduces its involvement by even a little, the some other country will have to pick up the slack or do without.
The Oddessey is just Fantasy, not Sci-Fi. Yes, there's a decided difference between "Space Fantasy" and "Science Fiction" (and, of course, Ellisons claim that Science Fiction doesn't exist), but under the more common definitions of Sci-Fi, Somnium counts, and Homer doesn't.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I got it when it first came out, and just re-read it. Caused quite a stir in the SF field when it came out. I don't agree with his argument that SF is an American form of literature, but his arguments are well presented and entertaining.
In other news, Jerry Pournelle is reporting that Gordon R. Dickson has died.
Best Slashdot Co
English is not the primary language everywhere within 7 hours of Houston. Spanish is a hugely popular indigenous tongue throughout America. To avoid learning Spanish is to deny the very existence of a large sector of the Texan population.
In my analysis, I'd say he's trying to make money off his jealousy towards SciFi authors.
:).
I think the money is irrelevant; but in SF lit crit, even more so than in criticism of general literature, the opinions advanced often seem to be personal attacks on the beliefs and values of the author's opponents/targets, and decency and propriety are the first things out the window when this process starts. (Look at Aldiss' Billion/Trillion Year Spree for an example.) The object of the author is to disseminate their view of history at the expense of variant accounts (and make a bit of money on the side, I'm sure
The great shame of this is that it is often the better authors who indulge in this sort of behaviour; Disch is an original and interesting writer, although he didn't really write all that much within the genre itself.
(Also, Poe wasn't an SF author, although his work does presage the style of 20th Century fantasy literature. The first 'modern' SF writer of any note was H.G. Wells...)
deus does not exist but if he does
Anways, they have a great class at my school.
20 weeks of talking about sci-fi. The homework:he might assign you to watch dune or something to that effect.
No work, fun discusions. 1/2 credit in english or science. I only wish I could take it twice.
"I have not slept a wink"
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
Everquest, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, and others. They're chat rooms with monsters and quests. And each and every person has an avatar.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Sorry but no.
Asimov is Russian, moved to the US in 1923. The other three are British, though it's hard to call Adams a "seminal author." Yes, he writes amusing books, but just because book has spaceships doesn't mean it's sci-fi. Adams is a humorist, writing a farce.
And what's this about America not having any good sci-fi writers? To the names Heinlien, Asimov (he moved to the US before he was 3), Niven, Pournelle, Varley, Brin, Robinson, Sheffield or Bova mean anything to you? While I don't agree that sci-fi is a purely American artform, we sure have made a decent sized contribution.
Now what's really curious is why Jules Verne wasn't mentioned at all...
Robert Heinlein: American
Cliff Simak: American
Phillip K. Dick: American
Carl Sagan: American
Gene Roddenberry: American
J. Michael Stracynski: American
Now, I'm British, but I have to admit that Americans have made a major contribution to SF. Not only have they produced some brilliant writers and film-makers, but American culture has helped raise the genre's profile and level of acceptance beyond mere "cult" status. This is something we should be grateful for.
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Nah, that's the classic greek tragedy line. Read Oedipus Rex to better get the idea. 1. The King's been slain and a plague fall's upon the land. 2. No one knows why, let's all ask the oracle! 3 & 4. Oedipus finds out it was him, eye gouging and wandering in the wilderness commence.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
The major UKian contribution to science fiction seems to be "Red Dwarf" - My god what a stupid annoying whiny fucking show that is.
4 of those I'll possibly grant you, the other two....
Still, you've got a point
This is a very well written and informative book review-- thanks! -m
Sorry for the offtopicness, but does anyone remember Thomas M. Disch's Amnesia? That was probably one of the best written (and definitely the longest) text games I've played.
That was a great game... I never got past the brownstone building once owned by John Lennon (I think that's what it was) though. Must dig that up from somewhere and play it again sometime. Last time I played that game was on my Commodore 64. I feel old.
deus does not exist but if he does
At the risk of drawing some flamage, I'd like to point out that Neal Stephenson did NOT invent the concept of VR Avatars.
As crude as they may have been, and slow at 1200baud or less, the first Avatar based chat room was back in my Commodore 64 day during the mid 80's
For the life of me I cant remember the name of the darn thing..but I know it existed. Little cartoons with big heads and word balloons.
Anyone else out there remember that thing?
Now all we need is Avatars as detailed and functional as those described in SNow Crash. Then some of us would NEVER have to leave our computers!
Not that I disagree, but how does this distinguish it from any other genre?
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Well, I remember doing an essay in college on the roots of SciFi. Much to my amazement, SciFi goes back much farther than many of us think. The earliest work I found was by none other than the Frenchman Cyrano DeBergerac (yes, he of prodigious proboscis) who wrote the novel "A Voyage to the Moon" in 1657. So, if you want to call a genre with a 350 year history and whose origins can be traced to a Frenchman 'new' or 'American' or 'British' well I guess you're all entitled to your opinions. :-)
Another interesting tidbit about Cyrano: Understandably, in the 17th century anyone writing about voyaging to luna (lunatics) was considered quite insane and the two words were irrevocably associated. So it is this novel that is at the root of our modern understanding of the word 'lunatic'.
FWIW.
People who try to make a rigorous definition of SF generally end up ruling out a significant portion of it. I've generally ended up operating under the "I know it when I see it" approach. Not a good standard for a law, but it works for personal use...
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
--locust
"The Andromeda Strain" fails to fit your profile. The story begins with your step 3: Something goes wrong, and continues from there.
Actually, most of his books are not like that at all.
The Great Train Robbery - Story of a train heist
Eaters of the Dead - An arab encounters a Viking culture
Disclosure - A computer geek gets framed for sexual harrassment to cover a scandal
Congo - A corporate firms races against the competition to stake a diamond claim deep in the African jungle
The Terminal Man - After a car crash, a man slowly changes into a killer cyborg
ER - "Saint Elswhere" with more car-crash victims.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Kepler wrote a book, Somnium (trans: "The Dream"), about man flying to the moon and seeing the earth from the moon, in the early 1600s.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Speaking of Snow Crash and fact becoming fiction. Both that work, and Vinge's True names, and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier are regular required reading in CS Phd programs. Snow Crash in particular I know for a fact is required by one professor at Georgia tech.
Depends on what you think sci-fi is. If you think that descriptions of cool gadgets are more important than the story, then sure, a lot of sci-fi isn't.
:-)
But if you reckon that the sci-fi/fantasy aspect is there to present a different world in which things happen differently, and the actions and reactions of the characters in this environment, then Frankenstein fits perfectly. Taking Asimov's robots as an example, the actions of each robot's personality in following the Laws is the important element, not the fact of the robot's construction.
So it all hinges on your definition of sci-fi. Which really comes down to "sci-fi is what sci-fi writers write" - and good luck getting a better definition!
Grab.
----
IIRC, many of the classic "Arabian Nights" stories involved a hero who had to solve mysteries. While Poe might have been the first to do so in the form of a novel, the "detective story" goes back a lot farther.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think that fact is way too obvious to be a serious omission. As Theodore Sturgeon pointed out, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."
(Yes, in the original quote it was "crud", not "crap".)
Also a Good Thing, IMHO.
I didn't vote for the guy, but I'm growing slightly more optimistic about his foreign policies as time goes by.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Look at some of the things that are basically unpatentable now due to them being pre-written about:
microwaves
waterbeds
heated floors
UV sterilizers for rooms when people arent in them.
(thanks RAH!)
Seems to me from the review, that he is more interested in attacking the politics of the authors than he is in wondering about "science fiction" itself.
True.
From the title of the book, I was expecting more of a discussion on the relationship between science fiction and actual science. Perhaps including ideas, inventions, etc. that were inspired by (or eerily similar to) previous science fiction images. For example, I believe Asimov first coined the "robotics."
Instead, the review seems to present an author with a chip on his shoulder about the sci-fi industry (and certain SF authors in particular), bitterly arguing a theory without any true defense.
-Leliel
(And, actually, Korea had under-the-floor heating systems many, many years ago.)
Not to mention, foreigners I've met were like why don't you speak MY language? Well, I can do Russian and get by in German... Sorry I didn't pick French or Japanese. Doesn't mean I don't luv ya!
It's easy for non-English speakers to pick which second language to learn.
Do svidanya!
...or maybe not.
Remote places like Mexico or Quebec.
Before he was writer, Heinlein ran for the California assembly on Upton Sinclair's EPIC ticket. EPIC was strongly socialist, with links to radicals, communists, unions, and anti-poverty groups. Heinlein was considered such a radical leftist at the time that the Republican candidate was able to cross-file as a Democrat and win their primaries, leaving him unchallenged on the ballot.
Heinlein certainly takes a strong stance against any kind of interference in markets in his later books, but the positions of EPIC were diametrically opposed to those he espoused in Expanded Universe. They were interventionist, they demanded government action against the Depression and they had nothing but contempt for California's wealthy industrialists and land owners who did nothing in the face of such vast public misery.
Certainly, Heinlein's politics changed a lot between 1938 and 1980. Frankly, I liked the younger Heinlein a lot more. The authoritarian, Chicago-school, Reaganite Heinlein of the 70's and 80's was half the writter of the witty, liberal, socially and culturally conscious Heinlein of the 40's and 50's.
The late Heinlein was a far cry from any anarcho-syndicalist that I know of, although the young one had his moments. He takes a near Randian position on the virtues of the market in all his books after Time Enough for Love (for example, his utopian portrayal of Hell in Job), while taking a truly unlibertarian position on the importance of a powerful central state in Friday. The later Heinlein appears to place little value in democracy and collective action (which are perhaps the most central values of traditional anarcho-syndicalism) and advocates a sort of minimalist dictatorship as the ideal form of government, or at least he does in all of the Lazarus Long books.
Perhaps those weren't his "true" politcal feelings. I have no way to know, authors are allowed to play with ideas. But at the very least, the opinions he lays out in Expanded Universe, a polemic by his own admission, are quite remote from anarcho-syndicalism and even more remote from his political roots.
That is *really* sad. The Dorsai books changed my life.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
although I actually prefer his "horror" novels (the supernatural Minnesota books) over his science fiction novels. His sci-fi always seemed a little drab to me, but when his books are ground in a contemporary setting, everything seems much more live and extraordinary.
This is a link to a very comprehensive Disch site, and here is one to Amnesia, an Infocom-style text adventure that he wrote back in the mid-'80s (and cites in Dreams).
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
Sorry for the offtopicness, but does anyone remember Thomas M. Disch's Amnesia? That was probably one of the best written (and definitely the longest) text games I've played.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Um, yeah right. Poe spent a lot of time masquerading as an intellectual for respectability, but I think he was more of a Picasso-type absinthe muddled genius. But that's just me (not that I'm dissing Poe, I'm a huge fan).
w/r/t "most of sci-fi as abyssmal," isn't that the point of the last chapter?
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
To a certain extent I have to agree with you. It is typically American to either never learn a second language or make only a half-hearted attempt at it. Even those of us who make the attempt have difficulty maintaining fluency. At one time I had learned enough French and German to ask direction on the street and order a meal. I haven't used either in years and couldn't manage now. I learned even more Spanish, but I haven't spoken that in over a decade and have lost most of it.
Where monolingualism crosses the line into arrogance is when it includes the expectation that the world will come to us linguistically. Not bothering to learn other languages to speak to foreigners visiting your homeland is simply a choice. Going abroad and relying on short English words spoken loudly is arrogance.
Sed mi flue parolas Esperanto, kiel naciulo.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Any idea where an interested party could pick up a copy of True Names? I've heard it's coming back into print, but are there any caches of used ones out there?
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
I'm going to step on a (admittedly wide) limb here and say that sci-fi goes back to the early roots of literature. Some of the earliest recorded work, say Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the book I cannot rememebr but written by the Popul Vu people of South America with a section generally referred to as "The Wooden People" all can be considered Sci-Fi in that they base their stories around extrapolations of the currently understood functioning of the world. The term "science" as it is presently use had really been invented yet, but the infatuation with speculative, extrapolative, fiction was at the core of much work. Gilgamesh and the Popul Vu both predate such nice things and famous writers as Aristotle.
Oh yeah? What about:
Quatermass
Dr. Who
Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlet/etc
Hitch hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
The Prisoner
...and that's just off the top of my head!
Eazy-N
--It's better to ride the rainbow than find the pot of gold.
He dismisses Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a progenitor because her science is "fast talking and stage props" which serves to set the stage for classic melodrama, rather than as the real core of the book
Which means that Mary Shelley got it right. The best Science Fiction has never been about the technology, but about people. The technology merely serves as a backdrop to get the people into an interesting situation, or presents new obstacles or opportunities for the characters.
Having been through several wars on rec.arts.sf.writtten over various definitions of SF -- I've learned that no definition of the genre is ultimately defensible. In fact, SF is generally accepted to stand for speculative fiction rather than science fiction nowadays because of these issues. (For fun, venture over to rasfw and argue that fantasy isn't SF).
I like the Bujold quote because it captures a popular sentiment among many SF fans about Crichton and SF in general. Namely that stories about the evils of technology aren't what attracted us to the genre.
In fact, I suspect Bujold isn't trying to define the genre so much as to distinguish the sorts of stories Crichton writes from the main current of the genre. She didn't say Crichton wasn't SF she said is wasn't REAL SF -- which I took as more of a normative judgement rather than a formal definition of the genre.
Rob
A friend of mine, who lives in Michigan, was surprised when some visitors from Europe thought it would be feasible to drive down to Disney World for the day. The Europeans, thinking it was a couple hour drive, where shocked to find out it would take over 20 hours to drive there.
From most of the USA, it takes a day or two to just to get to Canada or Mexico. This makes it more remote, and not feasible for a weekend getaway.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the original quote was "shit." It was the opening of Sturgeon's GOH speech at a WorldCon.
Science Fiction is about ideas. The best source of new ideas is speculation about imaginary societies, the future, the unknown past, alternate histories, and so on.
One of the most popular works of Science Fiction from the past was a book called Slan, which is not really considered a great book these days (not that I've heard anyway) but the idea behind it was that there was a group of humans (or aliens that looked human) that was vastly superior to the rest of humanity, hidden within society. This idea appealed to the early SF fans.
Later, much of the jargon developed in SF fandom was transfered to hacker jargon. I think the idea of born superiority still appears to the core of hackerdom today.
A few more years and everyone will be flying to work and landing on sky scrapers.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
The reality of life in America seems to escape non-Americans. Most people I went to school with learned another language(for example, ich kann deutsch). However, unlike people in other countries, it's quite far/expensive for us to travel someplace where English is not the primary language. Thus, we're unable to practice and maintain any form of fluency.
I'd spoken with a German about this once in the late 80's(he used to use the internet to get to a modem in Houston to call my BBS). He had mentioned the "language arrogance" so I asked him how long it took to him to travel to another country where German was not the language - a mear 3 hour drive, and another 3 hours on top of that to get to where a 3rd language was required.
Contrast that to America. I live in Houston. To drive to Mexico would take about 7 hours. To drive to Canada would take close to 30 hours. Going west to San Francisco would take 32 hours, and going East to New York would take 27 hours. English is the primary language everywhere within this driving range.
Max Headroom?
Heinlein didn't neccesarily agree with the views he was showing in his books, he was just exploring different ideas.
from here: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail81.html
Scroll down to the section on Talin and Starship Troopers
I am tempted to give Larry Niven's answer to the chap who wrote to complain about the attitudes of one of the characters in Niven's "How the Heroes Die." Larry wrote: "We in the writing profession have a technical term for people who believe that the authors believe everything their characters believe. We call them 'idiots'. None of my best friends are idiots. Merry Christmas."
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103443/
Borges also makes that point; Poe thought of himself as a poet rather than a prose stylist. Borges also correctly notes that it's a shame his poetry wasn't better. His prose is him in mannered, respectable style, while the poetry is the other side.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I would heartily disagree with this quote. The moral standing or permenance of scifi tech is not a defining charecteristic of the genre, any more than the moral standing or permanence of a magical event is for fantasy, or the moral standing or permanence of a haunting is to horror.
Individual stories in many genres use the plot device of "something is changing in the world, but by the end of the story the change has been averted and only a few people know that it had ever been happening." Even the "and then he woke up" or "but it was all a flash of imagination in the instant he died" endings don't (IMHO) change the genre status of the intervening story.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The Prisoner is shit - Oh yeah - I'm fucking terrified of a whie balloon chasing King Longshanks around.
and American, though Samuel Clemens' pro-American Anti-European themes (cf. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the Prince and the Dauphin episode) may cause European critic to give him short shrift.
/.'s own resident attorney, his education probably has huge holes in it due to the extensive studying in law that his curriculym demanded, to the disclusion of humanities, an all to similar fate affects most /.er's, sadly.
It's not surprise that Mark Twain has not been mentioned yet, as he's basically become a non-person thanks to the overwhelming political correctness movement on high school and college campuses (sorry, there were slaves, they were called the n-word, if you would read Huck Finn you would see that n-word Jim is perhaps the most moving, fully fleshed and capable character in the book, but capable black people are shunned by the PC movement, look at the tarring of C. Thomas 10 years ago), though in defense of
For a good appreciation of the debt SF owes Mark Twain, try a search engine, or here.
Now, I am not a lawyer, but very few implies at least one, right?
More from the article:
By no means do I wish to belittle the stature of Mark Twain as a major figure in the history of SF. Indeed, it seems to me that Ketterer if anything is too defensive and timid in presenting his subject. Part of his problem here may lie in the simple fact that Twain's importance in SF comes almost entirely from a single work, a work that towers as perhaps the greatest achievement of l9th-century American SF: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Now I'd ask you if creating just one work allows one to be known as the father of the field, but you probably don't know your father, indeed, calling a lawyer a bastard is redundant.
Try Active Worlds . Not VRML (as far as I know), but some other custom protocol. Only Windows clients tough. It is fun, well *I* had lotsa fun hours on it.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I can't help wondering how the Frenchman Jules Verne didn't make your list. I would consider him the real originator of what we know as science fiction, lit-crit cleverness about Poe or Shelley aside.
What was, I think, pioneered in the US was science fiction as a genre. That formed around Doc Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Amazing Stories and the like. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...
However, American money makes American SF, particularly movies, the most influential force right now. All I can say is read the book and we can see if he means "pop culture," of which there are many national flavors.
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I wonder if the great science fiction writers gain satisfaction from seeing things they originally wrote of as fiction come to pass in reality. For instance, the Avatars in "Snow Crash". Do you think Neil got goosebumps when he saw his first avatar oriented chat room?
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
I don't buy it. "fast talking and stage props" describes half of the sci fi tech out there, and how else would you describe the motivating force of the entire story except as the core of the book.
Frankenstein actually sort of reminds me of some of Criton's (sp?) work, like congo. Sort of a "twenty minutes in the future"* idea that reaches seemingly just a little farther than the advances of the day and discovers something totally other.
Sounds a little like he formed an opinion then interpreted the evidence to support it.
* gold star (but no Karma) for identifying the line.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
used the bible as thier basis for science I think this quote
Considering that SF has been around as such for far shorter than many other types of literature,
is not valid
The bible is the oldest work of sience fiction
http://Lenny.com
Someone like Disch should definitely know better than to make the statement that Science Fiction is an American art form.
For heaven's sake, the word robot comes from Czech writer Karel Capek's play R.U.R., and that 1920's classic German silent Metropolis predates the Campbell crowd by years. The aforementioned points re: H.G. Wells and Kepler are other excellent points.
Certainly there has always been a fascination with gadgetry that has been intertwined with American history from the beginning- it is only fitting that there is a literature here to explore the stories that stem from our tools. But to say that science fiction IS American is going much too far.
Science Fiction to me is about what happens when people get to plausible new environments either of their own creation or somewhere/somewhen else, and the story that flows from that situation. Certainly Americans are all about that New Frontier or 'We Can Fix That For You Wholesale', but American SF is just one aspect of the whole literature.
I will say that the biggest cultural effect that SciFi has had on humanity as a whole (other than inspiring actual inventors/inventions) is American SF movies and TV. The sheer visceral impact of imagery delivered via Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001, Close Encounters (and it's gung-ho younger brother Independence Day), etc. has had far more effect on the Eloi than all of the most brilliant books put together. I do not say this out of pride, just stating the sad facts.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
It doesn't change the fact that most people in Europe can get to another country far quicker than most people in the USA.
here at the bottom of that days view.
Best Slashdot Co
What's more telling though is the areas involved. The country of Germany covers 356,910 sq km, compared to the state of Texas which covers almost twice that at 692,247 sq km.
(Just to pick one: Disch asserts that the Delany novel "The Madman" is devoted to the thesis that HIV does not cause AIDS. This is a completely insane reaction to the novel: nowhere in it is anything like this thesis stated (many others are however), and nothing in the events of the story contradict the HIV hypothesis. When you can get something *this* far wrong, nothing else you say can be trusted.)
Disch's main take on Science Fiction is that it's largely based on a worship of Big Ideas, grand theories about how the world works. From Disch's point of view, the idea that you can rationally understand how the world is put together is a ridiculous, sophomoric notion, hence the idea that Science Fiction is a branch of children's literature, and so on. (Here's some more stuff on that subject: DISCH )
It's difficult to state the main thesis of this book, because Disch has a way of backtracking to cover himself, but roughly he points out that ideas from SF have a way of leaking out into the real world, in sometimes unsavory contexts. He keeps stabbing in the direction of saying that Science Fiction is immoral because it encourages people to believe in things that turn out to be destructive ("in dreams begin responsibilities", is the closing quote).
He is, however, not quite willing to go as far as to blame Charlie Manson on Robert Heinlein... because if he did it would be obvious that his thesis is ridiculous (e.g. why not blame Manson on John Lennon?).
Indeed. and not just those silly Pepsi commercials, either. :)
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Max Headroom
Who ever thought a stutter would be so popular?
-----
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Yet by any even halfheartedly rigorous definition, very few of these works are truly SF.
Mark Twain anticipated a couple of narrative devices which were later used in science fiction. However, his writings lacked the intellectual flavor of science fiction, and can't be considered part of the genre. In any case, juxtaposing a modern person with an ancient setting and vice versa is far older device than Twain; it occurs at least once in Homer, and Swift made use of a similar device a hundred years earlier. I dare say that something similar happened in the bible, though it doesn't come to mind.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I don't believe this argument, however; it presumes that science fiction is fundamentally intellectual, which it isn't, or at least, not in the same way that detective stories are. Science fiction is not, in the main, an intellectual exercise for the author, except in those dreadful Asimov and Clarke outings where he tries to deduce sixty semi-amusing implications of one piece of speculative science.
A lot of science fiction is slap bang in the Mary Shelley tradition, and to pretend otherwise by saying that her "science" wasn't central enough is to completely ignore one of the main features of the genre -- its relationship to fantasy and thence to the gothic tradition. He certainly needs to come up with some explanation of the proximity of the fantasy and science fiction sections of most bookshops in order to defend this idea.
And anyone who can pretend that science fiction is essentially American ought to be introduced to HG Wells or his descendants. It has its roots in Whiggish extrapolation of modern technology, which started off as a British trait, and moved to America along with global technological hegemony, about the end of the First World War. American science fiction is essentially American; British science fiction isn't, or doesn't have to be.
Of course, the author also screws up by failing to note the most important thing to know about science fiction -- that as literature, most of it is abysmal.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Now I realize that isn't what he actually says but its what I got from this...
Minor points based on the review
In my analysis, I'd say he's trying to make money off his jealousy towards SciFi authors. Though I have to admit I'm surprised to see that the reviewer didn't mention Harlan Ellison in the laundry list of authors that Disch seems to have a grudge against.
Plead sanity, then they'll know you're crazy...
I plead insanity by all night caffeine binging/programming.
Information is the catalyst for revolution
H.G. Wells : English
Arthur C Clarke : English
Isaac Asimov : English
Douglas Adams : English
It's obvious that all the pioneers of science fiction were in fact English. America has produced a few sci-fi authors, of lesser quality and with lesser popular and critical appeal, but the efforts of these authors are insufficient to claim that America invented the genre.
When will America get over it's fascination with itself and realise that it didn't invent popular culture?
Ahem. I've let Netscape perform a case insensitive search on this document on 'verne'; it couldn't find anything. 'nuff said.
to quote the master himself: "Time wounds all heels." say what you want about the man, but his stories are always fun to read. isn't that what it supposed to be about? heinlein would be "grumbling in his grave" if he knew people were trying to pigeonhole him into "anarcho-syndycalist" or "radical leftist" or "Randian" or whatever.
"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering."-- Robert A. Heinlein
Recently reread one of Heinlein's most perfectly-paced kid's books. Child sold in slave market on distant world to beggar who turns out to be more than that, escapes to join traders-on-spaceships-based-society, ends up among upper class on Earth. The thing that excited me on first reading (at about 10), and which I think explains much of the power of sci-fi, is the Margaret Mead-based anthropologist who is along for the ride with the traders, and who befriends and briefs the kid.
Heinlein was into cultural hacking, which builds on the knowledge from anthropology that there are many ways to structure cultural norms, that these have much to do with the fit of a culture to its particular ecological and economic niches (which are much the same thing), and also have much to do with the mythology of the culture. He saw that one of our present powers was to consciously create both our cultural norms and mythologies, and that these efforts are closely akin to our conscious creation of technologies (which is not to say they are wide open: not every cultural norm or myth will work equally well, just as not every techological idea will). Stranger in a Strange Land is a footnote to Citizen of the Galaxy.
As for the claim that he went from radical socialist to radical libertarian - this is just nonsense. He was always consistent with an anarcho-syndicalist position, which has elements resembling both (which generally pisses the pure proponents of both off), and closely resembles the open source community (hmm).
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Let's get on the ball here, people.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall