Slashdot Mirror
Response to Spider Robinson on the State of Sci-Fi
Garund writes "A day or so ago Slashdot posted a story on Spider Robinson and his lament for Science Fiction. Well, other people, including Mark Oakley, publisher of one of my favorite independant comics, posted a response to Spider on his Thieves & Kings website (scroll about a third of the way down the page). Interesting take on it, I thought."
What makes Spider Robinson a commentator on SF, Sci-Fi or anything else other than pablum?
He doesn't write science fiction, he writes fantasy staged in the non-existant future.
And as for the 'Speculative Fiction', well, he isn't a writer of that either.
hand him back his toke and send him on his way.
he's done.
Any community is going to experience points of stagnation and critics who bitch about it. I think people need to face the facts that community as a whole loses that shiny interesting effect on them. Everything is no longer "WOW!", it's "Oh I've seen that before". This has happened with Anime. Miyazaki said the state of anime was critical and that less and less worthy series are being made. Well the same can be said for movies. The same can be said for Sci-Fi. The same could be said for alot of things. The thing is instead of bitching about it, he needs to get off is ass and go right some create some new great genre defining novel, or whatever.
I guess you have to be smart to write science fiction, but attributing lower sales to the fact that people like other sci-fi/fantasy titles better is sheer genius.
I'll certainly grant that sci-fi isn't what it was when I began reading it a number of years ago. I'll grant that a lot of the gadgets described as futuristic then exist now. But this theme which says there's nothing else which can be imagined as a future invention reminds me of the patent clerk who quit around the turn of the last century because there was nothing left to invent!
A rather amazing reply. In essence he says: "You're right. We don't care about the future anymore. But that is because this is the future now, and there is nothing much down the road."
Reminds me of Francis Fukuyama in a way. The important decisions of history have been made, and things will not got significantly better or worse than they are right now. Democracy and capitalism have conquered the world.
...that the genre of SF (as many other artistic endeavors) is having creative difficulty. Walk into a bookstore these days, pick up an interesting-looking book, and see that it is 12th in a series of 18. Come on, if the authors cannot deal with new character development, like they did 40 years ago for virtually every novel, something is wrong!
Just saying over and over that it's so, as this response does and most of the comments here last time did don't explain WHY it's so.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
So. . .
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Spider Robinson is depressed about the state of Science Fiction.
He cites dropping sales and no new authors replacing the old, as well as a mass defection of readers to 'Tolkienesque' fantasy.
You can read his article/rant here.
I can understand where he's coming from. Heck, I've heard his lament on the lips of numerous other Sci-Fi writers. To be part of a fading industry isn't exactly inspiring, seeing fellow creators slip from view, watching the dizzying excitement of a once lunatic market place die down to something which actually makes sense. . . (Well, I don't know if the paperback book market could ever really be described as 'lunatic' in quite the same way comics were for a while. . . Nobody I knew ever sealed away paperbacks in vinyl bags for posterity!) In any case, I do feel for Mr. Robinson.
Moreover, though, it got me wondering. .
And, ohhh, but this is a can of worms like none other!
I'll start off small. First of all, I should explain that I have always felt Science Fiction, from the day it first began to materialize, has had an expiry date stamped across its forehead. I'm not just reiterating the tried and true, "Sci-Fi will be pointless when when there really are people walking around in space suits and zipping back and forth between the stars."
No, no. It's much simpler than that.
See, I think stories have only two basic purposes and that everything else is just turkey trimming. Ahem. .
"I believe that stories exist for no other reason than to explore and share ideas."
It works like this; when people become curious about a subject, there is a desire to examine and to consider that subject. When desire grows enough, somebody will inevitably sit down at a keyboard and hammer out a book about it. Ideas flow, you see, whether we want them to or not, and they must be contained! Recorded. Sifted through. Shared. --And if the subject is fascinating enough, why then a lot of somebodies will hammer out a whole lot of books!
Look at teen romance novels for instance; because there are always young women clamoring to know everything they can about love and relationships, there is a more or less permanent market for 150 page paperback novels with sappy covers about dating and first love and all that. --When young women grow up, then we see the far more prolific 'grown up' romance novels for slightly different reasons, but still driven by the desire to spin around and absorb certain sets of ideas. So long as there are heroines, (and hormones), there will be romance novels.
Not so with Science Fiction. No hormones there. (Well, actually, there were quite a lot, but that wasn't Science Fiction's reason for being.) No. Science Fiction came into existence because the millions of minds living through the first two thirds of the twentieth century were besieged with the growing awareness that technology and industry could, and very likely would achieve terrifying and spectacular wonders! --The kinds of wonders which would change the very shape of humanity itself into something new!
But crikey, if people had only the dimmest clue of what that something would be. .
Indeed, people had only the most vague notions, but with Hydroelectric dams being built, telescopes probing ever more deeply into space, rockets being erected, new materials being developed, and all manner of new technological powers being discovered. . , people quickly began to realize that whatever the change was going to be, it was going to be Big with a capital 'B' --and that they'd better start thinking about it right smart quick!
But no fear; the trusty human mind has ways to deal with this kind of scenario. Why, the human mind when faced with sudden shocking possibilities, will Think About Them A Lot, thank you very much. --The mind will swim in new ideas and jump around with great excitement, examining the problem from every angle as though it wer
Nice response, and far more sensible than the whine that sparked it off.
However, he is describing hard science fiction, ie technology extrapolation and the use and abuse of physical laws, SF is much bigger than that. There are also all the other parts of the science fiction field- for instance PKD is still completely out there. A Scanner Darkly is a technology proof novel.
I like his point that we are living in the future. I've always extended it to "We are living in the future and it is slightly crap". My cell phone is often out of range. My whizzy looking car has a 30 year old chassis. Passenger aircraft got bigger, and less comfortable, not faster. 'We' fly to the moon. But not often. (Damn these anti-curmudgeon pills are wearing off).
I have never considered him a science fiction writer. His work is much more on the order of screwball comedies. He usually starts off with with some urban legend type material a bunch of crazy characters, and he finishes up with see how good things are when we get along ? In the callahans stuff he generally winds up with in the future people will be alot nicer and regularly violate the laws of physics because of the fact.
Its not science fiction, its very good, I enjoy it a heck of alot and have bought just about everything he has written.
His rant about science fiction dieing was annoying the first time it had been done back in the 60's when hard scince fiction writers griped about the new wave kids.
Theres alot of great science fiction being written today more than I have ever seen before It just doesn't look like what it did 50 years ago. Theres a reaon The future isn't what it used to be. Look at the recent works out there by Greg bear, Greg egan,Ian macleod, Rosemary Kirsten, Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross, Dan Simmons, The list goes on. Its very high quality stuff and shows a greater understanding of underlying science than 90% of the golden age authors could manage.
What Mr. Spinrad misses is that there are things that just won't fly in the genre anymore. It's no longer possible to take a crap story toss in a few bug eyed aliens a spaceship and a girl in a brass bikini and expect people to read the story. Its also not enough to do a techno gimmick story anymore. As much as I loved George O Smiths stories, they don't read well anymore.
Elves and mythical pasts don't compete with science fiction. Theres always going to be a future and theres always going to be people speculating about it. How well the genre does will depend how well the authors bring the future to life.
BSD on the other hand is a actually dead of course... a hundred thousand troll posts can't be wrong!
Any day now Bruce Sterling should be along to write a snarky editorial on how he predicted all this stuff years ago, and no one listened to his infinite wisdom...
...for Spider Robinson to be saying this. I don't really consider him a sci-fi author, and I don't much care for his books. Indeed, to the extent that there is a decline in sci-fi, I've always thought of him as a prime exhibit. His stories are so...soft. Fluffy. Fantastic (in the very litteral sense).
That being said, I don;t think there's really any crunch coming for sci-fi. What Spider is saying is that the type of sci-fi he likes (and that he writes) is disapearring. This is true! But sci-fi is the reflection of tomorrow on today, and is constantly changing. In times past, post-apocalytpic wastelands, or psi powers, or laser printers, or time machines, or Martians, or portable phones almost as small as your fist were fantasies that appealled. Sometimes the world moved on, sometimes we learnt they weren't plausible, sometimes they happened - but in any case, they're now no longer suitable for sci-fi.
There's plenty of great sci-fi being written today (Baen Books publishes several good authours (and should in any case be supported for pioneering a content distribution model that doesn't rely on DRM. They give away some titles on their website, sell others cheaply, and include CDs with some hardbacks with dozens more.)
But it's not the same kind of sci-fi as was being written 20 or 30 years ago (and it would be pretty worrying if it was). For some, that puts it beyond the pale - it isn't "real" sci-fi. It's space opera, or military sci-fi, or too soft, or too hard, or whatever. For these people, intent on living in the past, I suppose the appeal of Fantasy isn't too surprising. But that's not the same thing as saying sci-fi is declining. Sci-fi is where it's always been - slightly on the edge, asking question some people would rather ignore.
Sci-fi was (and is) a method for exploring the possibilities of existing and theoretical technologies. We are a much more techno-savvy populace now. Even my Grandmother knows what a laser is (it'll fix her eyes).
/.'ers
Society today, however, though tech-savvy, wants -- no, *needs* -- to find some reason or purpose to life other than just "moving forward" (whether toward the stars, the moon, etc.). Whenever society reaches a critical mass of "understanding" of the "known and accepted potentialities" of technology, it reverts to the "spiritual".
This is why the fantasy stories are obliterating sci-fi. People already *know* what will most likely happen tech-wise within their lifetime. What they *don't* know is whether there is a "god", or "gods", or whatever else you can dream up in the "spiritual" realm. IMHO, the fantasy genre is more important to the average reader today than sci-fi because fantasy texts address the questions and concerns that today's readers are really interested in.
Sci-fi is very extro-spective -- focusing on what might happen based on current scientific knowledge and theory. Sci-fi generally ignores or poo-poo's the spiritual/human concerns of us carbon-based entities, instead pushing either techno-utopian agendas, or techno-hell agendas.
Fantasy, on the other hand, is very intro-spective -- focusing on the (usually) historic, spiritual planes of thought and existence. Fantasy doesn't care about the future, as long as it can describe a believable past.
In a nutshell, I think what's happening is that people know enough (and have been let down enough) by technology to not have faith in the hypothetical futures described in sci-fi. Instead, these same people want an altruistic world like Tolkein offers (all is black or white, very little grey) that has the semblance of "history" or "religion", and doesn't require buying in to a specific school of futurism.
Of course, I'm probably full of shit and don't know my own ass from a hole in the ground, but that's what I think about this.
Peace, my fellow
I don't know that Oakley addressed Robinson's main point: "Those few readers who haven't defected to Tolkienesque fantasy cling only to Star Trek, Star Wars, and other Sci Fi franchises." Most people don't want a challenge, they want to sit back and relax. Brightly-colored fantasy like Tolkien is just more soothing than the unknown future you have to construct for yourself.
In the meantime, there's a news piece once a month on advances in carbon nanotubes to build a space elevator. On orbit for $5 a pound, coming right up, ma'am.
In the meantime, there's a considerable subset of the population that wants Mars so bad we can already taste her oxidized sands. A few billion dollars (perhaps 10% of what we've spent on the war in Iraq) and ten years and we could be there.
And no one seems to care. Where is this planet spending it's collective dollars, pounds and rubles?
"... using perfectly good rockets to kill each other, instead."
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
Your single number is fucked up. "1500 years"? 1500 years ago is 500 CE. I hate to tell you this, but the dynasty of the Later Han collapsed in 220 CE. The Sui didn't reunite China until 589 CE, and China didn't really get going again until the Tang attained full control in 626 CE. Now, the universities grandparent was referring to were the imperial universities of the Han, already with 3,000 students in 8 BCE. We should consider that a peak -- and it doesn't correspond to your schedule.
So your date isn't a peak at all, but a trough in one of the many interregnums between Chinese dynasties.
You see, China's history is largely a story of the cyclic rise and fall of dynasties, one after the other. There has never been a time when Chinese civilization was allowed to ossify for such a long time as you posit -- dynasties collapsed much faster than that. And as far as "peak"s are concerned, China has had many peaks. The Han, the Tang, the Song, the Ming...
If you want objective evidence, instead of subjective cultural achievements, let me point you to Admiral Zheng He's 15th-century maritime voyages -- which the following article is referring to when it says "during the Song dynasty, China developed the world's largest and most technologically sophisticated merchant marine and navy". That article should be edifying as to why, despite its invention of gunpowder, printing, and the compass, China never conquered the world.
Well, this comment hasn't been flawless, but no, yuri benjamin, Brandybuck isn't right. Hope you enjoyed my theory, though.
Most hard-core SF was written during and in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War. All of it escapist, much of it focusing on how humanity carries on after the dawn of the 21st century and presumably civilization as we know it has been destroyed.
For people looking beyond the horrifying news on the television, SF was a ray of hope.
Unfortunately (for SF), the Cold War ended and the world as we know it was utterly changed - but not because of world war or nuclear conflict. It was changed largely by the collapse of Communism (outside China and its satellites), removing the immediate threat, and thus the foundation for much of the SF we've all grown to know and enjoy.
Lacking the need for escape from our current situation into the future, and given the high-tech world that has been thrust upon us in the past decade (as has been noted elsewhere), it seems not unreasonable that Fantasy fiction, especially that espoused by Tolkien and Rowling, would take the fore over hard SF, at least for the moment.
Someone will probably point out that 9-11 and its aftermath are in fact World War III (or IV, depending upon how you count it), and this should be driving us to some sort of outlet that frees us from the daily drumbeat in the news.
But instead of Heinlein and Asimov, we're getting Harry Potter and a fish called Nemo... And it works, because these depict simpler themes of good and evil, courage and fear, and the ability of ordinary people (or young wizards or, well, fish) to overcome incredible obstacles placed before them.
This is not the first time such a thing has happened. During the peak of the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800's, amid motorcars, steam-powered factories, and crazy folk attempting to fly like birds, there was counter-revolution of sorts where people looked for craftsmanship and simplicity in their homes and furnishings, first in England, later in the U.S. It banished the sameness of mass-production and replaced it with objects that had the appearance of being, or were in fact, unique.
We live in similar times - only now the personal computer and the internet are the invading technology. It should come as no surprise that people have had enough and need an escape to simpler, less stressful things.
But I would also predict that this is only temporary. We're taking a breather as the next phase of technological development gathers itself together. When it will happen, I don't know, but when it comes to Sci-Fi, I would suggest that a gentleman and his team working in the Mojave desert of all places may unleash the next wave. Or maybe not. We'll see.
Vernor Vinge also uses the basic concepts in some of his fiction. I particularlly like Across Realtime
Across Realtime was a combination of two novels, The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime, and a novelette, The Ungoverned. Both novels were much better than his Hugo-winning "A Fire upon the Deep" (which is probably one of his weaker novels, IMO). Each lost the Hugo because they (respectively) went up against Card's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead". I won't contest the Ender's Game award, however I think MiR was much better than Speaker for the Dead. Both of the later novels were SF/Mystery cross-overs and MiR is more effective in both genres.
I still haven't figured out if "Fire upon the Deep" won the later Hugo because voters wanted to compensate for the earlier decision, or because FUtD used Internet references just when the Internet was gaining mass market penetration. Probably a combination of both.
IMO, the best new novelist of the last decade in the Hard SF genre is Wil McCarthy. Check out The Collapsium, The Wellstone, or even his earlier Bloom. I think his stories have more of a Clarke/Asimov flavour, but with better plotting and characterization. If you like Vinge's Across Realtime, chances are you'll like Wil McCarthy's stuff too. While he's got some too-cool technology ideas, he also tackles some interesting issues (i.e. how will new generations make their place in a world with widespread immortality where the old farts refuse to relinquish power and position?)
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
The T&K website response reminds me of that teacher. It says that stories are tools to share and explore ideas, and then seems to go on to say essentially 'Science fiction serves only one purpose, to explore ideas related to all the emergent technology of the 20th century.' The T&K website is speaking out of its ass.
Granted, I'll agree with the statement that stories are tools to share and explore ideas. They can be used for other things. They're often used to inspire emotions, or to entertain, which is essentially the same thing.
T&K seems to take the position that the paltry foray's we've made into integrating new technology into our lives represent some sort of plateau, if not pinnacle of achievement. Its as if to say, we've got cell phones, we've got GPS, we can occasionally send a probe to mars and not have it crash, hoorah, the future is here.
Sorry, the future is NOT here. Never will be. We will always remain in the present, always, because if we start living in the future, we stop trying to get there. Sure, cell phones are nice, but wouldn't a subcutaneous direct neural link to all of human knowledge and all other humans be nifty? Or perhaps dangerous. I'm not sure. Lets explore and share ideas. What? You say the future is here and this is the way it will always be? Oh, perhaps I should write a book about navel gazing then.
I don't know about the author of this statement, but I've definately experience a thrilling rush reading about engineering on a scale I never imagined before, like a gigantic spinning ring around a sun. Or how about one of the myriad ways of defeating death, poverty, and inequality I've read about, couched in science fiction terms.
100 years ago no one could have imagined the way the world would change with the automobile. 50 years ago no one could have imagined the way the world would change with computers. We can't imagine how the world will be in 50 years, but we can try.
Sure, today's technology is growing mature, but science fiction is like a nebula. For those who don't know, nebulas are the results of a star exploding, and are the birthplace of new stars. The remnants of a pervious generation giving birth to the next. That works for ideas as well. Maybe some of today's technology was born in some science fiction writer's mind, and maybe the next generation which we can't even imagine yet is being born right now, slowly drawing itself together.
The idea of readers defecting to 'fantasy'. Trying to draw a line in the sand between science fiction and fantasy is like trying to nail jello to a tree. Most people call Star Trek science fiction, but its not. Not to me. Star Trek has always been about people, at least when its been good. If you watch the 5 series you'll see that they're each set in the era they were produced in. Watch the original and look at the way people act and interact and try to believe you're not in the 60's. Look at 'Enterprise' and try to believe you're not living in an America that is living in fear of terrorists. The fact is that technology molds society just as much as socie
Jherico
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