Why Is Science Fiction Snubbed By Literary Awards? (galacticbrain.com)

Slashdot reader bowman9991 quotes an essay from GalacticBrain: Science fiction authors have long been outcasts from the literary world, critics using the worst examples of the genre as ammunition against it. Unfortunately though, at times even science fiction authors themselves can turn on their own kind: "Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space," mocked Margaret Atwood, one of her many attempts to convince people that she is not a science fiction author, even though one of her most famous novels, A Handmaid's Tale, is exactly that...

Considered by the literary establishment, and frequently by non-SF award-giving institutions, to be trashy, pulpish, commercially driven lightweight gutter fiction, it's no surprise that very few works of science fiction have won major literary awards... Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the award-winning (not "literary" awards obviously) Mars novels, [in 2009] hit out at the literary establishment, accusing the Man Booker judges of "ignorance" in neglecting science fiction, which he declared was "the best British literature of our time".
The article ends with a simple question. "Will science fiction authors ever escape the publication ghetto?"

Comments

Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[Zontar The Mindless]

See $subject.

Re:Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[ColdWetDog]

Ursula LeGuin doesn't write "trashy, pulpish, commercially driven lightweight gutter fiction" so no it doesn't count.

The fact that the vast majority of SF writers don't do that either seems to have eluded some of 'those' literary aficionados but I've always had a hard time separating them from audio enthusiasts or serious wine freaks. Their critiques sound remarkably similar. And make about as much sense.

Seriously, the big problem with SF seems to be that the protagonist isn't an alcoholic who has been suffering simultaneously from PTSD, fibromyalgia, some varied form of social / sexual or political repression and / or abuse while living in a run down apartment in a small American town.

Re:Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[Zocalo]

Seriously, the big problem with SF seems to be that the protagonist isn't an alcoholic who has been suffering simultaneously from PTSD, fibromyalgia, some varied form of social / sexual or political repression and / or abuse while living in a run down apartment in a small American town.

You know, that sounds a lot like Miller from James S. A. Corey's Expanse series:
Alcoholic - check
PTSD - well, he's certainly traumatised and suffering from stress, especially in the latter books...
Fibromyalgia - check (born in low G, so can't readily visit relatively high-G worlds like Earth)
Some form of repression/abuse - check (divorced, belter, cop everyone at the precinct looks down on...)
Run down apartment - check
Small American town - well, it *is* Sci-Fi, so does a small asteroid town count?

Don't recall seeing any of the series on the Mann Booker lists though...

Re:Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[Z00L00K]

With quite a collection in my bookshelves I'd say that the range of personalities and human limitations presented are quite wide in Science Fiction.

The early Science Fiction with Alfred Bester, Christopher Anvil, Robert Heinlein, James White and Isaac Asimov was quite wide-spread and was covering a wide range of ideas about society, human behavior ideas and social experiments in an environment that gave them freedom to place their own rules to their experiments. But in the end it was about how to look at humanity. Many of the stories were presented with many facets at the same time so it may have been hard to draw conclusions from them.

Maybe the people handing out awards are unable to handle multi-faceted stories? Or maybe they are put of by people actually being successful despite their problems?

Re:Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[polgair]

Well, I think they are not the same thing. That's like going to a math conference and get disappointed that they don't hand out research awards for results found in mechanical engineering papers

Let's talk about two bodies of work that ought to be about the same type of people, but actually yield very different results. Let's compare James Salter's first two books, The Hunters and Cassada with The Expanse series.

James Salter's first two books draws from his experience as a late joiner to the American Army Aircorps, of which he graduated in 1945. The first book, Hunters, draws from his experience as a fighter pilot in the Korean War. It's about a guy who really wants to be successful as a fighter pilot. Throughout the book, while I the reader is constantly rooting for him, he is awash in self doubt. I don't think my efforts for rooting for him are in vain, but the character took awile for me to get to liking. Cassada on the other hand is about a guy who I imediately draw a liking to, but his charm does not extend to many of his cohorts within the book. I'm often surprised by what happens, how my heart strings get tugged with and it almost seems like disappointment hits both the characters and me in waves where I would least expect it.

But I read the Expanse series, and immediately the tropes jump out. As a novel where one co-author did the world building for an MMO game first, and then play tested it using D20 modern characters, the mechanics of this world seemed pre-ordained, the characters already seemed like they were a bit more sure of themselves and the people writing/playing them had a good idea on how they were going to react given a circumstance, as role player tend to have a habit of playing slightly different takes on the same theme most of the time. I open this book and come to feelings of simulteously being somewhere new, and having been there before, all at once. I remember a pair of adidas that I really liked playing basketball in when I was in my teens and in my late 20s it was re-released. The shoe felt similar, but better constructed. The Expanse feels no different.

Literary fiction toys with the literary fiction making process whilst in the guise of putting together a tale. The reader here does the work of deconstructing the process. The literary protaganist may be the center of the plot, but he/she/it isn't really driving it. Most of the time they aren't even all that likable in the beginning. I read literary fiction and examine how and why things are done while I anticipate what happens from page to page.

In commercial fiction, the main characters do most of the work for the reader. There's less playing around in style. Characters that drive the book are immediately likable. I don't really have to wonder about the why or the how. Most commercial fiction borrow important techniques from literary fiction from years past, and some sci fi writers read their literary fiction contemporaries (it's obvious that Neal Stephenson borrows from David Foster Wallace). So if I pay attention and keep up with my literary world stuff, the sci fi stuff will use dramatic techniques and plot devices that trickle down.

Re:Ursula LeGuin doesn't count?

[Zocalo]

That's the point though, isn't it? There *is* no clear cut "recipe" for what makes a winning book (SF or otherwise) in the eyes of the non-genre specific literary awards. The character of Miller ticks all the boxes listed by the OP (which *are* generally applicable to the winners), but the writing is definitely not up to the standard of some of those that do win the awards (and yes, I've read quite a few of them, including classics and more recent examples), on the flip side there are some winners where none of the antagonists or protagonists even come close to ticking those boxes, yet the writing and premise are definitely of an exceptional standard. When you get right down to it, what wins the awards is the aggregate personal opinions of the judges based on their moods and outlook while they were reading the particular book under review - give them the same book under different conditions and you'll likely get different winners.

Personally, I find well written Sci-Fi (or fantasy) to be just as good, if not better, than many other forms of fiction for addressing a given topic. The author has complete control over the setting and history necessary to create an ideal stage for the topic that is the real subject of the story, which is a degree of latitude that historic and contemporary fiction writers usually don't have. Case in point: look at how well many of Terry Pratchett's later works (someone else in the genre who got some serious literary nods!) subtly address and explore contemporary issues like politics, prejudice, religion, finance, terrorism, war, and so on, without any of the distractions that a more traditional setting might entail.

You're absolutely right on the ability to have and enjoy both pulp and heavier writing, and I use the same techniques myself. Sure, you can look down the awards lists and check out a few of the shortlisted titles that you think might be of interest based on the premise, and you'll likely find a few titles and authors you really like that way, but it's not really enough. The most fruitful way I've found for finding new authors (and musicians) I like is to look at the "people who bought this also bought..." recommendations for books and music I already own on places like Amazon, then reading the user reviews where those links take me.

Mass appeal

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper appreciation of science fiction requires an educated mindset that can properly appreciate science as well as hopefully look forward in the face of existential crisis.

Most people just aren't there. They prefer stories about people that alternately backstab and fall in love with one another.

That's just how the cookie crumbles.

Re:Mass appeal

[rudy_wayne]

In the same vein, no comedy has every won an Oscar for best film. Because the people who make that decision are pretentious, pseudo-intelectual snobs who think that comedy is beneath them.

Re:Mass appeal

[ravenshrike]

It's a comedy/drama about a pretentious pseudo-intellectual snob. The line is blurred.

Re:Mass appeal

[chipschap]

Critics of literature and the guys who nominate books for literary awards probably don't read a lot of SF either

They also, as far as I can tell, generally don't have much of a clue about science and math either. This works into why they rave over Jonathan Franzen publishing a novel every ten years or so and praising it to the heavens, rather than even considering sci-fi which may have concepts well beyond the critics' understanding.

I remember once seeing a complaint from an author about the New York Times weekly book review section, to the effect: "The New York Times likes young women poets who killed themselves."

Re:Mass appeal

[tomhath]

Proper appreciation of science fiction requires an educated mindset that can properly appreciate science as well as hopefully look forward in the face of existential crisis.

Hey, that's some pretty good science fiction you just wrote. But fiction nonetheless.

Re:Mass appeal

[argStyopa]

I'm not sure a "they don't like what I like because I'm so much smarter than them" is really going to persuade anyone but the choir.

I'm very confused now...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Or, as Margaret Atwood put it more bluntly and infamously: "Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space."

So Sad Puppies were actually right?

Snobbery

[Kohath]

Literary awards are snobbish. Quality in literature is subjective, so awards go to people that award-givers want to award.

Isn't this obvious?

Re:Snobbery

[Anonymous Coward]

You beat me to that point, but I will expand by asking why one needs an award to feel accomplished? If you are able to leverage writing talent into an otherwise successful career, then who cares what a stuffy panel full of tensile-textile-tallywhacker-totes think?

Re:Snobbery

[Dutch Gun]

It's partly that, perhaps, but I think it's also something more. I think that science fiction demand something unique of a reader that other genres do not. It requires a larger leap of imagination in order to allow the author to create an entire world, and quite possibly a new society to go along with it, with different rules and conventions. They insist that a read be able to take that leap and make that world their own for the duration of the story.

Sadly, I think this is a leap too far for many people, who consider "playing make-believe", even in literary form, beneath them, somehow childish or undignified. It pulls you out of your comfortable knowledge of the world and everything in it, and forces you to relearn the universe and its rules again, which may be an uncomfortable process for some. And this is perhaps even more true for fantasy than science fiction, because at least science fiction can still take place in our own universe where the same physical laws still apply, however speculative it is with future technology.

Re:Snobbery

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell, having been subjected to several teachers into the stuff many years ago (and a number of friends since), "Quality Literature" typically eskews plot, fun and excitement in favour of deeply person journeys in unpleasant subjects and psychological waffle the "blurs the boundaries between (typically unspecified) genres" or similar bollocks. Literary awards seem to reward this style.

As a result I (possibly unfairly) tend to shun books with literary pretentions in favour of those that look like they might be a good escapist read. Usually that means a mix of fantasy and science fiction.

Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[Nova Express]

Due to the Social Justice Warrior influx, the genre's awards are no longer given on merit, but rather on meeting the proper criteria of political, ethnic and gender correctness.

If you question this turn of events, expect to find yourself expelled from Worldcon for voicing anti-Social Justice Warrior thoughts.

Before the SJW invasion, the Hugo Award used to mean something, and the best of science fiction was gaining increased literary respect. Neither of those are true anymore.

And if SF awards have become meaningless, this designation applies doubly to literary awards. Quick, name the last ten winners of the National Book Award for Fiction. Outside a small circle of literary devotees, no one knows or cares.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The submitter's question was why is sci-fi ignored by the mainstream crowd.

2. Sci-fi and a lot of "geekdom" in general does have a misogyny problem.

3. The solution is to address the misogyny, not to force everything into the 50/50 balance a lot of SJW want. If your book is about space marines and 90% of the characters are male, that's not misogyny... it's life. If the book were then to only refer to and treat women as sex objects, submissive servants, etc. That's misogyny. Too many people confuse omission for exclusion and both for derision and/or subjugation.

4. Regardless, you can write good sci-fi in the constraints laid out by the SJW. I quite like the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. And I know it's one of the series that people point to as an example of the Hugo's "selling out" but everyone I know who's read it (male and female) likes it. She just had this misfortune to right a good book* right at the time this became a touchpoint.

* Yes "good" is very, very subjective when reviewing literature.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for proving my point. I never said they couldn't be or shouldn't be, I just said it didn't have to be an even 50/50 split and you bowed up. My example was 90/10 which reflects current reality. In this day in age, most women don't want to be marines or soldiers period. That may change in the future and you can find a lot of literature that reflects a culture where it does.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[ravenshrike]

That's not entirely true. While the SJW infiltration that started in the late noughts certainly didn't help matters, the Hugos had been struggling for relevancy as an award since the late 80's. This is because they basically shun YA Sci-fi and the thought of bringing in new readers. The average age at Worldcon has to hover at least between 40 and 50 if not higher.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[Zak3056]

If your book is about space marines and 90% of the characters are male, that's not misogyny... it's life. If the book were then to only refer to and treat women as sex objects, submissive servants, etc. That's misogyny.

I'll grant the characters are probably misogynistic, but that would not necessarily make the story or the author misogynistic.

Regardless, you can write good sci-fi in the constraints laid out by the SJW.

This, right here, is the problem. Who the hell is ANYONE for whatever reason to lay out constraints? "Hey, the writing was superb, and the story was great, but in chapter 5 someone said something the thought police don't agree with, so no award for you."

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[serviscope_minor]

There was no SJW infilitration or cabal. Never mind that "SJW" means "someone I don't like and by the way I'm a fuckwit". All that happened is a bunch of people with dubious tastes happened to be the only ones who could be arsed to actually nominate and vote. As such it was about the most pathetic "conspiracy" in the history of the world ever because it turned out that the criteria for being conspired against were more or less "too lazy to voice an opinion".

So crappy sci-fi got given awards, because some people you disagree with bothered to vote and nominate.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[Zak3056]

You sound like one of those people who say that something isn't censorship because only the government can violate the first amendment.

Yes, bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct--the best kind of correct--when you say that stating "you can't say that" is indeed part and parcel of free speech. That doesn't change that these thought police are hell bent on gutting the notion of what free speech actually is. Being an asshole is protected speech. It's not in any way socially valuable, but we protect that speech (or at least we USED to) because protecting it protects speech that truly is valuable.

The past: "I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Today: "YOU MISOGYNIST BASTARD, YOUR MICROAGGRESSIONS HAVE GIVEN ME PTSD."

I know which world I prefer(ed) living in.

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[lucasnate1]

"Most women who becomes prostitutes are tricked" - and what is "patriotic duty" if not a trick?

Re:Science Fiction is busy destroying itself

[ravenshrike]

When the Nebulas, an award by sci fi authors for excellence(unlike the Hugos) in the field of Sci-Fi/Fantasy gives the award to a story like "If you were a dinosaur my love" there's a problem with SJW infiltration. It's not sci-fi, it's not fantasy, and since it's nothing but someone's personal twisted revenge porn they're daydreaming about with no effect on the real world it doesn't even qualify as speculative fiction. Even that idiotic rain story from the following year was at least spec fic.

Do literary awards matter?

[Ambassador Kosh]

Do these awards even matter? My understanding is that science-fiction sells pretty well.

Before you buy a book do you check to see if it has won awards? Do you even care?

It certainly seems that amazon doesn't use awards when recommending books that would interest me.

I understand that people want to receive recognition but in the end does it actually matter? It seems to me that just like other award ceremonies they just matter less and less. Kind of like when the Oscars don't represent the actual movies that people really liked they stop mattering to people.

In the end read what you want and let computer algorithms figure out what you are more likely to want to read and ignore the silly awards.

Sci Fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the real SciFi has been associated with tennage boys and young men.
That in itself makes it a SJW target.
And then there are some movies associated with that type of fiction....
While bookstores lump SciFi and Fantasy together, so do the Literary awards judges.
To be inclusive of other neglected genres, lets not be too specific.
No awards for Harlequin Romances, associated with teenage girls and young/old women... this includes 50 Shades...
No awards for murder mysteries, comedy or otherwse..... graphic novels included...
No awards for westerns, with hero or heroine....
No awards for gangster tales, crime novels.

OOPS! I forgot - some of these do get awards based on sales.

Of course, to be fair, the writing/plot/attention-to-detals in any of these genres may be good, bad, boring or mediocre.
But people buy them, so they will be written.
( when Tolkeins son and Herberts son tried to continue, it was evident they could not write for poop)

If they literary judges weren't so anal about intellectual stuff ( HUTA ), then these should get awards:
Asmov - I, Robot and the Foundation Series.
Herbert - Dune.... only Dune.
Clark - 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles.

Disclaimer - I like a cheesy novel...

Not sure

[nospam007]

The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel prize 1907)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Booker 1981, uses an SF-nal element (telepathy).
The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer 2007, is post-apocalyptic and thus firmly SF.
The Glass Bead Game aka Magister Ludi, Hermann Hesse, Nobel 1946 (a work set about four centuries from now, centering on a game of intellect.)
Slaughterhouse Five
1984
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451
Solaris ...

Re: Not sure

[coldsalmon]

It's simple really: if it's written well enough, it's not called science fiction.

Snobs.

[SvnLyrBrto]

It's the same reason science fiction rarely wins oscars and is lumped in with fantasy when it's acknowledged as a genre at all. Same reason, for that matter that comedy doesn't win book or movie awards, and for television the Emmys shuffles comedy to its own category away from the "serious" programming and doesn't acknowledge SciFi at all. It's the same reason that the "technical" Oscars and Emmys are shuffled off to their own non-broadcast semi-ceremonies. Hell, it's the very same reason the Spielberg was ignored by the academy until Schindler's List, in spite of the undeniable awesomeness of Jaws, ET, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The people making the decisions are pretentious stuck-up snobs with overly inflated opinions of their own fabulousness. And genres such as SciFi, comedy, adventure, and the like are not "serious" enough to be rewarded more than very rarely, and then only begrudgingly by those people.

Re: Very simple

[Entrope]

Please survey any of the genres of recent books that get much space on the shelves at libraries or bookstores and let us know which genres are predominantly fine literature.

Because romance novels, thrillers, and "Moron's Guides" to the Obvious sure ain't.

a Lem alone

[epine]

Read Stanislaw Lem's Microworlds. He variously suffers from elitism, spurned-author petulance, and a predilection for Hegelian phraseology, but he offers up real ideas where few ideas roam.

Here's a bit from his essay Science Fiction: A Hopeless Case — With Exceptions:

Probably the pressure of trivial literature has crushed many highly talented writers with the result that today they deliver the products that keep highbrow readers away from science fiction. This process brings about a negative selection of authors and readers: for even those writers who can write good things produce banalities wholesale: the banality repels intelligent readers away from science fiction; as they form a small majority in fandom the "silent majority" dominates the market, and the evolution into higher spheres cannot occur.

Therefore, in science fiction, a vicious circle of cause and effect coupled together keeps the existing state of science fiction intact and going.

Another essay which I thought had some real substance: Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans

Here is a fragment from my own notes, concerning an essay I wasn't able to later pin point:

[Lem] makes some rather complex arguments that separating the good from the bad is a lot harder than it looks, but the critic must first identify the correct mode of parsing a work, should it deserve one.

He also points out that the working critic with the skills to properly perform this work are ever in short supply.

With some of Dick, Le Guin, or Vonnegut I do feel like challenged to identify the correct mode of parsing the work. Vonnegut never settles for just a single dark layer.

I feel the extra depth sometimes with Gibson, Clarke, Niven, to name a few that I've liked, but I also perceive the banality, too. Gibson makes it up with tone, Clarke with his natural ability as a raconteur, and Niven with his larger-than-life extrapolations. Talent 3, genre 0.

A major problem with SF is often that our little pinprick of a blue marble is so often beaten to a bloody pulp by the Total Plot Device Holodeck, which constitutes 90% of SF's dark energy.

Poor quality writing

[radarskiy]

A lot of SF is just poorly written. As much of the readership also has poor writing skills and they are interested in other things this is easily forgiven with the genre, but that is no reason for others to lower their standards to our level.

The major writers like Asimov acknowledged that the were poor writers. The problem today is writers that have no self-awareness of what they are actually making and instead see an SJW bogeyman behind every tree.

Fantasy is also Shut Out

[careysub]

Peter S. Beagle and Ursula K. LeGuin have each written a number of superb essays on the clear discrimination of English speaking critics (at least) against science fiction and fantasy -- which strongly overlap (although hard SF and sword-and-sorcery fans often disagree with this).

A good resource on this is Beagle's The Secret History of Fantasy which contains an nice forward by Beagle about this, as well as an excellent essay by LeGuin and David Hartwell on the subject. I can't lay my hands on his best essay on this at the moment though.

It wasn't always this way. Fantasy and science fiction literature from the 19th century and before are well regarded ("The Faerie Queene", "Frankenstein", for two random examples). Fantasy literature, if written in Spanish ("magic realism"), is adored by English speaking critics.

Part of this can be traced to one extremely influential critic - Edmund Wilson - who hated fantasy literature in all forms with an undying poison pen passion. He had a very restrictive notion of what constituted "literature" and most of English speaking criticism has absorbed his personal preferences as core principles of literature. Wilson dominated U.S. criticism for about 50 years, until 1972, which has yet to recover from his opinions.

Popular SF Doesn't Align With Agenda

[LeftCoastThinker]

As someone who has been a voracious reader of SF for 40 years and dabbled in SF authorship, this remains a problem for the genre. The reality is that many of the literary awards are looking to push a certain agenda, rather than to reward the most moving, innovative, well written pieces that they review. SF, on the other hand, is looking to engage the reader and capture their imagination. To show the reader new worlds, new races and, often, eschew social and moral norms. This flies in the face of the world view and objectives of most of the critics out there, who think that they are both intellectually and morally superior to the rest of the world, and thus you have the snub of most SF content.

For my money, Amazon should create it's own awards ceremony with cash payouts, considering the volume of books that it clears, and instead of the crusty, bitter old critics who have never created anything in their lives, they should use a combination of lottery/volunteer judges who are also known, active authors, certified purchase reviews and volume sold to give out awards. Literature has always been about bringing new ideas to the masses, but if your novel is neither popular, nor well received by the public, you have failed as an author, regardless of the content of your work.

What do they study in school?

[qeveren]

THAT is literature. Everything else is plebeian trash, because it isn't what they were taught.

It's the Two Cultures problem

[Applehu Akbar]

As noted by CP Snow years ago, academic science and academic lit are two completely separate cultures, even when they share the same set of university campuses. Because one element of the literary culture is fearing science and its applications, any literature that shows appreciation for what science does and valorizes characters who act in its realm is despised. When the literary culture does speculate about science, you get snobby old religious charlatans like Aldous Huxley ("Science is against nature") who in his dotage evolved into a New Age charlatan with a similar set of viewpoints.

Discontinuity of thought

[petes_PoV]

Considered by the literary establishment, and frequently by non-SF award-giving institutions, to be trashy, pulpish, commercially driven lightweight gutter fiction,

The "establishment" scorn SF because it is about ideas, whereas mainstream fiction is about relationships.

Books about ideas require the reader to think, while books about relationships require that the readers feel. Thinking is much harder.

Herman Hesse.

[nastyphil]

- was awarded the Nobel prize for literature exactly 70 years ago. The Glass Bead Game, his magnum opus, is most definitely SciFi.

Because they don't Grock it.

[sycodon]

Your average literary nerd/professor/author are mostly people who have a hard time with toasters and can absolutely not get their VCR to stop flashing 12:00. And yes, they still have a VCR.