Fantastika

William Tenn (1910 – 2010)

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At age eightynine it was to be expected, but hearing about the death of William Tenn aka Philip Klass was still not a nice way of starting the day. Especially coming so soon after the news of Kage Baker’s death a week ago. I can’t say I knew either of them, but they were both writers whose books I read and enjoyed and would’ve liked to read more of. Kage Baker especially, because whereas Klass had long since retired, she was still busy writing, becoming better with each novel she wrote. You’d wish her a long and happy career but sadly the cancer intervened.

But if I’m honest, William Tenn’s death hit me more. He wasn’t the first science fiction writer I read, but he was one of the first authors I noticed whose stories were noticably better written than average. Whereas most sf stories I read back then had little appeal beyond the neat idea(s) they contained, Tenn’s stories went beyond that. Stories like “The Liberation of Earth” or “The Brooklyn Project” only look like typical sf stories, with the central idea easily told in a few sentences, but the language use and the sharp, satirical insights are unique to Tenn. As Theodore Sturgeon put it, slightly over the top:

It would be too wide a generalization to say that every SF satire, every SF comedy and every attempt at witty and biting criticism found in the field is a poor and usually cheap imitation of what this man has been doing since the 1940s. His incredibly involved and complex mind can at times produce constructive comment so pointed and astute that the fortunate recipient is permanently improved by it. Admittedly, the price may be to create two whole categories for our species: humanity and William Tenn. For each of which you must create your ethos and your laws. I’ve done that. And to me it’s worth it.

(From Wikipedia.)

Interstellar Archaeology

geekdom, Science, science fiction
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An interesting post up at Centauri Dreams about the possibilities of interstellar archaeology:

Suppose a civilization somewhere in the cosmos is approaching Kardashev type III status. In other words, it is already capable of using all the power resources of its star (4*1026 W for a star like the Sun) and is on the way to exploiting the power of its galaxy (4*1037 W). Imagine it expanding out of its galactic niche, turning stars in its stellar neighborhood into a series of Dyson spheres. If we were to observe such activity in a distant galaxy, we would presumably detect a growing void in visible light from the area of the galaxy where this activity was happening, and an upturn in the infrared. Call it a ‘Fermi bubble.’

That’s the term used by Richard Carrigan (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) in his latest work on what he calls ‘interstellar archaeology,’ the search for cosmic-scale artifacts like Dyson spheres or Kardashev civilizations. A Fermi bubble would grow as the civilization creating it diffused through space. Carrigan notes that, as Carl Sagan and others observed, the time to colonize an individual system is small compared to the travel time between stars. An expanding front of colonization might then move forward at a rate roughly comparable to the space travel velocity. A civilization could engulf its galaxy on a time scale comparable to the rotation period of the galaxy, and perhaps a good bit shorter.

We may not have gotten our jetpacks or domed cities on moon and in the oceans, but the mere fact that ideas like this are not just interesting speculations but actually testable proposals should convince anybody we’re living in the future. The only disavantage is that the more we are able to observe from Earth or Solar System based space telescopes, the less likely it will be that the old science fiction future of three men scouting rockets exploring the Galaxy will come to pass…

BSFA novel shortlist: worthy but dull

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Torque Control has the 2009 BSFA Awards shortlists up. BSFA, stands for British Science Fiction Association and its awards are, together witht he Arthur C. Clarke award, the most important British awards in the science fiction and fantasy field (though open to non-British entries as well). The members of the BSFA will vote on these shortlists together with the members of the British national sf convention, Easterncon and the winners will be known at –you guessed– Easter.

This year there was a spark of interest in the non-fiction award, as Hal Duncan withdrew his nomination, as he felt it both wasn’t engaging sf/fantasy enough and because he felt that Deepa D’s nomination, I Didn’t Dream of Dragons deserves to win. Deepa D’s essay came out of that whole RaceFail fiasco early last year, one of the best if not the best responses to it. I agree with Duncan that it deserves to win.

Apart from that, what I found interesting about the nominations is how dull the awards short list is. Just four novels, The City and the City – China Miéville, Ark – Stephen Baxter, Yellow Blue Tibia – Adam Roberts and Lavinia -Ursula LeGuin. Apart from China’s novel I haven’t read any of them, so this is no slur on their quality, but these are all such safe choices, like a Booker shortlist with Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith. These are all four well known, succesful, well respected writers few could argue with don’t deserve this recognition, but therefore are an obvious choice for it. That makes it dull. I’d rather seen some writer I don’t know yet and don’t know what to expect from make it on the shortlist.

Pohl for the Fan Hugo!

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One of the miracles of the modern world is that Frederik Pohl has a blog. Nicely chatty and interesting it is too, with much about the early days of science fiction fandom, which is enough reason for Jo Walton to nominate him for the fan Hugo. Fanzine turned blog File 770 finds this ä bit special”:

All very true. So haven’t you stopped to wonder why has he never been nominated for Best Fan Writer in any of the 40+ years the category has existed? Certainly not because his writing isn’t good enough. Nor that he failed to write about fandom — surely we all remember his autobiography “The Way the Future Was.” The real question is whether a long-time pro like Fred Pohl would take the nomination as a compliment. This enforced egalitarianism is not always welcomed by pros. Recall that Harlan Ellison turned down his Best Fan Writer nomination.

This is a bit like, as we say it Dutch, looking for nails at low tide, raising objections for the sake of objecting, rather than from genuine concern. Anybody familiar with Frederik Pohl and sf fandom enough to worry about the fan Hugo should know about his long involvement with fandom, even longer than his career as a filthy pro. The fact that he started a blog in his late eighties on which most of his posts are about his love for fandom, the history of how he get involved with fandom and science fiction and so on is a rather large clue as well that Pohl has no problems with fandom.

He’s also about the only living link with First Fandom still present and active – honouring him for this work by nominating him for a fan Hugo does not seem an insult to me and I doubt very much he would think differently. Doesn’t necessarily mean he needs to win it too, but the nomination is at very least a signal that people in fandom like and appreciate what he’s doing. Good on Jo to do so.

The idea that pros are pros and fans are fans and they’re separate species is a filthy modern heresy (for some values of modern). Pohl surely is somebody who knows otherwise. File 770 should know otherwise.

The only real objection you could make to Pohl’s nomination is the idea that people will then vote for him based purely on name recognition. Since this is a long existing problem that has never stopped anybody before, i wouldn’t worry too much about it though.