science fiction – Page 84

Oh No Greg Egan No!

Published on March 9, 20094 Comments

As you may have encountered if you’re following online science fiction fandom, for months now there has been an increasingly poisonous but important discussion about race, cultural apropriation and science fction going on in various sf blogs, mostly on Livejournal. Science fiction/fandom prides itself on being open and inclusive, but in reality has huge blindspots when it comes to matters of race, culture and gender. Which in itself is not a new conclusion of course, but which Racefail 2009 –as this increasingly acrimonious discussion has been dubbed by cynics — makes clear is still a sore spot for the genre. Even well intentioned writers have been shown to be –how to say– less than tactful in their handling of these matters.

Greg Egan’s throwaway remark that the use of words like “geek” or “nerd” is as bad as certain racial slurs could therefore not come at a worse time:

These days there’s often some ranting about “nerds” and “geeks” — words that belong in the same rubbish pile as “niggers” and “gooks” — though I have to admit there’s something gloriously awful, in a Love And Death on Long Island kind of way, when would-be sophisticates who spend half their time discussing Joyce or Sophocles switch to a vocabulary whose current usage was largely forged in the supremely inane universe of American high school cliques. It’s also quite handy to have a word or two around whose use swiftly identifies a proud scientific illiterate just as effectively as the words that mark a proud racist. Of course, there are a handful of scientifically literate people who have decided to self-identify with the same vocabulary, but when it comes to using n-words the example of Fifty Cent is a great deal less appealing to me than that of Barack Obama.

But you have to admit that there is no better proof than this that yes, science fiction is clueless about race. Nerds and geeks may be bullied in high school sometimes, but it’s all a far cry from being forced to use separate water coolers and such, now is it, or being stopped “randomly” for wearing pocket protectors… Especially considering the context in which Egan makes these remarks, his attempted putdown of a negative Adam Roberts review of Egan’s latest novel, this show an astounding level of entitlement and cluelessness.

If you want to read more about Racefail 2009, Torque Control has a good overview post up. I myself have been reading, but not writing about the discussion as I have little to add and there are enough half assed opinions being slung around in it already…

“Oddly passionless as well, and I don’t think this is entirely because this is a Canadian show”

Published on March 3, 2009

James Nicoll reviews legendary bad sci-fi tv series Starlost.

Ben Bova famously wrote a fictional treatment of the disaster that was this series, Starcrossed, which I keep seeing in local secondhand bookstores. The series itself was based on a Harlan Ellison treatment, but in the end he was so infuriated with the way his ideas were treated, he took his name of it. Here’s what he wrote for Starcrossed‘s cover blurb:

It has been pointed out to me that Ben Bova’s vaguely hilarious novel is roughly patterned on events and characters involved in the short but loathsome existence of a TV series I had the misfortune to create, “The Starlost.” Nonsense! Just because my series had a studio executive as rapacious as a weasel, a producer who was a certified brain damage case, actors who should have been ditch-diggers and money grubbers who should have taken up residence at Dachau … and Bova’s novel has the same … is just lousy coincidence. Clearly it isn’t one-for-one: the writer in Bova’s book, Ron Gabriel, isn’t one-millionth as terrific and sexy as me! You’ll hear from my attorneys in the morning.

Should I get this novel?

Philip José Farmer 1918-2009

Published on February 26, 2009

Dammit.

Philip José Farmer was a writer who to me always promised slightly more than he delivered, the ideas around which he built his stories more interesting in conception than realisation. He started writing science fiction at a time when it was very much still a straightlaced pulp genre and immediately injected a proper dirty, perverse sexuality in it when other writers were still proud of describing a tomcat as a “ballbearing mousetrap”. Thoroughout his career his writing was oscillating between his fascination for pulp and his fascination with sex and perversity, often combining the two, as in A Feast Unknown, starring Doc Savage and Tarzan as two sexual deviants only able to get it on after they’ve killed.

His biggest commercial succes was probably the Riverworld series, starring Sir Richard Burton as he goes in search of the sources of the river alongside which he wakes up after his death, millions of years into the future, along with everybody else who ever lived. A great concept, portrayed with much verve and passion, but which unfortunately petered out a bit in the sequels.

My own personal favourites instead was his World of Tiers series, the first novel of which, The Maker of Universes was one of the first novels I ever bought in English. It starts with Robert Wolff, an almost retired professor of Greek, trapped in a somewhat loveless marriage, hearing a trumpet call out in the basement storage room of the newly built house he is thinking of buying. An impossibility obviously, as the closet is as bare as it could be, yet when he slides the door open again, he sees a portral to another world, where a bronzed youg man was holding a weirdly shaped trumpet in his hand and fighting of half a dozen of nightmarish, gorrila like creatures. Spying Wolff, the man tosses the horn to him and tells Wolff to look him, Kickaha up. Then the portal closes and Wolff is left with the horn…

An almost perfect adventure story, and the sequels kept up the high standard set, each one exploring a new, more bizarre world. Perfect fodder for a fourteen year but not one that prepared him for his more …mature… novels.

Farmer was a great writer who helped science fiction grow up, yet who kept an apprecation for its more immature, more innocent side. If he was right, he’ll be waking up somewhere right about now, stark naked next to an endless river, looking for material to make a pen, ink and paper out of…

Murray Leinster honoured in Virginia

Published on February 23, 2009

June 27 2009 will be Will F. Jenkins Day in Virginia:

WHEREAS, as Murray Leinster, he was one of the founders of American science fiction with his story “The Runaway Skyscraper,” which was published on February 22, 1919, in Argosy magazine; and he was one of the few pioneers of the genre who continued to publish regularly when the nature of science fiction changed after World War II; and

WHEREAS, “First Contact,” written by Murray Leinster in 1945, is one of the most anthologized stories in the history of science fiction, and “A Logic Named Joe,” written in 1946 by Will F. Jenkins, was the first science fiction story to envision a computer network similar to the Internet; and

WHEREAS, Murray Leinster won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “Exploration Team” in 1956; was the guest of honor at the 21st Worldcon in 1963; and was awarded a Retro Hugo Award posthumously in 1996 for Best Novelette for “First Contact,” which was the first science fiction story to present the dramatic scenario of the first meeting between earthlings and aliens; and

[…]

RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly designate June 27, 2009, as Will F. Jenkins Day in Virginia in recognition of the author’s creative genius and his numerous literary achievements; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates post the designation of this day on the General Assembly’s website.

As will be clear from the above, Will F. Jenkins was equally well known, if not more so as Murray Leinster. He was writing science fiction before there was a genre called that and kept on writing well into the 1960ties. Much of his writing seems to be out of print these days, but the 1978 Del Rey edition of The Best of Murray Leinster should be easily found secondhand. It contains most of the stories name checked in this resolution.

Found via James Nicoll.

Getting back into science fiction

Published on February 19, 2009

Reader Chris Y, in comments to this post asks:

Gloriana is not Moorcock at his best, but Riddley Walker (1982) is an all time classic, and Heliconia Spring (1983) is well worth reading. I more or less gave up on SF about that time, with the decline of the New Wave and the resurgence of boring old hardcore. Who should I read to get back into it? I’ve tried Charlie Stross, who seems OK; anybody else?

So we’re looking for recommendations for somebody who likes New Wave science fiction and Charlie Stross, but is less keen on hardcore science fiction. What I immediately think of is the socalled New Weird, a self-conscious literary movement of a few years ago that sort of coalesced around China Miéville and the generation of up and coming authors that got compared to him. Other New Weird authors include Steph Swainson, M. John Harrison and on the more space opera side of things, Alastair Reynolds. Tachyon Publications has put out an Ann and Jeff Vandermeer edited anthology of New Weird stories that looks to be a good starter. Another author that might be of interest is Adam Roberts, whose work I don’t actually like all that much but I do admire, if that makes any sense.

On the Strossian side of things, there’s Ken MacLeod, not to mention Iain M. Banks and Ian McDonald. Two underrated authors I only discovered myself last year are Nicola Griffith, writing feminist science fiction in the best sense of the word, as well as Paul Cornell.

Any other recommendations?