From a post by myself to the RFF (Readers for the Future) mailing list

The topic here was the lack of innovation in modern Science Fiction as one possible answer to the question "What is Wrong with Sci Fi Publishing?" My response is reproduced below. Since I have all these rants in me, I figure I had better get them out! Better out than in. :-) Bottled up rants are not good for the soul.

No heart and soul, I'd say, is a big part of the problem. Maybe that's
what Berman and Brin meant by lack of innovation and positive SF. My
work addresses the question of how cultures can stop short of mutual
assured destruction, and how different solutions cause problems because
the systems are mutually incompatible. Nearly every con I go to, someone
says to me, "Yeah, sure, but come on -- someone's going to pull out that
gun or use that rel-ship in a terrorist way or go for the
killer-mass-destroy-it-all virus." It is almost as if it is an
illegitimate thing for a science fiction writer to ask whether any
solution but an arms race is possible. I exclude multi-media addictions
from my work, for the most part. Reetions distrust the power of
presentation to skew rational analysis. Gelacks don't like artificial
things that repeat themselves identically every time they are
experienced. I am often challenged on that. As if no one can believe
that any decision BUT headlong obsessive "more more more" attitudes can
prevail when it comes to what technology to use and which to set aside.
I have a lot to say, as you can tell, about what's wrong with science
fiction these days. But I think a lot of it could be summed up with a
single plea: "no more drug-culture". A lot of nanotech, future dystopias
and dark elf/vampire stories strike me as nothing more than that. No
values. No social contract. Unimportant personal relationships or ones
that lead to nothing but pain and betrayal in the quest for another
"hit". There is plenty of pain and death and nasty things in my work.
But I'm fed up with the message I keep getting that this should be the
goal of writing, not the tools by which one tells a story. That
ACTION-ACTION-ACTION rather than having a story with a message, is all
important. I seriously doubt a lot of modern sci fi writers could
construst a single meaningful sentence about what they are trying to
convey thematically, or in terms of net emotional effect, or anything
else, if you asked them about the underlying tensions or motivations in
their work. Collectively, I think too many writers are afraid to be
innovative. Writers are "market-whipped". The penalty for being
different is not fitting into that narrow slot allocated for you on the
marketing shelf.

Nothing original, insightful or large spirited can come of pressures
like that! Long live the small press.

posted by Lynda at 07:17   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments