Tag Archives: fantasy

#TotallyNotFantasy and the Pointless Genre Cage Match

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So, this review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant dropped Monday on Salon, and it’s been making the rounds in my part of the internet.

Last evening, Scott Lynch wrote a few tweets which I took to be responding to that article and/or to related claims that The Buried Giant is Not Fantasy.

I joined in, tweeting about my own fantasy novels and adding the Hashtag #TotallyNotFantasy.

And then…it took off. (more below the Storify)

I think it’s not a coincidence that people jumped in. The ‘It’s totally not fantasy/science fiction’ meme has been around for a while.

Pointless Genre Cage Match

I haven’t read Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant yet. Maybe I’ll love it. And for this conversation, The Buried Giant is really just another work framed in a way to re-hash up a conversation that’s been around for a long time – Genre Vs. Literary, as if they’re somehow mutually exclusive. I’ve seen a lot of literary establishment-approved writers writing genre novels (cool!) and then getting treated by major review venues like those works are ‘transcending’ or ‘redeeming’ the genre, as if we don’t already have grand masters of high literary styling in speculative fiction.

I vehemently defy those assertions. Be proud of what you’re writing, and cite your sources. I’m very happy for writers to be producing genre novels that are then released by non-genre houses. Recent novels like Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven or Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf or novellas like Karen Russell’s Sleep Donation deploy the tools of speculative fiction in stories marketed to readers as literary fiction audiences. Sweet! These works can be used by readers to bridge the gaps between speculative fiction and literary fiction audiences. This is great – it helps readers find new stories to appreciate, especially since there are writers in both fields that write hybrid work which can satisfy aesthetic demands of primarily-speculative or primarily-literary readers. They’re just different styles of art, different traditions which have overlapped numerous times.

But if you come into the territory of speculative fiction, grab some unicorns and dragons and orphan heroes and wizards, and then go somewhere else, build a novel, and say ‘Oh, this isn’t fantasy,’ then you and me? We’ve got a problem.

And not just me. Science Fiction/Fantasy’s no-nonsense fairy godmother Ursula K. “National Book Fellowship Medalist for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters” Le Guin had some words as well.

I stand with Ms. Le Guin. Not surprising, since her Earthsea books were some of the first fantasy novels I ever read and they have left an indelible mark on my conception of the genre.

Embrace the Power of And

A work can be more than one thing. A novel being fantasy doesn’t mean it isn’t also Literary, or Young Adult. I think genres are most useful as a tagging system – a way of describing and delineating additional points of entry and accessibility for a work.

The genre gutter is an illusion. It’s just another way of casting aspersions, of creating hierarchies between camps of art that are often trying to do different things and have little reason to be opposed. Retreading those hierarchical conversations is about as useful as complaining that an ATV is a terrible vehicle because it isn’t a bullet train. They do different things.

It’s all art. Appreciate it for what it is – learn what the work seems to be doing, and help get it in front of readers that might enjoy that aesthetic experience.

Shield and Crocus super-bundle contest

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Contest time!

I’m going to give away a three-pack of Shield and Crocus awesomeness – the paperback, a CD audiobook, and a copy of the ebook. I’ll sign and personalize the paperback.

cover to Shield and Crocus

How do I enter?

We’ll have a bit of fun inspired by Shield and Crocus. Comment on this post and tell me your favorite superhero, and what fantasy world you’d love to see them in, and why.

Deadpool in Ankh-Morpork or Wonder Woman in Westeros, and so on.

Enter by July 2nd, 12 Noon EDT, and I’ll select a winner at random to get the deluxe pack. Entrants from USA and CAN will be eligible for the full pack – entrants from elsewhere in the world are welcome, but the prize will be just the ebook.

Shield and Crocus cover reveal!

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At long last, the cover to Shield and Crocus has been revealed on Tor.com!

Go over there and bask in the awesomeness, okay? I’ll wait here.

 

Back?

Super-cool, right? I was totally awed. Like, open jaw ‘Whaaa?’ awed. It think that Stephan Martinière is one of the best fantasy/science fiction artists working today (and might be the single best landscape painter among them), so the fact that he brought one of my worlds to life, and with a painting of that caliber, is still kind of mind-blowing for me, almost a month after I saw the first rough sketches.

While you’re basking in the cover’s awesomeness, you might as well go and pre-order Shield and Crocus in your preferred format 😉

Paperback
Ebook
Audiobook

cover to Shield and Crocus

Glee as Fantasy

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I posit that Glee is a fantasy television series, in that it can be fruitfully evaluated using a focus on its non-mimetic narrative style to both comment on the traditions of the musical genre (especially the Hollywood Musical) but also in discussing “Music as Magic” and the way that said magic can be transformative, liberating, and revelatory.

From the ubiquitous piano player — “He’s always just around” to the fact that in Glee, seemingly everyone can instantly learn arrangements and choreagraphy and the elaborate fantasy sequences which bleed in and out of the diegesis, we have what could be described by some as Slipstream, some as Urban Fantasy, and possibly even Magical Realism (though less so on that one, given what I see as a lack of a definitive tie to the fairly culturally-specific tradition of Magical Realism).

Why does this matter?

1) If Glee is a fantasy series, then the places/times when it diverts from realism can be seen not as a violation of believability inspiring a rolling of the eyes, but a demonstration of the times when life is not enough and extra-normal storytelling is required. This brings back my beloved Etienne Decroux quote:

“One must have something to say. Art is first of all a complaint. One who is happy with things as they are has no business being on the stage.” — Etienne Decroux

And to paraphrase my former professor John Schmor, Musicals are a complaint that life should be more marvelous — why don’t we just burst into song when mere speech can no longer contain our emotional intensity?

2) It allows Glee to be more easily analyzed in the context of other SF/F musicals such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Once More With Feeling,” Fringe’s “Brown Betty” and so on.

3) It allows the use of the scholarship regarding the metaphors of the Fantastic to be applied t the series. It also enables scholars to bring to bear Samuel R. Delany’s notion of SF/F as a literature that allows for the “literalization of the metaphor” — music is soul-healing, music is empowering, music enables people to express themselves in ways they had previously/traditionally not been able.

These are merely preliminary thoughts. Look for more in time, as I believe this approach is the one which allows me to most effectively analyze the series.

Review: Kraken by China Mieville

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China Mieville has been one of my favorite authors for a number of years now. As the figurehead/poster boy for the New Weird, many writers have rallied around Mieville and followed in his footsteps or taken jabs at him. The New Weird was a big deal in the literary end of the SF/F community for several years, and is less popular now, but continues with bits here and there. I’m invested in the New Weird personally, given that I’m about to start shopping a New Weird novel to agents/publishers.

Mieville’s immediate previous novel (The City & The City) was less loudly New Weird and more urban fantasy/crime, but with Kraken, Mieville’s uncontainable imagination and penchant for the grotesque returns in full force.

Kraken starts with unsupecting Billy Harrow, an employee at the Darwin Centre in London who worked extensively with a deceased giant squid. Which means that when the squid (giant container and all) disappears without a trace, people come knocking on his door, including the Cult-crimes-response squad of the police as well as a pair of assassins. In keeping with the well-trod Urban Fantasy structure, Harrow gets pulled into the world of secret London, with all the knackers and movers and shakers behind the scenes.

Mieville’s secondary ideas are better than most any writer in the business, from the Chaos Nazis to Londonmancers (ala Jack Hawksmoor of The Authority) and police-esque ghost constructs summoned up by using tapes of old police procedurals. Mieville has a great facility with these details, great to small, that make the setting breathe and feel endlessly and messily lived-in.

Billy Harrow spends most of the novel on the run as warring factions, including an Animate Tattoo gang-boss, the eternally-neutral Londonmancers, and a Kraken-worshiping cult (which venerated Harrow’s specimen as a God, or at least, a Demi-God) forces move and converge to bring about/avert the apocalypse. Of course, anyone who wants an apocalypse works to make sure that it’s their apocalypse that comes about. No one wants to sideline in another group’s End Times.

The novel shifts easily between perspectives, bringing in other POV characters to convey the story and weave the weird tapestry that is Kraken‘s London. Mieville’s familiarity with/love of London and all its (weird) reality comes through clearly, helping contextualize the incredible craziness that he layers throughout the rest of the book.

Mieville’s language is very advanced, and sometimes challenging. It’s more accessible than in Perdido Street Station, but more obscure than in The City & The City. The baroque language is consistent, however, and usually well-contextualized. It’s just not a novel to hand to an average 15-year-old (an exceptional reader of a 15-year-old may be just fine, however) and it’s not the book to go to for a casual read. The book demands your attention, but if you give it, the book rewards you with unparalleled imagination, strong pacing, and chilling creepiness. (Goss and Subby are, for my buck, one of the creepiest henchmen duos ever).

Disclaimer: this review was written based on my experience reading an ARC, so keep that in mind in case the final version displays any differences.

Review: How to Train Your Dragon

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Dreamworks’ latest offering is one of their best.

How to Train Your Dragon focuses on the story of a Viking named Hiccup, who is scrawny, clumsy, and not at all possessimg the traditional Viking virtues of strength, battle-lust and a horn-laden hat (we can see here that this movie’s traditional viking is one of the Looney Toons tradition).

Hiccup is instead, an engineer, and a smith’s apprentice. He yearns to impress the lovely Astrid, a fierce young lady Viking. His clumsiness and odd sensibilities instead make him both a laughing stock and somewhat of a menace to his village.

This is a problem because his village is already plagued by dragons. In this world, there are dozens of varieties of dragons, from fat and ponderous pests to the fierce Nightmare and the seldom-seen and never-killed Night Fury.

Hiccup disobeys orders and runs out in the middle of a raid, deploying his latest invention, a net-throwing device. He manages to hit and bring down a Night Fury, but no one believes him.

Hiccup later finds the Fury, but cannot bring himself to kill the dragon, discovering that it is as terrified of him as he is of it.

Instead, the two begin a friendship. The night fury’s tail was maimed in the raid, so it is incapable of escaping the mountain lake glade where it crashed. Hiccup designs a prostetic wing-fan for the dragon, whom he names Toothless.

Hiccup is enroled in dragon training by his father (the Viking chief Stoic the Stout, voiced by Gerard “Sparta!!!” Butler. Hiccup uses the knowledge gained about dragons from Toothless to excell to the amazement of all.

Later on, Hiccup must choose between his dream of being a might warrior and his friendship with Toothless. The film ends in a great action sequence and finishes up with a good lesson and a cute conclusion.

Aside from positing dragons as not the bad guys, there isn’t a great deal of originality in the film, but it doesn’t matter. The characters are likable and relatable, the dragon species neatly distinguished, and the story confidently told. It’s accessible for kids but compelling enough for an adult audience. It’s as delightful as Kung-Fu Panda, if not a gut-bustingly funny for lack of Jack Black.

An early favorite for one of the best films of the year and a likely best Animated Feature contender, How to Train Your Dragon is great for all ages and very much worth seeing in theatres. The 3D is used somewhat sparingly, mostly for dragon action, and decently done, though I’d say not essential for enjoying the film.

Viva La Wavolucion

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I’ve found my way onto Google Wave and am very excited about its potential as a communication/collaboration tool, especially for geeky things.  And by this I’m mostly talking about Role-Playing Games.

Not much of this blog’s content ends up being about RPGs, despite the fact that my M.A. thesis was on tabletop RPGs and I’ve been playing/following RPGs since I was in fourth grade.

Like any new communication technology, one of the first things that people have done with Google Wave, aside from making porn (I can only guess, based upon the general adage) is to see if you can use to it game.  Because when your early adopter set is pretty much geeks, one of the things they’re likely to do when exploring a new technology is get it to roll dice so we can play exciting games of make-believe with our friends.  It’s what we do.

There have been a number of different exploratory attempts along these lines, and I’ll try to create a short round-up here before moving into actual discussion/analysis:

Futurismic

Ars Technica

Game Playwright

The emerging thought is that while Google Wave is in its infancy, its official utility/intended utility is very much up in the air.  The Futurismic post’s title is a paraphrase of Neuromancer, stating “the geek finds its own uses for things.” Much like how Wired commented on how Twitter’s ‘real use’ was decided by its users, Google Wave is being investigated for its various potentials, and Geek communities are pursuing explorations and trails of the technology as a strong next step/sideways development for roleplaying games as collaborative storytelling.

The idea put forward by the Game Playwrights is one of the most interesting, and the one I’ll ruminate upon further.  Using a Google Wave as a persistent artifact of play changes the textual status that of RPGs.  A tabletop RPG doesn’t leave an artifact of play, nor does a LARP.  Each of those could be recorded, by video or audio, but would not represent a polished or total account of the story, instead showing a very fractured account.  But if Google Wave games (or Waveltop, as some are calling them) move towards the ‘script of play’ model that Will Hindmarch of Game Playwrights is suggesting, we may see a move towards RPGs leaving behind readable texts, and this is for me, a very interesting move.

There is certainly already discussion of games past in the RPG community.  From ‘let me tell you about my character’ to game stories like The Gazebo or group-specific stories about how one player is deep in character, using a special voice and cadence, embodying his motions, and saying with a sweeping motion, “Allow me to introduce my cousin”, gesturing to the player of the ‘cousin’ who is in fact…asleep on the couch.  But even the actual play reports lauded in the Forge community among others are less direct than the ‘Wave as script of play’ idea.

If Wave players are using this script of play as their primary narrative reference but are also constructing it in a way that reads like a story/script, this, for me, would make it infinitely easier for players to read about and engage with one another’s stories in a way more consistent with films, television, novels, etc.

Different versions of one module could be combined and sold alongside a module (Buy Keep on the Borderlands, complete with game scripts by the Penny Arcade/PvP teams as well as three other star teams), and moreover, there would be room for groups to emerge as stars/paragons of RPG writing/play moreso than already exists (the stars such as they are tend to be specific game designers, known as designers more than being known as players)  We may even see a re-figuration of the RPG novel.  Could it be that once developed, people would pay to read the polished game texts of well-reputed RPG groups published as e-books/pdfs?  It’s a very different way of monetizing the efforts of role-players, like but rather unlike the efforts of the gaming group who decided their superhero game was taking too much time away from writing and decided to do the Wild Cards anthology novels.

And of course, this need not be monetized, nor is it inevitably going to become monetized.  However, in these early explorations, it’s not hard to see the varied ways that this technology could serve as a breakthrough tool for roleplayers to engage with one another.  It is of course notable that the role-playing done via Google Wave is a notable offshoot of tabletop play, since it will not convey any degree of embodied performance, instead relying on writing as performance,  At least until someone pushes the technology even further and weaves together audio play to cohesive uninterrupted narratives.  (There are a number of podcasts/records of play that take the raw audio of a RPG session and distribute it, but again as said before and restated, the main appeal of Google Wave is the ease with which it allows a seamless narrative text which is both a part of play and a readable artifact that results from play.

I’m hoping to take part in some of this exploration myself, and will comment on that as I can.

Whither The Whedon?

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Here we see an open letter to Joss Whedon from The  TV Addict —

http://thetvaddict.com/2009/10/22/an-open-letter-to-joss-whedon/

Rumors from last year have already presented the possibility that Whedon could give up TV and return to an internet-based model as seen in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Dollhouse has been assured a full 13-episode run for the season, but there is no word of picking up the back 9 (ordering more episodes to make a full 22-episode season), and there’s also a rumor from Brian Ausiello that Dollhouse will be benched during November sweeps.  All of this seems to point to Dollhouse not surviving past its second season.  Only time will tell, but the show’s renewal last season was a big surprise to many, and seemed to revolve around the fact that Whedon proved he could make the show for less money (see the post-apocalyptic “Epitaph One” for his example of lower-budget Dollhouse)

TV Addict does some quick math to speculate that a core audience of 2 million viewers buying straight-to-internet downloads at $.99 a pop yields a revenue of just under 2 million dollars per episode.  Add in merchandise sales, DVDs and possible syndication, it seems pretty reasonable.  There are also some other possibilities for budget-cutting, including shooting in video vs. digital (which then reduces the max quality of the material for DVD, a trade-off to be sure).   There’s also the fact that a pilot episode can cost several times as much as a regular series episode due to start-up costs.  Whedon and Mutant Enemy are a reliable entity, known for producing fan-favorite, intriguing material but recent lack of success with TV properties on network TV, which makes them an ideal case study for considering this change in model.

My girlfriend is more knowledgeable and interested in industry/funding/marketing than I am, but she’s in class in California right now — and I’m thinking out loud at least partially as a creator.  Plus, this is my blog.  However, she’s likely to come around and correct some of my numbers and/or add her opinion. 🙂

For Whedon, using a model adapted from/close to Felicia Day’s The Guild may prove as a starting point (and likely informed his approach with Dr. Horrible).  Find investors for start-up costs (Pilot + 8 episodes) and make it go.  Whedon’s fan community would reliably do vigorous viral marketing without having to be asked. Everyone in the geek-o-sphere (amusing name, TVAddict)

A show like this would probably live and die on the efficacy of its marketing campaign.  Dr. Horrible was free to watch for a short period of time, and then became digital download only — it later ended up on Hulu for free and then became available by DVD (with extras, natch).  If this new Whedon show were available online for free for X period of time (a week per episode?), and was also sold via iTunes/etc., would enough people pay to download it to sustain the show’s budgetary requirements?  DVD sales of Whedon/Mutant Enemy material is consistently strong, but without the advertising revenue as a primary source of funding, it’s intriguing to ponder if a high-ish-budget show could survive in this model.  Felicia Day’s The Guild is free to watch/download and pays for itself off of advertising and alliance with MSN (to by knowledge) — but it also appears to be a very cheap show to produce, with less than 10 minute episodes and little to no special effects.

If one production company can do it, doesn’t mean that any others could.  Auteur/Star Power goes a long way in the digital world, but it goes as far as those consistent 2-million-ish viewers, not necessarily further.   The Long Tail Theory probably applies here, where a figure/group famous within a subculture (geeks) can serve as a sufficient base for demand — without being The Next Big Thing like LOST or Heroes.

What Abut Going Cable?

An alternative would be shopping shows to cable networks — where the ratings demands are lower (and therefore, so are budgets, often times).  Cable networks have been making critically-acclaimed shows for a number of years, and in recent memory, challenging shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Rome, The Shield, Mad Men and Breaking Bad have all come from cable networks and enjoyed popularity, critical praise/awards or both.

Whedon’s shows Buffy and Angel survived on 2nd-tier broadcast networks (UPN and WB) rather than the Big Four.  The lessened ratings demands of these 2nd tier networks allowed the shows to survive.  Right now, the descendent of UPN/WB — the CW) occupies that median position, but is strongly branded towards teen girl dramas (Gossip Girl, 90210, One Tree Hill, or dramas that appeal strongly to the 18-25/49 female demographic (SF shows such as Smallville and Supernatural (which help court the beloved male 18-24 demographic).  It’s uncertain if a Whedon show would find a place in the current CW brand — certainly possible, given Whedon’s feminist-friendly approach (for certain brands of feminists, that is — debate continues on the ultimate standing of Whedon’s feminism), but not necessarily an instant match.

There’s a few issues with the ‘Go Cable’ approach.  Here are the big two for me:

1) If a show is on cable, it automatically cuts out a portion of the potential audience.  Some dozens-ish millions of viewers have/watch TV but not cable.  This reduces potential viewers (likely reducing ratings) but also can be seen as inherently elitist — if you’re making shows for cable and have a social agenda (like promoting feminism or critiquing the capitalist system, etc.), you’re already always speaking to a more affluent population (we’re speaking in generalities here — there are better-off households who never watch tv, and there may be less affluent households that still decide to have and watch cable).

2) Ad space on cable networks is going to be sold at different rate sets than ad space on network TV.  This goes back to the basic numbers of who has/watches cable vs. who has/watches network TV.  Depending on the type of cable (basic vs. premium and all permutations), this can change how your show’s budget is determined.   Whedon may be able to make quality TV on a lessened budget, but those limitations inform what kinds of shows can be made.

A modern-day+something cool show is likely to be far cheaper than a futuristic SF or historical/otherworld fantasy show (props, sets, costumes, etc.) — Whedon has frequently done the modern-day+ settings (Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse) but I know as a writer/creator, I would blanche at the limitations of that reality.  Brilliant shows like Defying Gravity may fail to succeed because of budgetary problems like the above.

Wrapping it Up

These questions aren’t quite relevant for Whedon, et al. until/unless Dollhouse meets its end, but they are questions that need to be asked in general about the industry.  We should be asking What purpose do these networks serve? Has technology developed to the point where other models are viable/recommended? What will it take to make those models viable, if they aren’t there yet?

I think I might like to write for TV one day, but by the time I make it there, the landscape may be violently different, just as the publishing industry is going through a major shakedown (price-wars at big-box stores, Borders teetering on the edge, increasing technology for e-readers and digital distribution, etc.)

“I Remember When SF Was All About Straight Men Doing Stuff.”

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At least, that’s my paraphrase of this essay from “The Spearhead”

http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/10/09/the-war-on-science-fiction-and-marvin-minsky/

Have you read that?  No?  Go back and check it out.  Take a walk or go sparring to work out your righteous fury, then come back to read.

Done?  Ok.

The essay in question is both 1) infuriating and 2) about genre fiction and society.  Which makes it a great topic for a blog post!  The essay is one of the writings from The Spearhead, a group blog designed to focus on men’s issues and men’s voices (as response to a perceived ‘cultural gap’ that has ignored men’s voices).  While I agree that part of the ‘let’s all be equal’ agenda must include an analysis of how cultural forces shape men’s perception of the world and define masculinity in a way that is exploitative of men and teaches exploitation of women — I don’t think the Spearhead writers and I agree on the nature of the problem with men’s status in society or how to address it.

The essay starts out with a bang:

“Science fiction is a very male form of fiction.  Considerably more men than women are interested in reading and watching science fiction.  This is no surprise.  Science fiction traditionally is about men doing things, inventing new technologies, exploring new worlds, making new scientific discoveries, terraforming planets, etc.  Many men working in the fields of science, engineering, and technology have cited science fiction (such as the original Star Trek) for inspiring them when they were boys to establish careers in these fields.”

This particular essay focuses on a limited definition of what ‘science fiction’ means, in a Golden Age Asimov kind of fashion, where characters were as flat as the paper they were printed on, little more than mouthpieces for expositing and resolving scientific issues.  Now don’t get me wrong — there’s some great idea work in Golden Age SF — it’s that era that helped develop SF as the Literature of Ideas.  But the genre has developed since then, it has become larger and (to me, more relevant and sophisticated.  We’ve gotten Alfred Bester and Thomas Disch, Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney and Connie Willis.

To begin with, the essay relies upon versions of masculinity that are unsurprisingly as old and outmoded as the SF they rely on.  For “Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech” — masculinity, like SF is about “men doing things, inventing new technologies, exploring new worlds, making new scientific discoveries, terraforming planets, etc.” The author references scientists who speak about being inspired by SF to move into their disciplines.  Of course I agree that  science fiction is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging scientific development.

On the other hand, it’s as if there have never been any female engineers or scientists who have never been inspired by science fiction.  And in other news, all men smoke cigars and drink scotch at work with expertly coiffed hair while wearing fedoras and the only power women have is influencing men through their sexuality while working as secretaries.  No wait, that’s Mad Men.

The author talks about the name change of SciFi as part of a feminizing trend, following the 1998 changeover when Bonnie Hammer assumed control of the channel and began courting female readers.   The 2000s era Battlestar Galactica is positioned as one of the culprits of a feminizing Sci-Fi channel, since the character of Starbuck was changed into a woman.  Strangely, it’s Starbuck the woman who is also Starbuck the cigar-smoking, hard drinking, sleeps with anything that moves.   That part is not mentioned in the essay — instead the author points to an essay by original Starbuck Dirk Benedict, bemoaning the “un-imagining” of Battlestar Galactica.

Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech also talks about the shift in programming towards fantasy and away from science fiction, because “women are more interested in the supernatural and the paranormal than men are.”  Is this supposed to be a biological pre-disposition?  The author then complains about the increasing presence of gay characters on the channel (as a death knell post-name change) — and how that means that it well be less about men doing things.  Does the set of ‘men’ exclude homosexual men in this case?

The author then cites Marvin Minsky, an AI researcher at MIT.  Minsky gives his distinction between general fiction and science fiction as such: “General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.”  This is a notably reductive definition to be sure, specious at best.  Where does 1984 fit in there?  Winston Smith ‘gets into problems and screws his life up,’ among many others. This depiction of science fiction as the only fiction with ‘real importance’ is an insular isolationist stance that fails to acknowledge that powerful, historically-relevant literature can occur without spaceships or advanced physics.  I like my SF and think it’s had important effects, but it’s not the only game in town, for sure.

“The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minsky” is representative of the perspective of someone within the world of SF fandom, a part that exists and continues to proceed despite the fact that the mainstream has moved away from them.  Analog Science Fiction and Fact is often noted as the home of this mode of SF, and the magazine continues as it has for decades, admirable for its continuity.  I think we need the scientifically rigorous aspect of speculative fiction, the part that refuses to use handwavium to solve its problems just to get to the point and instead interrogates the ways that the possible could become reality.  Hard SF may not be for me, but it’s an important part of the genre.

A lack of hard science doesn’t automatically make a science fiction story into melodrama.  And I certainly don’t think that either scientific rigor or the science fiction genre is or should be part-and-parcel with outdated gender norms, homophobia and misogyny.