It became green everywhere in the first spring, after London ended

[sovay]

I sent the following by e-mail to derspatchel and he responded favorably, so I am transplanting it with minimal edits to the internet before I fall over and desperately try to sleep for a few hours. Not being able to breathe through my nose at all and my throat feeling swollen closed is a bad combination for my breathing comfort. (Yes, I saw a doctor. No, they didn't have anything helpful to say. I'm on antibiotics for the sinus infection, but they're not kicking in as rapidly as I would like.)

Background: Ian Sales does not like where science fiction is heading.

I started excerpting sentences to mock and critique and then I realized I was just copying every other paragraph. He longs for a kind of science fiction that (a) was never the only form of science fiction, witness all the horrible apocalyptic stories that clustered around the Great War and in some cases preceded it as people became afraid of the political and military developments that seemed inevitably on the horizon (b) excluded a great many people who lived then, live now, and are definitely going to be around in the future, failing to understand that the world wasn't simpler in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, it was just more narrowly sliced (c) was not invented by Hugo Gernsback; he coined the term that developed into the contemporary classification, but the first historically defined works of science fiction existed in the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century only accelerated the trend until the 1850's had to invent "scientific romance" to describe all the speculative novels springing up like weeds. Edgar Rice Burroughs publishes his first Barsoom novel in the 1910's. Gernsback doesn't get Amazing Stories off the ground until '26. He's also talking strictly (puzzlingly) about American sci-fi; the British tradition is and always has been either more pessimistic or more realistic, depending on whether you like that sort of thing or not. Richard Jeffries' After London was detailing the post-apocalyptic deterioration of society in 1885. There is no Great Man in The War of the Worlds (1897) unless you really feel warmly toward the common cold.

Comments

[intothespin]

I tried reading the Sales, but gave up at the obligatory swipes at YA.

[sovay]

I tried reading the Sales, but gave up at the obligatory swipes at YA.

That's fair. It was pretty ignorant and insulting. Newsflash: adolescents aren't horrible people for being adolescents. The teenage YA is not a rescue fantasy; it is the fantasy of being the person who makes things change.

[intothespin]

For me, it's mostly because the disparagement of YA and urban fantasy/paranormal romance come out of misogyny. Though the contempt for children and adolescents plays into it as well.

[sovay]

For me, it's mostly because the disparagement of YA and urban fantasy/paranormal romance come out of misogyny.

"Super-special snowflake," yes. See conversation with alankria over at LJ; apparently this article is not an accurate representation of the author's feelings about women in fiction, but since it's all I had to go on, that's how I read it, too.

[intothespin]

I'm familiar with his name from the SF Mistressworks series of posts. I don't think it's misogyny as a personal flaw; it's misogyny as a cultural underpinning. I've seen the same disparagement from some feminists.

[sovay]

I'm familiar with his name from the SF Mistressworks series of posts.

All right. I'd never heard of him.

misogyny as a cultural underpinning. I've seen the same disparagement from some feminists. I've seen the same disparagement from some feminists.

Understood and sadly agreed.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I sympathise with the longing for more optimistic science fiction, and it's an approach to the future I enjoy writing (although any idea of space "exploration" needs very careful handling, as that is by no means a neutral concept even on a barren world), and maybe there's a dearth of that at the moment? I feel woefully under-read, both in contemporary SF and past SF, to say. I know there are other forms of science fiction that I find immensely valuable, including those about war (not necessarily propping up imperialist mindset), and I'd like a more thorough consideration of more modes than apocalypse vs. optimism.

[sovay]

I know there are other forms of science fiction that I find immensely valuable, including those about war (not necessarily propping up imperialist mindset), and I'd like a more thorough consideration of more modes than apocalypse vs. optimism.

Agreed; I do not believe that dystopia is the only valid mode left to write in and that the only alternative is the Golden Age. Much of the reason Sales' article rubbed me the wrong way was his assumption of this opposition and then the sweeping statements he made about each respective mode in order to support his preference for one. You write very good science fiction about space and other planets that doesn't read like Amazing Stories circa 1935. And I like that futurist stuff.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I follow Ian Sales on twitter, so I know he - for instance - wouldn't support a science fictional future without women, but this article ought to be able to stand alone and it doesn't. It sounds like a desire for an older mode, not a new mode - and I wonder if, though he reads widely, he reads enough new SFF in short fiction. I see exciting work being done at the moment in short fiction, but if you went by this article you'd think all SFF is turgid doom.

[sovay]

I follow Ian Sales on twitter, so I know he - for instance - wouldn't support a science fictional future without women

That's really useful to know. Between his dismissal of Katniss as "a super-special snowflake" ("teenage narcissism . . . the sort of nonsense kids believe") and his lament for the days of Gernsback, he came off as a lot more retrograde than he apparently is. Thank you for the corrective.

I see exciting work being done at the moment in short fiction, but if you went by this article you'd think all SFF is turgid doom.

Yeah. The state of novels may well be dire—I'm not reading that many at the moment—but short fiction is thriving and diverse and not that depressing from where I read!

Do you know him well enough to point him in the direction of some contemporary short speculative markets?

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I really dislike how he writes about Katniss and about YA/teenagers in general in that post.

Do you know him well enough to point him in the direction of some contemporary short speculative markets?

He knows they exist! I'm tempted to write up a bit of a reply; if I do, I'll link to some specific examples.

[sovay]

I'm tempted to write up a bit of a reply; if I do, I'll link to some specific examples.

Cool.

[jennygadget.livejournal.com]

His comments on teens and YA lit prompted a rant from me on twitter, I must admit.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

The state of novels may well be dire...

Except it's not. I've been more excited about some of the SF novels I've read in the past year than I had been for a while. And in fantasy--I had essentially stopped reading it for about a decade, because I just got tired of the Tolkien tropes and lack of invention, but this year I've read several epic series that have been really great and fresh.

So, no--I think Sales is focusing on the YA thing way too hard and having a bad day.

[sovay]

Except it's not. I've been more excited about some of the SF novels I've read in the past year than I had been for a while.

Excellent! I figured he hadn't read Ancillary Justice, but I have not read that many other science fiction novels recently; it was possible the latest crop was pretty downbeat.

but this year I've read several epic series that have been really great and fresh.

Recommendations?

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I'm really enjoying Daniel Abraham's work. Both the completed Long Price Quartet (http://www.danielabraham.com/books-by-daniel-abraham/the-long-price-quartet/) and the still-in-progress The Dagger and the Coin () series have interesting characters (including women who are many things besides strong, and strong in many different ways) and take on aspects of semi-medieval society that are rarely explored in fantasy, while still resting firmly in the traditions of the genre. He's also writing space opera with Ty Franck under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey. Each book in The Expanse is pleasantly standalone, but read in order they make for a really epic tale and has women and POC characters galore.

I'm also reading N.K. Jemisin's <a href="http://nkjemisin.com/books/the-inheritance-trilogy/</i>The Inheritance Trilogy</a> which explores some interesting ideas about gods. That do for a start?

[sovay]

That do for a start?

Yes, thank you! I've read N.K. Jemisin, but not actually any Daniel Abraham despite recommendations and I'd never heard of the James S.A. Corey series at all.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

The future is always full of anxiety, for me. (Then again, so is the present, which can be difficult, but that's what I went to therapy for.) I don't know how you could possibly see it as nothing but positive potential, and it seems not only naive but sort of damaging even to try to do so. Is there something off-putting about all these people who seem attracted to the idea of a denuded world? Yeah, sure--totally. But this is nothing new; as you rightly note, it pre-dates the Atomic Age. I think it probably goes back to the Black Death, or the very idea of Apocalypse: cut the Gordian moral knot, wipe the page and start again, usually with a eugenicistic chaser of "and no one will survive except the RIGHT people, who of course include me." It's a fairly normal fantasy of power, or powerlessness.

[sovay]

I don't know how you could possibly see it as nothing but positive potential, and it seems not only naive but sort of damaging even to try to do so.

I think you can very legitimately write non-depressing science fiction without needing to catapult your whole approach back to the 1950's. We didn't get Bel Geddes' future and that's okay.

I think it probably goes back to the Black Death, or the very idea of Apocalypse: cut the Gordian moral knot, wipe the page and start again, usually with a eugenicistic chaser of "and no one will survive except the RIGHT people, who of course include me." It's a fairly normal fantasy of power, or powerlessness.

Now I want to write something with the Black Death, but I'm worried it'll turn out Tanith Lee.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think you can pull it off. You do the Black Death, and I'll do the Richard II Zombie Right of Kings AU.;)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an article in the Guardian about how YA dystopias were opposing the caretaker state and were basically promulgating neoliberal libertarianism, which seemed to me to be a bit of a headscratcher--seemed to imply that if the government was the Big Bad in a novel, that then the novel opposed the phenomenon of government. Similarly, I just don't think Sales is right in his extrapolations of what current SF say about readers, or what current SF is trying to do. The point isn't to wait for superspecial Katniss, the point is that you identify with Katniss; you're empowered.

[sovay]

The point isn't to wait for superspecial Katniss, the point is that you identify with Katniss; you're empowered.

Yes! I said this over on Dreamwidth. It's not the fantasy of being rescued; it's the fantasy of rescuing.

[spatch]

I love the common cold!

I think Sales wanted to respond to the current prevalence of Near-Futuristic Dystopia in the mainstream, because there's certainly a lot floating around and he totally pegs YA as practically Patient Zero in this case, but he's got serious tunnel vision. There will always be pessimism in science-fiction, yeah, man, but there too will always be optimism, futurism, cynicism, that-blowed-up-real-goodism. The balance will always be uneven depending on the times.

The essay fondly recalls the days when sci-fi was all about the urge to explore. Okay, let's take the 1950s as an example: Plenty of spacemen and rocket boosters and missions to Mars and beyond in the films and Disneyland. Bradbury starts the decade with The Martian Chronicles, Asimov writes about emergent robotic technology in the near future and advanced civilization in the far, and Ijon Tichy goes off to have some really crazy adventures. There are all kinds of exploration/invention stories across all kinds of media but there are also stories driven by fear of atomic destruction and mutation, invasion by extraterrestrial foreign powers, body snatching, man tampering in God's domain, and rats, giant rats, with teeth and diseases and shit.

Science-fiction is also not as polarizing as Sales seems to think it to be. Bradbury's Mars, colonized by optimistic, forward-thinking individuals, HUP HUP HUP HERE WE GO RED PLANET AHOY, turns out to be an unmitigated disaster. Asimov's robots break down and robot-cry because two of their three/four rules are in conflict; his Galactic Empire goes tits-up just as one cynic kinda-predicted.

Heck, even H.G. Wells, who was writing science-fiction before Gernsback was thinking of portmanteaus, threw his Time Traveller into a bleak future of contrasts with Eloi above and Morlocks below. My gosh, you can have good things and bad things in your stories! Your heroes might not have to be perfect! Your villains might not have to be totally evil! Dystopia and hopeful exploration can go together! A pretty young woman newly-freed from an oppressive society which prematurely recycles its citizens can approach Peter Ustinov, touch his wizened old face, and realize that everybody will now have the chance to grow wrinkles. And thus Carousel was transformed into a plastic surgery clinic. THE END.

not going to even START on the Great Man bushwah. nuh uh.