Black Gate

More snarking and snarling at the expense of the stories nominated for this year’s Nebula Awards, this time directed at those in the “novelette” category.

One point, which may not be terribly original but seems worth making anyway: the stories tend to look backward. The best one on the list is a pastiche of two 19th C. novels. The worst one is at least talking about a social change that seems to be underway in the western world (but has nothing to say about said change but “Aauugh!”). Another is a historical fantasy and the other two are retakes of ideas that have been done before. Where’s the future? Where are the stars? Where’s the talking squid in outer space?

I think we need the talking squid in space.

Anyway: onward and backward.

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When I became eligible to become a member of SFWA last year I thought about it long and hard and finally decided to join. I forget why, now. The experience hasn’t exactly been a bad one–it’s been oddly non-experiential, as a matter of fact. For instance, you may have noticed that the final ballot for this year’s Nebulas was recently announced, here… and here (and elsewhere). The information content is not identical on these apparently official pages, and they don’t seem to be aware of each other’s existence. There is no link to an actual ballot where one might actually vote (here or apparently in the members-only section of the site), or any information on the deadline for voting. I queried for info at the “query for info” email address; I was told that I’d be told when the final ballots were mailed. Old school mail: carried by weary snails and weighed down with stamps and stuff.

I am a traditionalist, and all that. But maybe not all that. The thing is, I like the snails pretty well, but they don’t seem to be able to find my house reliably. Email is faster, more reliable, cheaper, more check-backable. Why not use it? Are we not Living in the Future? Also, doesn’t SFWA know now when the votes are due? Why can’t they tell us? Why not have, say, one page with all the relevant info or links between all relevant pages? Where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?

You practically can’t be an SFWA member unless you’re kvetching about something, so there’s my kvetch of the day.

But to celebrate my first and possibly last Nebula vote, I thought I’d read as much of the nominated work as I can and inflict it on share it with you readers of the Blog Gate. This week: short stories.

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I thought I was done with this series of posts on planetary romance, a.k.a. sword-and planet, at least until the new edition of Kline’s Outlaws of Mars comes out. But then I came across a reference to James Blish’s Sword of Xota (a.k.a. The Warriors of Day). I had a hard time believing it was for real. Blish, the hardnosed “‘Sour Bill’ Atheling”, the apostle of modernism in literature and Spenglerism in history, the author of the quadruply ambitious trilogy After Such Knowledge (a four-book trilogy–ambition has no higher scope–no, I don’t believe in your five-book trilogy–sheesh, will this parenthesis never end?)–that Blish was the author of a planetary romance?

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I was reading a newish fantasy novel the other day and every time a new character or place was introduced, the author felt compelled to lather him/her/it in opaque chunks of backstory.

Binky “Bosco” Sorenson walked into the Taberna Generica. He was called “Bosco” because of his resemblance to [some guy named Bosco; a page or so of backstory follows]. The Taberna Generica had been established several centuries before so that parties of elves, wizards, rogues, dwarves and assassins could meet before departing on their quests. The first such meeting [was as dull as you might expect; a page or two of backstory follows].

As the door clicked shut, Binky realized he had never heard a door click shut like that before. [A page or two of exposition follows, documenting Binky’s talents in analyzing door-sounds.] He instantly realized that he was facing a danger neither he nor anyone had ever faced since the founding of the Imaginary City. [Scene break.]

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I recently reread Le Guin’s Language of the Night, and for a while I thought it might be a mistake. The book is a hodge-podge: printed versions of short speeches, introductions to her earlier Hainish novels, full essays with footnotes to provide that added kick, and a light frosting (in the edition I was using to reread) of Le Guin’s own second thoughts (mostly about issues of gender). Even back in my 20s I didn’t think all this stuff was equally valuable, and on my recent reread I was finding that a lot of what I had once taken as axiomatic was now useless to me.

For instance, I was struck by the way UKL made casual generalizations that were really unfounded, e.g. the idea that France “had no tradition of fantasy for the past several hundred years.” In my lost youth, I assumed she knew what she was talking about. Now I think: What about Anatole France? Jules Verne? Guy de Maupassant? Charles Perrault? The Absurdists? Of course there is a tradition of fantasy in France.

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Most sf/f criticism can be sorted into three four heaps (as far as I’m concerned): book reviews, literary history, snark, and stuff that doesn’t interest me. The first two categories are obviously useful, I expect; I wish those last two categories overlapped more. One wastes a lot of time in the snarkosphere.

Every now and then, though, I read something that goes elsewhere. I wouldn’t call it a heap–there aren’t enough things there to qualify as a heap. More like a stack. These are pieces of sf/f criticism that help me think about reading and writing–that enrich my experience.

Like I say: there’s not much there. But sf/f isn’t unique in that respect: much (not all) literary criticism strikes me as stuff by people who can’t read who are telling other people how to read. I generally find it unreadable and, what with one thing and another, I have to read a lot of it.

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The Grauniad is listing “1000 novels everyone must read” and lately the sf/f novels on the list have been bouncing around the genresphere. It was almost instantly memed. You were supposed to italicize the ones you’d read, strikethrough the ones that induced an existential crisis, and smear butterscotch pudding on the rest. (Finally, a use for butterscotch pudding!) Or something like that.

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Once, before I gave up arguing with anyone, I was arguing with someone and I wrote, “Science fiction is just a form of fantasy with stricter (but slightly inconsistent) rules. Fantasy fiction takes place in a world which does not exist, operating on principles chosen by the author; science fiction takes place in a world which doesn’t exist but might, operating on the principles of science as we understand it (with some cheating allowed in the form of time travel, FTL drives, Amazing Mental Powers etc).”

They weren’t impressed, as far as I could tell. Anyway, now I’d alter those formulations a little:

Fantasy is a mode of storytelling where all or part of a story takes place in a world which permits events that are impossible.

Science fiction is a genre of fantasy in which impossible events require some sort of scientific account or rationalization.

Science fantasy is a genre of fantasy that uses elements from science and technology but in which some impossible events are explicitly not given an adequate scientific account or rationalization.

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The Zeitgeist has been tying its ectoplasm in knots lately about urban fantasy. Here’s Lilith Saintcrow, underdefining the genre in a recent guest column at Pat’s Hotlist (with a followup at her own site):

Chicks kicking ass. Well, leather-clad chicks kicking ass. Leather-clad chicks kicking ass in an urban environment where some form of “magic” is part of the world. There. That’s about it.

But that’s not all there is to it.

Certainly not, but that really may be the central genre-defining element. I was thinking about this while reading Justina Robson’s excellent Keeping It Real recently. The book kept reminding me of sword-and-planet–with the gender polarities reversed.

I was reading buckets of sword-and-planet last year (some of which I reviewed in this space) and it constantly occurred to me that the aboutness of these books is concerned with male identity: they present idealized images of the lone male adventurer. For Edgar Rice Burroughs, the idealized image was that of an immortal Virginia gentleman. For Robert E. Howard, a man somewhere midway between the barbarism he considered man’s natural state and the aspirations of human intellect. For Otis Adelbert Kline, he’s a down-on-his-luck member of the American aristocracy. For some other three-initialled author the idealized image might be somewhat different, but they share some core similarities.

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Episodic novels (or fix ups) have a bad reputation these days, and I don’t think that’s entirely undeserved. For instance, I find the individual “weapon shop” stories of A.E. Van Vogt sort of intriguing, the way Van Vogt can be intriguing before he lets you know what he’s really driving at (usually something like Tyrants Are Nice People, Really). But The Weapon Shops of Isher, based on the same stories, is a chunk of dreck by comparison, and its sequel is even worse.

Van Vogt was always mutilating his best short stories by trying to make them part of something bigger: consider the sad fate of “Black Destroyer” and “Discord in Scarlet”, welded into the bulk of an ungainly construction dubbed The Voyage of the Space Beagle. (Although that’s an awesomely tone-deaf title. One envisions an indefinite series of sequels: Bride of the Space Beagle, Son of the Space Beagle, Revenge of the Space Beagle, etc., all featuring the further adventures of the star-spanning canine suggested by the original title.)

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