The boundary line between science fiction and fantasy is porous and ill-guarded, and many an attempt to define the difference rigorously leads to categorizing recognized classics of one as the other, so that Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth are science fiction (since taking place in the future) but Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek is fantasy (since warp drive, time travel and Vulcan mind meld are magic);
But, likewise, attempts to combine both into ‘speculative fiction’ or some other general category, leads to categorizing HG Well’s The Time Machine with Dicken’s A Christmas Carol on the grounds that both involve time travel; or Island of Dr Moreau with Aesop’s Fables on the grounds that they both involve talking animals.
Genres are not defined by writers and editors, but by readers, who naturally want to read books that are “like” books they like.
But the ways in which the books are alike, the conventions and expectations, groups things in a way that is easy to recognize but hard to define.
Read the remainder of this entry »
Let me say a word about the twin errors of writing books set in nihilistic worlds, and of writing books set in worlds where virtue comes too easily, and needs no sacrifices, no hard decisions.
A world where virtue comes too easily is one where virtue is not needed, only virtue signaling. In such a story, the hero is the hero because he is so designated by the author, not because of any particular fortitude, prudence, justice or temperance he displays in the face of fear or folly or temptation.
In such works, the protagonist does nothing in particular, aside, perhaps, from voicing the common platitudes of the day, and is rewarded with a happy ending. Sainthood without martyrdom, heroism without bloodshed.
Even children’s books are wise enough to avoid this pitfall: note, for example, the temptation of Edmund Pevensie by a box of Turkish Delight in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by CS Lewis; or, more to the point, the temptation of the youth from the Valley of Vung to seek the fictional bliss of Solla Sollew, where they have no troubles, or, at least, very few in I HAD TROUBLE IN GETTING TO SOLLA SOLLEW by Dr. Seuss.
In both cases the bad act leads to bad consequences.
Read the remainder of this entry »
Uniblab has drawn more covers for the beautiful and talented Mrs. Wright. Sometimes the positronic brain understands the instructions, sometimes not, sometimes very much not.
I realize this is all old hat to you youngster, but to Grandpa Wright, this is far future technology. But just from a Ron Goulart short story (for those of you old enough to remember him).
I favored the version where her shrinebow vanishes, and the Ancient Mariner shoots a beam of nose-energy from his nostrils. The wife preferred the starburst version.
The Lovely and Talented Mrs Wright asked Uniblab to draw another animated picture. It is still odd and inconsistent, but this time the robot remains a robot, and the longbow remains a longbow. But Uniblab does not know how to draw a menacing frog.
But in the near future, or perhaps even now, all bookfile cover art will be animated.
The real skill is how to set the prompts to get a desired result, which, I fear, will be the main skill used by graphic artists in times to come.
NOTE TO THE YOUNG: Uniblab is an obnoxious robot character from THE JETSONS cartoon, circa AD Waylong Ago.
Courtesy of Elon Musk’s eldritch invention. An experiment by my lovely and talented wife regarding kinetic cover art:
“All through human history, wherever people got the right to make their own choices, they presently refused to cooperate even for the common good. Soon, each person set himself up as having an opinion as good as anybody else’s. Naturally, they first of all soon fell under the influence of individuals with skillful systems and in the end were maneuvered into a new slavery.”
*** *** ***
It is popular these days to repeat the cynical slogan that a system is whatever it does, regardless of the stated benefits sought. The slogan is false because it ignores whether the system is succeeding or failing at what it aims at. It conflates costs and drawbacks of the system, unintended consequences, with benefits sought. Nonetheless, I think the slogan applies to story telling. The true moral of the story is not what the author thinks is the moral. The true moral is whatever that whatever behavior is shown as leading to happiness and success is a good; whatever leads to tragedy and failure is bad.
Read the remainder of this entry »
Below is a reprint of several columns first printed in this space in 2007, with minor changes.
As much as it pains me to say it, my reluctant conclusion is that there is no great Science Fiction literature.
Now, before you get out your crying bags, fanboys, keep in mind that the standard for being a Great Book is extremely, absurdly high. It is the best of the best of the best. There is no Western that makes the cut for being a Great Book; no mystery novel; no horror novel (unless we stretch a point to include HAMLET, because it has a ghost scene). One might even argue that no romance novel that makes the cut, not even GONE WITH THE WIND, and that is a damn fine novel. Genre writing does not reach the stratospheric heights of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.
Still, it does not sit well. Let us look further, to see if this unpleasant conclusion can be defended, or if there is some exception or escape from it. For this let us break the question into parts.
This final question is of most interest to me (as one might expect, being a science fiction writer) so it also needs to be broken down further:
Let us examine each of these questions in order.
Read the remainder of this entry »
This is a quote from EIFELHEIM by Michael Flynn, where the practices of the Inquisition are mentioned in passing. Tom is speaking to an historian about a fragment of a letter, where Pastor Dietrich in the Fourteenth Century is answering an anonymous accusation that he baptized a demon.
***
“Dietrich mightn’t have known who his accusers were.”
“Anonymous denunciation? Sounds like the Inquisition.”
“Well…”
Tom cocked his head. “What?”
“In the beginning, a lot of accusers wound up dead – killed by the heretics – so they were promised anonymity, and severe penalties were imposed for false accusations.”
He blinked. “The Inquisition had rules?”
“Oh, yes. More stringent than the royal courts, in fact.
In a prior column, I speak of Dungeons and Dragons demystifying magic, but I did not say why a game has to do this. A dice value, a number value, has to be placed on calling fire down from heaven for the same reason a number value has to be placed on incoming bazooka fire or the flame from a dragon’s breath — to know how many knights and goblins and armored tanks and oliphants are damaged or destroyed in round six of combat. This is a perfectly legitimate reason to demystify magic.
Read the remainder of this entry »
Magic, as it appears in fairy tales, is something we recognize but cannot analyze.
Why Cinderella must leave the ball at the stroke of midnight is not known. It is only known that this is the price named for the privilege of going to the ball adorned in gown and glass slippers.
Likewise is the reason why, in Darby O Gill and the Little People, a man may demand the captured Leprechaun grant three wishes, great wishes or small, but to ask a fourth wish is to lose them all.
Keep in mind, fairy tales differ from modern fantasy stories and from science fiction.
By L Jagi Lamplighter
For Christmas, I shall share a story, but first… a story about the story:
Can you find Christmas Mouse? He’s really small in this picture
This is one of my longer and older essays on a topic very near and dear to my heart, from 2010, which I reprint for the benefit of any newer readers. I note with considerable satisfaction that there have been more examples in the cinema of comic book or science fiction films since this writing that lend support to my theme:
Let me address a question which, if answered, would answer several questions at once. Why are crass popular comic book superhero movies better than mainstream Hollywood movies?
Why are they better and more honest, more sound, and more true than a modern comedy or tragedy or melodrama, or what passes for it? Why are they better drama?
There are some deep questions unexpectedly connected to this shallow question. Let us see into what oxbows of digression the river of conversation leads. A prudence of space may require the discussion to be drawn over several parts.
Read the remainder of this entry »
A column from last decade, perhaps still relevant
Let me propose a rather long essay and a slightly droll theory:
The aliens behind the Monolith in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY are the same as the aliens signaling from Vega in Carl Sagan’s CONTACT. They both are part of the Galactic Overmind seeking the evolutionary transcendence of all life, and to elevate lesser races to maturity, as in CHILDHOOD’S END, also by Clarke.
On a less droll note, I am proposing that these works, and several others, are similar in their mood and theme and treatment of the plot elements, because they tacitly agree on a central myth.
It is a mythic thread that runs through much of science fiction from even before the golden age, and, if I am right about what this thread is, back two thousand years and more. Van Vogt and Heinlein and Asimov have all placed at least some of their stories in the service of this myth, the Great Myth.
