{"id":6057,"date":"2017-12-22T16:51:13","date_gmt":"2017-12-23T00:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=6057"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:44:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:44:41","slug":"sfnf-the-science-fiction-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/12\/22\/sfnf-the-science-fiction-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"SFNF: The Science Fiction Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism<\/strong> is, like Of Worlds Beyond<\/strong>, another slim volume of essays. It was published by Advent (http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/advent_publishers<\/a>, stylized as Advent:Publishers), like Fantasy Press an SF small press, that specialized in critical and bibliographical material, in 1959, and consists of four talks given at the University of Chicago in 1957, by Robert A. Heinlein, C.M. Kornbluth, Alfred Bester, and Robert Bloch, lightly updated for the book. There\u2019s no assigned editor, though SFE says it was edited, anonymously, by Earl Kemp (who the next year compiled a book called Who Killed Science Fiction?,<\/em> a remarkable work for revealing the angst of SF fans at the changes, in a field of literature all about change, in science fiction of the time).<\/p>\n

While no editor is credited on the cover or inside the book, an introduction by Basil Davenport is credited even on the front cover. (He was an academic and occasional anthologist; http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/davenport_basil<\/a>.) This introduction is remarkable in being rather rude: Davenport spends several pages objecting to several conclusions of the book\u2019s contributors. He admits that this is a bit untoward, but confesses he can\u2019t help himself \u2013 that the book is a good one because it invites reader reaction, and argument. I won\u2019t address his objections to the essays themselves, but I will note this remarkable paragraph, p13:<\/p>\n

\nAs for defending the unpopular, one of the most striking developments in science fiction since the days of The War of the Worlds<\/em> [by H.G. Wells] or The Skylark of Space<\/em> [by E.E. Smith, Ph.D.] has been the realization that men and Martians need not necessarily exterminate or enslave each other. Story after story of encounters with alien races offers the same lesson, that to be different is not necessarily to be evil. And I can think of at least two stories in which the toleration which we are learning to accord the hypothetical is claimed for homosexuals, those aliens in our midst; one of these stories seems to me the most moving and persuasive plea in that regard that I have ever read.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The arc of moral progress! I\u2019m guessing he\u2019s referring to Theodore Sturgeon\u2019s 1953 story \u201cThe World Well Lost.\u201d But onward to the talks\/essays themselves.<\/p>\n

Heinlein\u2019s<\/strong> talk, delivered 8 Feb 1957, is called \u201cScience Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues<\/strong>.\u201d He begins by trying to define \u201cscience fiction,\u201d and cites previous takes on the term by Damon Knight and Theodore Sturgeon, and then a longer take by Reginald Bretnor, one that involves a three-fold awareness of the scientific method, the body of knowledge collected through that activity, and considering the effects of both of these on human beings. Heinlein then considers borderline cases, such as Sinclair Lewis\u2019 novel Arrowsmith<\/em> (about current medical research), then considers fantasy as a contrast the science fiction. (Aside: among his examples of fantasy, p19b, are “any story based on violation of scientific fact, such as space ship stories which ignore ballistics…” Star Wars<\/i>, anyone? What would Heinlein think?) After several pages his case is that fantasy is impossible, and science fiction is not, while at the same time allowing time travel and faster then light travel into the SF camp \u2013 because, key point, these are not facts, merely \u201ccurrently respected theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then lays out all possible fiction into six groups:<\/p>\n

\nRealistic Fiction<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Historical fiction<\/li>\n
  2. Contemporary-scene fiction<\/li>\n
  3. Realistic future-scene fiction<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fantasy fiction<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Fantasy laid in the past<\/li>\n
    2. Fantasy laid in the present<\/li>\n
    3. Fantasy laid in the future<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

      Mainstream fiction is 1 and 2 in the first group; class 3 there is only science fiction; but that a great deal of fake \u201cscience\u201d fiction is found in class 3 in the fantasy section.<\/p>\n

      He then goes on to examine additional examples that might challenge this scheme, and what strikes me most about these paragraphs, and similar ones in other essays, is how many titles and authors presumably familiar to readers at the time are now utterly forgotten. Frank G. Slaughter? Maxwell Griffith? Vincent McHugh?<\/p>\n

      As if moving down a checklist of topics to discuss, Heinlein then considers whether SF is prophecy. No, but it can seem to be, by virtue of following the news; and he then provides backgrounds for two of his own stories that were seemingly prophetic, \u201cWaldo\u201d and \u201cSolution Unsatisfactory.\u201d \u201cAs a \u2018prophecy\u2019 I was taking as much chance as a man who predicts tomorrow\u2019s sunrise.\u201d Another example: speculation on space suits led to the development of actual space suits. He mentions a number of scientists who write science fiction, then takes apart a passage from The Saturday Review<\/em> (the kind of outsider perspective that David Langford would head with “As Others See Us”) concerning rockets and atomic power their depiction in \u201cthis somewhat crude form of entertainment\u201d\u2026 The statement is entirely \u201cunadulterated tosh,\u201d says Heinlein.<\/p>\n

      Concerning literary merit, how should SF be judged? By the same standards as any other field of fiction. How does SF measure up? Not very well, he admits. It\u2019s more difficult to write SF because of the demands of background and plausibility, that can\u2019t rely on shorthand familiarity with the reader the way westerns or history stories can.<\/p>\n

      As a result, he notes, there isn\u2019t a great volume of good SF. He runs down another list of titles and authors, and here again, John S. Martin? Susan Ertz? Others of course remain famous: Kornbluth, Asimov, Orwell, del Rey, Clement, Wells.<\/p>\n

      Of what use is science fiction?<\/p>\n

      \nIt is the most alive, the most important, the most useful, the most comprehensive fiction being published today. It is the only fictional medium capable of interpreting the change, hand-long rush of modern life.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      P41. While \u201cserious\u201d literature is \u201ca retreat to the womb in the face of a world too complicated and too frightening for their immature spirits.\u201d He dismisses Miller, Sartre, Joyce, et al as the \u201cash-can school of realism\u201d and goes on, \u201cIn any case, I, for one, am heartily sick of stories about frustrates, jerks, homosexuals and commuters who are unhappy with their wives\u2014for goodness sake! Let them find other wives, other jobs\u2014and shut up!\u201d \u2013 a passage I quote as much to suggest what Heinlein thought \u2018mainstream\u2019 fiction of the day was apparently mostly about.<\/p>\n

      He bewares of \u201canti-science fiction\u201d in which science and scientists are things to be feared and blamed for problems \u2013 \u201cIts childish, screaming, afraid-of-the-dark hysteria is easy to spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Where does SF go from here? Only a slow increase in amount and quality, \u201cWe should not expect it ever to become mass entertainment, as it is directed primarily at the superior young person and secondarily at his thoughtful elder.\u201d<\/p>\n

      —<\/p>\n

      While the four talks\/essays in this book all ostensibly address the same topic \u2013 how science fiction novels function as social criticism \u2013 they all answer as if asked quite different questions. Heinlein discussed SF in general and never addressed its social function, except in the broadest terms. C.M. Kornbluth\u2019s \u201cThe Failure of the Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism\u201d<\/strong> justifies its title by taking the subject to mean whether any works of science fiction have had actual impact on society compared to\u2026 Don Quixote, Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin, The Jungle, Babbit<\/em>, and a couple others. Well, no. He digresses through a passage from Moby Dick<\/em> to claim that the reason for this ineffectiveness is that SF is too inward. P55: \u201cIn science fiction the symbolism lies too deep for action to result, that the science fiction story does not turn the reader outward to action but inward to contemplation.\u201d<\/p>\n

      And then explains the failures of Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em> to actually \u201caccomplish\u201d anything. And moves on to, of all people, Dr. E. E. Smith and quickly excoriates his Skylark stories as childish power fantasies. Smith\u2019s later series, the Galactic Patrol, regresses to infancy; humans in these stories \u201care responsible for propitiating their wise protectors who give them magic amulets; they are responsible for avoiding their terrible and omnipotent assailants. All other activity is meaningless, a mask, a system of levers leading to the only great source of good and evil. Humans beings are, in short, about eighteen months old.\u201d (Not much potential for social criticism there.)<\/p>\n

      He considers works by Wilson Tucker and Olaf Stapledon and then comes to Orwell, whose 1984<\/em> he admires greatly despite the fact that it didn\u2019t actually do anything to combat tyranny. Kornbluth goes on to explore two symbolic layers of the book, one literal \u2013 Winston Smith\u2019s life as compared to the author\u2019s boyhood \u2013 and one unconscious \u2013 how Room 101 itself and certain language in the novel as symbolizing \u201ctorment and destruction in the womb\u201d p71. Both claims strike me as remarkably plausible and insightful (having just reread the book last year).<\/p>\n

      He grants some small effect had by Pohl’s and his own The Space Merchants<\/em> (even as he admits that if asked to rewrite it, it would come out differently).<\/p>\n

      And then he ends on a note that echoes Heinlein: he denigrates the \u201cmenace\u201d or \u201cmonster\u201d story \u2013 his example is Matheson\u2019s The Shrinking Man<\/em> \u2013 that trade in fear, whose characters are irrational, that appeal only to readers\u2019 terrors and fright, whose targets are scientists and intellectuals.<\/p>\n

      —<\/p>\n

      Number three is Alfred Bester\u2019s \u201cScience Fiction and the Renaissance Man\u201d<\/strong> and it\u2019s almost embarrassingly out of place among the other three. It reads like a transcript of an after-dinner speech met to keep the audience in stitches, with regular one-liners \u2013 example: \u201cPut any man at loose ends and he invariably starts to write a book. As a matter of fact if you put a man in jail he also starts to write a book. I don\u2019t know if this parallel is significant, but I do know that there are many authors I\u2019d like to see in jail.\u201d Bada boom \u2013 and repeated digressions about the hectic pace of his job as a radio script writer, or about the nature of men vs. women. I\u2019ll summarize the points he makes that do speak to the topic.<\/p>\n