Damien G Walter argues that while the bastions of literary fiction may look down their noses at speculative fiction as an obsolete minority genre, the real picture is actually something quite different:

“Whilst a walk through Waterstones or a perusal of the Times Literary Supplement might make science fiction seem a down trodden and ignored genre, a surf through the modern day internet tells quite a different story…”

Continue reading “Speculative vs Literary Fiction”

“the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

- John Steinbeck

Today, I’ve been discussing plans for the launch of an anthology of local-themed stories, and we’re trying to decide if it would be worth getting local bookshops involved, or concentrating instead on attracting online sales – and that’s why I want to know: as science fiction readers, where do you buy your books?

Personally, I tend to purchase the majority of mine online because a) it’s generally cheaper, and b) there’s usually a better selection – most of the SF books I want to read simply aren’t stocked in local bookstores.

So, in the interests of market research - where do you think is the best place to advertise a new SF anthology, online or in-store?

Recently, there have been a number of calls for more optimism in science fiction. Way back in January, Jetse de Vries laid down a challenge to the readers of Focus, the BSFA’s magazine for writers, to come up with stories that showed a convincing, progressive future -

Write an ambitious story about how the future changes for the better: one that is convincing, as well. As realistic and plausible as you can get it... Let it be grounded in the real, but a real that is more than just nihilistic, cynic, diffident, or disinterested. The progress can be incredibly hardfought, the progress can be met with all possible resistance, have setbacks, and all. But in the end, let there be some kind of progress.

Shortly afterwards, Jason Stoddard wrote:

Where we live is getting strange. But this doesn’t mean it’s a dystopia, or that we’ll be bowing to evil corporate overlords whose only mission statement is to rape the planet, or that we’ll have mind control installed against our will, or that we’ll all die because of climate change or slowing economic growth or whatever the cause du jour is. So why can’t we be strange–and happy?.

And:

…strange and happy does not mean looking forward to the boundless and perfect frontiers of a science-saturated future. It can easily encompass cynicism, hard realities, difficult sacrifices, ugly worlds, and many other hard, gritty scenarios… Because, even as we stumble forward along largely self-centered paths, there is the potential for greatness. And that makes me happy.

And today, over at the Guardian book blog, Damien G Walter also wants to move away from the gloominess that characterises much modern science fiction:

The challenge for writers of science fiction today is not to repeat the same dire warnings we have all already heard, or to replicate the naive visions of the genre’s golden age, but to create visions of the future people can believe in.

All of which makes me think of Ian M Bank’s “Culture” novels – gritty, visceral stories told against the backdrop of a vastly powerful utopia, where every citizen has the right to live exactly as he or she pleases, with no need of posessions or personal wealth.

I’ve written my own share of dystopias in the past – and will probably write a fair few in the future too. But this call for optimism has struck a chord with me, and I think it’s time we found a new balance in science fiction, between dystopias and utopias – a way to write involving, character-driven stories set against realistic, rigorously extrapolated futures that are as complex and varied as our present day – stories that show hope among the ruins, progress in the face of adversity.

After all, it’s all very well scaring people, but sometimes, you also have to inspire them.

My sister drew my attention to this article in the Telegraph:

“Science fiction has always been interested in eternal questions about the nature of the universe, what constitutes reality, what it means to be human and so on. But genetic research, globalisation, environmental concerns, social breakdown are now pressing and familiar topics for everyone. If the literary world now thinks that JG Ballard is a mainstream writer and not a science fiction one, it is only because the rest of the world has caught up with the things against which he has been warning us for decades.”

Sam Jordison has been writing about the collision of science fiction and mainstream literature in The Guardian.

1. Why Do Critics Still Sneer At Sci-Fi?

“Science fiction writers are dismissed by the mainstream, but for mind-expanding ideas and sheer narrative excitement the genre is hard to beat”

2. Literary Apocalypse Now, And Then

“So, novelists’ visions of the future are looking very bleak at the moment. What’s new?”

3. Reading Sci-Fi For Pleasure

“As soon as someone writes a really good sci-fi book it nearly always seems to get reclassified as something else.”

Brian Appleyard explores the “sniffy” British attitude to science fiction in an article for the Sunday Times.

“The truth is,” Aldiss has written, “that we are at last living in an SF scenario.” A collapsing environment, a hyperconnected world, suicide bombers, perpetual surveillance, the discovery of other solar systems, novel pathogens, tourists in space, children drugged with behaviour controllers – it’s all coming true at last. Aldiss thinks this makes SF redundant. I disagree. In such a climate, it is the conventionally literary that is threatened, and SF comes into its own as the most hardcore realism.

He goes on to claim that HG Wells was responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima and Astounding magazine caused the Cold War…