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From: dht@druri.UUCP (Davis Tucker)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Excerpts from Harper's article on Science Fiction
Message-ID: <1176@druri.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 13:49:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: druri.1176
Posted: Sun Sep 29 13:49:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Sep-85 03:18:47 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
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EXCERPTS: "The Temple Of Boredom: Science Fiction, No Future" by Luc Sante (1)

HARPER'S MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1985 (2)
_____________________________________________________________________________

Science fiction has long been invading daily life for a number of years, 
but recently it has become pandemic. That is because it is increasingly
hard to distinguish between real and imaginary technology [such as] the
"Star Wars" defense system... Technology has long been science fiction's
conceit; now it is a conceit in real life as well. 

...Just as the creative leisure once anticipated as the legacy of the machine 
age materialized only as consumerism and boredom, so science fiction's great 
horizons have shrunk. Rather than inspiring liberty, science fiction has
merely regenerated a new set of conventions. Instead of drawing anybody
onward, these conventions have led inward, to minutely embroidered var-
iations on earlier works; sideways, to procrastination and sloth (as when
science fiction disposes of social issues by resolving them in impossible
conditions); and backwards, to nostalgia and escapism (as when it pretends
that the present never occurred).

...It seems pointless to fault a genre merely for being a genre. What makes
science fiction different... is the hubris of its intention, which is no-
thing less than to depict the future, and the impossible. That it usually
delivers pedestrian silliness is therefore thrown into much greater relief.

Witness, for example, James P. Hogan's "Code Of The Lifemaker"... when this
cozy little anti-world is visited by earthlings, a metaphysical crisis en-
sues. Of course, all fiction resolves imaginary problems with imaginary
solutions, but only science fiction appends ethical conclusions as well.
The novel's plea for tolerance of religious robots, while heartfelt, is of
staggering irrelevance. Such contrivance is typical of the genre. Science
fiction, unable to harness the impossible, invariably substitutes the ersatz.

...Science fiction cannot bear to leave its conundrums elegantly unresolved.
Its task is to literalize, add mass, and seek a convincing solution, no mat-
ter how extravagant or dull. Science fictioneers are addicted to a form of
closure, by which internal consistency is achieved at the cost of absurdity.
If humans shuttle back and forth through time like commuters on a subway,
the mechanism of travel must be accounted for in a consistent and "plausible"
way... Science is not usually considered a deterrent to the spirit of inven-
tion, so the fact that it can be invoked to deadening effect in a purely
literary manner is a bit surprising. 

[Discussion of science fiction history - de Bergerac, Poe, Mandeville, Verne,
Wells, Gernsback, Burroughs, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Herbert, Stapleton, Campbell,
Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, Kuttner, Cordwainer Smith, Bester, Asimov and Brad-
bury ("The negative qualities represented by these two - prolix spew and 
poetical preciosity, respectively, have come to stand for the "scientific"
and "literary" pillars of the house. Both... come up with good ideas, both
are extraordinarily dull writers, and both have publicity machines worthy
of Hollywood. Thus two middling figures have come to epitomize the summit
of the craft, weakening the genre as a whole."), Dick, Disch, Ballard, Calvino,
William Burroughs, Stanley Kubrick, and George Lucas.] [ED. NOTE: Acclaim
is given to Wells, Stapleton, Cordwainer Smith, Bester, Dick, and especially
Ballard.]

...Fantasy, with its reliance on magic as an escape from probability, sounds
like the opposite of science fiction, but literary miscegenation abounds...
McCaffrey's fantasy land is simultaneously traditional... and set on another
planet. Life is simple... and imaginary solutions can be magical, scientific,
literary, or all of the above. Here is the ultimate escapism: the problems
of one genre are solved by importing labor-saving devices from another.

In this way, science fiction's original promise is fulfilled most literally
and most ludicrously. The prophets of science fiction hoped to avoid the
traditional literary constraints and scullery service to the real world, but
much of today's science fiction does little more than erect a scaffolding
of pure cotton candy where nothing is constant but the desire for wish-fulfill-
ment. The low pay meted out to science fiction writers in the past may have
been responsible for some of the genre's woolier examples of logorrhea and
vacuity, but today, in a booming market, there is no such excuse. The only
explanations are haste and a contempt for the audience.

John Varley's "Demon"... displays all the hallmarks of word-processor style:
short paragraphs, a rambling breeziness, a tendency to repeat background...
The plot is an indescribable mess, hopping genres at the author's whim...
[short paragraphs from novel, about Gaea and cocaine trucks and steam
engines] The net result is much like that of pouring all one's paints into
a single container: a uniform shit-brown.

..."The Code Of The Lifemaker"... spares nothing to achieve consistency: the
pious robots have robot pets, drink crankcase oil, and dwell in houses made
of vegetable matter... All this is assembled to make a firm non-point about
religion and science and their need to coexist. Consistency, thoroughness, a
sense of purpose, a moral conclusion, and a strong-jawed seriousness that
persists through all occasions for humor - these are among the qualities of
classic science fiction Hogan exemplifies...[excerpt from novel]... All of
this leaves the reader with a slightly compromised aftertaste, as if the
hours spent with the book had been spent humoring a lunatic...

The more recent books considered above span a wide range of ambition, literary
merit, and moral responsibility, but they are all eminently forgettable. While
it may be argued that a number of them were probably designed that way - as
disposable printed fodder - it is unlikely that any of their authors would so
readily spurn the chance to produce a title that might continue selling for a
few decades. Science fiction, by relying on a tradition of mediocrity, has ef-
fectively sealed itself off from literature, and, incidentally, from real con-
cerns. From within, science fiction exudes the humid vapor of male prepubes-
cence. The cultlike ferocity of science fiction fandom serves only to cult-
ivate what is most sickly and stunted about the genre.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, science fiction finds work as a commercial 
fetish, substituting for religion... When associated with breakfast cereal
or pickup trucks, the image of the cosmos suggests masculine adventure while
promising oblivion. Anything can and does get sold this way. Nevertheless, the
double seduction of bravado and the void can most effectively be used to sell
the prospect of annihilation. Perhaps it is not so much that science fiction
has compromised itself as that time has caught up with it. Its once vast
terrain has been thoroughly plundered; what is left is detritus, exploitable
but degraded. Science and fiction can both be found elsewhere; the future,
though, must still be invented.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Luc Sante has written for "The New York Review Of Books", "Manhattan,
inc.", "Newsday", and other publications.

(2) "Harper's welcomes letters to the editor. Short letters are more likely
    to be published, and all letters are subject to editing. Letters must be
    typed double-spaced; volume precludes individual acknokledgement." The
    address is Harper's Magazine, 2 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

(3) Reprinted without permission (substantially edited).


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