Why science fiction authors just can't win

[Swede]

Ursula Le Guin:

“It is shocking to find that an editor at the publishing house that had the wits to publish J.G. Ballard (as well as the Norton Book of Science Fiction) can be so ignorant of what Ballard wrote, or so uninformed about the nature and history of the science-fiction genre, or so unaware of the nature of literature since the 1980s, that he believes — now, in 2009! — that to say a writer wrote science fiction is to malign or degrade his work."

“To define science fiction as a purely commercial category of fiction, inherently trashy, having nothing to do with literature, is a tall order. It involves both denying that any work of science fiction can have literary merit, and maintaining that any book of literary merit that uses the tropes of science fiction (such as Brave New World, or 1984, or A Handmaid’s Tale, or most of the works of J.G. Ballard) is not science fiction. This definition-by-negation leads to remarkable mental gymnastics. For instance, one must insist that certain works of dubious literary merit that use familiar science-fictional devices such as alternate history, or well-worn science-fiction plots such as Men-Crossing-the-Continent-After-the Holocaust, and are in every way definable as science fiction, are not science fiction — because their authors are known to be literary authors, and literary authors are incapable by definition of committing science fiction.”

In an essay in The New Scientist (16 September 2009), Kim Stanley Robinson claimed that the Booker judges consistently rewarded “what usually turn out to be historical novels”.

“Speaking as an outsider from California and as a science fiction writer I see these very brilliant writers doing excellent work who are never in the running at all, for no reason except their genre and who their publishers are – the so-called club members. It just needs to be said. The Booker prize is so big, the way it shapes public consciousness of what is going on in British literature, but the avant garde, the leading edge, is being ignored or shut out of the process entirely.”

http://sffmedia.com/books/science-fiction-books/417-why-science-fiction-authors-just-cant-win.html

[Fumesucker]

1. SF scares a lot of people..

Particularly people who have little or no understanding of science, in which category I would include a lot of people who like or are involved with "good literature", which often comes across to me as stifling, inbred and navel gazing.

But then a lot of people don't know or refuse to see the difference between SF and skiffy.

Ted Sturgeon famously said that ninety percent of everything is crap, well I'm here to tell you that brother Ted was a flaming optimist.

The good stuff is SF, the crap is skiffy and there is one hell of a lot of skiffy out there.

[phantom power]

2. "commit science fiction"

:rofl:

And I'd do it again, coppers!

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

3. Things are changing.

It seems like many modern authors are resistant to having their work tagged specifically to any one genre, in effect, stumping the classifiers and labelers. Cormac McCarthy's The Road comes immediately to mind, as does most of Neal Stephenson's catalog. Margaret Atwood's latest book The Year of the Flood, is unabashedly "speculative" fiction, a label that more accurately represents the basic ideas of science fiction without the "science".

[Fumesucker]

4. The Diamond Age, Snowcrash and Anathem are definitely science fiction..

Cryptonomicon not so much..

Haven't been able to find the rest in the library or used book stores so I don't know about them.

[MrModerate]

6. But Atwood is an insufferable snob who wouldn't associate with . . .

"unserious" authors.

[Orrex]

7. I didn't know that about her, but...

I've been puzzled by her insistence that Oryx and Crake isn't science fiction, when it obviously (and by any reasonable standard) is.

[bluescribbler]

8. Harlan Ellison is one example

He hates being called a science fiction writer, because much of his work, e.g., "The Glass Teat", can't even be called fiction. A few years ago, he walked off a radio show in the middle of the program because the host called him a science fiction writer, after being warned specifically not to use that label. Of course, Harlan is a cantankerous SOB, anyway, but damn can he write.

[MrModerate]

9. Ellison the auteur has always been a bigger deal than Ellison the artist . . .

And that's the problem. Frankly, he gives me the pip, despite his contributions to the genre.

[SheilaT]

5. I have always thought

of science fiction as a literature of ideas.