All I really need to know I learned from science fiction and fantasy stories

While There's No Place like Space may be great for kindergarten students, everything I really need to know I learned from the science fiction and fantasy genre.

A short essay hangs on the bulletin board in the break room at work. The essay's printed on age-brown paper and taped to a yellow sheet of construction paper, the kind kindergarten students cut with safety scissors. A totally appropriate paper choice since the essay is titled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

Written by Robert Fulghum, the essay formed the basis of his bestselling 1988 book of the same name. It’s possible the essay has been posted on my work’s bulletin board for more than a quarter century, silently offering life suggestions to impatient employees jostling for the water cooler or coffee pot.

Among Fulghum’s kindergarten suggestions are “Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess.”

It’s easy to see why an entire generation of workers kept the essay on the bulletin board. After all, it’s a nice fantasy to believe that taking a nap every day and holding hands not only makes the world a better place but keeps everyone happy.

Humans have long been attracted to basic rules of living, rules which appeal to humanity’s sense of fairness and also resonate with our cultural norms and beliefs. The most basic of these rules — commandments found in different religions such as “Thou shalt not kill” or “Do not lie” — seem obvious and easy to follow. Other rules vary across human cultures, such as norms on interpersonal contact and communications.

But even very obvious rules and norms turn out to have a lot of moral ambiguity. Every culture in the world supposedly believes that killing is wrong. Except they all have exceptions to that rule, such as allowing killing in cases of self defense. Or if you’re a soldier. Or if society decides someone should be killed. Or if the profit model of your business depends on indirectly killing people.

And rules against lying are bent even further, with very few humans being absolutely honest when describing their feelings and thoughts to other people.

Suddenly “Thou shalt not kill or lie” isn’t so “thou shalt not.” Which is how most absolute rules in life go, with the rules being good ideals but attaining more flexibility in day-to-day exchanges between people. Sometimes this flexibility is good — as in telling a white lie to spare a friend’s feelings — and sometimes it’s bad, as when the tobacco industry aggressively sells a product killing millions each year.

Maybe Fulghum’s kindergarten essay is so popular because it moves beyond the hypocrisy of how most human act with regards to rules and norms. Fulghum’s kindergarten rules take us to a supposedly simpler time in our lives. To an idealized past where all of us knew right and wrong and acted in the proper manner.

Of course, not everyone learned the same rules as a child. In my case, for example, everything I really need to know I learned from science fiction and fantasy stories.

I read SF/F stories from a young age, first in the Golden Age magazines my grandfather owned then in novels I tracked down at bookstores. I still read SF/F stories with an almost religious fever. I sometimes think reading and writing SF/F is the only thing which keeps me going. That SF/F stories give meaning to my life by showing me the deeper truths underlying our existence.

For example, from Arthur C. Clarke I learned that the ultimate destination of all humans is extinction. Even if some parts of humanity transcend reality, as in Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, humanity as a species is destined to eventually disappear from this universe.

From Isaac Asimov I learned that even if our ultimate fate is to disappear, humanity can have an amazing ride while we exist.

From Ursula K. Le Guin I learned that culture shock can be both a way to awaken you to new intellectual horizons and to kill you.

From Octavia E. Butler I learned that we must fight to better the world, even if the fight to better the world often destroys us.

From Harlan Ellison I learned of outrage at the world as it is, even if outrage sometimes eats us alive.

From Philip K. Dick I learned to look behind the curtains of life and never be shocked by the depths to which humans go to ignore the truth about ourselves.

From Samuel R. Delany I learned that the worlds we create within ourselves can be far more amazing and unique than anything in our already amazing and unique universe.

Science fiction and fantasy stories teach us the rules for reaching beyond what humanity is at this time and place. In our hearts, humans yearn to move past what we know. We are our world’s ultimate star gazers. We want to see beyond the distant horizon, both in the physical world and in our inner, mentally created worlds.

Humans are by necessity limited in what we can do and know. Even if we experience every aspect of life out there — and even if we read SF/F stories every waking moment of our lives  —  there will still be countless experiences and stories we’ll never know.

But that’s okay because we exist within the location and time frame of our bodies and knowledge and beliefs. Even the most open-minded humans are unable to experience everything that is experienced by the billions of people currently living on our planet. Or the experiences of the hundred billion or more humans who have existed since the dawn of our species.

All we can do is follow our own limited paths through life. To help us travel these paths, humanity creates rules and norms and beliefs. We’re a fool to ignore these rules and norms and beliefs. We’re a fool to follow them too closely or not try to change them.

That’s one reason I love the truths I’ve learned from science fiction and fantasy stories. These truths both expand my understanding of life and ground me in the world as it exists. SF/F rules and norms are both a cry against the ultimate fate of humanity and a demand that we experience life as only we can live it.

In the end, that’s all any true SF/F lover can hope for.

Deadpool and the death of believing genre works are only for kids

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I remember the moment my love of science fiction and fantasy became unacceptable. I was in ninth grade and checking out new SF books at my school’s library. The librarian was an old friend. While working years before at my elementary school she’d encouraged my love of genre fiction by pointing out new books to read.

But on this high school day, the librarian looked at my books and sniffed, “Aren’t you a little old to be reading that?”

Because naturally SF/F is only for kids. Because naturally new worlds and a sense of wonder and dreams of the future and things which will never be must stay within the realm of kids.

The librarian meant well, but so did generations of readers and critics and a general public who for decades looked down on SF/F as being “kids’ stuff.” That same attitude carried over to other storytelling formats which were also declared to be only for kids. Like comic books. And video games.

Woe be to any responsible adult who dared embrace anything genre.

Thankfully, this attitude has changed. Today mainstream literary authors like Michael Chabon and Junot Díaz regularly write and associate within the realms of SF/F, with Chabon winning the Nebula Award for his alternate-history novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union while Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is essentially a love song to genre fandom. In addition, genre writers like Terry Pratchett and George R.R. Martin are world-famous celebrities while authors like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany are embraced by the high-literary world which once disdained them.

An even bigger change has happened in the visual storytelling mediums, with SF/F and comic books inspiring films and video games and TV shows which rank among the highest grossing works of all time. In fact, it seems like genre works and adaptations support everything Hollywood and the other visual industries create these days, as opposed to decades ago when Hollywood executives feared the original Star Wars film would bomb with audiences who, the executives assumed, only wanted to see realistic movies.

But even though genre culture is ascendant, traces of the old attitudes remain, as witnessed by the reaction to the successful Deadpool film. In the run-up to the Golden Globes, in which Deadpool had been nominated as best Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, I heard disdainful sniffs from a number of people that this superhero movie didn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breathe as La La Land.

Well la-dee-da to that attitude.

I wasn’t surprised by Deadpool’s record-breaking box office haul — the film had been on the radar of both myself and my teenage son over a year before it was released. Like millions of other people, my son and I ate up Deadpool’s not-safe-for-work trailers and previews, which showed that the film would remain true to the violent, wise-cracking Marvel Comics antihero we loved.

But on par Hollywood’s traditional lack of faith in ground-breaking genre works, 20th Century Fox and Marvel Entertainment refused to believe a comic book movie aimed solely at adults could succeed. As a result they forced the Deadpool film to be created for only $58 million, a tiny amount in blockbuster-obsessed Hollywood. But audiences had more faith, resulting inDeadpool becoming one of the most profitable movies of all time.

If there’s one thing Hollywood loves more than anything else it’s making money. So already the pundits and executives in Hollywood are saying Deadpool proves the world needs more adult-focused comic book adaptations. Which is both good and bad.

This is good because Deadpool’s success may finally put to death the lingering belief that genre works are only for kids. But it’s also bad because Deadpool’s success will cause Hollywood to misunderstand the reason audience loved the film in the first place.

The truth is that Deadpool is a labor of love, or as much a labor of love as any big budget Hollywood film can be. The film spent nearly 15 years in development hell, with different movie studios arguing about and backing out of adapting this beloved-but-not-for-kids comic book character to the big screen.

The only reason the film was eventually made is because star Ryan Reynolds and other people working on Deadpool believed in their film. They leaked test footage online to wide acclaim and viral view rates, which convinced the studio to greenlight the film. They personally promoted the film to the world through quirky trailers and YouTube videos which both poked fun at Hollywood and showcased how Reynolds was a natural to play Deadpool.

In short, their enthusiasm for what they created became infectious.

That’s the real reason Deadpool was successful — the people who created it were excited and determined to tell a specific story which resonated with fans. Deadpool’s success as the highest grossing adult-oriented film of all time is almost an afterthought to the enthusiasm which birthed the film in the first place.

Unfortunately, Hollywood now believes that extreme comic-book violence and off-color jokes are the key to superhero box office success, so expect to see plenty of films along those lines in the next few years. And when most of these films bomb with audiences, Hollywood will probably again say that Deadpool was the exception which proved the rule that comic adaptations, and by extension all of genre culture, is mainly for kids.

But that’s nonsense. The stories which truly resonate with people are stories created with a sense of passion. When an author or artist or director or actor or any creative person throws themself into something with an all-driving passion, people notice. And if the stories they create turn out to be good, it doesn’t matter what genre or medium the stories exist within.

It only matters that people react to a story's passion with their own passion.

I’m glad our culture has moved beyond its once idiotic dismissal of all thing genre. Now any story which is created with passion can be enjoyed — with passion — by anyone.

But don’t expect corporate Hollywood to ever understand the passion which leads people to create great stories in the first place

My ConFusion schedule, Jan. 19 to 22, 2017

I'm a participating author at the ConFusion convention in Detroit, January 19 to 22. ConFusion is one of my favorite conventions, featuring a strong literary focus with a laid-back and accessible attitude. This year's guests of honor and special guests are Gail Carriger, Mallory O’Meara, Mark Oshiro, James S.A. Corey, Joe Hill, Gillian Redfearn, and many more.

Here's my panelist schedule. Look for me and say hello.

How to Make Babies with Science
Saturday at 3:00 PM, Isle Royale
We will discussing current availability of genetic modification to create GMOs, designer babies and the advance of Grey Goo that will devour the planet.
Daniel Dugan (M), Jason Sanford, Julie Lesnik, Catherine Shaffer

Autograph Session
Saturday at 4:00 PM, St. Clair
Stop by for a free signed limited edition copy of one of my stories.
Matthew Alan Thyer, Dyrk Ashton, Angela Carina Barry, Mishell Baker, Brandon Black, Elly Blake, Gail Carriger,Suzanne Church, Michael Cieslak, Lesley Conner, Seleste deLaney/Julie Particka, Kate Elliott, Amal El-Mohtar, Janet Harriett, Christian Klaver, Mur Lafferty, Jeffrey Alan Love, Mark Oshiro, Dustin Patrick, Cherie Priest, Adam Rakunas, Jason Sanford, Michael R. Underwood, Brigitte Winter

Blurring the Lines
Sunday at 10:00 AM, Keweenaw
Genre is sometimes described as little more than arbitrary marketing categories, but readers and writers often define themselves by their preferred genre. What makes a genre distinct, and what happens when those distinctions are imported into another genre? Is it just a crossover, or an illustration that the distinctions are arbitrary?
Brandon Black (M), Jackie Morgan, Cherie Priest, Jason Sanford, Kristine Smith

Will humanity ever achieve a true sense of proportion?

NASA's composite image of the western hemisphere titled "Blue Marble 2012." This photo is an updated version of the original Blue Marble photograph of the Earth taken by Apollo astronauts in 1972.

The greatest accomplishment of Douglas Adams in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series — aside from establishing 42 as the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything — was to give readers a glimpse at the unbelievable size of the universe.

“Space is big,” Adams wrote. “Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Adams distilled the vastness of space into his Total Perspective Vortex, a machine which gives people a true "sense of proportion" by forcing them to experience the infinite scale of the universe. And alongside this unending expanse of everything is a tiny, microscopic dot whispering, “You are here.”

Unfortunately, experiencing one’s true place in an infinite universe turns out to be very bad as it destroys your mind and soul. Which, as Adams relates, is why it is critically important that people not keep a true sense of proportion in their lives.

Adams needn't have worried because humans have long had difficulty comprehending the vast scales of the universe into which we’ve been cast. We have trouble contemplating how big the Earth is, and our planet is tiny compared to the biggest occupants of our solar system. But when most people on Earth are born and raised and die within the space of a few thousand kilometers, it’s difficult to see beyond our tiny slices of existence.

Moving that perspective to the larger scales of the universe is even more difficult.

And the infinite reaches of space aren’t the only thing humans lack an ability to truly understand. The eternity of time in which we live also eludes our mental grasp.

Again, this is a limitation of human existence. We are born and live for a brief span of years. However, thanks to the wonders of human consciousness and ego, we believe that during this time we the most important person in existence.

Most people have the decency to deny this. But humility is often merely a culturally created statement — we know going around letting our ego run berserk is bad, so most of us learn to mask our egos. Yet aside from a few enlightened monks and other selfless people, most humans still believe they are important to the grand scheme of life.

I suspect such ego-centric views are a human survival mechanism. We should thank the ego for the fact our species is still alive. But the human ego also produces horrific excesses. Case in point, President-Elect Donald Trump. Can anyone deny that at the center of everything Trump does is an ego matched only by the fictional kings in the Game of Thrones?

Despite the primal scream of Trump’s ego, he isn’t a giant striding across the world. He’s a rich little boy who momentarily convinced people that he’s important.

We exist for only a brief span of space and time, However, thanks to the human ego we believe these spans are vastly important. That our existence is the pinnacle of human existence. That we’re living in the days which all of human history have built toward.

Never mind that thousands of generations of humanity believed the same. The ancient Egyptians saw their civilization as the peak of humanity. As did the ancient Greeks and Chinese and Babylonians and others, including so many civilizations now lost to history.

I love science is because it challenges such ego-centric notions of importance. When the Apollo 17 crew took the famous Blue Marble photo of the Earth on the way to the moon, humanity finally began to understand how fragile our world is. When the Voyager 1 space probe took the equally famous “pale blue dot” photo of Earth from 6 billion kilometers away, we began to realize our entire world and all of human history is little more than a dot lost within the vastness of space.

My favorite scientific discipline for giving humanity a sense of proportion is archaeology. When I worked as an archaeologist and excavated burials it was impossible to touch those bones and not realize that here was a person the same as myself. That this person lived and loved and laughed and cried and, in the end, left behind only bone and dust.

That’s the ultimate outcome to all our lives.

Adding to this sense of proportion, in recent years archaeological research has uncovered the complexity of human pre-history. It now appears that in the distant past our ancestors existed alongside numerous other related hominid species. We still carry some of the DNA of these species within us, such as homo neanderthalensis, suggesting interbreeding between our species. Others, such as homo floresiensis or the”hobbit” hominid, existed alongside us into almost modern times, possibly dying out only thousands of years ago.

And some species we don’t even know how to fit into our ancestral chart, such as the recently discovered homo naledi. Discovered in an isolated cave in South Africa a few years ago, this hominid from up to 2.5 million years ago appears to have deliberately placed their dead in this cave. This possibility is both exciting and challenging because it shows extremely human behavior long before we believed such behavior existed.

One reason humans have difficulty understand our place in space and time is because we have, by nature, a limited perception. But if we are to grow as a species then our perception — and our sense of proportion — must likewise grow.

Despite what Douglas Adams wrote, I hope that one day humanity does achieve a true sense of proportion regarding our place in space and time. Because if we don’t, our bones may be the only thing remaining after we finish tearing ourselves apart.

The unseen libraries of our dreams

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The wraparound cover of the November 1963 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, one of the covers I remember from my grandfather's collection. The art by Hannes Bok illustrated "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" by Roger Zelazny.

I am a child visiting my grandfather’s house. He’s a skinny man whose ghost-white hair grins out a large bald spot. He’d been old as long as I’d known him so old is what he remains in my memories.

Every time I visit his house he sits in an easy chair reading science fiction novels. Several novels a week, all stacked on the end table next to his chair. Each visit is a map of his progress through these books, my eyes entranced by the book’s dazzling covers of imaginary worlds, far off starscapes and alien adventures. The books change week by week but my grandfather never changes.

Many of the novels my grandfather reads are from his small library of genre books and magazines collected over a lifetime. Pulp magazines from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Decaying paperbacks from the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Bestselling hardcovers from the late 1970s and early ’80s. His library exists in a tiny room of his house, a room he claimed as his own and lined with book shelves, a desk and a small sofa.

My grandfather's a craftsman and built the shelves in his library. I often sneak into the room and stare at the pulp magazine covers with their bright primary-color screams of excitement and the unknown. I pull out the magazines and books and read through them, always careful to put them back in the same spot because otherwise my grandfather would know I’d been in his library.

He probably always knew I sneak in, but he never says a word.

My grandfather also reads novels from the town’s library and browses their new book collection every week. He takes me with him once and I’m amazed. I’d never seen so many books. To my young eyes the library’s bookshelves and stacks stretch onward into forever.

Decades later, when I’m grown, I return to the town’s library and realize how small and poorly stocked it actually is. By then I’ve seen much larger libraries and book collections. But none stand as tall in my dreams as my grandfather’s hand-built library or my original visit to the town’s library.

I now live in a small house with my wife and two teenage sons. Life in a small house is intimate and close-knit because you can’t wall yourself off from everyone else with closed doors and other rooms. I’m writing these words at our dinner table. My wife eats her breakfast across the table. My oldest son carries dirty clothes by the table, struggling under his load to the washing machine in the basement.

A small house is not only intimate. It restrains. You think, “Do I really need this object in my life? Do I really need to bring home another consumer wet dream electronic device or must-have promoted item to fill imaginary holes in my life?”

Almost always the answer is no. I don’t feel the need to purchase my way to materialistic transcendence. To satisfy my life by purchasing consumer goods from the altar of capitalism.

Except for books. They are my weakness.

I have a small library in my house. Not in one room like my grandfather. Our house is too small for a room devoted only to books. Instead, on the desk upstairs there are piles of books and magazines. Beside the desk sits two cheap plywood bookshelves on which my wife and I keep many books. I also have boxes and plastic containers full of books in storage around the house. Most of my grandfather’s library rests in plastic containers in the basement. I occasionally go downstairs and open the containers and flip through these ancient magazines and paperbacks.

They are no longer in the order my grandfather kept them in his library. I regret that.

The best bookshelf in our house is downstairs, only a few feet from the dinner table where I write these words. This bookcase is solid wood, hand crafted, about five feet tall with four shelves and two glass-panel doors. My wife and I bought it before our kids were born. It’s the nicest piece of furniture in our tiny house. The bookcase is filled with science fiction and fantasy novels and related books.

Some of these books are first editions, signed by authors I’ve met at conventions and gatherings. Others are cheap paperbacks and book club editions from my youth, a few with nibbled edges where mice had their ways with them years ago. Some are irreplaceable. Others could be easily thrown away.

The books and magazines on these bookcases and stored in boxes around my small house are the dreams which sustain and fulfill my life. At one time each of these books expanded my worldview in unique ways. Each book meant the universe to me at one time or another.

Without these books I'd never have made it this far through life.

Now, though, I wonder if actual physical libraries like these are already a thing of the past. I wonder if maybe I’ve attached too much fixation on the books themselves instead of the stories they tell.

After all, the stories in these books are what first resonated with me.

What is a book after its story enters someone’s life and mind? Is the book still its story, or is it merely an empty shell now that its story lives inside another?

I continually read new novels and stories and books. Without new stories our lives stagnate and harden. Because I live in a small house and have little room for new books, most of the new books I read are virtual. These virtual stories exist everywhere and nowhere.

I carry my virtual library wherever I go. One day in the near future I likely won’t even have to carry my library. It’ll simply appear whenever I wish to disappear into a story.

Even if I can’t touch my virtual library, the best stories still enter my mind and soul. The best stories remain within me.

But what happens to physical books when we no longer need them? Will printed books become merely another consumer dream to fill the empty spaces of our lives? Will actual books become nothing more than objects of art, sitting on shelves to visually amuse people who don’t care to know the stories within them?

I used to dream about having my own personal library like my grandfather’s. I imagined reading books on a sofa surrounded by rows and rows of books I’d already read or would soon read.

But now a major part of my library will never rest on any shelf.

What do our unseen libraries mean for humanity, especially when they can be everywhere and nowhere? What does it mean when we no longer need to physically touch the libraries which create our dreams?

Note: This essay was originally published in the Czech SF/F magazine XB-1.