Rehashing the Cormac McCarthy / A Canticle for Leibowitz war

A year and a half ago I published an essay in the New York Review of Science Fiction which took literary critics to task for not mentioning the influence of Walter M. Miller Jr's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road. (You can read a reprinted version of the essay here).

I was severely taken to task for this essay by some critics. But history has a nice way of vindicating simple truths. The proof is over on the Guardian book blog where a short essay states that "Walter M Miller Jr's A Canticle for Leibowitz is a direct ancestor of Cormac McCarthy's The Road" and "Rare and brave were the mainstream critics who recognised its SF antecedents without coughing and spluttering about how it somehow transcended the genre."

It's always nice to get the last word in an argument, especially when someone else echoes what you'd been saying all along.

Review of Fast Ships, Black Sails

My featured review of the new anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, is now up at Monsters and Critics. There are a number of great stories in this collection, including "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, "A Cold Day in Hell" by Paul Batteiger, "Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe" by Garth Nix, and my favorite story, "Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake" by Naomi Novik.

This collection is an all-star treat which both plays with the pirates we all know and love, and takes those self-same pirates into new and exciting waters. Check it out.

An insider's guide to SF for insiders

My new review of Strange Horizons' fiction is now up at The Fix, and in the review I discuss why science fiction is so often written for SF insiders. As I say in the review,

It’s not that we don’t like readers. After all, every literary genre lives only through the graces of that genre’s readers. The problem for science fiction writers, however, comes in explaining to the general public many of our genre’s current insights—concepts such as the singularity, neural downloads, nanotechnology, ansibles, and so on. While all these concepts are well known to science fiction insiders, they can easily confuse people who don’t continually immerse themselves in the genre. So every time science fiction authors write a story, they have to decide how much explanation they’re willing to give for ideas which their biggest fans are likely already familiar.

The result is a chasm between science fiction which is accessible to the general reading public and that which can only be appreciated by science fiction insiders.

So what's the solution? I'm not sure. But unless SF can gain new readers, it risks become inbred. And like anything that becomes too inbred, extinction is the end result.

Did some independent bookstores deserve to die?

With a number of science fiction authors like Tobias Buckell complaining of late about their books being "skipped," Andrew Wheeler has a long post both explaining the situation and stating why chain book stores are "vastly better than the bulk of the existing independent bookstores" they replaced. Here's the paragraph that will probably get up a lot of people's noses:

One thing is indeed true: about eighteen years ago, there were 7,500 independent bookstores; now there are 1700. Sure, some good stores closed. But the rosy-colored view of the wonderful lost indy bookstore, land of miracles, where enlightened, Buddha-esque bookmen and -women sold only the finest of literature to a happy and contented audience is pure bunk. Most of those vanished stores were too small, undercapitalized, badly run marginal businesses run by cranks. They went out of business because they were bad at business, lacking any point-of-sale systems or serious inventory tracking at all. If they didn't return all that many books, it was because they had no idea what they had or where it was. Oh, and most of them -- as those of us who remember those days without the gauzy light of nostalgia -- were actively hostile to science fiction and fantasy. (Remember? This is the era when SF sold mostly in paperback, through entirely different channels, or in small hardcover editions to libraries. Those supposed wondrous independent stores of yore didn't carry SFF.) The independent stores still open are probably 90% of the well-managed independent bookstores that ever existed; there's a serious selection bias in looking at what's still around and extrapolating that back to all of the stores that didn't survive -- most of them didn't survive for a reason.

I'm a fan of independent bookstores and shop at them quite often, but I can also see where Wheeler is coming from. Growing up in central Alabama during the 70s and 80s, there were no good independent bookstores in the area that stocked quality science fiction or fantasy. Only with the arrival of the big chain stores did central Alabama suddenly have access to the same great books that were taken for granted in the big cities.

That said, the best bookstores in the country tend to be independent bookstores. My favorites include Dreamhaven Books in Minneapolis, Burke's Book Store in Memphis (run by a great writer named Corey Mesler), and the wonderful Book Loft near my home in Columbus, Ohio. So while I understand what Wheeler is saying about poorly run independents being replaced by chain stores, I also know that the bookstores which make the biggest impression on me are always independents. And what worries me about the current bookseller landscape is that too many of the great independent bookstores I care about are also at risk of disappearing--and I know the unreal pressure they're facing is not because they are poorly run.

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun

Last week I finished reading Gene Wolfe's science fiction masterpiece The Book of the New Sun. This is a novel which easily stands up to all its critical acclaim and is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of world literature across any genre. In fact, this book is now on my short list of favorite late 20th century American novels, alongside Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx.

I have ordered the coda to the novel, titled The Urth of the New Sun, and once I finish that I'll no doubt have more to say about this masterpiece. Until then, I strongly urge people to hunt down this four-part novel. Yes, it's a dense read. But if you give this novel them time it needs to reach into your consciousness, you'll come away amazed at what great literature can accomplish.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla21I remember my first comic so clearly: Issue 21 of Marvel Comic's late 1970s series Godzilla King of the Monsters. I purchased the comic at a 7-11 just down the street from my grade school, turning in enough refundable coke bottles to cover the 35 cent price.

The title on the cover reads "Godzilla battles the raging might of Devil Dinosaur in The Doom Trip." I read that comic until it literally fell apart. While it wasn't a comic masterpiece, I fell in love with both comics and fantasies from that point on.

Nebula Award dismay

Over on the Asimov's forum, Gardner Dozois is worried that the lack of participation by SFWA members in the Nebula Awards nominating process. In the most recent award cycle, this almost resulted in not enough nominees being posted for the different award categories. Now Dozois warns this is shaping up to happen again with the new award cycle. He's especially concerned that stories being touted as among thebest of the year--"The Political Prisoner," "The Egg Man," "The Ray-Gun: A Love Story," "From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled," "Shoggoths in Bloom," "The Surfer," "The Dust Assassin," "The Tear," "Poison Victory," and so forth--at this point only have one Nebula nomination each (and with that one nomination usually coming from Dozois himself).

I must admit my ignorance on why people aren't nominating stories, especially since active members of the SFWA can nominate as many stories as they want. I recently turned in my application to join the SFWA, so if everything goes through okay I'll make sure to nominate a slew of stories.

My favorite science fiction story

Rusty at BestScienceFictionStories.com recently asked science fiction bloggers to pick their favorite SF stories. He's now posted my selection, along with my analysis of the story and more. While I don't want to give too much away, let me just say the story is by Ray Bradbury.

The first blogger to post their favorite story was John DeNardo of the always great blog SF Signal. He picked Tom Godwin's classic story "The Cold Equations." Many thanks to Rusty for running this series. And despite the fact that I've now blogged twice this week, I'm still on an August blogging break. So expect only a few random posts until next month.

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun

I just finished the first volume in Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. For those not familiar with the book, Neil Gaiman has called this "The best SF novel of the last century." Even though I still have a ways to go before I finish the entire novel, so far I have to totally agree with Neil. I highly recommend people grab a copy of the novel and start reading.

BTW, because I have a lot of personal writing and reading to finish, I won't be blogging that much during the next month. I suggest blaming the silence of the blogs around here on Gene!

When genre writers don't read stories in their own genre

James at Speculative Horizons raises an excellent point: Why do readers tolerate "fantasy authors who, when asked what other genre writers theyread/admire, give a reply along the lines of: 'Oh, well...I don't really read fantasy, you see.'" Specifically, James harps on fantasy author David Bilsborough for having this attitude and claims that author Steven Erikson has also noticed it among his fellow writers.

Personally, I'd expand this rant to not just include genre writers--as I mentioned in an essay last year, mainstream literary novelists have been appropriating genre tropes and themes for years. You can bet these authors have the same attitude to genre writings as James talks about. But it's one thing to have intellectual snobs looking down their noses at the genre. To have this attitude come from people within the genre ... ouch.

More William Sanders crap (or how not to be a professional SF/F editor)

I promised myself I wouldn't devote any more of my limited time to the William Sanders affair. But now I see that Sanders has gone off the deep end on Yoon Ha Lee, a talented writer I admire whose story "Notes on the Necromantic Symphony" was selected as a notable story in the current Million Writers Award.

Lee asked that her story"The Shadow Postulates," which Sanders had published on Helix, be removed from that site because she no longer wished to be associated with Sanders' comments about Muslims. Sanders responded by saying that her story "never did make any sense" and that he only accepted it to "please those who admire your work and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers." Sanders closed his e-mail my stating "There was a suggestion I was going to make, but it is probably not physically practicable." Very tasteful.

If there's anyone out there who still thinks Sanders retains any shred of professionalism, this should put that view to a quick death. Let me also state that Yoon Ha Lee is a talented writer whose stories I have greatly enjoyed reading. Show your support for her by reading more of her fiction.

Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, arrived in the mail yesterday. While this anthology is a perennial favorite of mine, this year's edition appears to be even better than the norm (and my opinion has nothing to do with being named to the honorable mention list, although that was a pleasant surprise). As I always do, the first thing I turned to was Gardner's excellent summation of the past year in science fiction. Once again I found his summary to be top-notch, with it both refreshing my memory about a few things and bringing in many points which I had not previously known.

Look for my complete review of the anthology in a few weeks.

Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards

The winners of the John W. Campbell Memorial and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards have been announced. Kathy Goonan’s novel In War Times has won the Campbell award, while the joint winners of the Sturgeon short story award are "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear and "Finisterra" by David Moles. Both of these short stories are amazing. Last year I selected "Finisterra" as one of my stories of the week, and you can read my analysis of the story here. Congrats to all these winners.

Nebula Awards website

In the "it's about time" category, the SFWA has created a website devoted to their Nebula Awards. The site is informative and nicely laid out, although it is still very much a work in progress. For example, the archives of all the past winners is missing the years 1967 to 1989, and the guest blog is still in progress. But all in all, this is something the SFWA has been needing to do for a long time and I'm glad it finally exists.

Earl Kemp's Who Killed Science Fiction

Per George Santayana's famous comment that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," I would like to point out that the continual hand wringing over whether or not short science fiction is dying is almost five decades too late. In 1960 Earl Kemp asked the top science fiction authors a series of questions, the first of which was "Do you feel that magazine science fiction is dead?" The results were published as Who Killed Science Fiction, which went on to win the 1961 Hugo Award for best fanzine.

Two years ago Earl Kemp published an updated and unexpurgated online version of Who Killed Science Fiction. It's an amazing experience to read through the responses from authors like Robert A. Heinlein, Philip José Farmer, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. One highlight is the interview with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who states that "Anybody who announces that he is a science fiction writer is announcing that he is in damn bad company financially and artistically." Kemp's updated version of the publication then gives Vonnegut's second thoughts about those harsh words, as he states in a letter to Kemp that "My own contribution to Who Killed Science Fiction? was irresponsible, and I'm sorry for it."

I challenge everyone who moans about the coming death of science fiction short stories to read through this amazing piece of SF history. I think you'll find that many of the arguments and issues being raised today are the same ones being raised back then, which leads me to suspect that forty years from now people will still be writing and publishing SF short fiction--and moaning about the genre's coming death.

(As a side note, Earl Kemp still publishes a monthly e-zine. Check out the back issues here.)

Top science fiction films since 1991

Over on SciFi Scanner, John Scalzi suggested how to improve the American Film Institute's list of top ten science fiction films. The problem with AFI's list is that it only contains films from 1991 and before. Since there have been a ton of great SF films created in the last 17 years, that's a hell of an oversight.

I agree with all five of Scalzi's additions--The Matrix (1999), Ghost in the Shell (1995), The Incredibles (2004), 12 Monkeys (1995), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). I would also propose the following films: Gattaca (1997), Children of Men (2006), and most importantly, Alex Proyas's masterpiece Dark City (1998). People might also be interested in Cinemension's Great Films List, which breaks the best films down by genre, director, and more.

Pictures of a Martian dust devil

Alan Taylor at Boston.com has compiled some amazing photos from the different NASA probes sent to Mars. While there plenty of mind-blowing images here, perhaps the eeriest is seeing dust devils blow across the surface of the red planet. The video results from a series of images acquired in 2005 by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover. To see the dust devils, pan down about a third of the way through the page.

Revelations on the success of Battlestar Galactica

The season-ending episode of the new Battlestar Galactica series has now aired. For an excellent review and analysis of this amazing episode (titled "Revelations"), see Alan Sepinwall's dead-on comments. Instead of joining in with praise for the episode, I want to address a bigger issue on why Battlestar Galactica is in the running for the best science fiction TV series in history.

There has been a lot of grumbling from people that season 4 was too slow and that the series had become nothing more than a soap opera in space. Personally, I didn't agree with these comments because I thought the season was shaping up to be the best in an already top-notch broadcast run. However, as I listened to these complaints, the truth began to dawn on me: Many SF fans can't stomach a TV series that actually practices what so many in the genre have preached for years.

For decades SF authors and fans have been saying that the best SF is based on character development and insight into deep human issues. Yes, SF features exciting future worlds with lots of space ships, fun technology, and massive interstellar backdrops, but when you cut to the essence of the best SF stories they are about individual humans and their struggles. Well guess what: Battlestar Galactica has truly followed this formula. The reason this season's last episode paid off so amazingly well is because of the character development we've witnessed these last few months and years.

I believe the mixed critical reaction among SF fandom to Battlestar Galactica results from a scism between those who want their SF to reach truly human understanding and depths, and those who see SF as more like escapism. This doesn't mean that Battlestar Galactica isn't also a great thrill ride, which it is. But what pushes the series into TV greatness is it's not afraid to address incredibly deep issues such as what makes us human and what our purpose in this crazy universe might be--all while tying the audience into knots over the personal dramas of the main characters. Speaking for myself, I expect nothing less from the best SF, and that's why I've loved every minute of Battlestar Galactica season 4.