Fantasy is alive and well, SF is dying... why?

[HareBrain]

While the fantasy contingent has its many rationalists (You, Sparrow, being a good example, of course) one of my F-reading mates worships the Viking pantheon and another believes in nature spirits.

Do they believe these Viking gods/fairies to have any objective reality? Have they come to some accommodation with the scientific viewpoint, or is there a grey area of ultimate vagueness where this is concerned?

Now I'm not questioning the validity of either side, as I'm aware that will insult many visitors here.

Anyone insulted by having their validity of their position* (non-aggressively) questioned needs to get over it. I'd go so far as to say that a general, society-wide reluctance to question the validity of another's position because they might feel insulted is dangerous.

*edit: their position on the external world

 

[Sparrow]

J-WO ~Now I'm not questioning the validity of either side, as I'm aware that will insult many visitors here. I'm merely pointing out that there does seem to be an increasing theological division going on in genre, reflecting the 'Dawkinsy' (Damn I wish I had a better word for this!) zeitgeist in western culture generally.

This is all personal observation, of course. I might well be wrong and I'll be happy for anyone to tell me so. Its the sort of thing I'd like to test in a poll/ survey but I never do due to the consternation it might cause.

Putting geopolitical divides aside, SF readership is in steep decline across the board.
SF literature is now in direct competition with video games and Hollywood, and therefore the SF community better think of another delivery method. Why can't books be fashioned differently?.. imagine picking up a novel and opening to the first page and a voice greets you, asks you what you're in the mood for. The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer does this and much more. If you were able to turn a book into an interactive multimedia experience beyond games and movies, similar to Neal Stephenson's invention, then we're back in business.

Returning to pulp-age SF and rehashing StarTrek ten ways to Sunday hasn't worked, perhaps it's time to turn the book on its ear.

 

[blacknorth]

This is phenomenon I've been suspecting for a while but haven't really voiced. Things are a lot more polarized these days--Your modern breed of SF authors (In my experience) don't play around with stuff like the I ching as Dick et al did back in the past. As far as I can ascertain, writers like Banks, Stross, Scalzi and Macleod are pretty much in the rationalist, aetheist/ agnostic camp. All my hardline SF reader buddies are similarly minded. Would this have been the case two decades past?

J-WO, between this and Sparrow's observation about science failing to deliver, I sense something I can agree with - at the very least, the beginnings of an explanation.

I think the current slump in SF goes a little deeper than previous form. I'm a science fiction nut, but you'd be hard-pressed to get me to read anything by Banks or Reynolds or Stross. And I think the reason for this is that, while they have open minds and imaginations, they're exploring a 'Dawkinsy' universe. It feels pretty cold and pretty empty to me.

Add to this a general perception that science is too often the tool of Government and corporate interests and one can see how a certain disillusion may have crept in. Among my peers there's a general perception that science represents the planet destroying, unlimited growth model so beloved of the ultra-right. And at the other extreme, there's a perception that fantasy is supportive of nature and 'super-nature' - probably because it's so frequently pre-industrial and magical. They're absurd generalisations, of course, but it's difficult to argue the point for SF without saying, oh, go back 40 years and read something by LP Davies. I certainly wouldn't point them in the direction of any of our current big authors.

And there remains the fact that 40 years on from the moon landings, the next step still seems very far away. All of the hope of promise of early science and early SF seems to be have been transformed into the quest to build cheap laptops by the million. Whereas fantasy is willing to engage with almost anything and has even moved into an industrial phase - a fact which interests me a great deal and may yet steal me away from SF.

Is it possible for a sense of wonder to become jaded?

Hell, it's 3am.

 

[dask]

Is it possible for a sense of wonder to become jaded?

I'm hesitant to say yes but don't read too many Doc Smith books in a row. Space 'em out or get spaced-out.

 

[J-WO]

Do they believe these Viking gods/fairies to have any objective reality? Have they come to some accommodation with the scientific viewpoint, or is there a grey area of ultimate vagueness where this is concerned?

Grey area, definitely. I wouldn't think any of them would deny evolution, say, or that the Earth goes around the Sun. But they'd probably argue that some mystical hand pushed over the first evolutionary domino, or that the Earth and the Sun are doing what they do because its a family business.

 

[J-WO]

I think the current slump in SF goes a little deeper than previous form. I'm a science fiction nut, but you'd be hard-pressed to get me to read anything by Banks or Reynolds or Stross. And I think the reason for this is that, while they have open minds and imaginations, they're exploring a 'Dawkinsy' universe. It feels pretty cold and pretty empty to me.

I love all that stuff. You know, I once had a girlfriend who believed in fairies--no kidding here--and one day I told her how we and everything around us is made from long dead stars and that when we die we'll be part of stars once more. I thought she'd love that fact. Instead she told me I was being ridiculous and to stop lying to her.
I'm not sure why I've mentioned this tale, but it always makes me smile to think of it. To me, the 'Dawkinsy' universe is utterly beautiful. And best of all its real; how cool is that? And there's so much room to it. Takes all sorts, I s'pose...

In the UK we're very lucky (aside from the tooth decay, of course); we've got Banks, Reynolds, Stross and so many others, real groundbreakers and storytellers williing to dance with both narrative and the universe. To be honest, from our happy little island's viewpoint its difficult to see where this SF decay outlook is coming from. We're on form. Last year, genre took 14% of all fiction sales in Britain- and Fantasy couldn't claim the Lion's share at all. 50/ 50, tops.
And India and China seem to be rising to the challenge.

Much as I hate to say this, maybe the thread should be 'why's SF dying in the US?' and that's a shame because we're talking about the nation that made it what it is, that gave SF its crazy, rock'n' roll adolesence. A friend of mine is particularly cruel on this subject, he says he won't touch US SF anymore because its caught up in 'humping the Heinlein dream'. Nasty viewpoint, but a pinch of truth there. Scalzi and Bujold are great storytellers but... I don't know.

Add to this a general perception that science is too often the tool of Government and corporate interests and one can see how a certain disillusion may have crept in. Among my peers there's a general perception that science represents the planet destroying, unlimited growth model so beloved of the ultra-right.

You could swap 'science' for 'religion' in that paragraph and you have the view of most my peer group, to be honest. Its science that's putting the environmental breaks on this planet (Though, admittedly, it did help build the crazy, downhill hot rod in the first place)

 

[HareBrain]

Thinking of my own friends, their preference for SF/fantasy seems to follow whether they have a more scientific, "materialist" outlook, or a more "mystical" one.

My belief is that whether you're a scientist or mystic is pretty much hard-wired, much like sexuality, and just as unlikely to change. Mystics believe in pseudo-science because of an innate, overriding feeling that there must be "something else". A pure scientist just doesn't understand this: all he can say about it is that it must be weak-mindedness or wishful thinking. But I don't think you can ever get rid of this gut feeling. With an intelligent mystic, you can disprove (or demonstrate the extreme unlikelihood of) all the stuff like crop circles and alien abductions, but he will eventually retreat back to an idea such as that the whole universe is a manifestation of cosmic consciousness, to which science has no answer. A mystic who has no recourse to such a theory might easily rebel against science altogether, or choose to ignore it, because it is much easier to do this than to go against the gut instinct that the universe is not purely material. This, I believe, is partly why you have people willing to embrace Creationism, etc.

I know this thread started out as being about two branches of fiction, but it's already widened to cover the science/religion split. I'll come back to what I said before, and hopefully say it better this time. If I sound like a nutcase monomaniac, too bad. The way our culture has concentrated on objective or scientific reality has devalued inner or psychological reality, to the point where if the inner reality doesn't match the outer, the person is held to be suffering from some kind of sickness. But it is only really sickness when a person's inner reality is used as the basis for interacting with the objective reality. Both realities are mental constructs, but a person's construct of the objective world should match the one that science has demonstrated to be true. The inner reality needn't match - but the person should be able to differentiate them and realise which is more appropriate at a particular time. He should accept that as far as the objective world is concerned, any inner reality that differs is a game of "let's pretend"; but this has perfect validity within its own field, and is capable of satisfying the demands of the "mystic-gene" without conflicting with science's primacy in the outer, objective world.

Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I believe part of the current science/religion polarisation could be helped if it were recognised that one's inner-world and outer-world realities can validly be different, and that each has its own place.

 

[blacknorth]

I'm hesitant to say yes but don't read too many Doc Smith books in a row. Space 'em out or get spaced-out.

heh-heh.

I fell asleep thinking about this topic and woke up this morning with an analogy in my head.

We've probably all read Pohl's wonderful story The Gold At Starbow's End? Well, it's almost as though what's happening with the kids on the spaceship, with their I-Ching and Mandarin poetry, and the fact they're shooting towards a fairytale star, is like modern fantasy. But what's happening back on corrupt, collapsing, corporate Earth is modern SF.

It's not quite there, but it bears thinking about.

 

[Vargev]

Personally being an aspiring author myself, i believe that SF has too often looked backwards to the writings of Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke et al. While all three were undoubtedly great writers in their time, and pretty much laid the foundations for what SF should be, however SF is all about looking forwards, to the future, and what wonders that may bring.

So I believe that it will take something "ballsy" something that doesnt play by the usual rules of SF, and doesnt try to mimick the three writers i have just mentioned and instead comes up with something new, and totally original. That will grab the reader by the "balls" and never let go until the end, only then will the reader think wow, and then through word of mouth pass on recommendations of the novel to others, as well as the usual advertising methods, and so on.

This is what i have tried to do in my novels anyway.

 

[dustinzgirl]

I can resolve the whole problem:

Fairies are real.
Interstellar space travel is not.

 

[Sparrow]

J-WO ~I'm not sure why I've mentioned this tale, but it always makes me smile to think of it. To me, the 'Dawkinsy' universe is utterly beautiful. And best of all its real; how cool is that? And there's so much room to it. Takes all sorts, I s'pose...

Darwin's Universe (as I prefer to call it), utterly beautiful, and harsh.

There may be no other life for a hundred light years in every direction, but here we are, kicking ass. Why that doesn't amaze people is beyond my reckoning. Making Gods to make it all the more miraculous is a waste of precious time.

Perhaps SF is going through a cycle where it drops the romantic bullsh@t and folks aren't quite up to the task.

 

[j d worthington]

HareBrain: I'm afraid I don't agree with you there. There are numerous similar "natural bents" which have proven amenable to change, should the person have a desire to make the effort. That is where the rub comes in.

As for the "Dawkinsey"/Darwinian universe (also known as reality) -- that's just it: that universe is much grander, more mysterious, and more fascinating than any model of the universe which has come before... it just doesn't wear an exaggerated version of a human face any longer. And that, I think, is the sticking point for people making that change. They want comfort, not reality. They're looking for a security blanket; something the real universe doesn't seem inclined to supply. There is also the fact that a genuinely clear view of the real universe tends to deflate the human ego rather drastically, reducing not only us or our planet, but our entire solar system, to a minuscule speck in a vastness beyond comprehension. Such makes it increasingly unlikely that: a) there was ever a conscious Creator of such a universe; and b) that the creator of such a universe would concern him/her/itself overly with any single species -- certainly to the point of making the entire fate of everything depend on our behavior in certain areas (often having to do with subtilizations of our reproductive system, funnily enough); or c) that the entire history of the human race is anything more than very brief flicker in the immense pageantry of the birth, growth, and eventual extinction of life likely taking place in numerous parts of the universe. Many people simply can't deal with being reduced to something not significantly more important than an amoeba, or the idea that there is nothing out there looking out for us; our fate, if it is anyone's hands (a questionable idea to begin with), is in ours alone. That scares people.

Which, to tie this in with the whole sff thing, brings up one of the more famous quotes on such a topic, from the opening of HPL's "The Call of Cthulhu":

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

 

[con]

science fiction is less fashionable than fantasy.sf is seen as something nerdy and undesirable.even in childhood fantasy tales are more popular.how many children read harry potter twilght and that intrest continues fantasy is the obvious option.it is impossible in recent decades to avoid the sterotype that sf is for lack of a better word "ick".also in the less hardcore books it has limited room for expansion and innovation .a premise which does not effect fantasy.

 

[J-WO]

Perhaps SF is going through a cycle where it drops the romantic bullsh@t and folks aren't quite up to the task.

You may very well have hit the nail on the head.

JD- I still love that quote; its the sound of a new age of horror writing being ushered in. Though, just now, for some reason I pictured Homer Simpson reading it and going- 'Mmm, new dark age...'

 

[HareBrain]

HareBrain: I'm afraid I don't agree with you there. There are numerous similar "natural bents" which have proven amenable to change, should the person have a desire to make the effort.

With respect, JD, you think anyone is going to want to crush his instinct that the universe is meaningful in favour of the proposition that it isn't? I can't see any way of bringing about that "desire to make the effort" that doesn't involve brainwashing or repression.

 

[j d worthington]

With respect, JD, you think anyone is going to want to crush his instinct that the universe is meaningful in favour of the proposition that it isn't? I can't see any way of bringing about that "desire to make the effort" that doesn't involve brainwashing or repression.

Oh, we either will eventually do so, or we won't survive. Reality has a nasty habit of catching up with you, and if you ignore it long enough, it has very big teeth. And, as a species, I think we've just about run come to the end of our tether on this one. We may have a few centuries left to adjust, but we'd damn' well better start making the adjustment if we wish to survive. We can't go back without (at the very least) decimating the population; and things are only going to continue getting more complex and requiring more and more scientifically and critically informed thinking in order to continue.

I'd say the pressure to survive will eventually overcome most people's repulsion... but I could be wrong.

 

[HareBrain]

But I think that's a false dichotomy. I see no *inherent* contradiction between someone having a mystical inner-reality and a scientific world-reality. Possessing the former needn't stop someone having the most scientifically and critically informed word-view around.

Of course, such people at present are vanishingly rare. But it might be that the antipathy towards (or wilfull ignorance of) science by some "genetic mystics" could be eroded by a greater sophistication in thought about objective/subjective realities, when each is appropriate, and when each is inappropriate - none of which would deny science anything.

Anyway, whether anyone agrees or not, this is the first time I've tried to get these thoughts in order, and it's been an interesting experience.

 

[blacknorth]

Sorry, I always thought worship of the unknown cut both ways. The problem is the worship, not the unknown.

I am an atheist. But I regard all my reading and learning as an attempt to reserve judgement. As the years pass, the only part of me that measurably grows is self-awareness about my own ignorance. I could never tell another human being that God does not exist, or that ghosts are a figment, or that magic is wishful thinking; in the same way that I could never claim the science we have developed till now has the universe down pat. Or ever will have.

And this is my only thought about the current downturn in SF - that modern SF has closed its mind, while the practitioners of the Golden Age and the New Wave (especially) seemed rather more open. In my favourite science fiction, I always find a fusion of characterisation and technology which turns mystical becauses it induces undertanding or epiphany.

Physics feels and acts like a set of laws imposed from without. We learn them, we possibly learn to work with them, we may learn to control them. The process has developed its own mythology and fiction. But the homegrown, essentially human-derived mythology of fantasy and the supernatural is very pleasing in many ways. Nor is it imposed from without. Nor is it worthless. It strikes me as a very human response to the Dawkins set of guesses.

And to me they are guesses because Dawkins has never been to Tau Ceti in the same way I have never seen a ghost.

 

[Sparrow]

blacknorth ~And this is my only thought about the current downturn in SF - that modern SF has closed its mind, while the practitioners of the Golden Age and the New Wave (especially) seemed rather more open. In my favourite science fiction, I always find a fusion of characterisation and technology which turns mystical becauses it induces undertanding or epiphany.

But if these writers have come to grips with a Universe that is free from supernatural intervention, and that belief is derived from a wealth of scientific-geological-anthropological-and many other scientific disciplines, it's not close-mindedness that they relate this reality in their fiction. They understand as much as we might like to brew science and the supernatural together, the resulting concoction is wholely incompatible. The God we've come to know in the Judeo-Christian sense cannot coexist with Darwin's findings. And while our romantic side would like there to be a world beyond this one, where justice prevails and all things equal out, it is not supported by scientific data.

These writers are only doing what comes naturally to them, boldly incorporating their SF into a dumb Universe; a universe that is without any guidance whatsoever, and that has no shared romantic sentiments for our continual survival.

I understand where you and others are coming from when you find some comfort in the mingling of science and the supernatural. What has folks like me worried is when the supernatural is overlayed on top of science, and in many quarters it blots it out completely.

I think we humans are very egotistical in this regard, that we can create our own shared reality, one that is essentially unreal.

 

[blacknorth]

Yes,, Sparrow, I agree. But there are more things in heaven and earth...

A favoured scenario: an alien spacecraft visits the Earth in the year 2350 for a cultural exchange. They say - we are most interested in studying your superstitions, your mythology, your death rituals... and we say, oh, we did away with all that crap in the 21st century - not rational enough.