Movements in Genres and Fiction

[Michael Colton]

I am curious what people think about defining things as or considering them to be a movement in fiction rather than simply a subgenre or trend. The quote that I came across again that made me think about this topic is the following one:

However, I don't worry much about the future of razor's edge techno-punk. It will be bowdlerized and parodized and reduced to a formula, just as all other SF innovations have been. It scarcely matters much, because as a 'movement,' 'Punk SF' is a joke. Gibson's a litterateur who happens to have an unrivaled grasp of the modern pop aesthetic. Shiner writes mainstream and mysteries. Rucker's crazy; Shirley's a surrealist; Pat Cadigan's a technophobe. By '95 we'll all have something else cooking."
- Bruce Sterling, in a letter to John Kessel, 29 March 1985​

Now, I am not aiming to have a discussion about CP or PCP, but rather the notion of movements within genres as a whole. Does it seem appropriate to you to use that terminology? Regardless of how influential a trend is or has been, it always comes across to me as some sort of narcissistic aggrandizement to refer to them as 'movements.' Thoughts?

 

[HareBrain]

it always comes across to me as some sort of narcissistic aggrandizement to refer to them as 'movements.'

There's at least one meaning of "movements" that would be anything other than self-aggrandising.

But yeah, the term implies direction, even destination, and most trends/fashion in SFF certainly don't seem to have much of that.

 

[tinkerdan]

I think it could easily be called Narcissistic in the most self destructive sense depending on the actual progression of events.

Take for instance: I read something by an author who was clearly doing science fiction that took place in contemporary time and would add a bit of a twist to the stories to make them read a bit like a twilight zone episode. The author claimed that this was a genre of its own. And I suppose everyone has the right to those opinions. But in the publishing world that could be Narcissistic self defeating behavior.

What I mean by that is that the genre are there for publishers to market the book to the closest group of readers. When an author comes in and declares he has no genre and is intent on building his own then I'm sure it gets a nod and a good luck with that. This person was self publishing; perhaps because a publisher tends to limit its experimentation to a minimum unless the market in all their fiction has taken a dive.

I would guess that the proper form would be to submit the book into the closest genre; science fiction in this case. Then if it does well and it doesn't quite fit the mold they might consider the possibility of calling it something else. I still think it would have to be followed with more success before that would take place. But by all means the author and even the readers might start using a new buzz word for it. But there is a difference between one author calling something Oddball-Punk and a large fan base recognizing Oddball-Punk as a legitimate term.

So I think there is a difference to one calling something a movement when its just a narcissistic wish or desire.

If there are a group of people referring to it as such then perhaps then it would be a movement. And I would view such as a bit less than Narcissistic.

How many authors get on that bandwagon, either way, is likely to be dependent upon the success of Oddball-Punk and or the perceived distance to saturation and how quickly one might get on the bandwagon.

Possibly Sterling was less interested in defining Narcissism into his comment than he was making the observation that there will always be spin-offs from general SF that become labeled as something special and they usually come with some form of expiration date in the form of saturation. It's not a good thing to get too entrenched in those movements because by the time some authors join the game; the fun will be over.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think a genuine movement is something that evolves, sometimes unconsciously, when many authors are subjected to the same ... stimulus, I guess you would call it ... at about the same time and (sometimes independently, sometimes because they are members of a group who exchange ideas) write books with certain similarities that become identified by as a movement. At that point, other writers will consciously imitate whatever it was that those books had in common. Some will do so out of admiration, some because those books inspire new ideas they want to write about, some just to be part of what looks like it's going to be a big trend. If the trend continues long enough and enough books that belong to it accumulate, then there may be a new subgenre. The term Steampunk started out as a joke, there was a burst of stories along the same lines, then it all but died out, only to revive years later and become a hundred times more popular and with far greater staying power.

 

[Michael Colton]

Possibly Sterling was less interested in defining Narcissism into his comment than he was making the observation that there will always be spin-offs from general SF that become labeled as something special and they usually come with some form of expiration date in the form of saturation. It's not a good thing to get too entrenched in those movements because by the time some authors join the game; the fun will be over.

Yes, the narcissism part was a thought I have had about things being defined as 'movements.' I do not recall Sterling ever using those terms. He has been critical of trying to box writers into specific subgenres - because as he said in that quote, a decade later they will all be doing different things. Which they were, by the way. Except for Rocker, maybe.

It just seems to me that the term 'movement' is an overly heavy one, for lack of a better description. Romanticism was a movement that affected art, literature, politics, architecture - the list goes on. And there have been those that claim subgenres like CP or urban fantasy have had that wide of an effect, but I do not see why people cannot stick with subgenre or 'literary development' or something instead of movement.

I think a genuine movement is something that evolves, sometimes unconsciously, when many authors are subjected to the same ... stimulus, I guess you would call it ... at about the same time and (sometimes independently, sometimes because they are members of a group who exchange ideas) write books with certain similarities that become identified by as a movement. At that point, other writers will consciously imitate whatever it was that those books had in common. Some will do so out of admiration, some because those books inspire new ideas they want to write about, some just to be part of what looks like it's going to be a big trend. If the trend continues long enough and enough books that belong to it accumulate, then there may be a new subgenre. The term Steampunk started out as a joke, there was a burst of stories along the same lines, then it all but died out, only to revive years later and become a hundred times more popular and with far greater staying power.

The evolution of something may be the best argument for calling something like CP a movement, actually, because it has evolved into the juggernaut that is PCP. But in order for something to be a movement does it not require a very broad, widespread effect and influence? CP had a strong impact on science fiction and steampunk has had a strong impact on speculative fiction as a whole, but do they really feel impactful enough to be referred to as movements? One can look back in history and say 'this person was a Romanticist.' Writers of the time discussed the 'Romantics' of the era that were consciously fighting against the systematization and Rationalization of their time - I do not see that with CP, PCP, steampunk, or the other powerful and specific subgenres of the last two or three decades.

 

[HareBrain]

Writers of the time discussed the 'Romantics' of the era that were consciously fighting against the systematization and Rationalization of their time - I do not see that with CP, PCP, steampunk, or the other powerful and specific subgenres of the last two or three decades.

I'm afraid I don't think Steampunk will ever amount to anything much in terms of a new way of looking at the world and our place in it (unlike romanticism or cyberpunk), because it is almost purely aesthetic, as is "clockpunk". This is because in almost all cases the world and its devices -- the aspects that make up the sub-genre -- cannot work without some kind of magic or a lot of handwaving, which makes the underpinnings of the world too flimsy to be the basis of any real exploration. I like the steampunk aesthetic, but it's more suited to art and film than writing, in my opinion.

 

[Michael Colton]

I'm afraid I don't think Steampunk will ever amount to anything much in terms of a new way of looking at the world and our place in it (unlike romanticism or cyberpunk), because it is almost purely aesthetic, as is "clockpunk". This is because in almost all cases the world and its devices -- the aspects that make up the sub-genre -- cannot work without some kind of magic or a lot of handwaving, which makes the unerpinnings of the world too flimsy to be the basis of any real exploration. I like the steampunk aesthetic, but it's more suited to art and film than writing, in my opinion.

I also doubt it will have much longevity as its own genre, but I do think it will have a lasting impact on the intentional use of anachronism in SFF. It has made people realize the possibilities that it can bring to storytelling and setting.

 

[Bick]

Just a thought, but I regard genres as being restricted to subject matter and specific plot types (e.g. military SF, hard SF, etc) and 'movements' I regard as referring to styles of writing and approach, usually defined either in terms of time or geographically. I would categorise the "New Wave" in British SF in the 1960's as a literary movement perhaps. I'm okay with the use of the term in literature - its doesn't grate with me anyway. It may well be over-used, but that's another thing.

 

[J-Sun]

I am curious what people think about defining things as or considering them to be a movement in fiction rather than simply a subgenre or trend. The quote that I came across again that made me think about this topic is the following one:

However, I don't worry much about the future of razor's edge techno-punk. It will be bowdlerized and parodized and reduced to a formula, just as all other SF innovations have been. It scarcely matters much, because as a 'movement,' 'Punk SF' is a joke. Gibson's a litterateur who happens to have an unrivaled grasp of the modern pop aesthetic. Shiner writes mainstream and mysteries. Rucker's crazy; Shirley's a surrealist; Pat Cadigan's a technophobe. By '95 we'll all have something else cooking."
- Bruce Sterling, in a letter to John Kessel, 29 March 1985​

​

Great quote. (Where'd you find that?) I don't agree that Cadigan is exactly a technophobe (I mean, certainly not the one word I'd pick for a one-word description of her - and one could argue that Gibson, at heart, actually is) but she was only intermittently cyberpunk. It relates to something I may not remember the details of correctly. Something about Sterling pitching the idea of a cyberpunk anthology and a book editor saying you had to have more than two people to make a movement, so Sterling dragooned these people into the ranks of the cyberpunks (though Swanwick helped in his way).

Now, I am not aiming to have a discussion about CP or PCP, but rather the notion of movements within genres as a whole. Does it seem appropriate to you to use that terminology? Regardless of how influential a trend is or has been, it always comes across to me as some sort of narcissistic aggrandizement to refer to them as 'movements.' Thoughts?

Yep, it works for me. I think the word may weigh more with you than it does with me or, I gather, most folks. It doesn't imply an epochal spiritual transformation or anything - it just means "what's going on".

I think a genuine movement is something that evolves, sometimes unconsciously, when many authors are subjected to the same ... stimulus, I guess you would call it ... at about the same time and (sometimes independently, sometimes because they are members of a group who exchange ideas) write books with certain similarities that become identified by as a movement. At that point, other writers will consciously imitate whatever it was that those books had in common. Some will do so out of admiration, some because those books inspire new ideas they want to write about, some just to be part of what looks like it's going to be a big trend. If the trend continues long enough and enough books that belong to it accumulate, then there may be a new subgenre.

Just a thought, but I regard genres as being restricted to subject matter and specific plot types (e.g. military SF, hard SF, etc) and 'movements' I regard as referring to styles of writing and approach, usually defined either in terms of time or geographically. I would categorise the "New Wave" in British SF in the 1960's as a literary movement perhaps. I'm okay with the use of the term in literature - its doesn't grate with me anyway. It may well be over-used, but that's another thing.

I agree with aspects of the above. I think genre is more structural, as Bick says, but I agree that "movement" can be overused and that it's useful to distinguish "trends". A "trend" is a minor ripple in a stream - either not all that different from what came before or not that widespread or, most particularly, not that long-lasting. Ideologically, people who are parts of trends usually have to call them movements and may eventually be proven right (cyberpunk) but a movement has to be something that has more than two people and/or is radically different (one of the candidate names for "cyberpunk" before that stuck, was "radical hard SF") and/or has staying power. Certainly, in a diminished sense, cyberpunk lasted for a long time and, indeed, still lasts, though "staying power" just means several years rather than eternity.

One of the things that's interesting to me, though, is the different genesisssess...zz... of movements. Gernsback declared a revolution to sell this crazy idea for an all-scientifiction magazine. On the other hand, the people who took over Amazing and those who started producing Astounding don't seem to have said much about transforming the field into bems and blasters. Similarly, while Campbell definitely editorialized out the yinyang and transformed the field, the actual transforming was quiet and implicit. And then Boucher/McComas and Gold were magazine editors who made explicit declarations and were instrumental in creating 50s SFF. The New Wave had a bit of bubbling up and down but was probably made most concrete by Moorcock's version of New Worlds which had polemic aspects. Whereas cyberpunk was almost purely writer driven but also almost completely manufactured and ideological. Again, Gibson produced The Book, but Sterling provided the framework for it. Dozois was sympathetic to it and helped promote it, but hardly turned his annual or, once he attained editorship of it, IAsfm (now Asimov's) into Cyberpunk Central. It was just part of the mix. (Sterling graciously called IAsfm the "least reactionary" magazine, possibly during McCarthy's time but more likely Dozois'.) And I have no idea where the New British Space Opera or the "whatever blah lit mess is going on now" came from. But, anyway, all these are "movements" to me (except hopefully the last). If we called it the "Age of Cyberpunk" or something, then I might react the same way you do to "movement".

 

[Nerds_feather]

Movement, to me, has a sense of purpose to it--one that's shared by most if not all its practitioners--and is, in a sense, a rebuttal or response to some dominant form in a literature. It, moreover, presents a clear alternative to the dominant form.

A style, by contrast, is a collection of shared symbols and tropes. But the two aren't mutually exclusive: cyberpunk may very well have been a movement in the 1980s, but it was also--and still is--a style. It's not a movement anymore.

 

[Nerds_feather]

All this is making me want to read John Shirley again.

 

[J-Sun]

All this is making me want to read John Shirley again.

Which one would you (re)read first?

 

[Nerds_feather]

A Song Called Youth. I read it sometime around 1990 and don't remember it all that well. But I remember liking it. (Of course I was young and my opinions may have been suspect as a result.)

 

[J-Sun]

Good one - that was one where each installment got a little worse for me but it still ended okay because it started from such a great point. Eclipse is one of the top books of the 80s to me.