Charles N Brown interview

[Brian G Turner]

Stumbled into this interesting interview-article, about Charles N Brown:
http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Issue09/Brown.html

Definitely worth a read for a insightful look of the development of the SFF genre.

“Thrillers, mysteries, commercial fantasy, and most other types of commercial fiction are consolatory by nature. They imply a wrongness in the world that has to be set right to return the world to the equilibrium point it started at before that wrongness. But SF says you can never put the genie back into the bottle. After the story, the world changes and changes and changes. This is also why SF won’t usually sell in bestseller numbers: because it’s not consolatory, and doesn’t return the reader to a normal life.

“Though a lot of fantasy is crap, wish fulfillment, the best of it is very important. Fantasy fits into the natural world and tries to place us in that natural world. All reality is consensual, as is economics: it works because people think it will work. A recession comes because people stop thinking it’s working. Fantasy is important for the mythology and fairy tales it’s based on. Life has to be meaningful, that’s why mythology was invented: to explain the world to us; to create that consensual reality. Then you codify it with religion: if you have gods, you have to placate them. Then you move to science — one follows the other. For me, one replaces the other.

“SF is the most important literature of the 20th century. It shaped the world sociologically from the very beginning. H. Bruce Franklin argues (in War Stars, 1988) that the future war novels of 1880-1917 brought about the climate that led to the military/industrial establishment. SF got people worrying, thinking about future war stuff, and finally trying to anticipate it.

“Space travel came from SF ideas. There would be no space travel if the kids who read SF hadn’t decided to make it happen, and become the scientists and engineers of the ’60s. The ideas, thinking about the future, is what SF does best.

“Everything I do at Locus is predicated on ‘SF is important.’ SF isn’t about science, it’s more about philosophy, writing about important things — who we are, where we’re going, what we’re doing; the meaning of life. It’s more eschatology than science. We all have to have a meaning, have to figure out why we’re doing something, have to try to understand the universe. It’s not predictive, but more extrapolative: if this happens, then this might happen.