Fantastic Metropolis

There has been much discussion of late on ways to invigorate science fiction. Many people I have talked to have expressed a malaise in the field, a feeling that something is “not quite right.” The dolor is not something easily pinpointed, especially when concerned with a diverse community of writers and readers. There has also been much discussion of remedy. Many profess that somehow science fiction has lost its way from the “Golden Age,” that the bedrock values of that era has been tainted by experimentalism—a vaguely defined set of literary values, whatever they might be—and that if we all just regressed to a previous state of grace, we’d all be much happier.

Naturally (can you see where this is going?) I believe that a series of evolutionary tendencies in science fiction, as a particular nexus of written literature, need to be further developed, not scaled back, and that this can be helped along by creating some kind of larger, if loose, identity. If science fiction cannot be defined, then—as Delany once said—it can perhaps be described. Or what we want it to be can be described. But before this can happen, the very urge to codify, calcify, and compartmentalize science fiction into a neat little box has to be given up as an adolescent figment.

Creating the sense of a writerly movement is always an active process, never a passive one. Sometimes it’s only when “we declare these truths self-evident” that they become, in fact, self-evident. Attempts at forging collective identity usually involve drawing together writers, themes, and trends that—if not entirely disparate—don’t necessarily have commonalities that leap off the tongue. (It would be overstating the case to call cyberpunk a concoction born out of a zine and an anthology, rather than an aesthetic per se, but not by much.) We’re far past the age of 18th century salons in which a small cadre of upper class ne’er-do-wells with access to elite printing technology can dictate the terms of the game in exclusive fashion. That’s a good thing, and SF is an egalitarian form of literature anyway. So there’s a certain level of skepticism about creating manifesto-like documents. Good. The Futurist painters got burned on this count when they declared that the painting of the nude “should be banned for 10 years.” Now that really worked out well for them.

Still, I think something is underneath the surface. We could call it slipstream, or post-SF. To an extent it doesn’t matter—but then again, the very act of naming creates certain expectations, observations, and articulations.

What must be done next, then? There are two basic tenets, from which all else springs.

First of all, every unquestioned “truth” about what science fiction is, or needs to be, must be relentlessly scrutinized, and then either reinvented or subverted if a particular story calls for it. In other words, science fiction is needed that questions the very purpose of science fiction. (As Marjorie Perloff says with poetry: “At the microlevel, poetic knowledge involves the interrogation of words, images, or metaphors.” And I’ve always believed that science fiction is a peculiar species of poetic knowledge). Out of this seemingly paradoxical act, truly new forms will arrive, forms that we can’t expect or anticipate at this moment, but will be eventually seen as necessary as a blood count.

This is a science fiction not necessarily rooted in scientific extrapolation, that doesn’t even necessarily pay lip service to the cultural assumptions that SF brings to the table. Before the death knell across the countryside is sounded, however, it must be remembered that this isn’t a call for a lack of rigor in writing. It is so easy to write blobby, superficially funky prose that seems experimental, but gives experimentalism a bad name. (There is also the danger of codifying another slipstream “genre.” But creating another genre, another little category, is falling into the same recursive genre trap. What this essay is about is looking for ways to disassemble the very idea of genre.)