Thursday, June 19, 2008

Why Don't We Love Science Fiction?

Timesonline: "In the 1970s, Kingsley Amis, Arthur C Clarke and Brian Aldiss were judging a contest for the best science-fiction novel of the year. They were going to give the prize to Grimus, Salman Rushdie’s first novel. At the last minute, however, the publishers withdrew the book from the award. They didn’t want Grimus on the SF shelves. “Had it won,” Aldiss, the wry, 82-year-old godfather of British SF, observes, “he would have been labelled a science-fiction writer, and nobody would have heard of him again.”

Undeterred, Aldiss has just published a new version of A Science Fiction Omnibus, a fat collection of classic stories. In the 1960s, the original was on everybody’s bookshelves, dog-eared and broken-backed. Aldiss says that was SF’s one golden age, when Oxford dons were happy to be seen indulging the genre. Now they wouldn’t be seen dead with a Philip K Dick, a James Blish or a Robert Sheckley. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, insists her books are not SF, but “speculative fiction” or “adventure romance”. “She’s quite right,” says Aldiss. “She had this idea that a certain amount of opprobrium always hovered around the title science fiction. You might call it double-dealing, but I can quite understand it.”"

13 comments:

Todd Mason said...

A thoroughly intelligent and informed review essay, even if ASTOUNDING is not my choice for best so much as Most Important sf magazine ever. (GALAXY and F&SF have been better...CRANK! and some other short-run magazines have been better...etc.)

Michael Saler passed it onto FictionMags in March, and it wasn't new then, either...odd how it doesn't make the rounds as quickly as some bonehead piece by the NY TIMES pair of clowns writing about sf and horror.

Unknown said...

I'd missed it before, for some reason. I agree with you about ASTOUNDING. When I was a kid, I thought it was kind of . . . staid, I guess.

Todd Mason said...

Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini made the argument, with their anthology THE END OF SUMMER (named for a Budrys story included), that ASTOUNDING was still more potent in the 1950s than it's usually given credit for, or particularly than it was in the latter 1970s when they put the book together, but certainly by the latter '50s it was drifting, and as I've reviewed some of the early '50s issues of ASF's competitors, PLANET and STARTLING as much as GALAXY and F&SF and WORLDS BEYOND, they were really on a par (even if, say, the 1950s COSMOS wasn't).

Unknown said...

AMAZING and FANTASTIC weren't on a par, either, but I loved 'em.

Todd Mason said...

As you've mentioned, and they were slanted to the young monster and adventure fan at the time, as your fine cover samples reminded us...and even they still turned up a gem from time to time, such as Kate Wilhelm's first fantasy story in 1956. As late as 1955 and as early as 1959 again, FANTASTIC and AMAZING Were in contention, even if still uneven.

Anonymous said...

Hey, were there any magazines you just didn't like at all as a kid? Certainly Hank Stine's pseudo media-fiction/batshit loony van Vogt drivel GALAXY really stank for me in 1979...same time as AMAZING and FANTASTIC went in for a new garish look, which slowly improved again...

Unknown said...

The sad fact is that I read every digest I could get my hands on from cover to cover, along with every Ace Double and every other SF paperback. I knew I liked some better than others, but as Bro. Dave Gardner was wont to say, "The worst I ever had was wonderful."

Anonymous said...

Oh, I know what you mean...I didn't like JJ Pierce's GALAXY as much as I did Ed Ferman's F&SF or Ted White's FANTASTIC, but I wan't about to leave an issue on the stands if I could help it.

This phase lasted about three years, maybe a shade less, for me. Had difficulty justifying to myself, with my limited budget, picking up ARIEL or even FAR WEST, when the $1.95 for FW could buy nearly two other digests, which were mostly still $1.25, actually just rising to that price, when I started picking up the new ones. SHORT STORY INTERNATIONAL, with its *prohibitive* $2.50 cover price...well, it was only sporadically on my newsstands...but I did invest in that one when I could...

Anonymous said...

Wonder whatever happened to Dave Gardner...I have IT DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE...

Anonymous said...

WIKIPEDIA notes about Dave Gardner:

An arrest for marijuana possession in 1962 ended his visibility on television; then, it seemed, changing public tastes (i.e., 'beatnik'-style comedy falling out of favor), coupled with Gardner's holding onto his same performing style, resulted in a similar fading of his recording career. After 6 albums for RCA Victor Records, he made 2 for Capitol Records, and then others for lesser labels. He had another legal problem over tax-evasion charges in the 1970's, which his son helped clear up.

He had a role as a Southern preacher in the 1978 made-for-TV film Big Bob Johnson's Fantastic Speed Circus. He was cast in a B-level movie, and was just beginning work on it, at the time of his death.

Unknown said...

Bro. Dave's career came to a sad end. At one point, I think, he had guys in KKK sheets escorting him to the stage. But for a while there, he was a funny guy. He was the first to record a song called "White Silver Sands" that was a huge hit for a couple of other people who covered it but not so much for him.

Todd Mason said...

I forget, Bill...were you reading the crime fiction magazines then, too? Or do I remember correctly that they were a later interest?

Unknown said...

I didn't get interested in the crime zines until the '80s, when Lansdale, Shiner, Reasoner, and others I knew were writing for them.