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BOOK: Rhapsody: Notes on Strange Fictions

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Strictured Fantasia

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life—science, all the sciences and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of those metaphors, so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Fables and fabrications, fabulation and formulation, fictions of science, soul and spectacle—ultimately all of these SFs can be seen as placing different limitations on the n
ature of the conceit and its relationship to the story, where it is sourced from, how it is developed through the fabric of the story or novel. In a wider sense then all these SFs can be considered, insofar as they
use the technique of the conceit
, as different types of strictured fantasia. It is simply that the particular strictures vary depending on what type of fantasia you happen to be writing.

This would be the SF of Dick’s
The Man in the High Castle
and of other such
Alternate History
novels, anything from
The Plot Against America
to
Guns of the South
. It would be the SF also of China Miéville’s
Perdido Street Station
and of other such
Alternate Society
or
Alternate Biology
novels (to coin even more new terms). It would be the SF of Zelazny’s
Roadmarks
, of Silverberg’s
The Book of Skulls
, of Moorcock’s
Cornelius Quartet
. All of these can be included under the catch-all of SF not simply because they are sold as such, not simply because we have thrown our hands up and said, “So Fuck?” but because they are strictured fantasia, fantastic fiction restricted by certain constraints.

Of course, in reality
all
fantastic fiction is restricted by some constraint or other. To call this SF by the name strictured fantasia is simply to say that it
is
fantasia. Whether it is therefore
fantasy
is another question.

[T]he idea that a magazine like
Astounding
, or
Analog
as it’s now called, has anything to do with the sciences is ludicrous. You have only to pick up a journal like
Nature
, say, or any scientific journal, and you can see that science belongs in a completely different world.

J.G. Ballard

It is the strictures that create the risks of failure, of limitations; this is the n
ature of strictures. All of these SFs have their own language,
are
their own language. The specialised “lexicon” and “narrative grammar” of scientific fancy may become vulgar and crude, lacking in the nuances required to render character effectively. That of scientific and scientistic fabrication may become too highly developed on the other, an impenetrable geek-speak jargon spawned of maths and physics. That of scientific fabulation may seem foreign, incomprehensible and inapplicable in everyday life. That of soul fiction, spectaculist fabrication and symbolic formulation may seem mere sensationalism, emotive but superficial, empty of any real relevance. At the end of the day, the general public often don’t know the language and may well
not want
to know the language. The confusion of tongues only makes it harder for them to learn.

SF is a single grand tower of strictured fantasia that has arisen over the de
cades, but it is a Tower of Babel that has fallen, as the next definition, the penultimate definition, admits.

Synthetic Flux

Science fiction is the prophetic…the apocalyptic literature of our partic
ular and culminating epoch of crisis.

Gerald Heard

This SF is a stramash of dialectics in continual thesis, antithesis and synth
esis. It is a discourse of syllogisms and grenades. It is field of forms in constant flux, of fusion and fission. It is formulae and explosions. It is sublime trash, sacred excrement, holy shit. It is the flux sprayed from the arse of pulp and transubstantiated to gold in an alchemist’s crucible.

In my mind’s eye, my thoughts light fires in your cities.

Charles Manson

This SF is a head-on collision of the high and the low, of reason and pa
ssion.

The Mundanes say:

That interstellar travel remains unlikely. Warp drives, worm holes, and other forms of faster-than-light magic are wish fulfilment fantasies rather than serious speculation about a possible future.

The Infernokrushers say:

We laugh maniacally in the face of serious speculation. We
will
have warp drives…on our MONSTER TRUCKS! We
will
have worm holes…and bullet holes, and drill holes, and holes punched through the very fabric of the space-time continuum itself by the giant adamantine fist of MECHAGODZILLA! These are not wish fulfilment fantasies. These are metaphors for the destruction that is a part of
every
possible future.

The Mundanes say:

That magic interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth. This is also unlikely.

We say the hospitability of
Earth
is the illusion. The heart of this world is an INFERNO! The core of this world is magma, KRUSHED into solidity by its own weight! And interstellar travel will lead us to the truth of worlds even LESS hospitable, worlds that will KRUSH us with their gravity, worlds that are INFERNOS even on the surface!

The Mundanes say:

That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth.

Good! The more waste there is, the more there is to KRUSH! We will shovel the shit of our squandered resources into trash compacters and furnaces. Old tropes and tired techniques will be torn down and sca
ttered to the winds. We will KRUSH the abundance of it and then we will KRUSH the dream of it. That which is waste must be burned in the pretty flames of the INFERNO! That which does not burn must be KRUSHED! The INFERNO of the KRUSHED old is the crucible we dream of.

The Mundanes say:

That there is no evidence whatsoever of intelligences elsewhere in the universe.

Intelligence does not concern us, only rampant destruction, preferably with MONSTER TRUCKS. And that is
everywhere
! What matters is, are there GIANT ROBOTS elsewhere in the universe? AI will begin as Artificial
Idiocy
. Who cares if a computer can play chess or take control of cyberspace?
Can it trash Tokyo, huh, huh?
Intelligences elsewhere? What does intelligence matter in the INFERNAL heart of a planet, a sun, a nova? What use is reason in a black hole, where all things—even logic itself—are KRUSHED? If we are the solitary spark of awareness in a cold, dark cosmos, then we will be a
son-et-lumière
, a fireworks display, an INFERNO raging in the night. We don’t care if no-one’s watching. Explosions are pretty.

The Mundanes say:

That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence—however, it is unlikely that alien intelligences will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.

We say these physical constraints are
there
to be overcome. They will KRUSH us if we do not KRUSH them first. Will you be KRUSHER or KRUSHEE? No! No, we say. No! We will smash them with our GIANT ROBOTIC FISTS! We will drive over the wreckage in our MONSTER TRUCKS! Our imagination is a veritable JUGGERNAUT, burning rubber as it conquers its own inertia. We will blast our way through all physical constraints, shatter them to SMITHEREENS, if we have to use the stars themselves as wrecking balls!

The Mundanes say:

That interstellar trade (and colonisation, war, federations, etc.) is therefore highly unlikely.

We say there
will
be great galactic empires, worlds KRUSHED militarily and economically, native populations KRUSHED by human slave masters, alien overseers, by warmongers and industrialists…or by the BURNING, existential angst of simply being alone in the universe
with nothing else to KRUSH!
We say empires will rise because how else could they FALL! Rome will burn again, we say, and we will play the fiddle as the INFERNO rages around us!

The Mundanes say:

That communication with alien intelligences over such vast distances will be vexed by: the enormous time lag in exchange of messages and the likelihood of enormous and probably currently unimaginable differences between us and aliens.

We say KRUSHING is a universal language. All sentience understands destruction. All life that BURNS with the fire of feelings, the INFE
RNO of intellect, all those who know what it is to live, know what it is to
die
. Besides, who cares about time lag when your message is a Molotov cocktail? We have too many things to KRUSH to wait for a reply!

The Mundanes say:

That there is no evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that there are whole alternative universes to be visited.

Then we will KRUSH reality to SMITHEREENS until there
is
no macro level! We will hammer at the atoms, the protons, neutrons and electrons, with a child-like glee! We will reduce EVERYTHING to bits and bobs so small that their quantum uncertainty means each one is a universe in itself, space-time twisted around the awesome energy they
might
just have! Forget the “world in a grain of sand” stuff. We’re talking whole
realities
in one bubble of quantum foam.

The Mundanes say:

That therefore our most likely future is on this planet and within this solar system. It is highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system. Any contact with aliens is likely to be tenuous, and unprofitable.

That the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

We say that the most likely future is one in which we have NOTHING! Because everything we had is KRUSHED and thrown into the INFERNO! We will KRUSH and BURN the planet, KRUSH and BURN ourselves, KRUSH and BURN any life we find within the solar system, KRUSH and BURN the solar system, KRUSH and BURN any life we find outside it.