Rhapsody: Notes on Strange Fictions (27 page)

None of these techniques make the chimerae any more rational as futurol
ogy—which is why proponents of
Hard SF
scorn them—but they do facilitate rationalisation, offering the get-out clauses, cyclic arguments and cover stories by which we construct and sustain an artificial sense of contingency, of a potential alternative nomology. They persuade us into a further spin on alethic modality, from “could not have happened
now
” to “could have happened
if
…” where what follows that “if” may amount to a wholesale revision of the rules of reality, validated more by self-delusion than speculation. So the quirk is dewarped, not wholly, but enough to gloss the boulomaic modality of the marvellous, the sense that the events presented “should have happened,” with an illusion that they “could have happened.” No torture of Sehnsucht here, the bolstering of plausibility may be a means to that end indeed: a deep immersion in fantasia.

For some, at least. The disparities between how far different readers are ready to rationalise the impossible, the differing effectiveness of different mechanisms for different readers, the multiple points of contention over where and how the nomological alter
ations become so wild as to be “just plain silly,” where and how the sense of plausibility collapses—these go a long way to explaining the disagreements between readers as to what does and what doesn’t constitute an SF narrative.

For some, the idiomatic elsewhen is just dull cliché, the Paradigm Shift C
aveat is a cheat, and only reason will work to sell the impossible. The chimera is anathema, and even the unreality of the counterfactual or hypothetical quirk requires something more than hand-waving, some argumentative counter-force to balance it. The “if” immediately produces a “but”—but
how
? In the comic or tragic narrative, to answer that question would dissipate the tension which these narratives seek to build, as is most obvious where the narrative forms blend, as in the tragicomedy of
Catch-22
, or the mundane and strange surreality of
If…
, as in any such works which unsettle even as they entertain. But these readers are not interested in that tension created from the clash of modalities. They want explanations, explication. Which is fair enough.

Any turf war claim that the essence of SF lies in offering this is dubious to say the least, though. More than anything I’d hazard it’s the idiomatic nature of the fantasias that has most import on the bulk of the audience, that we buy into the hokum as a game, b
ecause it is tropic, because it is generic, because this is
Genre Fiction
. With all that this entails.

Insofar as the excision of meaning from the nominal label
SF
is a refusal of strictures, it’s an expedient gambit, but it also disacknowledges any distinction between genre as aesthetic idiom—“strange fiction as a mode comparable to poetry, tragedy or comedy”—and
Genre
as conventional template and/or marketing category, collapsing them all together into this empty symbol. It’s little wonder then that others who look at that vacuity see only a signpost to the market where it’s sold, see only the outer decor of the SF Café and its environs, the ghetto of Genre. In accepting that SF’s nature is that of a discrete sub-domain of
Genre
, in allowing SF to be treated as
Genre
, we invite a logical extrapolation from the common understanding of how marketing categories function, how
Genres
work, the syllogistic a priori reasoning by which SF is rejected as sub-literate scribbling. This Form=Formulation Syllogism, the argument that damns us, runs thus:

1)
Genre
labels signal that a work conforms to a set of aesthetic criteria prescribed as
Genre
conventions;

2) these conventions are designed for producing works of a certain ster
eotypical
Genre
form;

3) due to their commercial imperatives and counter-literary value-systems,
Genre
forms have inherent flaws;

4) therefore: works conforming to those conventions will have those flaws;

5) therefore: works published with
Genre
labels will have those flaws.

It should be clear to any SF reader that this is a gross misrepresentation, but judging by some of the talk you hear down in the SF Café, I’m not sure it is. So let’s spell it out point by point. This is the essence of the distinction between aesthetic idiom, conventional template and marketing category:

1.
Genre
labels signal that a work conforms to a set of aesthetic criteria prescribed as
Genre
conventions.

No, there are works which get a
Genre
label without conforming to the conventions.
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
is hardly a “let’s pretend” adventure nor a “what if” thought-experiment. It has little of Gernsback’s “charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision” in it, not in the sense of futurology and fantasia. It is not Campbellian
Science Fiction
by a long shot. And this is not to say that it merely stretches the conventions by applying the Paradigm Shift Caveat to blur the border with fantasy, or by directing its speculation towards the soft sciences. Where it breaks with tradition in utilising religious conceits—transmigration, visions in the irrational revelatory rather than rational predictive sense, etc.—it establishes a new set of aesthetic criteria by integrating those conceits into what is other-wise a work of contemporary realism.

The publication and reading of this work as SF simply expands the zone of indefin
ition, asserts that however we conceive of this
Genre
we must now allow for the incorporation of this type of novel. The
Genre
label signals only this then: that something about the work has been deemed sufficient justification for any adjustments to aesthetic criteria required to accommodate it under that label. Personally, I take this work as proof that sufficient justification may entail no more than a smidgeon of strangeness and an author established within the field. (As far as the nominal label of
Fantasy
is concerned, it finds a parallel in Graham Joyce’s
The Limits of Enchantment
.)

2. These conventions are designed for producing works of a certain stereotypical
Genre
form.

No, for every reader there’s a personal set of characteristics they see as sufficient justification to label a work SF. When that reader is also a writer, they may well set out to write a work that reads as SF to them, treating those characteristics as a set of aesthetic criteria. While some of these criteria are commercially standardised so that stereotypical
Genre
forms can be produced to order, many are not. For some, criteria are no more than…the 2D outline of a work’s base, with its greater structure entirely freeform. For others yet, characteristics are not criteria at all; they do little more than describe the general contours of the broad terrain on which the work is to be formed, a kernel of dynamics inherent in a mode.

Compare, in poetry: the conventions of the stereotypical
Limerick
as a
Genre
, fun but formulaic; the strictures of the sonnet as a genre, based on a shape of fourteen lines and a volta but on any subject, in any tone; and the wildly notional characteristics of the poem, any work within that vast domain. Similarly, in SF, we have: the conventions of the stereotypical
Cyberpunk
story, as it stood a decade or so ago; the much looser range of strictures back when the genre of cyberpunk was exemplified by the
Mirrorshades
anthology; and the wildly notional characteristics of any SF that doesn’t fit such a template.

Delany’s
Dhalgren
is not a product of conventions designed for producing works of a certain stereotypical
Post-Apocalypse SF
form. The ruined cityscape and social collapse of Bellona that lead us to label it post-apocalyptic fiction are at most the contours of its foundation and arguably no more than the gradient of the territory it inhabits, a kernel of dynamics inherent in the strange.

3) due to their commercial imperatives and counter-literary value-systems,
Genre
forms have inherent flaws;

This means precisely nothing if the rackspace label maps to an aesthetic idiom rather than a conventional template. If a lack of thematic depth is inherent in the form of the
Limerick
, this is irrelevant as a critique of poetry. If a lack of thematic depth is inherent in the form of the stereotypical
Cyberpunk
, story this is irrelevant as a critique of SF. So the formulation of
Genres
under a rackspace label leads to works produced to fit standardised aesthetic criteria of e.g. character type, plot-structure, worldscape development and futurological novelty. So commercial imperatives may pressure for a neglect of non-required features such as depth of character and theme, may even embody a counter-literary value-system, preferencing crudely botched prose that “doesn’t get in the way of the plot” over “style” that foregrounds its own craftedness. Applying only to the
Genres
contained within the genre’s broad terrain, this is exactly as irrelevant as a critique of SF as a critique of poetry based on the flaws of the
Limerick
.

4) therefore: works conforming to those conventions will have those flaws;

Again this now means exactly nothing. Works fitting the aesthetic criteria that define the sonnet as a genre need only fourteen lines and a volte. Formulation of a stereotypical
Shakespearean Love Sonnet
might lead to flaws of neglect (e.g. a lack of originality) and counter-literary value-systems (e.g. saccharine romantic sentiments), but the genre of the sonnet is distinguishable from this
Genre
precisely by its opposition to formulation, its literary imperatives to exceed minimum requirements, to build a multi-dimensional structure upon that outlined base. Formulation of a stereotypical
Cyberpunk
within SF may lead to flaws of neglect or counter-literary value-systems, but SF is distinguishable as a genre precisely by its opposition to formulation.

There are many
Genres
within SF, and many exhibit the sort of flaws that go with formulation: concerns with plot and worldscape built from futurology and fantasia overshadow concerns with character and theme; complexity and subtlety is deprecated as “pretension.” An assertion that SF necessarily has these flaws because it is a
Genre
are like an assertion that poetry necessarily has the flaws of the stereotypical
Shakespearean Love Sonnet
, articulating only the ignorance and presumption of the speaker.

5) therefore: works published with
Genre
labels will have those flaws.

The application of an ignorant and presumptuous judgement on the basis of rackspace label is not only false and misrepresentative; it’s superficial, quite literally judging a book by its cover (the image, the imprint, the copy and blurbs, the label on the back), reducing a work to the brand image. Countless works within the genre of SF disprove that judgement by counter-example, works by writers such as Aldiss, Ballard, Bradbury, Bester, Butler, Cherryh, Clarke, Delany, Disch, Dick, Ellison, Farmer, Gibson, Harrison, Heinlein, Hopkinson, Jakubowski, Keyes, Le Guin, Lem, Moorcock, Niven, Norton, Orwell, Priest, Russ, Ryman, Spinrad, Sladek, Tiptree, Vinge, Willis, Zelazny.

Not that we really need to list these; the Form=Formulation Syllogism is demonstrably flawed on every count, failing to differentiate genres from
Genres
, assuming a universal process of formulation when the reality is the familial development we find as aesthetic criteria are simply adjusted to accommodate
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
or whatever work is married into the clan, taking this nominal label as its name.