Ursula K. Le Guin, who readers recently lost, did not like being called a science fiction writer, or at least only an SF writer. Neither did Ray Bradbury, who once told me that his only work of pure science fiction was Fahrenheit 451. I don’t think their dislike came from embarrassment to be so called because of the less-than-love the genre has received from mainstream literary critics. I think it was the confinement the label committed them to, a sort of narrow prison of thought they found hard to break out of. So, not embarrassment but certainly irritation. For, let’s be honest, much of science fiction is of dubious literary quality. But then so is much of fiction in general. As Theodore Sturgeon—a science fiction author—famously said, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.” And he wasn’t just referring to SF. But the crap in SF (although some people’s crap is other people’s joy) seems to have been dwelt and picked on whereas the crap in other literary genres has often simply been dismissed. It’s not surprising, then, that Le Guin and Bradbury would bristle at being placed in that unvalued company, especially as they were both writers who had an “allegiance to language,” which Sue Halpern of the New York Review of Books has recently defined as the hallmark of literary fiction.
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| Sue Halpern of the New York Review of Books |
I like that definition. I hope in my own work that I share that allegiance. But I’m happy to admit—if not always happy to read them—that novels can be written with purely utilitarian language, what I like to call “just getting from point A to point B writing”—no grace, no style, no power of words, no art, hardly any craft. But sometimes such writing is sufficient for the purpose of telling a tale, elucidating an idea, questioning society, or turning a buck. Not all fiction has to be beautifully written, although I will never stop wishing that it was.
But why has science fiction come under particular scrutiny and condemnation for its ninety percent ( probably an overestimation of Sturgeon’s), especially given that it was the inevitable fiction of the last century? The 20th century, coming off a period of enlightenment and industry, had an exponential expansion of knowledge manifested in an explosion of technological wonders (some of which actually exploded). How could some 20th-century fiction not try to address that? And how could the fiction that did, not seem fantastic and even silly postulating rockets and robots and rayguns often in pulpish tales of derring-do or wacky weirdness?
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| Rockets, Robots, and Rayguns! |
But how could some of it also not give interesting, even insightful, consideration to the changes in humans and their societies, and mores, and ethics, and relationships that such exponential expansions and manifested explosions have caused or will cause?
Science fiction is a genre of literature that is in the unenviable position of being considered by many as pulp while ignoring it when it is philosophy. They see not only the rockets and robots and rayguns but the fetish love of evil galactic empires, if not evil galactic corporations (assuming there is a difference), and the galactic wars they cause, and the heroes and villains they produce. But they are oblivious to science fiction works that examine and project human responses to new scientific knowledge and technologies, human responses to humans becoming more than humans, to alien others, to new forms of gender identification and, indeed, replication beyond gender; to how vast and almost endless the universe is and thus how small and unexceptional we puny Homo sapiens are.
Many. But not all.
In his recent book, Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination, philosopher and literary critic Russell Blackford is well aware of the philosophy in SF—while also acknowledging the entertainment value of the pulp.
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| Russell Blackford and his fine book |
It’s a clearly written and clear-headed account of the important role science fiction plays (and has played) in our culture by providing scenarios of philosophical, moral, social, ethical, and intellectual dilemmas that will have to be faced sooner or later. He covers not only science fiction prose but SF in other media. But it is literary sci-fi he elucidates on the most, giving consideration to the giants of the field (even if they are considered dwarfs by outsiders) past and present, thus providing an overview of the history as well as the development and growth of the form.
What Blackford does not do is comment on the allegiance to language—or the possible treason against language—demonstrated by the form in general or SF authors in particular. Nor does he cover other aspects of fiction that mainstream literary critics deem worthy of literary criticism, such as, metaphorically speaking, the human heart. Rather, I think Blackford is saying that, however fine or not the language, an examination of the human future is just as worthy of serious literary consideration as an examination of the human heart.
Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics is the perfect text for any academic study of the form, an excellent base for expanded and thoughtful literary criticism of SF, and a fine read for anyone interested in the history and impact of this genre or, as Blackford prefers, mode of fiction disparaged by some; celebrated by others.
In fact, maybe the pulp fiction of the genre could still be called science fiction or SF or, better still, sci-fi, while the deeper, more considered, more ideas-based, sometimes better-written examples of the genre could be renamed Philosophy Fiction or PF or Phi-fi. No—those are really dumb names. Although Phi-fi has a certain visual appeal.
But then, all labels on fiction are dumb—don’t you think?—if they are being used as warning signs instead of simple signposts.
Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics
is available HERE on Amazon.com in print and digital editions.
And my novels, some of which might be called science fiction, are available HERE on Amazon.com in print, digital, and audio editions.
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