What is this?
Right, this one's a grumble. Sorry folks, fellas and lasses, grab a Scotch or cigar and prepare to pace while wafting it around.
As with so much of what I talk bollocks about (and, unfortunately, I've been told that it's one of the few things I do talk about, at great length until I've committed mass homicide by accident) this is about writing. Well, writing and reading. Genre related stuff. About sci-fi.
It really hacks me off that no matter what you say 70% of people see sci-fi (and fantasy) as the butt end of literature.
So there's a huge amount of shit that gets churned out as science-fiction (and fantasy- probably moreso for fantasy). And yes, people do use that as a reason, nay, they cite it like they're using the information for an essay, nay- people use that as a sure-fire reason to explain to dullards and geeks that sci-fi is awful, a much more serious fare than essays. Still, tangent over.
CASE IN POINT- JUST SOME OF THE SHITE
People use the fact that there is a lot of shit sci-fi as a reason to hold the belief that sci-fi is shit. All of it.
And I'd like to just say, out of common sense, one thing. Every single genre has a lot of shit that is labelled under its wings. It's what makes the good stuff in each genre recognised as good. Does that mean that crime fiction, true crime, horror, historical fiction, romantic fiction, young adult books, satirical comedy and childrens' books are all shit?
I think you'll find that, in that vein of thought, several things might be true. Every genre is read by an exclusively steroetypical audience. That audience would then protest that their beloved genre is not, in fact, inherently poor in quality.
That's right. The mums and fourteen year old girls would defend their romantic fiction. The goths and outcasts would shield horror from blame, history students would stop you pointing the finger at stories about Romans. The teenagers, slightly acned and pallid twenty odd year-olds and anyone whose psychological capacities have failed to develop would all leap before YA fiction. And so on.
Oh, wait. No, that wouldn't happen, would it? And in the same way, the entirety of the readership of science-fiction and fantasy volumes does not equate an army of hairless-chinned, spotty, bespectacled, virginal, weak boys and hairy-legged, spotty, bespectacled, virginal, absurdly strong girls in cosplay gear and steampunk costumes. Seriously. People who read science-fiction and fantasy are not all like that, because funnily enough there is a lot gripping and pioneering fiction in those genres. It can exercise your mind and change your life, just like any other genre.
These guys are NOT the entire audience.
Point number two (that should be discounted right away) is this- that science-fiction and fantasy are poorer genres than realist fiction for the reason that the events they portray would never happen.
Erm... hello? Every single story can be boiled down to a single "what if?" question. The only crime that science-fiction and fantasy stories commit is that their "what if?" questions are a either a bit more creative than other fiction (imagination is key to a story, no?) or they actually ask the question "what if something?". Realist fiction and even romantic fiction so often ask a "what if?" question that is answered every day or a question that asks you to suspend disbelief far more than a lot of progressive sci-fi. So the implausibly, amazingly good looking blonde falls for the inept and sweaty man in northwest London? Sure, that's more believable than, say, the world being completely overrun if we met an indescribable and hugely powerful extra-terrestrial race in the near-future. Of course it is. Oh, wait... No, it isn't.
This man, apart from being a twat, also stars in implausible stories.
Point number three- the only way to know what will happen in the present is to look at the future. In other words, sci-fi (not so much fantasy in this case) has time and again predicted the future. Pioneering authors (the likes of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne et al) have long written about inventions that now have come into fruition in one form or another. They coin terms and literally write the books on the future. You wouldn't have had any idea what a time machine was if it wasn't for Georgey boy.
No conclusion to this argument, now, because it's gone on long enough. Just one request- what do you lot think?
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