Has modern sci fi disappeared up its own hyper drive?

This blog entry is inspired by a friend 's blog - A Career in Writing - Brian is an excellent writer and I have no doubt he will do much in future. In his current blog entry he talks about why so much space is dedicated to "Star" novels in the bookshops, a phenomenon that's just as common in Europe as the US. The "Star" novels are those written in the universes of Star Trek and Star Wars. I hate them. Orson Scott Card hates them. Most of the people I met at bootcamp hate them too. In fact, most 'serious' sci fi fans hate them.

They are almost universally badly written, cliched steaming piles of Wampa* crap with the notable exception of those written by proper writers, like Diane Duane (who used to live in a house my father designed - small world, eh?) There is actually a school of thought that says that Trek and Wars and these spin off novels have actually done more damage than good to science fiction. It's an interesting debate, and while I like both franchises, they long ago left behind the qualities that made them unique and enjoyable for me.

However, Brian makes a point in his blog that I'm afraid to admit may be correct. He's asking just why are these things so popular with the buying public. It's a question that any aspiring sci fi novelist really can't afford to ignore, at least not if they have any intention of making a living from writing.

Brian's theory is:

It’s not the tie-ins that people want to read, precisely, but the way they are written. It’s the old style of writing that has vanished in the science fiction community over the years.

I think he's right. I made this point at bootcamp, when we were dissecting some stories, that I liked homespun old fashioned science fiction. I really do, and I think the genre could do with a look in the rear view mirror every now and again, even as it moves forward. I was first introduced to sci fi by a series of 'best of the year' short story anthologies I found at home on the bookshelves. I've long since lost the tattered, much read copy I owned, which was covered in tea stains and had lost it's cover.

However, through the beauty of the Internet, I managed to track down the actual book that got me into science fiction and I now find my recollections do me proud. The book I read as a 10 year old was The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I which you can now get on Amazon for €8.

It's a book of short stories by the likes of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and Roger Zelazny, as well as Tom Godwin, Jerome Bixby and Daniel Keyes. These are the names I grow up on and the benchmarks by which I judge my own writing. If you don't own this anthology, get it, as it may be the best science fiction ever published.

The fiction found in this book has a feel to it that is highly atmospheric and immersive. These stories were all about the story and not about the author. I have difficulty finding anything to relate to in much modern sci fi, and for a while, I kept quiet about it, because I thought maybe other people were just cleverer than me, or perhaps they just 'got it' and I didn’t. It’s unfashionable to want good old fashioned stories with beginning's, middles and ends, characters to believe in and plots that fired my imagination.

So has modern sci fi disappeared up its own hyper drive? Perhaps it has. Perhaps in the rush to be different and original, science fiction has lost its star chart. Much as I dislike the tie in novels and the Star books, it would be arrogant to ignore the fact that a lot of people like them. As Brian points out they like the style of writing and they like the familiarity of a universe they know, whose rules and boundaries they are already familiar with.

This allows them to get lost in the story, with some assurances that they are in a place with consistencies. Anne McCaffrey once told me that the purpose of sci fi and fantasy was to provide writers with a means of writing stories that highlight issues that would be hard to write about in mainstream fiction. Early sci fi did just that, whether it be political commentary, race relations or even early gender equality, it presented emerging social ideas in a format that was acceptable to the status quo because it ‘wasn’t real’.

The first interracial kiss on TV occurred on Star Trek, and for some reason was more acceptable for it than it would have been had it occurred in a gritty drama. Funny that, isn’t it?

*it’s the snow creature in Empire Strikes Back.