As a child, and I was an only and lonely one, books of every imaginable type were often my closest companions. I learnt my school subjects from some – languages, math, history and science – and about myself from others. As one might expect of the sort of child I was, my favorite books were science fiction and fantasy. Things like J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit or Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time stand out from my childhood, Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Stranger Land and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon from my teen years.
What was called escapism by my parents and teachers was to me a type of window into the truth that I had never seen before. Here, finally were stories that didn’t promise that one day I would be beautiful, but insisted instead that there were occasional great benefits in being what I thought was ugly. Here were worlds where loyalty trumped convenience and struggles whether lost or won mattered. And here were people, albeit fictional, who understood that matters of status even when rigid were always navigable and valued companions who were uncanny and wise and playful all at once. Even as a seven- and eight-year-old these books whispered things to me that seemed like terribly serious secrets; they taught me that all stories matter, even the unlikely ones, and that all of us are prisms for a world more varied than many of us are willing to imagine.
For a long time love of science fiction and fantasy literature was the sort of thing one had to defend. Even calling it literature often made an eyebrow arch! Recently a colleague asked me if fantasy literature was “wackoid crap about goblins,” and I found myself smiling at the quaintness of the notion, as opposed to up in arms as I once would have necessarily been. After all, the nerds, the geeks, the dweebs have won. And we didn’t just win, we did something better somehow; we convinced other people to join us. A lot, but far from all, of that debt goes surely to the phenomena of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the mainstream critical and commercial success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.
But the acceptance of sci-fi and fantasy literature also lies in the fact that it is, at its core, often the literature of otherness. As the world has been brought closer together through mass media and the lives of ordinary people increasingly exposed thanks to the Internet, we have all perhaps realized that we are the other in some fashion – from how we look to what we do to how we think and feel. I’ve chosen to make my Gather correspondent column about science fiction and fantasy books not merely because they are the books I love, but because they are the books that have helped shape my ethics, my interests and the nature of my relationships.
Every week you can expect a new column from me. Some will be thematic. Next week, I’ll be bringing you a list of the ten great romances of science fiction and fantasy literature, so that you can start reading or shopping with Valentine’s Day in mind. Other columns will include recommendations for great works of which you might not have heard because they’re now out of print. I’ll tell you not only why you should track down these books, but how you can. Interviews with sci-fi and fantasy writers are also on the agenda with several lined up already. You can also expect book reviews and reviews of readings and other special events (such as a Harry Potter convention in New Orleans in May). Most importantly though, I want this column to reflect the community that tends to spring up around science fiction and fantasy literature, so a lot of my columns are going to have questions and encourage audience participation. Finally, if you ever have a suggestion for a topic, just post a comment or send me a message here on Gather.
When I first found out I was going to get to be a Gather correspondent and focus on this topic, I started a poll in my online journal and asked people why they read science fiction and fantasy. Their responses were amazing, varied and often highly personal. So why do you read science fiction and fantasy? How did you first discover it? And why did you fall in love with it? One of the things I love most about this genre is that it’s really several genres, and there’s always room to be won over all over again and discover something new. What other form of literature can really say that each and every book in it remakes the world?
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Racheline is a performer, writer and long-time fan of sci-fi and fantasy literature, who believes truths lurk in all art, no matter how fantastical.
You can find all of Racheline's Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fan articles at www.gather.com/scififan
Keep up with Racheline's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here racheline.gather.com and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page.
You'll find Racheline and other Book Correspondents, plus celebrity author content and plenty of other bibliophiles at Books.gather.com
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Comments: 63
Best wishes.
Now I read Martin, Goodkind, Elliot, Douglass, Weis/Hickman, etc.
Do you mean the Gor series? Certainly it's easy to forget teh name with the confusion of Tor being one of the big scifi publishers.
When I do some of my interviews, I'm definitely going to be talking to writers about both their process and reception.
My feeling though is that believable characters make for believable words. I've been making a point to review sci-fi/fantasy entries in the First Chapters contest, and my number one criticism of what I'm seeing is that people don't do research. Even fantastical worlds are systematic and can be based in what we know of various arts and societies in our own world. That is, no you don't have to be a physicist to write hard sci-fi, but checking out an article or two on theories of the universe might help. Similarly (and this is for you fantasy folks), if you're going to write about swordplay, learn something about swords! And if your'e going to write in detail about magic, read up on magical systems and so on and so forth.
As an Aussie I tend to like reading Aussie authors. I hope you will mention some of them from time to time. ;-)
Thanks for commenting. Having spent some time studying in Sydney, you can be sure I'll be mentioning Australian authors!
THanks for your comment. I too am a big fan of Carey; her work really surprised me with its depth. One of the things I'll be looking at is what makes the genre. I prepping for my Valentine's Day article, a friend and I had a long debate about whether Anne Rice is fantasy or horror. Similarly, one of my favourite "fantasy" books doesn't contain any supernatural elements at all, so why is it a fantasy? Have you heard of the Institial Arts Foundation? They'll be part of my look at the genre question. How useful is the idea of genre anyway?
I write and read both fantasy and mainstream fiction, but fantasy lends itself to a freedom that mainstream fiction does not always have. It is precisely because it is physically set "out there" that it is able to grab so many readers "in here."
I look forward to reading more from you.
Thanks for commenting! I'm a big fan of Herbert, and he'll be a major part of two columns I'm planning (including on religion in sci-fi and fantasy writing).
Thanks for your insightful comments. I look forward to hearing more about your project.
If Gor turns out to be it, do a Google on "Houseplants of Gor" if you want a good giggle.
-Chas
The film history of Dune is one of the great tragedies of sci-fi movie making if you ask me. because the design of the film I think is fantastic, but it would have taken eight hours for it to make the slightest bit of sense.
The sci-fi chanel version is very different and intersting conceptually, but doesn't, with the exception of a few peformances (William Hurt!), have a lot of heart in it. it is, however, at least coherent.
The first book I ever bought was "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" an early classic, but it has stood the test of time wonderfully.
I know the company with the rights to JM was different than the one with the rights to Neuromancer, hence the legal necessity of renaming the Molly character - and let's be thankful for that, since she wasn't Molly at all.
When you think about it, the most profound engine of change at work on the human condition for the past two centuries is the effect of applied science and technology. The lives we live today are radically different from those lived by our grandparents. My own grandfather never flew in a plane, never drove a car, never made a trans-Atlantic phone call, never saw or heard of a computer, never owned a television, never did many of the things that I take for granted today. People of his generation considered emigration overseas (which he did) to be a final farewell to family in the old country, they considered a trip across town to be travelling, they never vacationed abroad.
All of the changes that occured were due to advances in transportation, communications and other technologies. In the span of one life time in the 20th century we went from the age before flight to the space age.
Speculative fiction anticipates these changes. Often it does so with remarkable insight. The writers who explore this field are helping us to create a practical road map to the future.
Fanstay is a different kettle of fish, to be sure. But it does help us to think outside the box, to consider realities starkly in contrast to the one we know. In a universe of as yet undiscovered alien civilizations and theoretical multiple universes, who knows what value this diversion might have for future human flexibility when faced with radically different realities?
As for future articles, I would sure like it if you spent some time discussing the Roger Zelazny Amber series. If someone with the vision of a Peter Jackson were to adapt this series for television or cinema I would be very pleased to see the result.
Thanks.
I loved all the books and the tales that they told, rarely coming across something I did not enjoy, but science fiction and fantasy grew to be my reads of preferred choice, and that still holds true today. I applaud your column, Racheline, and look forward to enjoying more! Thanks for stimulating the memories!
I found the Houseplants of Gor. Not what I was expecting! And somehow I found "slave positions of Gor". I was afraid to click on anything.
And in just my travels around the world of Gor I think those are the books I was reading as a kid. I have to check some out from the library and revisit, I think.
What an awesome comment. Zelazny will, inevtiably come up; how could he not. I may also do a piece on book to movie adaptations -- both why we love them and why they make us crazy.
I've yet to go to a Worldcon. It may happen, but I certainly know I cant' plan my schedule that far out, as my erratic work schedule (I'm an actor by day) and my tournament schedule (I'm a classical fencer and I'll probably be able to compete by then) take precedence. Although Denver is such a travel hub it certainly keeps the expense reasonable.
Yup, Dragoncon is seriously on my list. Won't happen this year (I'm travelling so much already it's ridiculous), but hopefully next.
As a youth growing up in Brooklyn, teachers in grade school used to complain to my parents that I spent too much of the school day lost in thoughts. They often complained that my grades were not higher because I was inattentive and lacked concentration. The truth, however, was that I was partly learning disabled.
While I did only fairly well on some subjects, I did superbly well in my science courses. And that's because I was highly stimulated by the sci-fi shows I watched on TV. Shows such as "Twilight Zone", "Outer Limits", and movies such as "Day the Earth Stood Still", "Zombies From the Stratosphere", and my all time favorite "Plan Nine From Outer Space" kept my mind afloat - or, you might say, lost in space.
On an earlier thread, I mentioned that I initially watched only a few episodes of "Star Trek". It was only years later that I watched all 79 episodes when the themes became more clear to me. And what a show it was!
Perhaps the thing that stands out in sci-fi shows of that era is how relevant they are today. "Star Trek" was a show that taught us lessons about getting along and how the greatest crime facing the universe was racism. It is a fact that Gene Roddenberry dedicated his life to fighting racism and that this was the central theme of that show. This was a lesson that we needed to learn then, and that we need to learn today. The world would be a better place to live if we could all appreciate that.
Dream on, Friends!
I'm surprised you didn't make it to Worldcon last August; it was held in Anaheim last year. Worldcon is the flagship of science fiction conventions, since membership gives all members the opportunity to nominate and vote on the Hugos, which is the most prestigeous award in the industry. This alone is probably what attracts talent from all over the world. Literally. Pros and fans come from Japan, Europe and Down Under. For talent, the networking is much greater than any other. Personally, I would go to Japan, but I had meant to say it is out of my financial reach. Unfortunately, it came too soon after the one in Glasgow and I'm still paying off that trip. Dragoncon is a bigger convention that is held in Atlanta, but in 2008 there is no scheduling conflict.
FWIW, I prefer the term spec-fi, since that would include horror and my beloved ghost stories as well.
Mr. X:
Hot or not, I'm probably too old for you.
As far as shows go, I'm a Battlestar Galactica fangirl all the way. So many political themes and one of the best dramas on tv period.
Welcome and thank you!
I didn't want to be won over by the new Battlestar Galactica, because as a kid I was such a fan of the cheesy old one. But the new show really is one of, if not _the_, smartest thing on television.
It seems the years Worldcon is convenient for me to get to, I am booked with other things on or too near the dates to make it viable. Soon though, soon.
First of all, I forgot to say before that I really liked your article. My initial comment was a quick "sci-fi" blurb. Sorry.
I think that the greatest thing that science fiction has done is ask the big, "What if?" "What if we lived in a society where reading books was outlawed?" ("Fahrenheit 451") "What if a virus turned most of mankind into vampires except for one man?" ("I Am Legend") "What if we could create a theme park that included dinosaurs?" ("Jurassic Park") It's the big "What If?" that lured me to watching "The Twilight Zone," and kept in interested in science fiction.
Secondly, on the filmmaking aspect, it is very difficult to adapt science fiction for film, especially into mainstream. The films that are successful ("Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Stargate") are generally written as a screenplay already, so there is no precendent of knowing what a character is really thinking or feeling. A lot of the time, we're right there with them. Taking something like "Dune" or any other science fiction story adapted into a movie is giving a group of people the license to collaborate one making one story, while each of them has their own version of it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Keep reading and reviewing,
-Chas
P.S. First science fiction story I remember reading: "Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed," Ray Bradbury
Eventually, I hope Gather will have a feature that let's each user create their own polls, and then we could really see where people stood on this issue.
Also, I have heard rumors of a "Logan's Run" remake (believe it or not, from William F. Nolan himself). Supposedly, Joel Silver is working on it...
-Chas
It's anti-nuclear and anti-war message was very striking (that is, for a Grade B sci-fi!). Well, it's one really good part --- it introduced Leonard Nimoy into the movies.
Growing up in a bad neighborhood and in less than happy circumstances, I suppose that it was the thought that there is a better life somewhere in this universe and that we can all work to achieve it. Perhaps that is the greatest thing about sci-fi = that it tells us we can believe, achieve, and work together for a better universe.
Jules Verne's "Le Voyage dans la lune" {1902}
One thing I did not know until now about this movie was that Thomas Edison stole a print of it and made tons of money while its French producer went broke.
Winner of the Golden Turkey Award as the WORST movie of all time =
Through and because of Sci-Fi and Fantasy I wandered into the literature of philosophy, metaphysics, theology, and science. I wanted to understand how we shape reality through our ideas. That is what those books were to me - thought experiments exploring our world.
I offer you this long quote on the nexus of myth, Homer, and ultimately Sci Fi and Fantasy:
"The Myth, Leaven of History"
[From Jose Ortega Y' Gasset's Meditations on Quixote, translated from the Spanish by Evelyn Rugg and Diego Marin, 1914, The Norton Library, pp. 128 - 129]
The Epic perspective which consists, as we have seen, in looking at the events of the world from certain cardinal myths, (the summits as it were) does not die with Greece. It has come down to us. It will never die. It is true that when people ceased to believe in the cosmogonic and historical reality of their narratives, the good days of the Hellenic race came to an end. But even deprived of all religious significance, the epic themes, the mythical seeds not only endure as splendid irreplaceable phantoms, but they gain in liveliness and plastic force. Hoarded in literary memory, or hidden in the subsoil of the collective memory, they constitute a poetic leaven of incalculable energy....The Greek novel is only corrupted history, divinely corrupted by the myth...To the same genre belongs all literature of the imagination, all that is called story, ballad, legend, and books of chivalry. They always deal with some historical material which the myth has distorted and reabsorbed.
We should not forget that the myth is the representative of a world different from ours. If ours is the real one, the mythical world will appear unreal to us. At any rate, what is possible in one is impossible in the other; the mechanics of our planetary system do not apply in the mythical system. The re-absorption of a terrestrial event by a myth consists, then, in turning it into a physical and historical impossibility. The earthly material remains, but it is subject to laws so different from those existing in our world that it is tantamount to having no laws as far as we are concerned.
The epic will exert its beneficent influence over humanity to the end of time through its child, the literature of the imagination, which will duplicate the universe, bringing us frequent news of a delightful world where, if the gods of Homer no longer dwell, their legitimate successors rule. The gods stand for a dynasty under which the impossible is possible. The normal does not exist where they reign: all-embracing disorder emanates from their thrones. The constitution they have sworn to obey has one single article: adventure is permitted.
Two of my all time favorites, however, are Vonnegut and Douglas Adams. I know Vonnegut has often grumbled about being in the science fiction section. And I would catergorize both more as humorous philosophers than fantasy writers. But how would I know? – I've been away from the genre for many years. Maybe I'll come back and snoop the aisles again. I'd welcome any suggestions.
I first got into scifi when my dad gave me Fahrenheit 451 and the Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles, so Bradbury was my introduction to the genre, but I also went nuts over Logan's Run in my teens. Star Wars transferred my sci-fi-geek love onto the big screen (for a year when I was 12/13, all I thought about was Mark Hamill.) But the one thing I loved more than scifi was comedy, and I have a voracious appetite for comedy of all kinds. In 1995, I met an Australian writer called Ian online who has a natural talent for writing comedy, and he is also into scifi. We became pen pals, and after a year or two, he announced to me that he'd just completed his first novel, a COMEDY SCIENCE FICTION novel called Spindle. I was psyched! He let me read it (I was the only published author he knew), and it was immediately my favorite book of all time -- a great scifi story and absolutely HILARIOUS! I loved the book so much I started to see my pen pal as my true love, and I did the old international-stalk-and-woo until he felt similarly. We celebrate our 10th anniversary in April; we have 3 kids. Ian even saved my life once, so I guess it's a good thing my dad likes Ray Bradbury.
Now that I run the Spindle Fan Club, I meet lots of young scifi fans excited about having found something they love in the comscifi genre. MCap, being an Adams fan, you would definitely love Spindle (go to www.spindlebook.com or search Amazon for "Spindle Ian Taylor" to read excerpts and get a copy.) And Heather, did I mention he's Australian?
One Amazon reader review read simply: "Dr. Who, meet Monty Python." I think that's about as accurate as you can get to describing Spindle. (BookSurge Publishing called it "Star Wars on laughing gas," which is another good one. Midwest Book Review called it "wonderfully entertaining...a genuine pleasure from beginning to end." (I couldn't agree more!)
So if you like scifi with a sense of humour, check out Spindle by Ian Taylor, the only book (in any genre) I ever loved so much I *married the author!*
One more recommendation: the short story "The Streets of Ashkelon" by Harry Harrison is a must-read, especially Racheline, for your upcoming "religion in scifi" column. Looking forward to that and future columns.
I sometimes write scifi, mostly short stories, but a producer in Australia is trying to get Spindle made into a TV series there, and Ian let me co-write an episode with him, so it'll be way cool if that comes to pass.
Spec-Fic Rules! 8^D
Anyone who tells me "it's not literature," or arches a brow at me about it, can just wander off as far as I'm concerned. Speculative fiction can go places no other form of literature can manage.
What's a better way to explore the ultimate nature of humanity? A story about a salesman whose life is falling apart, or a story about a monster who has lost his humanity and wants to reclaim it? I know which option I choose.