Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 19:43:26 -0900
From:         the First and Only Nude Vaxer <FSCLL@ALASKA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Science Fiction

>Chris, while crticizing SF isn't my forte the main reasons as I have
>been privy to them (through one professor in particular who was a hard core
>fan and believed that SF was the only really dcreative fictiom, yeah right)
>are that the industry publishes every piece of crap it gets its hands on,
>contents and package aimed at attractinging pubescent boys.  Rarely is
>a work of SF energetic enough to explore the human condition or eternal a
>questions.  It temds to ber self-absorbed, plot-driven and poorly written.
>This is because Sf sells more than almost any other genre, they crank it out
>and readers keep buying it because they aren't particulr and a good idea
>is enough to keep them interested.  Personally I can't remember the lasst
>time I heard a fan talk about a book being written well.  It is usually a
>matter
>of a story being a great concept, some psuedo scientific theory that a writer
>latches on to strictly for that reason.  I think that if there is a disdain
>for science fiction as a genre this is why.  These problems are recognized
>by people in the industry and it is up to the people in the genre to fix it.
>Until they do, it isnot the responsibility of mainstream academia to accept
>SF.

I agree with you on the state of quality as a whole-- my assertion is that it
is not so different even in literary fiction-- which has become a genre of its
own even in the conventional sense-- but we feel obliged to sift trhough the
PILES of small press mags and poetry anthologies to find the good ones, while
most often people see science fiction as one bad whole. If I asserted that it
was COMPLETELY dismissed, then I guess I misstated myself, because I know it
isn't... I have taken three grad-level sci-fi courses!

>As for the assertion that SF is totally dismissed, that is not true. Many SF
>Novels and authors are studied.  I just finished a mainstream course on
>women writers in which we read The Handmaid's Tail by Margeret Atwood, I have
>read Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1984, Brave New World and a critical
>artical on Supreman (yes the comic book not the ubermensch)by Umberto Eco.  SF
>is represented in academic circles in high enough proportions. Isaac Asimov is
>not studied in mainstream courses nor will he be for a number of good reasons
>but
>mainly because there isn't anything to talk about.  Do you really expect a grad
>level class in fiction to set arpound talking about how cool the foundation
>tri.logy is?  SF fans won't be satisfied with their treatment because thy
>want the stories that they like to be considered good regardless of set
>standards. They seem to think that there is an unfounded bias against them,
>some kind of prejudice which unfairly keeps them from being heard.  the truth
>of the matter ois that if there was something to., look at it would be looked
>at. Academics would swoop down on SF to be the first to do something new and
>useful, snobery wouldn't keep them from it.

Again, I don't think it is totally dismissed, but there is a VERY active
mindset against the genre (which to be honest only bothers me theoretically
because I don't read much sci-fi, but I have read enough to think that there
is quality work among the masses that are produced). And none of my courses
were centered around how cool the foundation trilogy is! :)

But I can not agree with the last part of your statement. What you are saying
amounts to saying that the literary establishment and the defenders of the
canon are a fair and levelheaded bunch that give every work an equal chance,
and that is just not true. And it is not just sci-fi that is getting a bit of
an unfair shake, there is good work on other genres and from other countries
that is quite good, but will n ot get read (though the last is being rectified
for many academic/political reasons lately)... Unfortunately there is a lot of
snobbery out there in acadmia, and even more people who are just set in their
belief systems. And then there are some that aren't, but it is quite rare.
This applies to many works though, beause of the canonical system we are
entrenched in (for some good reasons I admit).

Of course, I often settle into snobbery and ignore whole groups of works,
because if I didn't I would never get anything done! So Ican understand where
some people are coming from.

Sci-fi has a lot of bad writing, maybe even a disproportionate amount
(h\though I look at the piles of "literature" all around me and find that hard
to believe!). And I don't think sci-fi is totally dismissed by everyone, but it
is by many.

>Greg Jerrett

chris
poet and pauper
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