[PREV - HARD_PROBLEMS] [TOP]
RAYMONDS_FOLLY
About esr's stab at making hard sf
and libertarianism the core of SF:
"A Political History of SF":
[ref]
(An earlier version was titled:
"Libertarianism and the Hard SF Renaissance")
These essays by Eric S. Raymond (aka esr)
are purported to be histories of science
fiction, intended to show that the one I contend that he made a serious
true SF is Hard SF and that there's some mistake in writing his ideas up
intimate link between it and libertarian as a "history": he would have
politics. done better by his cause if he'd
written a manifesto.
It would be far better if he
he'd tried to establish why
more Libertarian Hard SF should
be written... you might not
agree, but at least it wouldn't
be factually wrong.
Re-writing history to fit his
view of the world is crazy on
all counts; it just isn't going
to persuade anyone that has any
familarity with the field; and
it hurts his credibility
overall.
Esr (following Gregory Benford)
makes the claim "Hard SF is the THE_HARD_EQUATIONS
core of the field".
Problems:
(1) Hard SF itself typically isn't very
hard-- it's rare that it doesn't
incorporate a rank absurdity like FTL
faster-than-light travel.
(2) It's not difficult to think of lists
of works that are not pure Hard SF, but Esr claims he's applying
would seem peculiar to exclude from the linguistic concept
SF's core. Here's a quick list of of "radial categories".
things (some well-known, some not):
The idea is that a
Theodore Sturgeon few counter-examples
"More than Human" don't matter,
Alfred Bester because he's after a
"The Stars My Destination" general concept.
Clifford D. Simak's
"Time is the Simplest Thing" How many would be
James Blish too many?
"Jack of Eagles" JACK_OF_EAGLES
A. E. van Vogt
"Slan"
Roger Zelazny
"Lord of Light"
Samuel R. Delany DELANY
"Babel-17"
Fritz Leiber
"The Big Time"
E.E. Smith THROUGH_THE_LENS
"Lensman" series.
(3) In general, esr continually gives short-shrift
to writers that might contradict (or at least
complicate) his thesis:
Ursula LeGuin,
Samuel R. Delany,
Cordwainer Smith,
Philip K. Dick,
William Gibson,
Bruce Sterling...
That a respect for freedom is necessary for
progress is probably indisputable (though
exactly what that means could be argued).
What that has to do with SF isn't clear IN_DEEP
to me; the suggestion that SF has to
remain grounded in reality in order for Sounds good to
it to remain a popular success seems me, but it ain't
like quite a leap of faith. what post-Trek
SF is about.
(Are you tempted to invoke
another standard of quality
besides popularity? I'd go
along, but remember that esr Notably, Gregory Benford
is being a free-market has no such illusions:
libertarian here.)
"Pursuit of the technically
complex and aesthetically
Esr essentially claims that the unfamiliar limits the hard
central feature of SF is an SF audience."
embrace of change, and that's
what it has in common with the THE_HARD_EQUATIONS
'tarians.
But the people who call
themselves "Progressives" (And nor do the people
don't think of themselves who call themselves
as the enemies of change, "Conservatives" regard
themselves as the
enemies of progress.)
Does it really make sense to look
at the Futurian/Galaxy school of (And how does he feel about
SF as Marxist? Star Trek? Tremendously
popular, but hardly
"The Space-Merchants" by libertarian in premise.)
Pohl and Kornbluth is a
well-regarded satire of
advertising and one might
say "capitalism raging And very few things published
out of control". Does in Galaxy were anywhere
that make it "marxist"? near as political as this.
I think Esr betrays a "if
you're not with me you
must be against me"
mind-set here...
Was cyberpunk really a "failed revolution"?
I'm not so sure it deserves to be thought of
as a revolution (and esr pretty much says so
as well), and I'm pretty certain it wasn't a Maybe it's
failure (e.g. Gibson and Sterling are both a cultural
critical and commercial successes). mismatch...
For esr,
The role that the cyberpunk punk == bad?
revolution needs to play in
esr's story here seems pretty Possibly, the real reason
forced: is cyberpunk hostile to esr regards cyberpunk as an
hard SF? To libertarianism? affront is because it's not (or not
romantic? always)
"Hard" SF has always been
uncomfortable with the notion
that human beings can be
considered as material
entities, biological machines.
The human spirit must not
be completely dependant on
a physical substrate.
Though as premises go, that
would seem pretty Hard.
HARD_PURPOSE
Can Philip K. Dick be
classified as a "new
wave relic"? Dick is
increasingly respected And he started
and more widely read writing a decade
as time goes on. or so before the
"new wave".
Did Heinlein reach his "peak"
with "The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress"? I might be inclined
to think so, but it certainly
wasn't the peak of his sales
and popularity. By that Possibly, esr is presuming
standard it was a minor work (unconsciously?) the existence
compared to the books published of a "real SF fandom" that's a
by Heinlein during his long smaller set than the people who
decline. How can those later are actually reading the books?
sales be shrugged off? (Isn't
the market always right?)
Think about the absences in this
history, e.g. no mention of Ursula
LeGuin. Now *I* don't
particularly like her stuff, but LEGUIN
many people do, and for this to
be a tale of hard libertarian sf
triumphant you've got to write
her out of the story...
Another issue: how "hard" was Campbellian hard SF,
anyway? Esr shrugs off faster than light travel as
a minor exception to the rule of scientific rigor,
but is that at all reasonable? If you're dealing
with the future of human interstellar exploration, FTL
sticking in FTL automatically shoves you off into
the realm of non-rational fantasies...
And you could argue that Campbell's later obessions
with flaky nonsense (Dean drive, dianetics,
hieronymus machine, etc) somewhat undermines his
claim for intellectual rigor.
There's all sorts of odd stuff here:
"Reagan's threat to build SDI at the
Reykjavik summit with Gorbachev in 1986
triggered the collapse of Soviet
strategic ambitions as Mikhail Gorbachev
realized that the Soviet Union could not Aug 16, 2023
match the U.S.'s raise in the
geopolitical poker game. The Berlin Wall Yes: a devotee of scientific
fell three years later; science fiction materialism envisioning Saint
saved the world. Somewhere, Campbell and Campbell and Saint Heinlein
Heinlein were probably smiling." smiling down from heaven.
Myself I regard the connection bettween
SDI and the collapse of the Berlin Wall Surely, a true libertarian
as an interesting hypothesis, but I've would not presume a communist
never seen anything that I would call dictatorship to be a viable
proof on the subject. I could also form of government in the long
easily believe that it was total luck term...
that the Soviet Union collapsed on
Reagan's watch. Why was it necessary for
anyone to do or say
I'm not even sure that I buy anything to get the
that "optimism" is a key Soviet Union to fall?
component of hard SF... Algis
Budrys has made the point that
much of "modern sf" (including
the sf written by Campbell) has
a certain somber tone to it. How about some of
Asimov's early work on
Consider the "Galaxy Core" the Foundation series?
series of Gregory Benford,
whose premise is that humanity DEAD_HAND
is attacked by a powerful alien
force and loses.
Humanity must survive as a
conquered, subject race from
then on... there is no
feel-good revolution pulled
out of a hat in the last chapter.
Esr mentions L. Neil Smith, J. Neil
Schulman and so on -- and alludes to how
bad their stuff really is-- but claims
we're supposed to regard their strong
sales to SF fans as significant.
Are we tracking artistic success or are
we tracking popular sales? If it's DHALGREN
sales, what happened to "Dhalgren" in
this history? He claims that explicitly
libertarian SF books "sell astonishingly Maybe he means it's astonishing
well"... more so than than Ursula K considering their obvious lack
LeGuin? William Gibson? Bruce of quality.
Sterling? Philip K. Dick?
--------
[NEXT - THROUGH_THE_LENS]