Horns, by Joe Hill

A man wakes up to discover that he's sprouted horns on his head overnight. Joe Hill's latest book, Horns, starts off with a simple premise, one that unfolds into a wonderfully complicated and minimal story of murder, revenge and the inherent darkness that exists within people. At the same time, Hill brings out a deeply philosophical and intriguing look at faith and Christian allegory.

As Ig Parrish finds that people are influenced by the new additions to his head, the circumstances of personal tragedy (his girlfriend's rape and murder, which he was blamed, but cleared of) begin to resurface as people begin to tell him their deepest inhibitions and secrets. As the story progresses, we are taken deep into the lives of each character, which fully explains and supports the events that send the story moving in the first place. The end result is a literary masterpiece that brings out a rich blend of horror and supernatural with a cast of fantastic and utterly believable characters. Every element, every mention of something comes to some level of significance to the story as a whole, and Hill brings out rock and soul music, personalities, and other numerous references to help support the story. This is a rare thing that I've seen, and possibly one of the best examples that I've come across where this is enacted and works: everything in the story supports the main premise and story as a whole.

Horns is wonderfully complex, yet minimal at the same time. The story jumps around from character to character and from the present to various points in the past, with a dedicated, focused purpose. Rather than wandering off to put together a story of epic proportions (and a story where a man grows horns on his head certainly calls for this), Hill burrows down and tells an intensely personal story, with a small collection of characters who's stories intertwine around a central tragedy. This is storytelling at its best, where there are no arbitrary actions, but carefully crafted story. It's a notable achievement, and I hope that Hill receives due recognition for this: it doesn't happen all that often. The result is a superior, notable book.

This novel is one that left me disturbed on many levels. Rather than the horror being presented as Ig turns into a supernatural being, of sorts, the horror comes as Ig sees what people are capable of as they confess to him the darker thoughts that they've been harboring. At the same time, the events that put much of the plot into motion are horrible, terrible things, and in the way that the book is structured, the reader is conscious of what is likely coming, with a growing amount of horror. This is terror on a level that far transcends a monster or man in a mask: this is the horror of the inevitability of something coming down the line, with no way to alter its course.

Furthermore, there is a residual bit of horror in the ways that people interact with their faith. Hill puts together an interesting look at the relationship between God, Lucifer and People, with some interesting parallels and conclusions sure to piss off any devotee of Christianity, but not coming out as a lecture on philosophy: this is storytelling at its finest, and a story that is possibly one of the more important to examine in a critical fashion.

Horns is a stunning read, for the story, the characters and the allegory, which turns this into a novel holds up with some of the best books that I’ve picked up this year: easily comparable in quality to China Miéville’s ‘ The City and The City’ and Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’.

Gothic October

While Science Fiction has long been the genre that I've been most passionate about, I've grown exceedingly fond of the Gothic blend of horror fiction that's out there. When in college, I attended an upper level English course titled Gothic Tradition which reintroduced me to the likes of Washington Irving, Mary Shelly and Edgar Allen Poe, while introducing me to H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson and others. I've come to view this genre as one that's largely atmospheric, with some astounding stories in it. Earlier this year, while attending ReaderCon, I went to a panel titled New England: At Home to the Unheimlich, which looked to the premise that there is something about New England in particular that has helped to foster some of the best gothic-related stories out there now. Getting out and about during the fall is a good way to see this come to life.

This panel had gotten me thinking about how New England would foster some of this. When I was younger, I remember visiting Boston with my mother, and we had walked through a cemetery, one that dated back to the earliest days of the country, and we saw patterns of dates, usually corresponding to illness and pandemics that occurred at the time. As a result, I've been fascinated by some of the older cemeteries that I often see here in Vermont, dotting the countryside.

The panel at ReaderCon discussed a couple of specific influences: the weather and harsh seasons were - and are - a big influence in the mentality of New England residents. Winters are long, with very short days, long nights, and with clearly defined seasons. The Fall in particular is a wonderful time of year, with a broad range of colors in the hills, leading to bare trees in just a couple of short weeks. Coupled with the geography of the region: mountainous, with numerous small valleys, hollows and forests, the region is one that can be very dark, chilly, prone to fog. Further coupled with a writer's imagination, and the northeast is ripe for setting the fantastic.

Vermont in particular had a number of small cemeteries, and a very hard, rural life from the 18th and 19th centuries. Visiting one of these places, sometimes sparsely maintained, out of operation and crumbling, one will find grave sites that date back to the early days of the nation. In several, I found the resting places of soldiers who served in the American Revolution and Civil War.

Along with the history of gothic / supernatural horror fiction that existed throughout the United States, and with the seasons turning here in the state at the moment, it's a good time to visit a number of these sites. Their existence, small cemeteries, abandoned houses and cold forests, all serve to supplement this feeling in the region.

Cemeteries in particular serve as interesting reminders. While Megan and I walked through one such site, she noted that there was far more emphasis on the reminders of mortality and the fragility of life, especially when compared to their modern counterparts. The careful artwork that is now vanishing from the weather and acid rain is highly symbolic, with doves, willow trees, lambs and crosses representing the end of life, while epitaphs go straight to the point. One such memorable entry that I saw on a grave in Northfield read to the tune of: Don't forget about me. Death is a debt to life, and I have paid mine: it is coming for you.

Similarly, looking at the ages and years in which people had died is revealing. In each cemetery, there were several graves of for children, often from the same family, close in age, with their deaths at similar times - one such family lost six of their children in Barnard. Soldiers from war, and younger men and women had died, while a number of people likewise passed away in their eighties, with very little in between the extremes.

Over the past couple of weekends, and in the upcoming days of October, I've been working on visiting and taking some photographs from some of these cemeteries (and aging homes from the period, when I can find them) which really exemplify the gothic and horror feel of the state. You can see the gallery here.

To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck

One of the latest books that I've read recently is John Steinbeck's To A God Unknown, his second novel, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The story, which looks to the Bible, ancient myths, paganism and several other influences, weaves together a story about belief and faith, mixing reality and fantasy in what I would really call a speculative fiction novel.

Set in the 1800s, the book follows the story of the Joseph Wayne, a Vermonter, who yearns to go out west, and receiving the blessing from his father, he does so, only to learn that his father has passed away shortly after he settles in California. At that moment, Wayne believes that his father's spirit and soul has become imbued with the giant oak tree next to the house, and in his own way, be worships the tree. His three brothers move out west to his farm, and for a time, the valley is teeming with life. The brothers come across a rock in a glade, with a stream coming out of it, and discover that it is a sacred place to the Indios. Soon thereafter, Benjy, their youngest, alcoholic brother, is killed in a scuffle by Juanito, one of the farmhands, who vanishes.

One brother, Burton, is a devout Christian, and becomes angry with his brother for his interactions with the oak tree, believing it to be of darker powers at work, which go against his own beliefs. He leaves the farm, but not before killing the tree. This has dire consequences for the valley, which begins to dry up as a drought sets in, which begins to kill the land. More accidents come. Joseph's wife, Elizabeth, falls to her death at the rock, and Joseph and Thomas decide to leave the farm, bringing their cattle to greener pastures. Joseph stays, and is rejoined by Juanito, who convinces Joseph to visit the local priest. When Joseph tries to get the priest to pray for the land, he refuses, and tells Joseph that he is sick, and offers his own help. Joseph returns to the glade to find that the stream coming out of the rock has dried up. When he decides to leave, he gets cut. Inspired, he climbs on top of the rock, cuts his wrists open, sacrificing himself, and soon after, it begins to rain.

I have long been a fan of John Steinbeck, ever since I first read his short novella, Of Mice and Men in Mrs. Page's English class at Harwood Union High School, and I moved on to a number of his other books - Cannery Row, Travels With Charley, The Pearl, The Red Pony, and The Grapes of Wrath - I've long loved the Americana element of his writing, and for me, he is one of the quintessential American writers, one who touches deeply on themes of the country. Recently, I've become interested in reading more of his books, and while browsing through the bookstore, I came across this book, and was interested because at a first glance, it fell squarely within the speculative fiction range, retelling elements of the Bible, older religions and myths to bring about an interesting story. There are a number of pure fantastic elements as well, right down to the last actions of the book, when Joseph dies, and his spirit renews the land from his soul and belief.

I've long believed that stories aren't really defined by their physical story elements - the characters, locations and items that they use - but by the ways in which the characters perceive their environment around them, and use the actions of the story to learn. To A God Unknown is about belief and faith of the strongest type: the intangible, the unknowable, and the impossible. Throughout the story, Joseph is a character that believes strongly in the land and its well being, and perceives of some higher power in ways that are not, to say the least, traditional, and raising the ire of his family and community members. Yet, while reading, Joseph's actions demonstrate that he has the most honest and raw form of belief: he believes in the land, and sees his actions rewarded in any number of ways, and punished in others. For me personally, this was an interesting book because I'm not sold on the concept of God, as proscribed by any number of religious institutions. My beliefs lie somewhere with Josephs: God, or any higher power that escapes definition, is something that is unknowable, intangible and mysterious.

The last pages of the book were by far one of the most important that I read, in almost anything, when Joseph goes to a priest, looking to help save the land. The priest refuses, saying that his job is to ensure the salvation of the human soul, not that of the land, setting up a major divide between the anarchical views that Joseph takes, as opposed to a major institution such as the Catholic Church. In a way, Joseph believes in the entirety of the universe, which felt far more basic and universal than the Church, which looks simply to one of God's (If there is one who created everything) creations for their own benefit. This has never, and still doesn't, sit well with me, and I prefer Joseph's more universal, general view on how the world runs. This falls with a number of other world views, and it's interesting to see this all presented in a novel such as it was. Steinbeck has created a wonderful, fantastic novel with To A God Unknown, and one that has left me thinking far more than I thought it would have.

Stop Punking the Genre!

In 1983, the term Cyberpunk was born, with a story by the same name by author Bruce Bethke in Amazing Stories #94. The term is defined as a "[S]ubgenre of science fiction that focuses on the effects on society and individuals of advanced computer technology, artificial intelligence and bionic implants in an increasingly global culture, especially as seen in the struggles of streetwise, disaffected characters. (Prucher, Jeff, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, 30). The word itself comes from the meshing of 'cyber' and 'punk', which to me has always seemed as an electronics rebellion. Certainly, the subgenre is one that presents drastically different stories and meanings than what had traditionally been science fiction, and in a way, the style represents a degree of cutting edge thinking that really belongs to the first on the scene, with the truly unique and original thoughts that go against the grain. I think of cyberpunk as the books that are out looking for a fight, ready to cut those unprepared with what they have to say.

My main issue here is two-fold. The first is that with that in mind, it's hard to apply that sort of label to any sort of science fiction after the term is pushing 30 years old, much as it's hard to take someone seriously who's been involved in the punk scene for a comparable amount of time, with several records under their belt to a major record label. The surprise and edge vanishes after a while, and in a way, the 'Cyberpunk' term has become a label that's synonymous with electronics and dystopia. At the same time, the suffix '-Punk' seems to be added onto any number of themes and styles of science fiction literature. Steampunk is a ready example, both visually with film, photography and costuming, but also with such books as Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, where there is a blend of dystopic and steam-powered technology. The problem that I see is that the idea behind 'punk'-style music, video, literature is that it's something that ultimately rebells against a label, and in science fiction's field of vision, -punk is the marketing term to rally behind in creating a subgenre, undermining or missing what the word in the meantime really means.

The term itself came at a time of globalization and a rise of technology around the world, and has since become a label for any number of stories that correspond to a use of technology, with dystopic and near-future themes. Promoted by Gardiner Dozois, the term has largely been used to describe books by William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, Bruce Sterling, Neil Stephenson, and many more. Neuromancer really cut in close at a time before the Internet and home computing, creating a vision of the future that was wholly unique, interesting and edgy. In a large way, the term really did apply to a lot of these earlier books. (This is not to say that modern books in the 'cyberpunk' genre are bad - far from it. This isn't a specific criticism at the books within, just at the association and labeling that they're saddled with). Like observing a quantum event, you change the picture simply by looking at it, and in effect, calling something 'punk' undermines the meaning of the term, and ultimately, does the books labeled as such a big of a disservice. In this day and age with computers and virtual worlds becoming the norm, computers and electronics aren't necessarily that edgy, and any book written in the genre will most likely be compared to Neuromancer in some way or form.

At the same time, I've long been irritated by the Steampunk genre as a concept. According to Brave New Words, the term was coined just four years later by K.W. Jeter in a letter, noting that he believed that stories set in the Victorian era will become the next big thing, and suggested the term Steampunk, most likely in relation to the same edgy connotations that '-punk' gave the word 'cyber'. Once again, the idea of the word 'punk' being used as a label, especially a label right out of the gate, goes against all of the rebellion and fire that the term really should hold for that which it describes. Steampunk is a subgenre that is really beginning to grow a bit more, but doesn't feel new or edgy as far as its content goes: much of what you can see in the stories has long roots in the genre: the stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, for example, could easily fall well within the common definitions of Steampunk, and they did it when the concepts were really new and punkish in their own right. (Wells, especially, went across the grain in his literature and his personal life). Thus, a lot of this current steampunk fad is a retread over old ground, with stories that tell drastically different things this time around. Cherie Prist's latest book, for example, isn't so much about technology as it is about character inter-relations in a steampunk-styled environment, one that I'd really label as alternate history over Steampunk. The same goes for recent books by K.J Parker with Devices and Desires, Christopher Priest's The Prestige and Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone. I've long believed that the term science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction in general really transcends the content and goes far more towards the themes, plotline and characters of each work.

Still, there seems to be a tendency for new genres to be bestowed with the '-punk' suffix to differentiate various groups of works by content and theme to perfectly define its own little sub-genre and capture a specific audience. In a large way, it's a good move on the parts of publishing marketing departments to better make their books sell: define an audience, and target them. In some cases, it's warranted. The stories of Paolo Bacigalupi, for example, such as The Windup Girl, The People of Sand and Slag and The Calorie Man, all exist within stories that are defined by their environmentalism-styled stories, ones that have a clear and defining message within a near future, influenced by current events. I've seen others, and called them myself, bio-punk, because in a way, they are some of the more raw, unique and though-provoking stories that I've yet seen. I'm sure that there are other stories, (including the upcoming story at Lightspeed Magazine called Amyrillis, by Carrie Vaughn), that looks at the environmental future and the speculative elements of the next several decades, at the same level of intensity as the early Cyberpunk stories. At other points, I've seen a tendency to apply the label to other things that really don't warrant it, and I can't help but wonder if '-punk' has just become synonymous with 'subgenre' or 'cool'. With the rise of steampunk and cyberpunk, what's to say that there won't be a major movement like 'biopunk', but alongside such things as woodpunk, ironpunk and stonepunk, each with their own style of stories, each more ridiculous than the last? In this possible future, Homer's Iliad, Odyssey and the entirety of the Greek myths will be re-categorized as 'Bronzepunk', and the Apollo-era of space stories will be titled 'Vacuumpunk' (which will most likely be re-titled for ironic effect, vacuum pump fiction).

The main question behind all this is that if the term '-punk' becomes an expected title for any style of sub genre, does it really convey the same meaning as it did in those early days, when? I think that it doesn't, because the idea behind the term is that the fiction is unexpected and raw, and placing the label on it becomes an effective, safe bandage that soothes what shouldn't be. The fiction isn't at fault, it's the hype behind it. Ultimately, speculative fiction as a whole is done a disservice by the constant subgenres, which separates out everything into miniscule categories that are ultimately meaningless, governed and sold based upon their superficial elements, but not the central themes that ultimately make a story worth reading. Punking a genre seems to be the epitome of posing, especially if the term is simply applied to a brand of stories for the simple purpose of finding a market for them.

Third Class Superhero, Charles Yu

A forthcoming book caught my eye last month: How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu. It had a slick cover, and I got my hands on a copy to review. While I was waiting, I did a bit of background research on the author, coming up with only one other work to his name, Third Class Superhero, a collection of short stories. Yu, who was selected by the National Book Foundation as one of the '5 under 35' authors to watch in 2007, and seems to be a promising writer to keep an eye on, demonstrates an exceptional skill throughout Third Class Superhero.

The book is a collection of eleven short stories, each of which covers a broad range of subjects, but each with a very poignant style that goes right to the heart of contemporary and speculative fiction. Reading over the book, there's clearly an edge towards speculative fiction, but if anything, it's the subtle touches and even the style of the prose that pushes the book over the genre edge, allowing Yu to tell a number of stories that are highly relatable in any setting. The title story, Third Class Superhero, is by far my favorite, one that looks to a struggling superhero, something that would fit well in the worlds created for Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog or the UK show No Heroics. It's a story that's singularly human, demonstrating the temptations and dreams of the more average, overshadowed by others who are more skilled. A couple of other stories, such as 401k, and Man of Quiet Desperation Goes on Short Vacation look to some of the problems in a modern, commercial world, where we are so connected with everybody, but so alone at the same time.

What struck me far more, however, was not necessarily the content of the stories, but the style in which they were laid out. Thinking back to the stories that I read, the only word that can adequately sum up the books is 'Surreal', something that seems to be incredibly difficult to accomplish for any writer. Moreover, where it's difficult to get subject matter across in such a fashion, the presentation itself is generally difficult to accomplish, and Yu manages to accomplish both excellently, using the stories, characters and content in most of the book to specific methods where tailored towards specific ways in which the story was written, by changing the tense and even physical appearance of the story to suit his needs. The result is content and the physical delivery of the content that go towards approaching specific themes that the writer is trying to convey to the reader.

What Yu does here is what every story, (long or short) should be doing: presenting a problem, in a fictional setting, that allows for someone to relate to and examine said problem outside of the regular contexts. This way, they can come across avenues of thought that might be different with the differing contexts. Allegory comes in any number of means, and I’ve often thought that the science or speculative fiction genres offer one of the more unique ways for people to address problems that they face, either with major, global events, of intensely personal ones that they might otherwise not see an answer to.

The result is a very good collection of short stories, and the praise that Yu has received for already, with only a Third Class Superhero under his belt is very noteworthy indeed. The stories themselves were very interesting - if a bit on the pretentious side of things - and go very much to the heart of critical and contemporary literature. In anything, the series of stories, plus Yu's approach to speculative fiction (subtle, pointed elements, supporting the story, rather than the other way around) leave me very excited to see what's in store for his upcoming How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe in September.

The Geek Community

There's a television show that came out a couple of years ago, called Freaks and Geeks. I've watched through it a couple of times, and have really enjoyed what I've seen, but there's always been one thing that's bothered me: the kids in the school really hate being called a geek. They're repulsed by it, go to great lengths to avoid the term, altering their own behavior, and things like that. Part of this, I know, comes from a lot of the negative connotations with the word, which I've always found troubling, and another part is the times, and the possession of some hindsight.

Geeks are cool these days, for a lot of reasons, and there's a lot of writing on the walls that says so. Avatar, and a number of other science fiction, fantasy or horror films topped the box office for monetary totals, Neil Gaiman's book, American Gods was the first book to be chosen for an international, interactive book club on twitter, and so on. There is an entire sub-culture blooming that centers around every element that had once been only reserved for the geeks exiled to the back of the cafeteria.

It's not the material, however, that really determines if any one person is a geek or a nerd, it's largely in how they perceive the world, approach problems and how they value knowledge. I've come to understand that in a large part, reading Lord of the Rings, the Foundation Trilogy, watching Star Wars or Star Trek a hundred times or obsessing over movie rumors is something that appeals to those of a more geek-oriented mindset. It might be something about the way authors construct totally new and alien worlds, landscapes and events in all forms of media, or it might be some more basic desire to explore, and more importantly, to learn, about something.

I had a friend of mine tell me, when we lived in London, that she found me to be very passionate about any number of subjects: history, science fiction, travel, whereas she noted that she felt that she lacked that. I don't know if that was the case, but I do know that I'm not alone in that mindset, and I don't think that it's something that's grown or changed. I suspect that a very real reason for why geek culture is really something that's become somewhat more popular is the ability for people to really begin to talk with one another. Since high school, I've begun to realize just how vast the 'geek community' is, because it reaches into so many subjects and places. My earliest experiences with this sort of networking goes back over ten years, to Star Wars message forums (TFN Boards, Starwarz.com, Starwars.com and various EU book sites), to major blogs and their commenting abilities (such as Boing Boing, io9, SF Signal, Tor.com, to name just a couple) to things like facebook and twitter, which allow for their own cross-communications to spring up and flourish.

Geeks like information, I've come to understand, and the best thing to happen to Geek culture is to have the ability to share and create information across the board with the internet, where it's easy to find and to distribute, through any number of means. We talk about books, films, comics and concepts, across the world or with a simple meet up in a library or bookstore to create a rich environment that really allows for something special: community.

Community is important, I think, much in the same way why groups such as Gangs, the Boy Scouts and After School programs exist: they give people a sense of purpose, belonging and a place to exchange ideas amongst their peers - this has always been the case. In 1940s England, Science Fiction fan clubs sprang up across the country, often with small groups in individual towns, which would later coalesce into larger groups with time. The same thing happened in the United States, and throughout these groups, members wrote letters to each other and magazines, gathered in homes, small conventions, to discuss what they had been reading and often, their own works, giving rise to science fiction writers in their own right. The same thing has happened in the digital age.

Thus, these interactions and groupings really are important, especially to those lonely kids in Freaks and Geeks, who had no one to turn to - they turned to each other, and supported (sometimes) their friends when needed. The same is true, here, because when that happens, new ideas are exchanged, created and brought to fruition, in a fantastic fashion.

I, Human, not I, Robot

Looking over my bookshelves, I had a bit of a revelation: there are very few books that really use robots as characters in them. Taking a look, I only see Isaac Asimov's I, Robot and several additional collections of short stories, a collection of Ray Bradbury stories that contains 'There Will Come Soft Rains', a couple of Iain M. Bank's Culture novels, Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ekaterina Sedia's Alchemy of Stone and maybe a couple of others that I passed over. An additional trio of books: Ambassadors from Earth, Edison's Eve and Wired For War all represent a significant figure when it comes to real - life robotic systems and theory. However, looking over the movies that I have on my shelves, robotic characters readily come to mind: C-3P0 and R2-D2 from Star Wars, The Terminator from that franchise, Robbie from Forbidden Planet, the replicants from Blade Runner, Ash from Alien, Andrew from Bicentennial Man, Sonny from I, Robot, and so forth.

I have to wonder about this: there is a large gap in recognizable characters between the two mediums, film and literature. Film seems to contain far more in the way of robots, androids and mechs that come to mind, while I have a difficult time remembering the names of some of the characters from some of my absolute favorite science fiction books.

The first element in which film readily becomes the better medium is its visual nature, allowing for elaborate costumes, props and CGI'ed components of metal and plastics that make up what audiences really think about with robotic characters. Some of the most dramatic imagery from science fiction cinema includes robots: C-3P0 and R2 in the hallway of the Tanative IV, The Terminator coming out of the flames, Ash getting his head bashed in, and so forth. Simply put, robotics are more visual, allow for some differences between living characters and their mechanical servants.

The use of the term 'Robot' goes back to 1923 (1) with Karel Čapek's play, Rossum's Universal Robots, and according to genre historian Adam Roberts, came at a certain time of anti-machinery sentiment with science fiction at the time, with other books, such as with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Olaf Stapledon's The Last and First Men look to the use of mechanical and scientific processes and as a result, a population that overly depends upon them as something wholly against nature and counter-productive to humanity as a whole: societies are generally dystopic and dehumanize their inhabitants. This somewhat fits with some modern science fiction films, such as the far futures of The Terminator and The Matrix, and even with Wall*E, where an overreliance of machines results in our destruction, or at least an enormous disruption of society. (2) Indeed, Robot comes from the Czech term robota, which translates to servitude.(3)

Indeed, it should come as no surprise that early views towards robotics weren't necessarily looked at in any sort of favorable light: throughout history, a constant struggle between leaders and those being led has come about, and one lesson that a history teacher (Mr. David Munford, thank you), imparted was the destruction of clocks and machines during one early worker uprising. The use of factories in particular lends itself well to machinery and associated dystopia images and themes. Henry Ford put to good use the assembly line, which relegated skilled labor to fastening single bolts day in and day out. It is particularly ironic that those human workers were in turn replaced by robots who do the same roles for them.

In literature, then, the use of robotics goes far beyond characters, but is typically used as part of a larger theme that a novel is trying to push across to the reader. The Three Laws of Robotics that are central to Isaac Asimov's robot books are particularly conscious of this fact, and represents some level of paranoia on the part of the human race that at some points, robots will eventually take over humanity because of their inherent strengths over human flesh: stronger, faster, smarter, etc. This makes Asimov’s novels somewhat different from the earlier books with mechanical imagery linked to dystopia: Asimov’s world shows where a fall of society has not occurred because of the indulgences by humans, but generally only because the robots that we’ve essentially created in our own image are just as screwed up as we are. Dystopia, in this case, may be in Asimov’s futures – we certainly see that in his Foundation stories – but for the time being, he views a world with robotics as one where robotics act as a natural counterpart for humanity, rather than a replacement, although the threat, held in place by his three laws, is still there.

In films, however, different elements are brought out: robots are the servants of humanity & associated sentient life in Star Wars, performing vital and specialized tasks while interfacing with their creators. The same goes for the robots in Blade Runner and Wall*E. At other points, they're used for war, such as in Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, where they then turn on their human creators for a variety of reasons, or under the control of a vast, superhuman intellect, such as in the Terminator franchise. Here, these elements often, but not always, hearken back to a sort of dystopia, where robotics are part of a larger problem: it represents the failure of the human race to continue with its biological need to reproduce, and demonstrates some basic elements of life itself: Darwinism or survival of the fittest. Those that cannot keep up, will be destroyed, or at least overcome.

Within literature, the larger themes of dystopia and robotics are used, with the protagonist generally someone who overcomes the system/society/social norm to relearn what it means to be human, and there is a larger theme of the scientific, mechanical, logical order, represented by robotics, and a more organic, theological, chaos, represented by people. At points, this is represented with some very pointed examples: Ray Bradbury’s ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’, which shows a robotic house living diligently on long after its inhabitants have destroyed themselves. However, the reason that robots themselves seem to be fewer and farther between is because there is an inherent need for this dystopia theme to be present in the film: it represents the weakness of humanity, carries with it religious overtones and two extremely different styles of thinking all wrapped up into a single character, which oftentimes, seems to be difficult to work in or really justify as a regular character in a book that takes just part of the story, especially if they are not the central part of a story. Their existence represents so much in relation to their human counterparts, it would seem almost a waste to have a story with a side character as a robotic entity, rather than fleshing out everything that he/she/it represents.

With movies, these themes are there occasionally, but generally, explosions and violence comes first and foremost in the eyes of paying audience members.

1 - Jeff Prucher, Editor. Brave New Worlds: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2007, 164 2 - Adam Roberts. The History of Science Fiction. Palgrave Press, 2005, 159 3 - Ibid, 168

The Temptation of Taste

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat it, you will surely die." (Genesis 2:15)

So it is said in the Bible, a basic story element: the temptation of mankind and the resulting expulsion from the Garden of Eden. From this point, this element and the imagry of food as a means of temptation has been used in a number of subsequent works, especially within the speculative fiction realm. With this imagery, there is the theme of utopia as something to be gained or lost with the consumption of the food, and is either an element that the protagonist is tempted away from, or something that proves to be an obstacle in the pursuit of utopia.

According to Brave New Worlds: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, the notion of 'Utopia' comes from Sir Thomas More, although as the Bible demonstrates, it is a concept that certainly predates More's musings on the subject. The Greeks, through their epic story the Odyssey, used the imagery in a couple of instances as Odysseus travelled home from Troy: The encounter with the Lotus Eaters, where three of Odysseus's men ate the Lotus, became addicted and thought nothing of returning home, but their later encounter with Circe on the island of Aeaea is one in which these themes really come out:

"They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who suspected mischief and staid outside. When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them in a mess with cheese, honey, meal and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her pig styes."

In these instances, the men who came under the various substances and spells found that they were pulled away from their journey - the temptation theme at its best, and introduces the idea of going home as a form of Utopia for those far away. Certainly, the soldiers who fought at Troy for ten years would liken their homes to something special, perfect, as a means to get them through the conflict. This would be for a couple of reasons: they were fighting a battle on the part of their home nation, something worth protecting and dying for, and had plenty of motives to return. This makes the theme of their temptation even more important in the larger view of the storyline: they have an incredible amount to lose in their return, and their failure to adhere to their goal demonstrates their weakness in character and desire to return home, intentional or not. Like in the Bible, there is a central moral to the story that the righteous and those who have strong moral fiber will see their goal to the end - the adventures of Odysseus' crew, and later, Adam and Eve, demonstrate this to a fine point.

While Ancient stories have certainly used this element numerous times, a number of modern stories also take on similar imagery, with similar morals. The Grimms Fairy Tales include a story that is no doubt familiar to many: Hansel and Gretel, which sees the two children abandoned to die in the middle of the forest by their evil stepmother. As they attempt to find their way home, they come across a white bird, which delights them and leads them to a house made of bread and sugar. Overcome with hunger, they eat at the house and are invited in by the old woman who lives there, who intends to snare and eat them. Gretel tricks the witch into the oven in her place and escapes home. Once again, the perils of moving away from one's goals, in this instance, being tempted by food while attempting to return home, is used, although in this instance, it is children who are swayed, rather than men.

Coraline is another story that comes to mind, when looking at more recent works. Neil Gaiman's tale sees the young girl Coraline Jones in an unhappy existence with her parents, and upon her discovery of an alternate world, she is enticed with the idea of a better set of alternative parents, who feed her (which brings to mind this imagery of a table full of food being a vehicle for temptation) and show her a life that is very different, but odd. Over the course of the story, Coraline realizes that this existence and its inhabitants have their own motives, and not motives that will benefit her, and the main character struggle is in her fight to return her parents and herself to their proper existence. This is the main part of the appeal of the story, where Coraline must not only determine her true place, but also the value of home. Where other stories have take the notion of home as a set utopian value, Coraline must first determine what her utopia is: home, for all of its flaws, is the place where she is truly loved, and where she belongs.

Similar themes are brought up in Pan's Labyrinth, where the image of a feast tempts away Olivia after she begins her own journey after meeting the Faun in the Labyrinth behind the Spanish outpost. At this point in the story, she has already completed one of the tasks set before her - recovering the key, in her journey towards returning to her mythic home, where she is supposed to be a long lost princess, on a quest to return to her home. When she brings the key to the lair of the Pale Man to retrieve the knife, and overcome with hunger, she eats from the table, and is chased out by the Pale Man, who has eaten other children before her. Once again, the theme of temptation swaying the traveler is brought along, and it harkens back a bit to the Adam and Eve story, where the girl is tempted away (as in Coraline as well) from the true path by a distraction, in this instance, a meal.

On the science fiction side of the house, Paolo Bacigalupi's novel The Windup Girl features in some similar ideas, if on a much greater scale than just the character's actions, but figures far more into the background story in the world that Bachagalupi presents. Agricultural firms have wrecked the world through their actions, attempting to turn their food into a better product, and unwittingly unleash plagues into the world, causing economic collapse and famine across the world. In the pursuit of a Utopia, they have created the opposite, a dystopia-style world where they have strayed from an arguably more righteous path: the preservation of the species.

In all instances, the idea of food is used to sway the protagonist or other characters from their own personal utopias, whether that's their home or the creation of a perfect world, where they are loved, which in and of itself reveals a couple of things: the definition of a Utopia isn't necessarily a paradise that is populated by their desires, but by a single concept: love, either the love of one's parents or one's subjects/compatriots, for their simple existence. In Coraline, Olivia and Hansel/Gretel's case, it's the love of their parents, in Odysseus's, it's his family, and in the instance of the corporations in the Windup Girl, it's the people that they feed.

Their quest for a personal utopia demonstrates that a utopia is something that can be revoked, as Adam and Eve both found, but that one of the basic motivations for one's existence is to seek such a concept - God's placement of a flaming sword at the entrance of Eden demonstrates the struggle to achieve such a goal - otherwise, it stands to reason that the Garden could simply be taken from existence, where the temptation and goal would be gone forever, and thus, become nothing to seek. God did not do this, but he left the Garden in place. Food seems to be the constant in most of these stories (and I'm sure that there's numerous other examples - these were the ones that were immediately familiar to me), because it is, in itself, a symbolic measure - food is something that sustains, but something that rots with time, and is, in effect, a temporary joy when compared to the character's ultimate goal. In all instances, the characters are temped because of their circumstances, where they are desperate to continue onwards. In a way, the scales are tipped against the characters.

When looking at a number of these stories, it's generally the woman who instigates this sort of fall, most likely as a reference to the biblical story - the Greeks had no issue with the men instigating their own downfall, while Gretel was the one who saved her brother. Coraline and Olivia had their own weaknesses and thus were hampered by them, as well as Eve, way back when. There are arguments along this line that this is sexist in all different ways, and while yes, it certainly is when you look at it in one way, but it can also be looked at as opportunity, where the women overcome their newfound trouble and emerge victorious - Coraline recovers her hapless parents, and Olivia ends up in her mythic home (of course, she dies in the process). If anything, the men of these stories come out pretty poorly, and aren't the ones that the story is about - this proves to be an excellent change for strong female protagonists in a story.

This leads to another aspect of this argument, which was the existence of the Tree of Knowledge in the first place, as a sort of test for the characters on their journey. In each case, the characters fail this test, and their quest towards Utopia is jeopardized: Odysseus's soldiers are almost foiled from their return home (although they are killed off in other ways), various children are almost eaten, and so forth. Yet, in their failure, they find new opportunity to prove their character and better themselves by learning from their mistakes and regaining their morals to reach home. Where they fail in each case, this too happens in almost each case.

This impacts story in huge ways - it provides motivation for characters in ways that translate into real life, and provides a way for characters to grow and change with the issues that they face along their respective paths in life. In a number of ways, this specific imagery is used to hearken back to the bible, because it's very basic imagery. The character is hungry, but shouldn't stop - that is certainly something that's fairly easy to relate to, and works for all the reasons outlined above.

The obvious answer to all of this is that it's a moral story presented for the characters as a means to teach a simple and complex lesson to the reader: temptation can often lead to problems for the protagonist, and that their weakness in character must be compensated for by continued hardship and peril in their journey towards their utopia.

Sex and Science Fiction

The other day, while I was checking up on science fiction news sites, I came across an article that SciFiWire posted: "Fringe's Anna Torv As You've Never Seen Her Before: Topless (NSFW)", with a couple of photographs that weren't actually revealing or anything too distasteful - no shirt, but she was definitely covered, and on the whole of things, pretty light fare compared to other websites out there - just take a look at some of the late night titles that io9 will post up every now and then.

What really got me was reading the comments in the article. A number of posters were pretty annoyed by this article: "I'm getting really tired of this site displaying low level porn on it. You must've recently hired some juvenile male to run the site.", "Yeah, it's fun, and it probably increases web traffic significantly, but it's really annoying to us ''real' science fiction fans, and that's why we came here: science fiction." There's a bunch of others as well, but that is the basic flow of some of the comments, although there were some good comments that went the other way as well. While some of the commenters were complaining more about the site's propensity to post up related Science Fiction and Fantasy news, there were certainly a number of comments relating to the actual content of the article.

Sex has long been a part of science fiction, either as a ploy to get young, male readers to part with their money in the early 20th century and incidentally, read magazines and novels, or as a direct plot point, science fiction is hardly a genre that is as innocent as a lot of people seem to think that it is, along with horror and comic books. Going back to the American Depression in the 1930s, Science Fiction magazines, under Charles Gernsback and Mort Weisinger, often featured and objectified women and men alike on the covers of magazines and novels, as well as in their content. (Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow, 132-133). As major comics such as Superman moved into the markets, much of the same moved with it. Looking at Superman, the relationship between Lois Lane and Superman/Clark Kent is a good example of this objectification, on both sides: Lois rejects Clark because he isn't perceived as man enough, especially compared to Superman. It's an ironic twist that holds a number of lessons in identify and judgment, but it also holds up a standard when it comes to gender roles: the strong, not the weak are desirable, while women are attracted to the image of a person, not necessarily their character behind it. (Jones, 143) Women and men are both heavily objectified in comics: just look at some of the art work when it comes to the Marvel and DC comics - characters are exaggerated in their proportions to the extreme.

This says nothing of the deeper roots of the genre, which science fiction historian and author Adam Roberts asserts, comes from the tradition of Gothic literature that far predates the materials cheaply available to wide-eyed boys in the Great Depression. "Gothic fiction is a popular category of academic pedagogy and research: a usefully delimited subgenre of fantastic literature... typically, a gothic novel includes mysterious and sinister goings-on, usually involving supernatural agency such as ghosts or devils ... located in distant, wild places, castles or monasteries in inaccessible portions of central Europe, where innocent young women are terrified, men have commerce with the devil and there is much to do with graveyards, ruins and madness, all flavored by a distinctive atmosphere of eroticized suspense, shock and horror." (Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction, 82) Look no further than Bram Stoker's Dracula for a good example of this sort of eroticized atmosphere, something that has carried into the modern day with similar elements of the genre, such as True Blood or Twilight.

This is why I find the shock and appalled nature of a number of a lot of people so ridiculous, simply because it represents a sort of high-minded elitism, either from somebody looking down on the collective genre of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror as something insignificant and childish, or from within, with people taking the highbrowed route that scrubs the genre clean by removing anything mildly offensive to the common viewer/reader to fit their needs. Both approaches do the genre a disservice, either by rejecting it or by selectively looking back on it for an inaccurate look. It's even more ridiculous in the internet era, where advocates of free choice insist that everybody must be protected from everything offensive.

The point in all of this is that sex and science fiction have never been all that far apart, no matter what shocked and appalled commentators believe to be the case. Used either for selling extra copies or for story content, there is a reliance on character types that have prevailed throughout literary history to become fairly resilient staples in our books, movies and television shows. If there is anything really worth getting offended over, or at least looking more closely into, is gender objectification, as well as our own outrage over seeing what is usually heavily implied.

What's the Point of a Genre?

Working at the bookstore, I come across a constant annoyance: trying to put a book into its proper place, using BITS, the internal store inventory system. The program is antiquated, clunky and a pain to use, and whomever is hired to enter the information into the system in the first place should be duct-taped off the ground and had rotten fruit thrown at them. It would be a good incentive to get the information entered in correctly and consistantly. Still, while annoyed about this the other night at the store, a thought came to me that's been further pushed along by a post from John Scalzi on his blog, Whatever.

This recent post highlights something that I've noticed within the SF genre, and fandom: a general cry to be recognized by the literary establishment as a whole. Science Fiction, in general, has been trivialized by a number of establishments and authors of other genres - Margaret Atwood's comments come to mind at just how against being labeled in the genre some peopel can be: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen", and "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians." (From the Guardian and Book of the Month Club).

To some extent, there's good reason for this - early science fiction, while fun, is loaded with rubbish, pulp and childish stories that were primarily geared towards selling as many copies as possible to the lowest common denominator demographic. Atwood's characterization of the genre is highly flawed - science fiction is far more than intergalactic travel and aliens, and while that's a common element, I see little difference between the superficial elements such as those, and the elements that contain a so-called speculative fiction. In the end, it's the story that really matters, and provided that an author can put together a compelling plot and array of characters, I've often found that those more unbelievable elements, such as 'monsters' and intergalactic travel works out just fine.

Scalzi's argument brings up a further version of this point - if the surrounding plot elements don't matter all that much - and I've noticed an increasing number of books with horror, science fiction, paranormal, fantasy, urban fantasy and other themes - where does the overall label matter when it comes to books? Indeed, with the aforementioned types, they're all lumped into the same small section in the larger bookstores, usually towards the back so the bookstore owners can hide the nerds and geeks from the rest of the cliental. (You know, kind of how the pretty people in gyms are always working out next to the windows?) I personally love the science fiction genre for its ability to tell stories, in addition to the settings and out there concepts that generally crop up. However, my enjoyment of one particular genre doesn't necessarily cloud my feelings towards books of another, nor does the label on the back of the book affect how I feel about another genre.

To some extent, I think that the argument is largely fueled by egos and excess time of overeducated people, and out of marketing necessity. Since much of bookselling comes out of browsing, it makes sense to group books accordingly, by genre, which is in turn placed on a pedestal, as something that is so profound, it can't possibly be associated with other books that have the reputation as science fiction / fantasy has.

This is where I have problems with the people who insist that any one particular genre is worthy of attention more so than the others. The same issue appears in Military History - I had a reading about this very same issue, as Military History is percieved by the larger academic community as an unimportant, somewhat annoying little cousin that wants to join in on the fun. Unfortunately, with the more established genres pushing out the newer ones, they miss out on a number of really good stories and insights into their fields. Cormac McCarthy's book The Road is arguably one of the better books of the past decade, and it won the Pulitzer Prize, despite the post-apocolptic storyline that appeals to the many followers of the 'geek' genre. Still, it wasn't marketed as such.

Marketing aside, I think the best alternative to all of this would be to get rid of the genre labels, sort out everything between fiction and non-fiction sections and shelve everything by the author's last name. Non-fiction can be sorted by subject, while people can just figure out what they like ahead of time and just go by author. Scalzi's hit on a huge point - this is an intellectual argument that really doesn't matter in the long run. Honestly, if Science Fiction starts scoring more people, longtime fans will just find something else to complain about - the new fans who don't have quite the same appreciation for the genre as they do.

Astronauts > Ninjas

From here on out, I'm decreeing that Zombies, Ninjas and Pirates are no longer cool, and that Astronauts, Mongolians, Vikings and Robots are taking their place as the 'cool' things to geek out about.

Let me explain.

Over the past couple of years, these three character types have become more popular than usual. Pirates, Zombies and Ninjas have long been popular with the geek crowd. Recent films and games have only thrown the fuel on the fire. At camp, there were endless debates as to whether Pirates or Ninjas were better, or who would win in a fight, and I remember at least a couple of camp-wide games that revolved around these types of characters.

A couple weeks ago, I watched one of Yatzhee's Zero Punctuation reviews for a game called Left 4 Dead, which is essentially a point and shoot at the undead, and where he says the following: "It's my observation that Zombies are second only to Pirates, Ninjas and Monkeys in the list of things nerds like and need to shut the fuck up about." After listening to that, it got me thinking - He's certainly right, but but necessarily for the reasons that he presents in the game (basically, he rants about how Zombies have been overused for just about everything.)

I've never really gotten the whole pirates vs. ninjas vs. zombies thing. Sure, they make some interesting stories, but not to the level at which they're really adored at. I think that it's easy to atribute much of the hype to films because geeks and nerds like the various films that they've been portrayed in, and like to talk about it. The endless discussions are informed by the imaginations of screenwriters, and not necessarily fact, and as a result, 90% of the discussions are pure crap in the first place, a sort of rosy-nostalgic look at what we think these things should be.

The root complaint that I have at this point is that for such an inventive, interesting and imaginative genre, there's very little actual innovation and imagination going on amongst the fan community. We obsess over pirates, ninjas and zombies because we've seen them before in films, and know all there is to know about them, reading over books like the Zombie survival handbook and Under the Black Flag if you're really into the subject.

I've seen the fan community in action - we're an incredbily handy bunch, and especially when it comes to things like costuming, there's very little that people can't do, and do it well. But, I try and think back to the various conventions that I've gone to, and wonder, when was the last time that I've seen something truely original. I've seen amazing costumes, especially from the 501st Legion that I'm a part of - and I'm not trying to disparage their work in the slightest - but everything revolves around existing media - Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Batman, Spiderman, you name it, you go to a big convention, you'll likely see them. Even for halloween, unless you're five, you're unlikely to see any originality when it comes to costumes.

Forrest Ackerman, who recently passed away in December of 2008, was the first Science Fiction fan, appearing at the 1st World Con science fiction convention in a costume that he made himself, a sort of astronaut, essentially starting the trend of fan costuming. While I'm sure that there have been more cases of originality, I really haven't seen anything like it. I've thought to myself that it would be really fun to try and construct something new and original for a con, before I remember that I'm really not that into costuming or conventions, but should I ever have the time and inclination, it'll be something to attempt, for sure.

But this is something that falls beyond costuming - it's largely affecting the entire genre. There are two specific examples that I can think of where this is happening - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! and the downsizing of the science fiction sections in Borders Books.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a book that's unoriginal to its core - it takes most of the text of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice and inserts Zombies into it. I'm not necessarily against this by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm more worried about what it stands for in the greater sceme of things - a general trend of unoriginal thinking when it comes to the genre, especially in popular circles. The big comic book giants in particular are guitly of this sort of thing, running their characters for years on end, without rest or retirement, without replenishing the ranks with new characters that might be more interesting or more relevant. This sort of thinking penetrates all levels of fandom, from the top down. Fans don't necessarily demand anything particularly original, and the production end of things doesn't seem to mind turning over the same franchises to them. And I don't blame them - much of this is a business, and this sells - keep it up, because there are good stories there. But the fan community should demand better.

Borders, last year announced that they were reducing the numbers of SF/F books that they'd have in their stores, a move that would likely hurt smaller and up and coming authors, as it put them in a catch 22 type postition - they weren't selling enough books to warrent shelf-space, but at the same time, they're not selling well because they don't have the shelfspace, at least in theory. The trent here seems to favor more of the media-tie ins that sell far better. While that works for authors who are writing media-tieins, what about the authors who want to tell their own stories?

I don't think that it's any coincidence that books that are part of a larger franchise, such as Star Wars or Star Trek do excepetionally well, and they should - there are some excellent reads out there, and I know a bunch of authors who view their works as far more than a simple paycheck (Karen Traviss, Michael A Stackpole, to name two), and it shows. But, they sell, because they contain familiar concepts, characters and ongoing storylines.

I have no issues with tie-in media, so long as it's well written. But for me, tie-in media is a form of advertising. That's fine, especially because it's generally entertaining, and features stories that are fun, but I'll always value a story that's original (and there will be those that will argue about just what originality is - in this instance, not tied in with someone else's works) over everything else, just because it's something new, a different way at looking at a story or story type. And there are good arguments here - because technically, there are only a handful of different story types - I mean, how many stories about space ships can you really expect? In a recent article that I wrote for io9, I was almost shocked to find that the main villian in most of the military science fiction stories were insectoids - Starship Troopers, Armor, Ender's Game and Alien - all used similar elements to tell their stories. But, their stories are all very different, and I always find that I get more out of them, and most other standalone SF/F novels than I do for 90% of the tie-in books that I read. You just can't compare Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell to Spider-Man: Down These Mean Streets, no matter the protestations of tie-in authors, you just can't.

Sadly, this originality is something that seems to be lacking within the geek community, and we've become fans of the pre-existing. My complaint here is that Science Fiction and Fantasy has been an incredibly innovative and creative genre , and those qualities have become very far and few between when it comes to a good book or film. The imagination is still there, but the originality is not, and this is why we have the endless Zombies vs. Pirates vs. Ninja debates, I think - we just can't seem to think of anything else to geek out over. And while it's not completely original, how about Astronauts, Robots, Mongolians and Vikings? They're totally better than Zombie Ninja Pirates any day of the week.

What is Science Fiction?

The Guardian Newspaper posted up an article about the label of Science Fiction when it comes to regular literature. Science Fiction as a broad genre has a number of connotations and images associated with it, for sure, but what exactly is the definition of the grouping?

According to Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest science fiction writers to ever live, Science Fiction is: Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions. (There are some other fantastic takes on this here.)

Over the past couple of years, as I have gotten more interested in the history and study of the genre, I'm leaning more towards an anti-genre sort of bias. I am a fan of the genre, and of the elements that commonly make it up - space ships, time travel, aliens, etc. What I find interesting though, is at how horror, science fiction and fantasy genres are generally grouped together, and how fans from one genre tend to be interested in the others.

According to the Guardian article, there are several authors whose books tend to fall under the SF/F genre heading, but aren't generally considered part of the genre, either by the publisher or the author. For example, the following paragraph raises some eyebrows:

"The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway has just had its paperback release, and is a tour-de-force of ninjas, truckers, Dr Strangelove-type military men, awe-inspiring imagery and very clever writing. It's also undeniably science fiction. Harkaway is an unrepentant fan of the genre, but his publishers William Heinemann have taken a lot of care not to market the book as such. Harkaway himself said in a recent interview: "I suppose the book does take place in the future, but not the ray-guns-and-silver-suits future. It's more like tomorrow if today was a really, really bad day.""

The last sentence is revealing one: "It's more like tomorrow, if today was a really, really bad day." Off the top of my head, I can list of a number of science fiction novels and films (Halting State, Children of Men, Wess'Har series, Firefly, etc), where this fits the description perfectly. Science fiction, in my opinion, is little different than most regular fiction, while just taking on a fantastic premise.

Margaret Atwood is somewhat misguided when she states: "Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space."

Science fiction is not just about rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space, although these can certainly be elements, but it is not the individual elements that really make up the core of a science fiction story. The core premise is the story. The best science fiction stories, the ones that hold up, are the ones that explore the human condition - not unlike most "literature". However, these elements do help to define the genre, and, if present in a story, help to define the novel. Stories with things like this are invariably labeled SF/F. It doesn't necessarily matter what the point of the book is.

Matthew Stover posted an interesting view up on a message board a couple months back:

"Literature is narrative fiction in which the author's intent is to express his individual vision of a fundamental truth of existence.

[Feel free to substitute other pronouns. I say "his" because, y'know, I'm a guy.]

The label of capital-L "Literature" is not a judgment of quality. It is a statement regarding the author's objectives. If the author's objective is simply (not "merely") to entertain or divert, the work in question is not Literature. It's still small-L literature (by definition), but that's not really what we're talking about. (I use the capital L to keep the distinction clear.)

And there's plenty of crummy Literature out there. It may be bad, but it's Literature nonetheless. "

At this definition, at a very broad angle, this encompasses a majority of SF/F genre stories, and separates out the ones that are essentially tie-in novels. The split is at the point where the view is either the author's, or someone else's. I'm content with this definition, because I've never seen the term Literature as something that automatically means quality. From there, everything can be broken down into the general elements that help to qualify the book. Science fictional type books tend to be grouped together with the ones that have the space ships, the aliens and things like that, but, above all, the story is such that the reader needs to be able to accept the premise, no matter what the story elements are. Battlestar Galactica and Firefly are two television shows that really did a good job at this - they took a situation, and focused on the way the characters reacted. Ron Moore has said that they didn't want to do a science fiction show, but they wanted a drama in space. It has science fiction elements, but that's not the focus.

Now, that might not be the main focus of these books that the Guardian has laid out, but they do contain science fiction elements. The article cites Jeanette Winterson with the following quote:

""People say to me, 'so is the Stone Gods science fiction?' Well, it is fiction, and it has science in it, and it is set (mostly) in the future, but the labels are meaningless. I can't see the point of labeling a book like a pre-packed supermarket meal. There are books worth reading and books not worth reading. That's all.""

I think she hit the nail on the head - essentially, it doesn't matter what the book's label is to the reader or storyteller - these labels seem to be more a thing concocted by publishers and booksellers in order to target certain audiences who might be more inclined to buy something with weird aliens and space ships as opposed to something else. That being said, even though Cormac McCarthy's The Road wasn't published or marketed as such, it's still gained quite a bit of a following in the SF/F genre crowd.

I'll always be a fan of the SF/F label though, despite the elitism and mockery that it might get - it's really the only genre that has a real geek following, and no matter the status that the genre gets from other authors and critics, it is still one of the sources, for me, of some of the best literature out there.