There seems to be a growing trend in the literary world that views Science Fiction as the second-rate, poor-relation member of the literature family. One should pat it on the head, and patronise it to ones hearts content, but dont encourage it too much because, poor thing, it doesn t know any better. However, this is patently the narrowest of viewpoints as I intend to show. Science Fiction not only offers more scope, breadth and depth, it is also much more fun – and the merchandising opportunities are significantly greater.
Essentially, literature is the art of exploring the human condition with all its inconsistencies, contradictions, wants, wishes, desires, hopes, fears, joys, weaknesses, triumphs, tragedies and gas bills. Did I just say gas bill? Im sorry – mines just arrived and I think Im being asked to pay for the Chief Executives private jet charter. However, we digress
When we set out to explore this human condition of ours (we are all human, arent we?), we postulate a hypothetical setting and then throw our heroes and heroines into it and see how they react. Great. Fine. Wonderful.
However, in any other form of literature, thats it, pal. You re stuck there; thats all she wrote; the Fat Lady has just sung her last chorus; and you aint goin noplace else. However, within Science Fiction you can change the background, the setting, or the time period. You can change anything you want and then see how your characters react. Picture the scene –
It is London, in the middle of winter. The year is 1893. Edward, a middle-aged shipping clerk is reading the evening paper while his wife, Emily, is darning some socks. Edward is stockily built (it’s better than being brick-built), with thin, receding hair, a moustache and a monocle over one eye (well, he wouldnt have it over an ear, would he?). Emily is slight of stature (good phrase that), has a pale complexion and is sickening for something unspeakable that plagued Victorian times but which, thankfully, weve eradicated from our modern society. A clock is ticking in the background (actually, its ticking in the dining room), and a fire is burning away in the grate (where else?).
Suddenly the door is thrown open and … What happens next? Please send your answers on a postcard to reach this office by (sorry, wrong audience). Within conventional literature, the number of things that could possibly happen now is limited to those things, items or situations that actually existed, or were known about, during the winter of 1893 in London. For example –
· We could have Dick Dastardly, with cloak over one shoulder and an evil glint in his eye, (now where else would he have an evil glint?), throwing down on the table an order to disconnect from the gas company (they were bastards even then).
· We could have young Elizabeth throwing herself at her father s feet while uttering that immortal phrase, “Father, please forgive me Ive been so stupid.”
· We could even have Sherlock Holmes, with pipe, violin, and magnifying glass, saying to Edward, “So, Moriarty, you thought to hide from me here, in middle class anonymity, did you? But you reckoned without the fingernail clippings from the bus conductor on the No. 73 bus.”
What we couldnt have is Dearth Wader, with light sabre in one hand, a microphone in the other, closely followed by two cameramen, three lighting technicians, a sound engineer, a make-up artist and the director, uttering those immortal words, “Edward Boringoldfart, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!” – not unless you were writing Science Fiction, that is.
Within Science Fiction there are no constraints. There are no limits. You are free to explore any avenue your tortured imagination can conjure up. The only overriding limitation is the (sometimes) need for the author/ess to be true and consistent to him/herself and their reader.
In the first scenario, Edward Boringoldfart is stuck as Edward Boringoldfart, and the possible number of reactions he has to whatever it was that came in through the door are severely limited. However, in the second scenario we have many more options –
· We could have a universe where Dearth Wader has fallen on hard times and is reduced to acting as a chat show host, travelling back in time to meet the ancestors of people who have had, or, to use the correct temporal terminology, must will have had, a significant impact on future history.
· Edward could be Luke Warmwater or Obiveri Kareful, just having a well-earned tea break away from the trials and tribulations of the rebellion.
· The chat show host could merely be dressed as Dearth Wader in order to hide his true identity from Edward so that the camera can get his reaction when the mask comes off, revealing that, in reality, this is the bastard of a next-door neighbour that Edward had hoped never to see again but must now pretend to be pleased to see.
Within Science Fiction, the possible number of avenues to explore is limited only by ones imagination, and of course, the residents of those avenues. We are no longer limited by the artificial constraints of a provincial setting. We can now be a Martini- – any time, any place, anywhere. We could have our hero torturing himself, trying to find the answer to a particularly pressing problem. “What would Alexander the Great have done in this situation?” he moans. In Science Fiction we’d go and ask him. Thats how much scope weve got.
We could take a young soldier in the time of the crusades. He takes shelter in a run-down, brick-built (it’s better than being stockily built) hovel and finds a frightened young girl hiding there. They chat for a few minutes and decide that, if they are to die, as seems likely, theyll have a modicum of fun before they do. The soldiers fingers frantically fumble at the fastenings of the girls dress, which slowly and tantalisingly falls open and drops from her shoulders, revealing …
… a 24-channel FM receiver with twin cassette (I neednt say where this is sited) and CD player and a 4inch colour TV screen. The whole thing couples as a matter transmitter and communicator and the young soldier takes the girls hand and speaks into her palm.
“Beam me up, Spotty” he says, and the two figures fade from view just as two Arab soldiers enter. One turns to the other and says,
“Dont you just hate it when that happens?”
I have been flippant and irreverent, but that is just my style. Stir in the styles of countless thousands of other writers and the resultant brew is a heady mixture indeed. Science Fiction allows us the opportunity to conjure situations and characters that couldn’t possibly exist in a ‘real’ sense – but which are no less real than any other form of fiction. After all, any fiction is just that – fiction. It exists purely in the writer’s mind until it is committed to the page and later released by the reader. Science Fiction gives us more potential situations, more characters, far, far more scope than any other form of literature, and yet it is berated for not being as worthy as other more ‘classical’ forms of literature. First and foremost, literature is escapist entertainment. It gives us the opportunity to escape from our tedious, humdrum world and enter new worlds that we would not normally have access to. Science Fictions gives us far more worlds to enter than any other form of literature. It really is the only form of literature worthy of consideration, and any other branch of the literature family is merely trying to be Science Fiction.
Peter Bottomley
May 2003
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