C O L U M N
DEUS EX MACHINA
i n d u s t r y r e p o r t s
Between Rocks and Hard Places
Magical realism's uncomfortable straddling of literary and genreAT THE Pacific Northwest Bookfest last November, I attended the panel discussion, "Ruling the Roost : Has Fantasy Finally Eclipsed Science Fiction in Today's Market?" led by authors Kage Baker, Chris Bunch, and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. My goal was to ferret out attitudes about magical realism.
Previous experience has taught me that people respond in one of three ways: "Huh?", "That schlock?", or "What's magical realism?" With most of my experience in magical realism discussions coming from literary (academic) sources rather than genre (science fiction and fantasy marketing) sources, I was hoping to gauge approval ratings from the genre bunch, as well.
By the end of the panel, I'd had my fill of acrimonious griping and didn't even bother to ask about magical realism.
Modessit complained about classification, which is nothing new. All authors at one point or another grow frustrated with marketing labels and categories, expressing fear of pigeonholing and misrepresentation in the marketplace.
Bunch griped about perceptions: that science fiction is considered difficult, while fantasy is soft and approachable, giving it the reach necessary to outsell science fiction, It's an equally old argument.
Baker blamed television and film for having an adverse influence over audiences which has resulted in less readership and preference for media, laying out the assumption that audiences can't somehow crave both.
The panel quibbled over the prominence of bad writing in both genres which has contributed to fallen perceptions about quality. They suggested that people don't like to read anymore and are not capable of thinking for themselves. There was even a comment on the panel about women buying more books than men, and the suggestion that this explained the commercial viability of fantasy over science fiction, which I found sexist and repugnant; the suggestion that women are reading books that don't ask them to think is insulting and wrong.
At some point, I had to cringe when the suggestion was put out there that it's the readers who were to blame for the shortfalls of either genre.
Oh, it gets worse. One of the panelists went on to disparage literary artists (and their "artsy fartsy shit") for complicating imaginative work. There was a brief discussion about the mainstream sci fi writers who made it (Cook, Chrichton) compared to "all the rest of us," with the unspoken suggestion that the really good writing doesn't come from these two cornerstone authors, but from all the obscure ones. Huh? Just because books sell does not necessarily mean they aren't of high quality. This defensive posture is tired and arrogant, and more than anything, moot.
And then suddenly everyone was on the dartboard: directors and students of university film programs (literally, somebody said "stupid professors"), editors because they aren't willing to take risks and "don't know what will sell tomorrow" anyway. Publishers and agents were blamed for not correctly marketing books, and of course, New Wave writing (which could include, by their definitions, anything that circumvents the established tropes of science fiction and fantasy: magical realism, slipstream, urban fantasy, and others) took a small beating because it further confused marketing efforts and readers alike.
No one mentioned that the only good science fiction out there introduces new ideas, or puts a new spin on old ideas. What about Greg Bear? Robert Sawyer? John Cramer? Phillip K. Dick's "Minority Report" is a melange of clones, psychic phenomenon and speculation about privacy and crime in the future. Gattica was an interesting inquiry into DNA and identity. The X-Files has been enormously popular for its weaving and wending of many classic sci fi tropes: alien encounters, horrific war crimes, government mind control and epidemiology, to name a few.
Does this have anything to do with magical realism?Absolutely. Magical realism exists among and between worlds. You're more likely to find it shelved with fiction or literature than you are with science fiction or fantasy. And yet it's more likely that genre fans will have a better understanding of it, or at least be more accepting of it, than mainstream authors. Bookstores don't know how or where to stock it. Publishers aren't clear on how to market it, though to their credit, we're seeing more use of the term "magical realism" on jacket copy to lure readers. These are all first-hand observations.
To see "New Wave" forms like magical realism criticized in a panel discussing the state of science fiction reveals, to me, that these new hybrids are probably a threat to the status quo. Their emergence suggests new concepts, new ways of thinking, a melange of ideas borrowed from established forms, then turned on an angle and delivered in unconventional ways. This is the art of concept development, a writer's ability to think outside the frame. Just the sort of thing that most sci fi and fantasy hasn't been doing lately. I mean, how many more hackneyed space operas do we need? How many more metaphoric dark evils in the universe must we overcome? How many more Arthurian rip-offs, Tolkien derivatives?
There are numerous theories regarding the current downswing of science fiction literature. Visit any board on the Internet that discusses science fiction and you'll find arguments far more enlightening than what was tossed around at the Bookfest. And Spider Robinson's Globe and Mail inquiry of September 8, "Why are our imaginations retreating from science and space, and into fantasy?" following his attendance at TorCon has sparked vigorous debate, even if it doesn't fully answer the question.
The way I see it, New Wave is happening just as science fiction needs the shot in the arm.
Yes, that's a personal opinion. But check this out. A recent visit to a local bookstore found me in the sci fi section, where I noticed the same thing I always notice in these sections: series.
While I think that people still like to read, I'm not sure they are collectively interested in several-book commitments, especially since stories written in series form are almost always written to require readers to follow the characters into the next book and the next in order to achieve a satisfactory conclusion. It's a keen way to sell books, but only for those readers who want to invest the time. I know my own shopping behavior has me skimming over the collections of identical spines in search of the odd orphan. I don't want to spend the next ten years of my life reading only one extended story.
Stand-alone books in science fiction or fantasy run in smaller numbers these days; marketing pressures seem to prohibit writers from choosing the one-shot.
Interestingly, however, I find that many of these stand-alone books are of the New Wave variety. Speculative fiction, especially, which really needs to be stand-alone. What would have happened had Orwell turned 1984 into a series? My guess is, it would have diluted, over time, the power of the original text.
I'm also finding more and more contemporized fairy tales inspired by the visions of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, as well as urban fantasy and postmodern work that asks historical "what if" questions. And, of course, there is a proliferation of magical realism.
I can't think of a single series of magical realism books, though. Can you? Think about it. How tiresome that could get...
How fortunate for New Wave writers, then, who are -- for now -- allowed the creative license and expansive imagination to write single, enriching, breath-taking, thought-provoking literature, when science fiction and fantasy seems only to be putting out more and more of the same?
This is not a lecture on the failures of science fiction and fantasy. I adore both genres and grew up in a household of fans brandishing copies of Herbert, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Tolkien, Heinlein, Lewis, Orwell, Wells, Verne, Niven and Pournelle. I loved watching The Twilight Zone, the original Star Trek, Outer Limits, the original Planet of the Apes. I still try to catch Robinson Crusoe on Mars, The Omega Man, and War of the Worlds when satellite TV makes room for these classics. And I watched the SciFi channel's new re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica last December, and I liked it.
Nor is this discussion meant to impugn the literary side of the publishing world, which has its own share of petty divisions related to problematic categorization, as well as numerous biases specifically about magical realism that mean that people either really like it and "get it" or hate everything about it.
Call me Pollyana, but I like to think that there is a world where writers of New Wave, science fiction and fantasy can peacefully coexist, and among both genre and literary fellowships. Readers are already tolerant, I think. As a reader, I sometimes prefer the escape in time and place that fantasy brings. I sometimes crave futuristic epics or tales of the apocalypse. And I sometimes want to explore the political underpinnings of magical realism, or the spooky visions of a speculative story, or something else strangely labyrinthine and postmodern.
Ultimately, I think science fiction and fantasy authors just have to keep the faith. Be fresh. Try new things. Be visionary. Literature runs in cycles, after all. These genres may be at loggerheads for now, but let's not etch their tombstones yet.
I agree with the way this sci fi fan puts it: "(Science Fiction and Fantasy) is in the hands and minds of its authors. As long as there are people willing to think, to dream, to speculate, and to make myths, there will be a good supply...
In the meantime, let there be magical realism.
Tamara Kaye Sellman is founding editor and publisher of MARGIN.
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Rev'd 2004/01/08
