The Cassutt Files
The Spirit of the Times

Like many, possibly most, Americans, I have only a vague familiarity with languages other than English. German happens to be one of them. Not only did I take classes at an impressionable age, but my grandmother spoke it around the house, which no doubt explains the odd, genteel German curses (such as "Donner wetter!") that surface from deep memory.

German has useful words for feelings and states still un-named in English. "Schadenfreude"—joy at someone else's bad luck—has always been a favorite, to my shame. And then there's "zeitgeist"—the spirit of the times.

The zeitgeist of sci-fi seems to be shifting, and not in a direction I like.

Some time back, I was writing a Cassutt Files titled "Too Much Sci-Fi?" in response to the large number of sci-fi and fantasy series inhabiting the airwaves, not just on SCI FI Channel, but on USA, The WB and others.

And now it appears, according to a pair of well-informed and expert commentators, that sci-fi is either dead, dying or, at the very least, unwelcome at the major and minor networks.

Not only does this sadden me ... it actually makes me feel a bit obsolete, like a western writer circa 1965.

How worried should I be?

Has sci-fi ceased to matter?

The first warning shot across the sci-fi bow is from Bruno Maddox, the "Blinded by Science" columnist for Discover magazine. For that publication's August issue, he wrote a piece titled "Fictional Reality," which, after a cruel-but-fair account of a gathering of the Science Fiction Writers of America, goes on to state that SF, "the genre that lit the way for a nervous mankind as it crept through the 20th Century, has suddenly and entirely ceased to matter."

He pins his argument on the career of Michael Crichton—noting rightly that while Crichton has never been the tip of the conceptual spear of SF, he has nevertheless been one of the most influential and popular brand names in the field since 1969 and the publication of The Andromeda Strain. Maddox's, er, point is that even Crichton's newer tales of technology-run-amok (specifically Prey and Next, not State of Fear, which is a different case) are failing to have the same impact on 21st-century audiences ... and if Crichton is seen to be yesterday's news, where does that leave writers like Bear, Vinge and Stross, whose concepts are substantially more challenging? Outrun by the rapid pace of technological change (which seems unlikely in the cases I just named) ... and mostly ignored.

Before you true believers start bombarding Bruno Maddox with corrective e-mails, note that his piece is more than a bit tongue-in-cheek. And he's not picking on SF alone ... he claims that fiction itself "ceased to matter," that anyone wishing to tell a story or send a message (and good SF does both, I think) will be blogging or e-mailing, not composing fiction.

I'd like to be able to argue Maddox's point, but I look at the dismal sales and muted acclaim for fantastic fiction that isn't written by J.K. Rowling, and I don't much like what I see.

Choosing the Chosen One

Slightly closer to home, geographically and professionally, is an article for The New Republic by Jane Espenson, a talented writer-producer for such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, currently, Battlestar Galactica. In "The Secret to Selling Sci-Fi", she tackles the problem of selling a sci-fi or fantasy series to a television network, noting tremendous resistance to any concept set in a world that isn't the here and now.

Which means, no futures. No starships or distant planets or Martian colonies. And, to my surprise (since I've always thought this would be a natural), no magical, ahistorical pasts a la Tolkien. "You cannot make a hit show by attracting only viewers who also attend Comic-Con."

As one of the horde—hordes?—who braved that event, I can understand why you'd look at the sea of T-shirts, costumes, exotic weaponry and landscapes and convince yourself that not only is sci-fi on the march, it has actually conquered the universe and is now engaged in the rear-guard action of stamping out pockets of resistance.

Logic and examination of SF sales figures—not just of books, but of comic books—would tell you otherwise, of course. And a closer look at the massive exhibit hall would have shown the predominance of superheroes ... stories of ordinary people who develop or are born with unusual powers, allowing them to function in today's rapidly changing world (to return to Bruno Maddox).

Which gets to the heart of Espenson's argument: mainstream audiences—not just network executives—are still resistant to Other Worlds. She cites a close friend who simply cannot read SF or fantasy, tripped up by the confusing terminology for unfamiliar creatures, their actions and motivations.

But this friend—indeed, the entire reading world, to judge from the laydown of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—does indeed respond to what Espenson calls the story of the Chosen One ... the young person challenged (as every young person is) by ordinary life who gains or accesses power or knowledge permitting her to make a special place for herself in the universe.

Resistance is stubborn

This is not only Harry Potter, it's Star Wars, it's Dune, it's Heinlein's juveniles, it's Neuromancer, it's much of Lois McMaster Bujold's work as well as (Espenson notes) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Your list could be equally long, and just as valid.

It is not Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek or Foundation or The Forge of God or Doomsday Book or anything by Philip K. Dick.

Where does that leave a sci-fi writer hoping to reach a mass audience? You write about a Chosen One in a setting that closely resembles our world. (This is trickier than it sounds, or everyone would be doing it.)

Or, like many sci-fi writers of my acquaintance, including the one I see in the mirror every morning, you stubbornly write the story in your head ... hoping that, as with Star Trek, a concept that is originally resisted by a mass audience will eventually be embraced. (Hopefully while you're still alive to enjoy it.)

Well, no one ever said writing sci-fi was easy. The process leaves me with what I can only call "fear of the changing spirit of the times."

There's probably a German word for it.