The Letters to the Editor department is intended to be a forum for our readers to express their own opinions and ideas. While we appreciate the many complimentary letters we receive each day, you won't find them on this page. Instead, you will find letters that go beyond or even contradict what we have written, letters that offer a different perspective and provide a different view of science fiction. If you would like to submit a letter, please use our feedback form or send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
-- Craig E. Engler, Editor
Are There Any More Kubricks?
tanley Kubrick's death is a real loss. His work was always adventurous and engaging. You never knew what you'd get with Kubrick, but he was always honest, and never dull or predictable. SF can get stuck in huge ruts where producers go for action and adventure story lines that are predictable but reliable in the box office. Are there any more Kubricks out there to offer us something we haven't seen before?
Paul Emecz
pdemecz@yahoo.com
Some Aliens Are Too Human
well remember Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity. It was one of the first "hard" science fiction works I ever read and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think Clinton Lawrence's review of the book was spot on in capturing the essence of the novel.
I do disagree however, with "the Mesklinites' paralyzing acrophobia." Mr.
Clement, like many writers depicting alien environments and lifeforms,
applied human standards too deeply. At 3Gs "a fall of a few inches would"
be very damaging to a human since humans have not evolved for that
environment. A Mesklinite has however. While they might exercise more
caution at the poles, they should not have such a terrifying case of
"acrophobia" as portrayed in the book. That is something too human for the
natives in their native environment. It would be as if an alien from a
zero G environment expected humans to be terrified of walking up a flight
of stairs.
There are many other stories where this flaw has actually been made central
to the story. Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg and Starquake come to mind. In those tales the native lifeforms live in a much higher gravity environment than the Mesklinites and Forward has portrayed them as being terrified of anything over their heads or covering the sky.
Both of these authors wrote excellent books and I thoroughly enjoyed both
books. The flaws are something to take into account but did not diminish
the overall impact of the tales. I just wish that they had not been so
"human-centric" in their depiction of truly alien life-forms.
Madoc Pope
thor62@home.com
Prey Was Actual SF
s one of the many fans who was enchanted by Prey, and who ought--successfully--to get the last five episodes aired by ABC, I am appalled by your cheap shot at the show [in your review of Strange World], which I very much doubt that you ever watched. Prey, although it had its flaws, was based on an original concept, powerful performances, and profound ethical and human implications. And it was actual science fiction, rather than gothic horror, which is the genre to which the X-Files et al. genuinely belong.
Prey also had a hopefulness and positivity that the X-Files and its inferior "clones" Millennium, Outer Limits, Strange World, ad nauseam, completely lack. Strange World, which I have also watched, is a soulless attempt to recycle many of the themes of the X-Files: conspiracy, powerful bad guys out to manipulate the rest of us helpless dopes, a "cute guy" out to save the world, mutilated children, blah, blah, blah and yech. I'd give it about a C. It's watchable, but not compelling. Prey still has a devoted following, and is currently delighting TV viewers around the world. I hope that your next review of an SF series will be better informed. Perhaps you could say something positive about Prey. It would be well-deserved.
Mary Ann Beavis
beavis@duke.usask.ca
Prey Was Truly An Original
hile I agree with your review of Strange World, I must disagree with the idea that the main virtue of Prey was Debra Messing. All of the elements of the show together--the original concept by William Schmidt, the acting, writing, and directing--created a truly unique experience. Somber or not, Ms. Messing was warm and luminous in her portrayal of a doctor being faced with a complex being who is both man and scientific discovery to her. And Adam Storke went beyond the boundaries of that particular character, portraying Tom Daniels with an amazing depth that I have not seen before or since.
Maybe there are no new plots anymore--"boy meets girl" being the
standard--but an endless variety of ways to express them still exist. And Prey was just beginning to show those ways in its 13 filmed episodes. I find myself disappointed in each new show that has premiered since the cancellation of Prey. It was truly an original.
Christine Harvey
http://start.at/prey
SF&F Is At A Crisis
F&F is both high and low art and this dichotomy will never be rectified in the current environment. SF&F is high art because it attempts to deal with current situations in an imaginative, yet credible way. For example, even as I mourn Kubrick's passing, 2001 did more for SF than anything else. It removed the stigma of science fiction as a childish pursuit to be abandoned in later life for more "refined" interests. And in SF&F there have always been people who take the weird and obscure and present it in a credible way, Shelley, Verne, Asimov and others. The same is true for fantasy, although there hasn't been as much of a breakthrough as there has been for science fiction. Fantasy is dominated by one work, The Lord of the Rings, and countless authors have attempted to copy its success. There are others who toil in the field, such as Kay and Williams, but they are overshadowed by authors who are able to produce works in vast quantities that merely echo the work of Tolkien.
SF&F is low art. Welcome to the serials. From the early days of science fiction and fantasy, serialized works have always been popular, and in fact, they are popular in all subjects, however science fiction and fantasy have an overwhelming amount. Bookstores now devote more space to books which are based on a popular series, whether Star Trek or Dungeons & Dragons, then to stand-alone works (by which I mean works which are not based on a previous series in any medium). Science fiction and fantasy has been swallowed by people who write stories using the same characters and repetitive story lines, and because publishers know that these books will sell, they keep throwing them at the public.
Science fiction and fantasy is at a crisis. In science fiction there are no great writers who can step up and take the place of the authors who have recently departed, or at least slowed down their output. There are no authors which compare to Heinlein, Asimov, or Herbert. Newer writers, such as Brin or Robinson, are more concerned with presenting of their "issues" then in providing a good read. For example, Uplift War was a good story until Brin started to lecture on environmentalism. The older generation were able to get their message across without ruining the story in favor of it. For example, Dune talks about the need to preserve resources and has as credible an environmental message as Uplift War but it does not ruin the plot in presenting its message. On the other hand, the serialized books provide the adventure that "serious" books do not. However, they are filled with two-dimensional characters and the same plot over and over again, the staple of serialized writings. Fantasy provides adventure, but it too is repetitive, mimicking The Lord of the Rings. Also, on the brink of the 21st century, the retreat to the medieval world of fantasy novels seems to indicate that people are shrinking from the imaginative technology that is to come, which people of the 19th century embraced on the brink of the 20th century. Until these splits can be resolved within the science fiction and fantasy community, the rest of the world will think of us as inbred neighbors.
David A. Burns
dandl@global2000.net
SF Is Too New To Be High Art
n response to the letter about science fiction/fantasy having no
chance of being considered "high" art:
It is true that SF&F has broad, mainstream appeal and that, to some
extent, this hinders its chances of being accepted by the
intellectual elite as "high" art. However, it seems to me that, these
days, the major impediment is simply that much of it is too new. Most
"high" art is that which has stood the test of time. Shakespeare's
plays were "pop culture" in his day, but the fact that people still
read and perform them indicates a "high art" level of quality. It is
for this reason, I believe, that you are unlikely to see many college
courses or critical essays on the contemporary works that many SF&F
fans are most familiar with.
But there are examples that I think are considered "high" art. I took
a college course on Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, taught by the same
professor as the Advanced Shakespeare course. As literature, some
other titles that leap to mind are: 1984, Brave New World,
several of Vonnegut's books, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. In the art of filmmaking, we have 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, The Seventh Seal and perhaps Eraserhead. I am trying, here, not to name works that SF fans consider great, but which are considered great by the intellectual elite.
Notice that they are all more than 10 years old. As they say, 90 percent of
everything is crap. The impression I get is that the academics and
intellectual elitists prefer to wait a few years for the crap to be
winnowed out, and see what's still remembered after the popularity
dies down.
Scott Nickell
salvius@earthlink.net
Good SF Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
he more letters trying to define good science fiction and bad science fiction I hear, the more I get confused. Science fiction is like art, in that I mean to quote the old saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." We each have different opinions, and expecting me (or anyone else) to adopt someone else's opinion(s) about what they call "good" science fiction can be a waste of time. Some people like Star Wars, some don't. And preaching about how great it is won't convert those who didn't already like it, for an example.
Carl Jacques
czar_sid@hotmail.com
SF Needs Criticism And Context
t's true that science fiction will probably never be "high art," nor should SF need or seek the approval of literary critics. We have our own, and we like what we like.
But I disagree that critical writings on genre fiction are pointless. It's not done to impress or to mimic the literary establishment. It's done to enrich the genre, to put it in perspective, and to see where it has been and where it is going.
"Movie A or book B is not cutting edge. I know because I've seen something like it before." Fans look at the genre critically all the time; we constantly put things into context. We have standards for what's good or bad (though part of the fun is disagreeing). We can identify classics in the genre, and trends- -what's original and what's not. The fantastic genre is quite mature as an art form and literature, and that has nothing to do with the fact that it has a popular base. As said by another, we thrive on it. Having a critical eye and having pop appeal aren't exclusive.
The only difference is that academics are just a little more formal about it.
Paul Urayama
pku1@cornell.edu
Why Fans Are Turning Back To Classic SF
'm 43 years old and feel that the reason more and more people are going back to classic SF is because it was fun and not analyzed to death. Why must everything be laid out for us to the point that it stops being entertainment and starts to look and sound like a NASA PR film?
Christopher Tyrone Bolden
homedad55@aol.com
Some SF Fans Are Ordinary
oncerning not normal: SF fans are probably not normal, thank ghod! But some of us are ordinary. We eat at inexpensive places during a convention. We have and raise children, most of whom feel very loved and secure. When was the last time your children went somewhere with 500 mothers and fathers? We have no trouble sending our 15 year old only child off to a convention with some other adult! We also hold down serious jobs where we warn them about Fridays off before we are hired.
Patricia l. Taylor
devalkyrie@webtv.com
People Who Like Spock Can't Be All Bad
n response to the letter that said SF Fans aren't normal, I agree a 100 percent. We are people who have a vision not limited to our Earthbound existence. Secondly, I don't want to be normal, a clone. I have always strived to be at least a little different, maybe that's why I love SF. Besides people who like dragons, wizards, and Mr. Spock can't be all bad.
Joe Marjancik
drwho@primenet.com
SF Fans Are What We Are
n a recent note on this page, a reader stated that people who like science fiction are not normal and are somewhat proud of that fact. She ended her message with the statement: "We're scientists; we're linguists; we're dreamers. We're not normal."
Well, I understand her point, which I believe to be that it is okay to be different. That we really are truly unique individuals. I agree with that.
But I would caution the reader and others to be careful of labeling us as abnormal (which is what we would be, if we are not "normal"). Being a scientist, a linguist, and a dreamer does not mean you are abnormal. Just because you wonder what would happen if the Atlantic Ocean suddenly froze solid doesn't mean you will kidnap people and keep them in a pit.
My point is, we are neither normal or abnormal because we like science fiction. We are just who we are.
Jonathan Tolstedt
E-Mail Withheld By Request
Many SF Fans Aren't Normal
y response is to SF fans aren't normal: You would think I would begin by saying that "we're normal damnit!" However, I have agree with the letter in some of its points. I don't think that people who go to SF conventions wearing ears, various uniforms and carrying "laser" guns while speaking Klingon are normal. To paraphrase the immortal yet bad acting William Shatner, "get a life!" Good clean fun is one thing, but...well...some SF fans are downright embarrassing and the rest of us get lumped in with the loonies.
I love Star Trek and almost every other SF movie/TV show, but I don't feel the need, nor the desire, to go to a convention to hear some actor who makes way too much money for playing "make pretend" for a living talk about the show and their normally lackluster life away from it. Who cares? I tune in, I get my 60 minutes of free entertainment and I go to bed. I don't jump online to discuss the night's episode with fellow SF fans.
So, yeah, many SF fans are not normal.
I think the guys who attend the conventions/work the conventions with the long hair, beat-up station wagon and the faded and stained comic T-shirt are basically out there. But most of us, the vast majority, are indeed normal.
Chris German
Suvcw99@aol.com
SF Fans Come In All Shapes And Sizes
n response to Alf Yngve's letter: I cannot begin to express how tired I am of your fandom sentiments. Your letter just screams "losers" to anyone who enjoys science fiction TV, movies and literature and, further, enjoys meeting with a group of people with similar interests. (Horrors!)
When we get together in groups, or at conventions, it is to discuss what we enjoy. We meet new fans, which leads to discussions of past and future science fiction projects and, yes, even real world advances in science and technology.
And hey, guess what, we have real jobs (I am a software consultant), from which we make real livings and add to our real economies and our real societies. We go to school or work, we vote (okay, that might put us in a minority) and live real lives. We get married and have everyday relationships (even, dare I say it, sex). Also, we come in all sizes, tall, short, thin and, yes, some are overweight. Guess what, we don't care! If someone goes to the trouble of making a costume and wants to show their artistry, then good for them! I am sick and tired of people who don't understand thinking they have the right to criticize and make fun of us. You do not have that right and frankly, I wish idiots like you would just shut up.
You claim science fiction fans are not in tune with the real world, yet you insist on insulting fans everywhere with your insensitive remarks. We at least know about political correctness and its implications, do you?
I am in tune with the present and the future. I enjoy reading about other worlds, space ships and alien societies. I got out of my previous position in collections and into software consulting because businesses run on software. Humm, sounds like I'm working towards the future rather than sticking around in the past.
It sometimes helps me make sense of the "real" world by reading science fiction and getting some perspectives I may not have thought of before. For your information: characters like you, who label specific group (or groups) of people as outsiders or losers, appear as the villain in most pieces, and are very easy to spot.
Do you have interests you like to discuss with your friends? Would you be offended if someone labeled them "out of touch of the real world" and charged them with being fat, short, tall or maybe, African-American, Mexican, Indian or other poorly chosen and offensive labels? You see, as fans, we don't care. When I visit a convention, I try to get to know as many people as possible because you never know when you might learn something. It makes no difference to me at all what they look like. Isn't this the way it is supposed to be? Isn't this what we are supposed to be teaching our children (we have those too).
Dave Kopp
Dolby1000@aol.com
What About Sports Fans?
ow that the recent controversy over SF fans has calmed down a bit, I still think a point needs to be made. I thought it interesting that nobody seems to show as much concern for sports fans being "abnormal" or having a life.
How many of us know people who are so totally consumed with whichever team they choose to follow? These fans often dress up in costumes, sometimes going to the extent of painting their bodies in their team's colors and attending outdoor games in very cold weather. Uncomfortable if not downright unhealthy. I saw an article about one gentleman who goes to Bronco's games in nothing but what appears to be a large barrel!
They become so emotionally involved in "their" team, if the game is lost it can blow their whole day, maybe week. If the game is won, they run around yelling "We won!" as if they had anything at all to do with the outcome. Some of them actually indulge in little superstitions that they swear make a difference between a win or loss. They even go so far as to miss or isolate themselves from family functions because "the game" is on. We've all heard the term "football widow." Everything else takes a back seat.
To top it off, they show this loyalty to "their" team, which is made up of professional athletes who make incredibly huge salaries due to their physical prowess. Athletes whose main loyalty is only to the team that is paying them the biggest buck (and rightly so, since it is their way of making a living), said loyalty switching over when their contract does.
We could further examine the actual benefits of being a sports fan as opposed to an SF fan. SF can expand your mind, stretch your thinking, give you new experiences and provide intellectual stimulation. Not being a sports fan myself, the only benefits I can see are the pleasure of watching superb athletes pit their individual or team talents against each other, or the beauty and grace of watching such athletes perform/play. Perhaps there is more to it than that.
This sports mania is completely accepted, if not downright encouraged by our present culture.
I see nothing wrong with enjoying a sport or watching a game, however I'm pretty sure you'll find a whole lot more sports fans who need to "get a life" than SF fans. I'm also sure there are plenty of people who enjoy sports without becoming totally ridiculous about it.
Now, what was that about SF fans being "abnormal" and needing to get back to reality?
Valari Boyle
Valari@Mailcity.com
