ometimes, the hardest part of getting out each issue of Science Fiction Weekly isn't just the sheer mass of assigning articles, keeping track of their delivery and then editing the words (and there have been several thousand such pieces since I took on the job a little over three years ago), but in deciding what we should (and shouldn't) cover in the first place. What films and books are so obviously science-fictional that we'd look silly if we skipped them? Which TV shows and games have the smell of science fiction about them—but really aren't?
Separating the fantastic from the mundane isn't as easy as you might think. Because first you have to define science fiction, a task that has been confounding the experts since science fiction was first invented. The great critic Damon Knight once said that science fiction was whatever he happened to be pointing at when he said, "This is science fiction." And he wasn't exaggerating either, because the characteristics that define whether a work falls in or out of the genre can sometimes be difficult to decipher. Often, it's more a matter of opinion than something that can be concretely measured.
And our job here at Science Fiction Weekly is simultaneously easier and harder than simply defining SF, because we not only have to decide whether or not a particular project is science fiction—we also bring fantasy and horror into the equation. And though tearing down the walls separating these three genres does make some choices easier, taking off the table the war between SF and fantasy that's been present ever since Tolkien started spawning imitators, it raises an entirely different set of issues.
Decisions, decisions
In a world that's come to realize that SF pays off at the box office, the boundaries often get blurred.
Do we cover a horror film in which frightening things happen, but just not in supernatural ways, such as in House of 1,000 Corpses? (No, but if they'd have added a zombie or a vampire, we'd have been there.) Is it enough for a movie to be set in a sword-fighting society, like Braveheart, for us to consider it for review? (No, not unless Mel Gibson puts down his sword and picks up a magic ring.) What if a rocket ship is present, as in Apollo 13—does that make it SF? (No, our heroes must be wielding tomorrow's phasers, not just yesterday's slide rules.)
It isn't enough that characters display an almost supernatural ability with samauri swords (Kill Bill—Vol. 1), that a film be adapted from a comic book (American Splendor) or that the characters feel driven by mystical or spirtual powers (Whale Rider).
And what about the issues raised by books and games? Mainstream novels by esteemed fantasy writers, such as Richard Matheson's Hunted Past Reason, must be critiqued in another venue. (But fantasy novels by mainstream authors, on the other hand, such as Michael Chabon's Summerland, are enthusiastically reviewed.) Flight simulators don't fly around here, unless they're set on Mars or thousands of years in the future.
No, for an entertainment choice to properly be a part of Science Fiction Weekly's turf, something not yet possible—or downright impossible—has to happen inside. Serial killers and teen slashers need not apply. SF and those other genres of fantasy and horror are about delivering dreams, and the metaphors that move us here on this site—of things that never were and things yet to be—are the only ones that really matter.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His most recent short story appears in the new anthology Men Writing Science Fiction as Women, edited by Mike Resnick.
