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
Why No One Liked Godzilla Or Troopers
would like to respond to Eben Brad's letter on his theory about why movies like Godzilla and Starship Troopers were unpopular. With respect to his arguments that the two movies weren't popular because of scientific inaccuracies or dull plots, I have to say that this is wrong. While it may be true with some movies, the two that Mr. Brads picked were unpopular for entirely different reasons.
To tell the truth, I enjoyed Starship Troopers a lot, I thought its universe was diverse and its message compelling, if a bit overdone. The reason that this movie wasn't popular was bad advertising. If you can remember, the commercials were geared more toward kids than adults. The commercials didn't warn about the gory violence or the nudity that was shown throughout the film. The first time I saw it in theaters, I was shocked to see people getting impaled and seeing various limbs being blown off in graphic detail (I was warned about the nudity from a friend). Also, I think the movie may of suffered in the same way Dune did, the movie didn't follow the book too closely.
Godzilla wasnt based on a book and it would of been a fine movie on its own if there hadn't been more then a score of Godzilla movies before it. Let me list the differences: No. 1. Mock Godzilla was apparently a mutation from iguanas during nuclear tests. I can accept this, as Godzilla's origin has changed numerously. No. 2. That radically different look of Mock Godzilla when compared to the originals. I can even accept this on the basis that computer-generated characters are still relatively new. I can't, and neither can the majority of the Godzilla fans out there, accept Godzilla's lack of death breath or being killed by only five missiles! The original Godzilla could sustain five missile hits without even breaking a sweat and still level Tokyo.
Micah Kenworthy
Barracuda@the-lair.com
What About The Right To Dream?
read a message by Eben Brads about people being such critics on movies that are released. I totally agree. It really ticks me off when people jump the gun and start blaring off at the mouth about how they did not like this or that movie because it was not "accurate." It was not "realistic."
I, like Eben, wonder the same thing...while you were sitting there running
your mouth like a peice of paper hitting an electric fan, did you have a
good time watching it? Did you have a good time reading the book? I loathe
those super accurate idiots who assume that just because some show or book
says it's science fiction, that there will be 100 percent accurate, verified
by science, confirmed by NASA, protected by the CIA type information in it.
What about the right to use the imagination? What about the right to dream?
I don't know...but I think, while these people are so hard on themselves by
playing super critic, they are at a total loss of why they came to see the
film, or read the book in the first place...to escape for a while...to be told a story.
When I go to a movie, I go for the enjoyment of it. I go to see and hear a
story. I come to see what kind of special effects the filmmakers can lay on
me. Matter of fact, special effects was a keen "first contact" for me with
SF films, because I learned that in the world of SF, anything was possible. Anything at anytime. I can't say that about some of the corny shows that are on TV these days, clogging up the danged airways with their re-invented wheel mentality.
Chris Taylor
taylor@minot.com
There Is Room For Everyone In SF
have read with interest the debate between the "real" science fiction audience and "the other" audience. It reminds me of the debates of the '70s when writers like van Vogt and Bradbury were castigated for not being "real."
The further splintering of the science fiction genre will leave it without an audience. I have read works which I consider science fiction, i.e. "Set up a basic proposition--then develop its consistent, logical consequences--JWC," but whose authors refuse the science fiction designation as too limiting.
Enough. If there is not enough room for everyone in the genre, then let us declare science fiction dead and move on to speculative fiction genre.
Diana R. Moreland
jabwok@emeraldcoast.com
SF Is Ascending
read the postings about what science fiction is or is not with
appreciation and amusement. This debate has been raging longer than anyone
can imagine. Compuserve's Science Fiction Forum fought a similar battle long ago, during it's vibrant years. The issue caused a certain degree of
reminiscing, so I picked up the only surviving SF book of my youth, Jeff
Conklin's anthology The Best of Science Fiction, copyright 1946 (imagine
a $3.50 hard cover).
The preface by John W. Campbell Jr., "Concerning Science Fiction," is a
wonderful seven page essay on what the genre is. He opens by comparing this
field of literary work to the breadth of detective fiction. Then he writes:
"In general, there are three broad divisions of science fiction:
- Prophecy stories, in which the author tries to predict the effects of a new invention.
- Philosophical stories, in which the author presents, in story form, some philosophical question using the medium of science fiction simply to set the stage for the particular point he wants to discuss.
- Adventure science fiction, wherein the action and the plot are the main point."
The legendary editor's basic concept remains as valid today as it was then.
And of course, they don't write them like they used to, L. Ron Hubbard's
Battleground Earth excepted. That is wonderful because all art forms
either evolve into the future or devolve into memory. SF today is
ascending, expanding, and enjoying a level of popularity Campbell couldn't
even imagine. I still read my share of duds and question what direction
these authors are taking us, but freshly discovered gems more than
compensate for those disappointments. The future is still marvelously
bright.
David F. Latorre
DLatorre@compuserve.com
The Real Golden Age Of SF Is Now
've been following the fervor created in your letters section by T. M.
Jolly's assertions about the demise of a "pure" science fiction with
much edification.
On one hand I'm inclined to agree with aspects of what he's saying; I've
long complained that the movie tie-ins and the cliched genre product
should be in a whole different part of the bookstore than where
Sterling, Egan, Bear, Stephenson and all those guys are. But where do you
draw the line?
Science fiction has always been in a perpetual state of identity crisis
about where to draw the line.
How about the New Worlds guys in the '60s, Ballard, Aldiss and Moorcock?
Much of what they were doing was a reaction to many of the experimental
writers of the '40s and '50s, as well as the popular culture of their own
day. It had little to do with a Gernsbackian ideal of science fiction,
but science fiction is nevertheless what history remembers it as.
What about Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren? There's no hard science in there
whatsoever...just a whole lot of astute social and anthropological
extrapolation. (The de-populated city as a culture medium in which new
behaviors and social structures can arise.)
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun takes place in a weirdly magical
posthistorical world--but to call it "fantasy" and lump it in with the
dungeons and the dragons and the clones of the clones of the Tolkien
wannabees is to do this beautifully literary work a disservice.
I guess we could break everything up into subgenres (the Hard Science,
Soft Science, Steampunk, or New Wave sections of the bookstore,) or we
could just clam up and read what we like and ignore what we don't. I'm
inclined toward the latter these days.
Anyway, as a parting shot, I read much classic and "Golden Age" SF when
I was younger, but lately (in the last 10 years,) I've read a lot of
stuff that has been produced in the last 20 or 25 years. My belief is
that the real Golden Age of SF is right now.
Bulk Foodveyor
Foodveyor@Hotmail.com
Good Work Requires No Genre Or Label
n axiom:
All fiction is science fiction.
Not all science fiction is fiction.
Hugo Gernsback gave the hideous name "scientifiction" to a genre. Scoffers, cynics, and the severely brain damaged have, since long before Welles, automatically denigrated anything whiffing of space ships, time travel, or robots as crap. These poor souls do not realize that all fiction is by definition creating a non-existent universe. These characters, no matter what they are doing, do not exist. The places (Tara, the Ewing Ranch, or Starfleet Command) do not exist. The events did not occur. A married couple will not adopt kids and live in a huge sprawling urban mansion on a preacher's stipend (Seventh Heaven). Yet, these are not universally panned. At the very least, so-called mainstream fiction is at least given a chance to show if it has quality before it is labelled. (Of all things, this is referred to as "having substance.")
Examine any big-city newspaper or TV guide and check out the movie ratings. See any four-star flicks? Yet, some highly rated are truly crap. Times have changed, and Elizabethan or Victorian English is nearly a foreign language; yet just because it's Shakespeare it is considered "classic." If one feels a need to remake "The Tempest," let it be as Forbidden Planet and not some costumed staging. All fiction must speak to our dreams, our hopes, our aspirations, our fears, and our triumphs and failures as human beings. Nothing has dropped me so low and evoked sheer emotional angst as Maugham's Of Human Bondage. This is a book one gives to one's enemy to defeat them utterly. Nothing has brought me so far as Stranger in a Strange Land or Babylon 5. And, since early adolescence, Star Trek has been present in some incarnation to remind us that (if we are not completely suicidal) that we do have a future.
Some SF has vanished. It was just too accurate. How can one be amazed and inspired by anything so mundane as a television set or a submarine? Perhaps our grandchildren will accept holo-decks/suites as easily as my generation ate up Pong; or the next Asteroids, or the next CD-ROM games in 3-D that actually works. Yet, a Civil War novel is time travel to a non-existant past. A present-day thriller (such as works by Clancy, Ludlum, or Nelson deMille) are every bit as fantastic and unreal as faster-than-light drives or hobbits.
What it is, folks, is a matter of personal taste. My flavors are eclectic. The best book was The Lord of the Rings. Favorite films Star Trek II and III (which I consider one story), and a short named "La Jette." For short stories, "All You Zombies..." by Robert A. Heinlein has a whole universe in it, and staggers me with the amazing combination of ordinary words. Are these taught in schools? Or are our children still beaten unmercifully with Red Badge of Courage or any of Hemingway or Steinbeck's depressing, maudlin pap?
If a work is good, it requires no genre, no label. It stands alone as an entity to be respected and savoured for just what it is.
Michael Loveland
TheMiqque@WorldNet.att.net
What Ifs Are Logical
ith so many letters on the subject responding to Mr. Jolly's efforts, I might as well put in my two cents. Fiction is fiction. Subgenres have so many champions, but what are they defending?
SF, I recall from the so-called days of "Hard SF," was described as "What If" stories. However, Asimov and Heinlein had many moments fantisizing about buxom redheads. Their "what ifs" were sometimes centered below the navel. I think "Hard SF" has had a lot of hardware as part of its stories as well; perhaps that's the explanation of the term.
In any case, "What Ifs" about a universe are pretty broad, and that can easily find "Fantasy" and "Horror," and anything else that's not entirely factual, as a sub-genre of SF. Logical, yes?
A.G. Esposito
avatareng@earthlink.net
SF And Fantasy Show Us Humanity
egarding the numerous comments about what SF (and fantasy) are and are not, it seems that most everyone is missing the point. Trying to fit these two types of writing into boxes is fine and good, if you like boxes, but what we have been forgetting is that in the end all of these types of SF and fantasy have the same purpose: to take the human experience out of a context so familiar to us that we are blinded by it. What I mean is this: it is easier to see the faults, the failings, and occasionally the bright points of human existence when they happen "long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away," because that is new to us.
We have, in our own world, become blind to the truth, and that is why it takes a new world, new characters, even new physical laws to show us the same thing. Squabbling about what is SF and what is fantasy is pointless; they come to the same purpose in the end, to really show us humanity better that any realism ever could hope to.
Elisabeth Fracalossi
RyukiuS@aol.com
SF Is Not Dead, It's Just Bigger
irst off, the whole argument about the SF genre and people's narrow
definitions of "true" science fiction: According to dictionary.com, science
fiction is "literary fantasy involving the imagined impact of science on
society." Of course, that's just the dictionary, and everyone has their own
opinion of what the "genre" is, but as far as I'm concerned, every movie
that's come out with the label SF has met up to that generalized
definition. It's so basic, people will probably argue that the definition is
too loose, or broad, but really that pertains fairly well to what I consider
science fiction.
The idea that some shows should be called "science fantasy" is absurd because science fantasy is the same as science fiction, because fantasy is fiction and fiction can be fantasy. People would love to break down individual shows and say this is science drama, this is science action/adventure, this is science fantasy, but in reality all these aspects make up the science fiction genre. The beauty of science fiction is that it is so broad and comprehensive, just as "fiction" is regarding non-science work. Science fiction is not dead, it has simply expanded through the imagination of writers who have finally chosen to explore the fiction part as well as the science.
Brett Perlas
bperlas@home.com
Nineties SF Is Rather Good
veryone seems to have pet decades when it comes to SF. John Clute, for example, seems to think no good SF was written before 1965 (well at least not among us dumb old Americans), while I used to think the exact opposite even though I'm 21. However, I've discovered that I rather like the stuff being written in the '90s. My only problem with it is that it sometimes tries too hard to be respectable and adult.
It isn't that I dislike mature respectable SF, it's just that some sf authors I think write better in the "I'm going to slant this for teenage boys" mentality and can't hack it as adult and respectable. I really don't think they should be ashamed of that, since encouraging teenage boys to read seems sort of noble to me. In my opinion, there should be SF written for everyone from atheist teenage boys to evangelical Christian grandmothers. As it is, I would recommend younger readers start with the good old stuff that Clute seems to loathe.
The other "real" problem with modern science fiction is the decline of the short story. The short stories being written now are some of the best ever, but outlets for them are in decline. That's why your mentioning of magazines and reviewing of anthologies is good. Anyway although my pet time periods are '55 to '65 and the '90s, I like stuff from all sorts of dates. In short, broaden your horizons, and read more short stories. I hope someone will write to contradict what I said about short stories, but I think it is pretty much accepted fact. As for reading from all sorts of decades, my only caveat is that if you read pre-'40s science fiction, read "mainstream" because science fiction authors generally were pretty pulpish and silly then.
Tim Rimes
trimes@sfsite.com
