The Future In Science Fiction

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The Future In Science Fiction.

an article by: GF WILLMETTS

Last month’s Survey question - does SF have a future, or is doomed? - wasn’t one of mine. Saying that, I find myself defending my publisher’s decision to examine the question. Namely, is there any future in Science Fiction?

Those of you who took the time to give an answer gave a resounding yes, although I suspect it was largely by not reading the entire question. It isn’t the fact that there won’t be any SF that concerns us but whether there will be plenty of physical venues - books and magazines - around to carry it outside of the Internet.

Unless you’re a minimalist, the desire for a collection is invariably big in a SF fan and physical products are part and parcel of this desire. As we’re all fans, I hope, of SF here there is bound to be a certain amount of preference prejudice that our favourite genre will survive.

The same would be true had we run a poll on best film of the year. I doubt if few conventional non-SF films would get a look in. We’re not being prejudging here but we do feel justified in raising our concerns.

This question can be addressed on several fronts. Depending on how you look at it will either inspire you to do something or wallow in what you’ve already got, happy with what you’ve got whatever is dished out.

You might just well stand on the fence and not be sure what to do, but we might give cause for thought on the subject.

As SF fans are a sometimes volatile vocal community, I wouldn’t be surprised at hearing comments from all sides in our letter column. I’m not out to be in anyone’s camp other than that of commonsense - whatever that is. If anything, this article is to get the pot rolling and you thinking. I’m not claiming to have all the answers here or even all the questions, come to that. If anything, I’ll at least cover all the relevant points in a pro and con way.

Probably one of the key questions non-SF readers tend to ask is are there any new ideas that can be explored in the genre? Considering that all SF stories fall into the line of impending doom, optimism or something in between then there isn’t a lot to choose between them.

These days, with readers being more knowledgeable if not working in the fields the SF author writes about, the level of sophistication is certainly higher. An author not doing the sufficient research will be duly crucified for being a hack when found out. You can’t really blind with science any more.

It should also be apparent that issues raised in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s can also be given a new slant by our current perspective. Oddly enough this doesn’t appear to have been happening. Authors are tending to steer away from raising too much controversy voicing opinions and just going for pure adventure.

Whether this is a result of publishers and editors avoiding such material having a knock on effect to authors unconsciously ignoring such territory is debatable. Of all the genres, SF is the one genre where our own social standards can be examined through an alternative reality without raising too many heckles.

Most of the good SF props have been used in the past century. This ranges from FTL starships, Artificial Intelligence to cloning, bio-engineering and cyborgs. With the exception of the first, we’re seeing the results of the last three at this current time.

The reality of the situation isn’t quite how SF authors have depicted but does bring both sides closer together. Only the Illuminatii know what the next major breakthrough will be. As SF authors tend to extrapolate from experimental research in our own reality far more than create from raw cloth, it’s unlikely that we’ll see much in the way of major developments depicted as such.

It is for this reason that much new SF deals with social problems and the soft sciences because they haven’t really been explored much yet. Some might concur that this isn’t really what we got interested in SF in the first place. Given the choice, there are a lot of SF readers who will still swing towards high-tech stories than those who contain little.

This brings us neatly to publications. Outside of media magazine that deal with the fantastic in television and the cinema, there are now only a handful of professional SF magazines around these days. Even the amateur field is becoming more involved in being on the Internet than paper editions.

It’s cheaper even if it doesn’t always achieve a high profile outside any regular readership they achieve. Even out of their readership there are very few who want to become writers themselves. Fewer still who show any genuine storytelling qualities from the start. [I’m not sure if I should be grateful or not for that last fact, my backlog of samples is big enough as it is.]

The importance of magazines shouldn’t be under-estimated. It is through them that in the old days new writers make their bones, developing their writing style and skills before approaching novel publishers.

With fewer magazines around, it’s inevitable that new writers don’t have this opportunity as they are liable to be squeezed out by established professionals eager to keep their names in print and having their work seen. There is also the ‘cronyism’ aspect. An editor is likely to depend on a few writers he knows will sell a few more issues than risk an unknown.

If my own backlog of material is anything to go by, such writers become despondent at their failure rate or not given sufficient guidance to sort out where they’re going wrong to improve. If good writers appear to becoming low on the ground, then any good teacher-editors are rarer than a shark without teeth.

Now that is frightening. More so that publishers will hire a university graduate with an English or Classics degree to edit an SF novel when they have no scientific knowledge to query obvious mistakes let alone more technical problems.

When it comes to the book publishers themselves, they have their own quandary. They can’t write off every new book they release as a tax loss any more. They need to have firm sales to keep a high profile in the marketplace. It’s why big money is paid to the likes of Anne McCaffrey and Arthur Clarke because they’ll get a decent return from their investment.

Outside of Stephen King in the horror genre, Terry Pratchett and Joanna Rowling in the fantasy genre, SF really hasn’t had a real significant writer to hit the general public in the past decades. Yes, there have been some interesting writers in this period but no one to capture the public imagination and become part of the media. I always think it’s a significant level of acceptance when genre writers become part of quizword clues or questions in TV quiz shows.

Book publishers have gotten into the habit of thinking quantity over quality sales. It has brought up a new readership who only see such heavy tomes and think that’s all there is on offer.

I often wonder how many of these massive books are bought and then left mostly unread on the shelf afterwards cos it was too much of a bind to go through them. Maybe not for the most devote SF reader but I expect it true of the casual SF reader. If a book hasn’t achieved no significant sales within a six week period it tends to be considered a failure.

In the high street bookstores, a shelf of heavy tomes contains only a few titles. If it’s a particular author, then the shelf belongs to no one else. To a general reader, the biggest impression is that there isn’t much SF about any more especially when half the shelves are also devoted to TV tie-ins like Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, The X-Files and Buffy.

Nothing really wrong there but it squeezes the space for the more traditional SF novel. One can only wonder whether this is a reflection or the blame of the publishers, distributors, the bookshops or purchasers.

The publishers will print what they think will sell than for any other reason. The distributors will distribute books they think the bookshops will pick up to sell. An attractive cover appears to be more important than the content.

Having the writer available for a signing session in the first few promotion weeks increases the book’s profile so much that it’s nearly mandatory to have it in the contract. If a percentage of these books make a decent profit for both distributors who don’t want them returned and the shops then they will be very happy.

The purchasers - that’s mostly you reading this - go into a bookshop to buy an SF novel. Do you inspect the shelf for the latest release that appeals to you for something to read? Are you looking for an obscure title on the off-chance a remote bookshop has one on the shelf?

With this question, you really do have more luck at a charity shop. A lot of the time, the best way to guarantee you get the current book you’re after is to use our friends at Amazon or other such websites cos the high street bookshops simply don’t restock when a book sells out.

If anything, the books that are left on the shelf is a reflection to the shops that SF doesn’t sell well any more. Is it any wonder that the shelf space shrinks a little more each year?? Science Fiction’s profile in the bookshops is rapidly fading and that should make everyone nervous.

How many novels with pages less than 500 pages do you see around any more? Back in the 70s, it was authors like Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein who did this because they had plenty to say and liked the space they were offered, while many of the others wrote significant novels in less than 250 pages.

Massive page counts is seen as value for money irrespective of whether or not every story deserves that much space. If you can spend a couple years writing a massive novel, it is conceivable providing you have sufficient contacts in the book trade for it to be at least looked at.

If you can’t, then your writing career is going to be grubbing around looking for work. Count the number of anthology titles there are around these days compared to three decades ago. It is frighteningly small.

Now I have nothing against over-sized novels but I would contest that a few more with smaller page counts and cheaper prices would encourage readers to try them out. They would see them as a quick weekend read as opposed to one that takes a month to complete. There is a lot of satisfaction in knowing a book can be completed in a relatively short time and still be immensely enjoyable. As a bonus, a few more smaller books on the shelves would widen the selection to choose from.

Is Science Fiction being side-lined because it is not seen as big-selling business any more? I find this almost paradoxical. One only has to look at the highest grossing films to see SF dominates. The same applies with TV SF.

The merchandising bi-products of books and videos ensures an immortality that even the most popular soap fails to achieve. It is rather neglectful to discover that the more traditional SF novel is practically being given the cold shoulder treatment because it doesn’t fit into traditional pattern. Then again, it never has.

SF readers by and large tend to be rather conservative readers. See if this fits your reading habit profile. When you discovered SF, you tended to stick with one or two authors that you really enjoyed, buying up all their stories. You are then rather slow to try out a different kind of author or a different side of the genre in case it doesn’t match your taste.

This is largely why there is so much segregation in the SF fandom. A writer who does a cyberpunk novel can expect to garner more sales than from another part of the SF range a few years back. I don’t deny myself from this list although I was reading more than a couple authors.

The only thing that changed me was I needed to extend my range and found I could get a lot of books cheap that were also good reads. Not everyone, mind you, but it made me take more chances with the authors I’d look at. Wanting early material, I tend to popularise charity shops looking for early SF books than high street or media bookshops.

I might well be adding to the problem by not buying new books. If I’m not an exception to the rule and more SF readers are seeking old books than anything new then it is also a reflection of SF on a road to failure.

If you find yourself in any of the above then now is the time to discuss corrective action. I’m not altogether sure if just buying any new SF book once a month is altogether a good idea either.

In any genre, it’s inevitable that there is a selection of good and bad books around depending on personal appeal. Just because a particular book is getting hyped doesn’t mean it’ll live up to its reputation. It’s equally important to pursue the less hyped books as these also send signals back that there is an interest in that authors as well and will certainly encourage a publisher to commission another novel.

The encouragement of new authors’ novels can only be good for the industry. The ordering of books sends signals back to head office databases that there is a positive interest in the genre. I’ve been amazed in recent months that very few of the books I’ve reviewed have actually been on the bookshelves and have to be ordered as special items.

There needs to be an encouragement of sales to ensure the SF profile is maintained and developed.

The future of Science Fiction in its novel form depends on each and every one of us encouraging it to continue. There can be no half-measures. A genre that is seen to have an active interest outside of conventions and media shops can only encourage the more casual buyer to see what is going on and join in.

Thank you and good night (and don’t forget to read my next book).

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