This MEANS something. It HAS to.

OK, let’s get it out there. I like speculative fiction*.

I am of a bent of mind that, in most cases, values stories that have an intellectual impact over stories that have an emotional impact. Doesn’t mean I don’t like my fiction to *have* emotional impact. It just means I read for the intellectual impact first.

Being an American at the age of 34, this means that I have grown up in a culture in which the the hobby that I enjoy the most, which brings most pleasure and, yes, MEANING to my life is generally considered to be infantile, childish, or at best, immature. And because this is the way it works in human societies, it is considered perfectly acceptable for any person who dislikes any form of speculative fiction to have an opinion on the quality and significance of any piece of speculative fiction, without having read it, or read about it, or even without having even heard of it before. Because if the piece is speculative fiction, it is warm and cozy, but not really important. Unless it’s a classic of literature. Because then it’s not speculative fiction anymore. It’s literature.

And since I’m putting that previous paragraph up out there for the rest of the world to read, I’m gonna go ahead and say it now, before you have to… yes, I do have a chip on my shoulder about this. I really, really do. Hey, I have to have SOME character flaws, don’t I? Again, spec. fic. is much more important to me than literature usually is to people who don’t actually make a living off of the stuff. I’ve recently joined a spec. fic. discussion group at my local library. At one point, after making a point about the book under discussion that linked up to three other books in two other distinct genres, one of the ladies in the group turned to me and said, “Wow, you really read a lot, don’t you?” Heck, I read more fiction that the boyfriend, and he reads at least twice as fast as I do.

Now, the funny thing is, I’ve been seeing the tide turn on this. Personally, I think the real turning point is the automatic inclusion of fantastic fiction by people from developing countries (also known as “magical realism”) as ”literature.” Once you start reading stories about guys who survive falls from airplanes and turn into satanic/angelic avatars**, are you really that unwilling to read a book comparing all the different ways one can define identity once cloning and brain recording become economically feasible***? OK, maybe you are. It’s alright. It’s not condescending at ALL to the people of developing nations to declare that fiction by natives of those countries is automatically better because of the country of origin of the author.

Or maybe it’s the number of people who grew up reading good comic books (God bless you, Alan Moore!) who are now adults and, get this, still reading comic books! And getting others to read them, too!

Or maybe it’s the development of CGI, which has made the “production quality” of speculative fiction movies so much higher.

Or maybe I’m not so much of a mutant freak as I think I am. Yeah, OK, that’s just crazy talk.

Whatever the reason, the tide IS turning. Spec. fic. is getting itself mainstreamed. And the good writers, the REALLY good writers in the many, many genres that spec. fic. encompasses are starting to get the respect that they’ve really deserved for a long time now.

And today, I think I’ve found the most conclusive proof of my theory to date. New Scientist, which covers many aspects of science, from the ridiculous to the sublime, asked several science fiction writers, including Margaret Atwood, whether or not they felt science fiction**** was dying. And, instead of running away from them yelling, “Handmaid’s Tale isn’t science fiction! I write LITERATURE,” she responded. And even referred to one of her own books as being… science fiction. A woman who has spent long years distancing herself from the genre is suddenly embracing it… well, it’s just another good sign in my mind.*****

*To those who don’t like the term, “speculative fiction,” I really don’t care. First, because use of the phrase “speculative fiction” has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the of this post. Second, because so much of the stuff I read is cross-genre these days it’s impossible to clearly label it science fiction, fantasy, etc. Seriously. Sherri S. Tepper, anyone? Where there’s space ships and people are doing magic and saying it’s not magic (by a seriously restricted definition of “magic,”) and oh, yeah, there really are gods?

** The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

*** Mindscan, by Robert J. Sawyer

**** Oddly enough, New Scientist has published several articles about how the mainstreaming of science fiction means that science fiction is dying. Obviously I disagree with this premise. I think this point of view is the other side of the argument that “well, if it’s speculative fiction, it’s not literature, and so if it’s literature it’s not speculative fiction any more.” For someone at New Scientist, it doesn’t matter if an intellectually stimulating story about the changes technology imposes on society; “if it’s mainstream, it’s not science fiction, and so if it’s science fiction it’s not mainstream anymore.” To some people, it’s REALLY IMPORTANT what section of the library they go into. Me, I’m just there to get books.

***** I would like to point out that my opinion of the author in question has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion of her writing. Her writing is very, very good. She is a superb author. I’m willing to allow for outbreaks of Asshole Writer Syndrome, as long as it doesn’t start seeping into the books they write. And yes, yes I do still read, enjoy and recommend books by Orson Scott Card.

Not quite a reminder

…because I’m sure we all know to vote tomorrow. More a discussion on why.

It is important to vote. I want you to go out and vote. I want you to grab your neighbors and make them go vote.

I want you to do this even if you happen to be interested in voting differently than me. I mean this. It’s important anyway.

I know it’s popular to view elections as contests, and to perceive the results as producing both a winner and a loser, and to a degree this is an accurate assessment. But, because we are Americans, we of course take it beyond that point and further, casting the respective political parties as teams and concluding that because one team has “won,” the other team has “lost,” and will go home crying.

This is not, in point of fact, the case. Not even a little bit. Last week, I worked with the troglodyte who manages the security force at my hotel, and he annoyed me by stating that he didn’t know who Isaac Asimov was, that whoever he was he couldn’t be a very good writer because of the vast quantities that he wrote, and that the stuff he wrote about was unimportant because science has no impact on “real life.” Tomorrow, I will go vote for my candidate, and he will vote for his candidate (I’m fairly secure in my supposition that these are two different people.) Soon after that, one of these will be declared the “winner.” And soon after that, we will both go to work together again.

“Winning” isn’t really the point. Voicing our opinions is the point. We have the ability, the right, and the responsibility to voice our opinions in this country. Sometimes there’s enough consensus to make things go your way. Sometimes there isn’t. But the point of the exercise is to show our leaders, how many people are on each side.

Because those people on the other side of you aren’t going to go away on Wednesday. They really aren’t. You’ll still have to learn to live with them. And it’s a good idea for you to understand just how many of them there really are out there.

(edited to add: Yes, this Americentric post is specifically directed at the Americentric Americans. ‘Cause we’re like that. Sorry if it makes you Canknuckleheads feel slighted to have an American refer to the American election without calling attention to the Americaness of the election in the first paragraph. I love you all anyway. And it’s not like the point of the post can’t be translated into Canknuckle-talk. Just add eh at the end of the sentences.)