Microreview [book]: A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall

 

A Crown for Cold Silver tells the story of a second revolution, forged on the legend of the fiery blue-haired mercenary general Cobalt Zosia and her five villains, who together won the support of the people and overthrew the crown. But wearing the crown is not always as easy as winning it, and Zosia ended up faking her death to pass the burden of the crown to another. Now decades later, Zosia's life is uprooted and she is forced out of retirement to re-join with the villains of old to exact her revenge.

I’m glad I finished this book, because I really wanted to throw in the towel on several occasions. I trudged on maily because throughout my reading I was truly torn about A Crown for Cold Silver. The world built is utterly fantastic, I can’t deny that, but the world-building and character-building is less than. The prose during the development stages is often clunky and dull, not to mention rife with info-dumping and overtly transparent characters. But after struggling to get through my read,  I was often retrospectively impressed with the story and the world the author created.

Much of A Crown for Cold Silver is familiar, but the brilliance is in its fresh take on the familiar. The book is essentially a mercenary fantasy, but here the mercenaries are well past their prime, complaining of creaks and cramps and pot bellies. We have the traditional European model society, but with some Asian flare (primarily just in names and street decorations though), and extremely blurred gender lines. Same sex marriage is the norm and is practiced among all walks of life, from the religious to the ruling classes.

The strength of the writing is in the dialogue, and once most of the setup is done (at around the 75% mark), A Crown for Cold Silver becomes much more of a pleasure to read. I found myself laughing out loud at times and even starting to feel compassion for many of the characters that I was apathetic about most of the book. Not Ji-hyeon though, ugh.

Eventually my strategy became to read on but skip ahead whenever a character (or the author) became too loquacious. This is what allowed me to, in the end, say that I liked the book. I do wish the diversity was a little less superficial though, because women with mustaches, men who are not taken seriously because of their lack of masculinity, and Asian culture represented by paper lanterns and samurai-like swords feels a little flat.

So, do I recommend this book? Sure, but with reservations. If you are able to look past the misgivings I've mentioned, or if they aren't things that normally bother you in the way they do me, then you will be in for an incredible new world and a really good story. Personally though, I'd rather not have to put in so much effort just to enjoy a book.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 for lacing the familiar with new, +1 for tactfully incorporating diversity without overplaying it, +1 for roping me in a the end

Negatives: -1 for clunky expositionary prose throughout most of the book, -1 for the awkward but not in a good way Ji-hyeon/Sullen teen romance thing

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10 still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore

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POSTED BY: Tia

Reference: Marshall, Alex. A Crown for Cold Silver [Orbit, 2015]

Opinion: Crowdfunded Gaming Artifacts

Pillars of Eternity came out recently, and it's good. It's like Baldur's Gate, except with an original setting and roleplaying system. It was funded largely through Kickstarter, and I backed it, and I'm happy I did so. It was a game I wanted to play. I've also recently played through Shadowrun Returns. It's another crowdfunding success story, though one I didn't have any hand in. Both crowdfunding campaigns were wildly successful, in no small part to the many levels at which a backer could contribute and receive a reward. Most of these were in the form of ingame items, but some of the higher levels included such options as having some representation in the game beyond a name in the credits.

However, no matter how well integrated into the game they are, some of these representations are pretty obvious. In Pillars, I noticed an abundance of NPCs that are as well dressed as my characters, and having their own backstories. There was also some backer-created text that made it into the final game that wasn't well-reviewed and caused a commotion. In Shadowrun Returns, I noticed some NPC characters with dialog bearing recognizable names, and the ability to hire additional runners from a separate 'Nephilim Network' pool that all appeared to be backer-created. The Nephilim Network were more or less a representation of a certain backer level that allowed them to create their own Shadowrun character that could be used interchangably within the game's missions. They're presented as "higher quality" alternatives to the stock NPCs presumably created by the developers.

The common theme of these is that they were obvious enough to be noticed, and noticing them pulled me out of the game for a minute. It makes a distinct connection between the fictional world the developers have created, and the real world that made the fictional world a possibility. In roleplaying games, this seems like a serious faux pas. It's difficult for me to reconcile the existance of a small hamlet where half of the citizens are garishly dressed real people, but the other half are just cardboard cutouts. In most games, these nameless NPCs would be simply ignored and fade into the background. They don't offer anything to the game. In the case of Pillars of Eternity, these would-be background decorations stand out. They disrupt the illusion.

Don't get me wrong; I'm very happy that these two games in particular were made, and the contributions of the backers were clearly rewarded. I just can't help but wonder if these games would've been better, at least from a game immersiveness point of view, if they had been funded in a more traditional manner, or if the reward levels that inserted backer content into the game did not exist. It's not that the backer-created content isn't well disguised, but it exists and it nags at me that maybe this stuff is skippable, or maybe it's better than what the developers intended because it got extra attention.

I haven't checked in on Shadorun Returns: Dragonfall. I'm pretty sure it is free of backer contributions and that might make it a more immersive game. Intrepid modders have already created mods that remove backer created content in Pillars of Eternity, so I am not the only one who might be bothered by it. Surely, these are not the only crowdfunded games with backer-created content, and they won't be the last. My hope is that future crowdfunded games will recognize that allowing just anyone with a fat enough wallet to insert themselves into their game is incongruous with creating an organic and believable world.

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

CYBERPUNK REVISITED: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Dossier: Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash (Bantam, 1992)

Filetype: Book

File Under: Postcyberpunk

Executive Summary: Hiro Protagonist loses his job as a delivery driver working for the Mafia-controlled Uncle Enzo's Pizza, and nearly loses more than that as punishment for delivering a pizza late, but 15-year-old skateboard Kourier Y.T. takes pity on him and gets the delivery there on time. This begins the unlikely partnership in an alt-future Los Angeles dominated by corporate city-states and "burbclaves" between Hiro and Y.T. Hiro is a world-class programmer and was one of the architects of the Metaverse, a networked, virtual reality simulation that millions around the world log into daily, but now he's a freelance hacker and intelligence stringer for the Feds, who are still on the scene but only just. He also happens to be the world's greatest swordsman -- both within the Metaverse and without. Y.T. lives in a burbclave with her mother, who works for the Feds and, Y.T. thinks, is in the dark about Y.T.'s job as a Kourier. When Hiro's other (and materially more successful) Metaverse co-creator Da5id succumbs to a computer virus called Snow Crash that not only destroys the operator's system but also the operator's brain, Hiro begins investigating inside the Metaverse with the help of his ex-lover and Da5id's ex-wife Juanita, and enlists Y.T. to help out in the real world. Juanita clues Hiro into a connection between ancient Sumerian linguistics, the Tower of Babel, and a bizarre religious sect backed by mega-industrialist L. Bob Rife that lives on a sprawling offshore colony called The Raft. A gigantic Aleutian hitman named Raven fits in somehow with both Snow Crash and The Raft, and if Hiro can't figure out how, then he, Y.T., and Juanita will all wind up dead, and human technological culture blasted back to the stone age.

High-Tech: While there are some cool future-tech devices in Snow Crash, like the magnetic harpoons the Kouriers use, and the rat-things that act as security in all Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong franchulates, the chief piece of technology that defines the book is the Metaverse. Think a planet-sized VR Sunset Strip where you have to pay real money for virtual real estate, and if you can afford them, virtual Googlebots called Librarians will dig up any information you can desire just by speaking. Until the Snow Crash drug comes along, the Metaverse and the real world are separate, and dying in the Metaverse is a minor inconvenience. After? Well...

Low-Life: Hiro lives in a U-Stor-It storage unit with a roommate, a noise-rocker named Vitaly Chernobyl. Real estate has become so expensive in LA that families with 'roided-up teenage sons and regular jobs live in burbclaves in the Valley, the rich, as ever, live where they please, and the rest -- like Hiro -- scrape by where they can and carefully step around used syringes and the like when exiting their front doors. Along with the disaffected youth and would-be scenesters that circle Vitaly's band, Hiro has an easy relationship with drug dealers and others who dominate an environment where crime is more of a nebulous concept, depending on what kind of franchise you happen to find yourself in.

Dark Times: Snow Crash chiefly concerns itself with a small cast of characters who are plugged in and savvy to at least the potential of something nefarious going down behind the curtain. The majority of humanity beyond, though, are left largely uncommented-upon. Places outside of the franchulates have become lawless warzones, as witnessed through Y.T.'s trip to Compton, but for most middle-class people, life is probably pretty great. They're all self-medicating, driving big cars, living in cookie-cutter neighborhoods and following the paths expected of them. Hiro, et al., though, are onto the fact that there is a dark undercurrent beneath it all, mostly stemming from L. Bob Rife's having franchised out religion to The Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, which is helping to funnel people to The Raft, and potentially doing much worse.

Legacy: There are some influential books, and then there are influential cultural events. Snow Crash is the latter. Where Neuromancer radically re-defined the books that came after it and started a trend that grew larger, that movement reached something of an apotheosis in Snow Crash, a book that literally defined aspects of the culture itself. Ever wonder why icons that represent you on the internet are called "avatars"? While not the first person to use the word in that context, Snow Crash is why it stuck. Stephenson's envisioning of the Metaverse came to shape gaming, with Michael Abrash, the creator of the game Quake, and others freely admitting the debt they owe the book in how they came to think of networked 3D computing. Google Earth? That's pretty much how Hiro's Librarian shows him around. Like Neuromancer, Stephenson's book landed on Time's list of the 100 greatest English-language novels of the 20th century, alongside authors like Fitzgerald, Nabokov, and Pynchon, and genre luminaries like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Gibson, and Philip K. Dick. Nice company.

In Retrospect: Neal Stephenson writes virtuosic prose. Humor, attitude, clarion insights, and all around verve leap off the pages of Snow Crash, making it a tremendous amount of fun to read. Hiro and Y.T. are both intelligent and resourceful, and enjoyable people to spend a book with. It is also refreshing, even today, to read a science fiction novel where female characters give as good as they get, and -- while they may be regarded as sexual objects by other characters in the book -- are not treated like sexual objects by the book, itself. Hiro and Juanita, for instance, despite a past relationship never hit the sheets in the course of the book.

Stephenson also allows us to have fun inside the world he's created, apart from the main narrative of the book. Brief chapters will introduce a new character, follow him, her, or it through an adventure that somehow touches on the main action, and opens a wider window onto the world of the story. Mafia head Uncle Enzo's unexpected interactions with Y.T. are particularly fun, and walking around inside the mind of a Rat Thing is unexpectedly rewarding and touching. The ways in which elements of the world that at first appear structural -- such as the abundance of Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchises -- but eventually become central to the plot are examples of first-rate literary craftsmanship.

The only place where the book falls down a little bit is in the massive info-dump regarding ancient Sumerian and the idea of a language as ones-and-zeros for human beings. The long stretches of the Librarian filling Hiro in on Sumerian mythology are tremendously evocative of, say, the section of the Mythology text book your teacher skipped over or the liner notes to a Morbid Angel album, so while interesting, they slow down the book's momentum. It feels like Stephenson understood this, however, and there's a lot of pinging back-and-forth between Hiro's conversations with the Librarian and Y.T.'s real-life escapades, which become increasingly perilous. And as Zhaoyun remarked in his review of Stephenson's The Diamond Age, this book also ends rather perfunctorily, with almost literally zero "falling action." That is to say, it happens real quick.

Nevertheless, this is a book that lives up to the hype. And for a 20-plus-year-old book concerning network technology to still make a modern reader think "Wow, it'd be cool if we could do that," that's a helluva neat trick to pull.

Analytics

For its time: 5/5
Read today: 4/5
Cybercoefficient: 9/10

Posted by Vance K — who once roomed with a guy who thought Snow Crash was the best book ever written, and, on a separate occasion, boxed that roommate in the backyard while nerds of a feather comics & board game correspondent Mikey kept the ring clock. True story.

Membership in the SFWA by Gender

I'm currently trying to hunt down some figures on the percentage of SF/F novels published on a yearly basis that are authored by women. I have not yet found those figures.

I have, however, found some startling figures on gender and membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) organization over the past 66 years. I'm not going to draw out any implications from these figures, but rather simply present them so that anyone who needs a quick reference can find them in one place (rather than hunt them down as I did).

Percentage of Female Members of the SFWA (1974-2015)

• In 1974, 18% of SFWA members estimated to be female*
• In 1999, 36% of SFWA members were female.*
• In 2015, 46% of SFWA members are female.**

Current Membership in the SFWA by Gender (2015)

• 47% male
• 46% female
• 7% "unspecified"

*Source: Davin, Eric Leif (2006). Partners in Wonder: Women And the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. p. 69–70.

**Source: SFWA President Steven Gould (via twitter).

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Round of 4)

VOTING FOR THIS ROUND HAS NOW CLOSED. FOR THE NEXT ROUND, CLICK HERE.

Close, close races in the Round of 8.

In two cases, about two percentage points either way made the difference. One of them was the Blade Runner v. 2001: A Space Odyssey matchup. I don't know if we made the right call on that, but personally I'm happy Rutger Hauer's speech is advancing to the next round.

Everybody clearly made the correct decision in the other two matchups, with The Matrix and Empire handily defeating Return of the Jedi and Star Wars, respectively.

And then there were four...

Final Four, Game 1

Final Four, Game 2

Polls will close Thursday next, and the final round will open for voting Friday morning. Spread the word, and get out the vote like it's 1992...

Posted by Vance K — amateur sci-fi bracketologist since 2013, co-editor of nerds of a feather, flock together since 2012.

Thursday Morning Superhero

The new DC event is officially here, Marvel is gearing up for its big event, Image seems to be publishing new titles every week, and the comic book fans stand to benefit!  While I plan on passing on Convergence, I will likely check in on the event every now and then.  Despite that, my wallet isn't pleased with how many great titles are out every week.  I heard good things about Masks 2 and Jupiter's Circle, but didn't have time to read them and meet my deadline.  I plan on checking those out over the weekend and remain in awe at this industry.  If you aren't reading comics then you are missing out on some truly brilliant stories.

Pick of the Week:
Descender #2 - Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen deliver another stunning issue after the brilliant debut of this science fiction title.  Tim-21, a companion robot that looks and thinks like a little boy, woke up 10 years after the colonies were laid to waste by mysterious Harvesters.  His robot fingerprint is an exact match to the Harvesters and there is a race to claim him.  Scrappers want to obtain his processor to sell and the government wants it to learn more about the Harvesters.   In this issue we get to witness Tim-21's creation and his assimilation with his human family.  It is beautiful and moving and extremely effective juxtaposed against his attempt to escape from the vicious scrappers.  I wasn't sure I had emotionally connected with Tim-21 until the end of the issue.  I care about the little dude and blame Mr. Lemire for that.

The Rest:
Convergence #1 - The DC Universe is getting cleaned up and it is going to happen with a good old fashioned Street Fighter-esque tournament.  The superheroes from the different universes are going to have a brawl, and the winning team's universe will be the sole survivor.  I am rooting for Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo crew! Seriously.  It is a real thing.









Darth Vader #4 - I continue to enjoy this series, but this has been the weakest issue yet.  It wasn't bad by any means, but felt too quick.  I expected more of a struggle as Vader returned to the devastated planet of Geonosis to steal a machine that will build him a droid army.  While the encounter was interesting, it didn't feel like anything special.  The twist at the end, however, was quite clever and will bring me back for issue #5.  I still highly recommend this series and am very pleased with the job Marvel is doing with Star Wars.

The Walking Dead #140 - I remain in awe of Robert Kirkman and his ability to bring fresh ideas to this series after 140 issues.  While the series has had its slow parts and side stories that felt like filler, each main arc has delivered.  I don't care too much about the politics Maggie is involved in, but Carl setting eyes on the camp of the survivors who wear the zombie skin and the bomb that Kirkman dropped at the end of this issue are enough to make this a must read.  I remain stunned just thinking about the possible implications of that last panel.  Wow.






Saga #27 - Finally!!  Marko is going to take ownership for what he did and reclaim his family!  It has been an emotionally difficult journey with Alana and Marko on separate trajectories.  It is unfortunate that it took a bad trip down memory lane for Marko, but it was extremely valuable to get a glimpse at his past life.  Simple, but powerful issue in a Hugo nominated series.

Birthright #6 - It has been quite some time since the last issue, but I am happy to continue with the story of Mikey and his return from another world (Terrenos).  We learn a bit more about Mikey's journey and his defeat of King Lore, but the creature who has bonded with him is making him unpredictable and creating trust issues between him and his brother.  I feel I need to learn a lot more about this story before I can judge the series as a whole and wish this issue had more answers, but trust that Joshua Williamson will deliver.  I think I need to revisit issues 1-5.






POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

PERSPECTIVES III: "What is Science Fiction? Or, Hell, What is Genre?"

Welcome to Perspectives III, which is not only a companion, but a response to Blogtable III.

Here’s how it works: an editoral, opinion piece or critical essay written by an external blogger, critic, journalist or creative person is presented by a regular contributor to nerds of a feather, flock together; it is then answered by three other regular 'nerds of a feather, flock together' contributors. Crucially, each respondent will also respond to each preceding respondent. This episode's cast o' characters:

The G (Respondent #1)

The G is founder and co-editor of ‘nerds of a feather, flock together’, which covers SF/F, crime fiction, comics, cult films and video games. He moonlights as an academic.

Vance K (Respondent #2)

Vance is the co-editor and usually cult-film reviewer for ‘nerds of a feather, flock together.’ He records loud folk songs under the name Sci-Fi Romance, and writes and directs things for a living.

English Scribbler (Respondent #3)

Our resident Londoner, English Scribbler gets to see all the BBC shows before any of the other contributors, and lets us know about it whenever it best pleases him.

EPISODE 3: In which three nerds of a feather debate what it is that makes science fiction a coherent genre, and if it can even be considered that...

The discussion around the question of "Defining Science Fiction" and the insightful but wildly different responses that made up our Blogtable III simply had too many facets to be left to a single post. So in this installment of Perspectives, the nerds of a feather respondents will begin directly from the comments of Blogtable participants Ian Sales, Aliette de Bodard, and Paul Kincaid.

The G

All three discussants in this month’s Blogtable offered compelling visions of what, if anything, makes science fiction science fictional. Paul Kincaid contends that “science fiction” is more attitude or approach than genre, rendering its boundaries inherently subjective--a position that grows more attractive as one explores the permeable boundaries demarcating science fiction (by any definition) from fantasy, horror and mimetic fiction. Ian Sales also believes science fiction is defined primarily by attitude or approach, and not by its tropes (spaceships, robots, etc.) or the supposed “hardness” of its science; rather, he argues that for something to be truly science fictional, it must be grounded in a rational or scientific worldview. Though generally accepting of this framework, Aliette de Bodard makes the important point that defining science fiction strictly in relation to science or a scientific worldview embeds certain normativities (often Western-biased) in the discourse, which can be off-putting or exclusionary to those raised outside the West--or, indeed, those raised inside the West but outside the strict rationalism that pervades its urban intellectual enclaves.

While I see much value in all three contributions, my own feelings are somewhat distinct from each. For me, at least, science fiction denotes something very specific. More to the point, what makes a story science fictional is the degree to which it explores what life would be like and what kinds of stories could be told if certain variables were altered from the present or any historical state, provided that the alterations are scientifically plausible.

Now what I mean by “scientifically plausible” is in need of clarification. First, “science” includes a whole lot more than just the physical sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, cybernetics, etc.). It also includes the social and behavioral sciences (sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, etc.). Second, plausible does not mean “adhering closely to the stable of scientific facts we possess at this moment,” but rather “adhering to the much broader category of scientific theorization we possess at this moment, or reasonable extrapolations from that theorization.”

I think this is a reasonably broad definition, and casts a fairly broad net across genre. Take Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, in which technology has progressed to such a point as to be nearly magical. Some might conclude that these books, like other space operas (e.g. Star Wars), aren’t really science fictional. But, from my perspective, they are. After all, the fundamental preoccupation of the series is to speculate on what life would be like and what stories could be told if a society progressed to the point where scarcity no longer existed, while bordering any number of societies in which scarcity was still very much the norm. Or take John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, an almost disturbingly prescient novel that involves very little technological or physical-scientific speculation. But it is sociologically speculative, and thus — in my view — very clearly science fictional.

Wait...what about stuff like Dune? That’s kind of science fictional by your definition, but also kind of fantastic too….

Thank you for bringing that up, disembodied rhetorical voice. And to answer your question, I’d suggest that any definition of what science fiction “is” or “is not” should adopt the logic of correlation rather than causation. Or, to put it another way, even as we look to set boundaries, we should reject the idea that those boundaries are hard or immutable. Categories are useful sorting mechanisms, but only if one recognizes that the boundaries are fuzzy and permeable, and that lots of stuff fits in the in-between spaces. And that’s a good thing. Rules are made to be broken, after all.

So is Dune science fiction? I’d argue it’s closer to fantasy. However, I’m inclined to put it in one of those interstitial spaces, and to say while it’s not strictly speaking science fiction, it does have elements of science fiction.

Okay, fine. But what about spaceships, robots and laser guns? Isn’t that what science fiction is really about?

Ian makes the point that science fiction should not be defined by its tropes. I agree, as you can surely tell, but given that these tropes create certain expectations and provide certain parameters that most readers (and consumers of related media) use for sorting, it doesn’t make sense to dismiss the idea that they are meaningful. They clearly are, and to many people. Thus I’d suggest that this is what we have the alternate term “sci-fi” for — not to use as a synonym or shorthand for science fiction, but to denote the broader category of works that deploy these tropes. The categories “science fiction” and “sci-fi” overlap, to be sure, but strike me as both distinct and helpful in distinctive ways.

To illustrate, consider space opera. Some clearly counts as science fiction according to the scheme I’ve laid out — Banks’ Culture series, for one, but also Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds), Downbelow Station (C. J. Cherryh), Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) and Fallen Dragon (Peter F. Hamilton). On the other hand you have Star Wars or Hidden Empire (Kevin J. Anderson), which don’t really fit the parameters. Actually, they strike me more as fantasy-in-space. At the same time, they all would fit within the broader category of sci-fi.

So that’s pretty much how I see things -- for now at least. Over to you, Vance.

Vance

I come to the idea of genre from a very different angle than the other voices in this conversation, I think. As a musician and film writer, genre is for me and has always been a marketing discussion. I love the comments of all of the people who have weighed in on this topic, and find Paul’s observation that he can nod in agreement with both Ian and Aliette’s positions (even while they’re saying different, somewhat contradictory things) particularly resonant. The reason why such a thing is possible, in this case, is that in a linguistic sense the word genre is almost utterly useless.

Take for instance Paul’s suggestion that the “more generally accepted” definition of genre is a characterization of story in which we know the basic structure. First, more accepted by whom? Writers? Critics? Academics? Readers? Publishing house marketing departments? Bookstores (long may they live)? In this space, guest contributor Peter Higgins argued compellingly that there was no such thing as a book that belonged to only a single genre.

Call me maybe. Or I kill you!

I would argue as a creator that a structural pattern or framework has nothing whatsoever to do with genre. Wikipedia defines bildungsroman as a genre, sure, but how is that a helpful categorization tool when one may come of age on the farm, on a space station, in an underwater colony, in a World War I trench, in any country on Earth, or within any other of countless locales or situations? That’s structure. In the same way that an Intro/Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus/ Bridge/Chorus song structure tells you nothing of the “genre” of that song. Carly Rae Jepsen has written those songs, and so has the Polish death metal band Vader. So have I.

When I was writing (unproduced) screenplays for studios and what-have-you, the genre conversation was pretty damn short and uncomplicated. It was a comedy, drama, thriller, romcom, horror, sci-fi, maybe adventure. That’s about it. Very few mysteries, very few romances, very few heists. I was writing comedies, so during development hell larger winds would blow through the culture, and maybe the “R-rated comedy” would wax and the “family comedy” would wane, and suddenly I was being asked to get a lot more balls jokes into certain scripts. But they were still comedies and were still going to be sold accordingly. You know, if they had ever gotten shot. Metal is infamous for its myriad sub-genres, but most people still agree on something being either metal or not. That classification is much more at the band-level, though, rather than the individual song.

All this is why I love the notion of “sci-fi” that The G has proposed above. The idea of macro-genres like that seems to me to have far more value to anyone who’s got skin in the game, either as a fan, a creator, or a business. We can all argue over drinks about sub-genres, but under the communal umbrella of understanding that we’re all sci-fi fans. I will quibble with The G’s reading of Aliette’s point about people being excluded. If we’re defining genres, we certainly have to draw lines. But I read Aliette’s comments to be more about not allowing the lack of a shared language become a barrier to genre inclusion, rather than as a rejection of using science or a scientific worldview as a liminal criteria. Look at that -- I used a fancy academic word! I think science or a scientific worldview has to be part of any definition or science fiction, although I’d broaden it to include civilizations in which scientific capabilities or understanding are sufficiently different from our own as to be a signature trait for a reader.

So in a language where the word “genre” no longer has any linguistic value whatsoever because it can mean almost anything (how can “crime” be a genre in any meaningful way when Michael Clayton, Unforgiven, Snatch, and the legend of Prometheus all revolve around crimes?), I think that relying on a marketing understanding isn’t such a bad guidepost. I mean, that’s what we’re after anyway, right? As ardent fans, we want to know which shelf at the video store (long may they live) or bookstore is most likely to scratch the itch we have for new stories and adventures that push our buttons or help us cope or make us feel at home.

(Incidentally, when I put out the first Sci-Fi Romance album, reviewers called it “alt-folk” which had no meaning whatsoever to most casual fans I actually spoke with, so when I got blank stares, I said “We sound like that time Johnny Cash covered Soundgarden.” The most common response I got then was, “Whoa. Johnny Cash covered Soundgarden?” You're damn right he did.)

English Scribbler

The downright terror I feel in any attempt to follow such eloquent and erudite voices as the excellent ones in our Blogtable, and my esteemed editors above, with these feeble scribbles is perhaps suitably akin to what many an aspiring science-fiction author must feel as they stare at the proverbial carte blanche. However, attempt I shall.

Vance makes the point that genre to him is a bracketing exercise based in post-creative marketing, and I agree as far as that goes. I would argue in fact that science fiction writing deals far less in genre-aspiring or group mentality than music or film often does. I've seen enough gigs and worked for enough directors to see a lifetime of eager yet deluded would-be imitation. Sir, you will never be Mike Leigh, and you lads will never be Joy Division, but his point stands. All these media are afflicted by post-creation external attempts to pigeon-hole or make them ‘fit’ a genre for easy consumption.

However, Ian Sales makes a valid argument for the idea of SF being a distinct mode for which certain boundary values apply, the transgression of which makes a proud genre merely a mask to wear, "a box of tropes" to play with. So is genre, as such, the chicken or the egg, creatively? Is SF something that writing falls in into, or takes advantage of, or is it a labelling exercise that is an after-thought to a writer's intention? Asimov called science fiction “that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings”. On that basis, by the very move to concern themselves in writing with this impact, is a writer thereby determining to be a Science Fiction Writer, or just wandering into the woods of the genre by coincidence? And does intention matter, or only outcome?

One of my very favourite novels of the last two years is Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. A Nigerian-origin American, she has written eloquently about the lack of creation of and interest in African-made science fiction, and so her attempts to tell very sci-fi tales set very much in and on the continent are therefore bold and refreshing. She has specifically attempted a genre for a definite, and political purpose, and is therefore pigeon-holing herself intentionally; however, this is not a reductive venture, and she uses Lagoon as a funnel to explore far more than alien invasion plot devices. So she may have then found her work marketed as ‘African fiction’ or ‘magic-realism’, but it would remain in her eyes as science fiction and those that read it would hopefully see that too.

My other stand-out science fiction novel read recently was Michael J Sullivan’s Hollow World. He himself frequently described it as science-fantasy, while many reviews saw it as a foray by a fantasy writer into science fiction. Time-travel, post-humans, dystopia/utopia = science fiction, surely? Where does fantasy start in science fiction? Is Star Wars fantasy using science fiction elements, and The Matrix sci-fi using fantasy elements? Does it matter?

Both the above novels are remarkable for me because they cover ideas, subjects and emotional themes that I find attractive, but they work because they happen to be great stories, beautifully told, and if there is an element to both I could describe as key to my enjoyment it would be originality. So I’m not responding to the same flavour, the same feel, every time. I’m no longer the child who would happily guzzle horror after horror, sword-fantasy after sword-fantasy, space opera after space opera, with little desire for variety, beyond the desire to never be bored.

Professor H. Bruce Franklin was perhaps not the first to do so, but he very neatly described the term science fiction by stating, “On one side lies fantasy, the realm of the impossible. On the other side lie all the forms of fiction that purport to represent the actual, whether past or present. Science fiction's domain is the possible.” This is at odds with what I thought s.f. meant as a child. I had through naivety and cultural osmosis defined it mentally as fictional science-based plots — i.e. time-travel, alien life, thinking robots — and so saw it a world of joyful fantasy. I never read Dan Dare Pilot of The Future concerned by how its 50s origin dated its view of space travel or the surface of Venus. I never cared how Dune reflected medieval royal politics. I just wanted to leap onboard a mind adventure.

Perhaps, then, despite my admiration and frequent agreement with all the preceding opinions, it is maybe arrogant yet honest to concede that the only opinion that matters to me is the eight year old who thinks “oh cool this cover has an alien AND a robot on it!!” If that is science fiction, great; but it doesn’t matter to the child. If the tale then transgresses genre, does that impress the young reader because it furthers the life of the genre or because it keeps things original and fresh after the 17 previous space robot novels she/he read? If the science of the robot is hard, does that matter to them unless ‘hard’ means ‘dry and dull’? This questions remain, I think unanswered at the end of all this wonderful debate. Yet in the mind of the child, they are irrelevant to a pure fascination with the fantastically impossible-possibilities of a story that happens to be science fiction. In the same way as chocolate cereals remain on our market shelves due to the raw demand of the clear-minded youth, I hope science fiction long remains on the bookstore shelf.

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Posted by Vance K, who already told you plenty up there at the top. Nerds of a feather co-editor since 2012.