Jonathan Crowe (Editor) Gave a Talk on the History and Design of Fantasy Maps at Ecdysis Readercon 25
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No. 4 / October 2014 Ecdysis Masthead Jonathan Crowe (editor) gave a talk on the history and design of fantasy maps at Ecdysis Readercon 25. His past projects include The No. 4 / October 2014 Map Room and DFL. Send hate mail, letters of comment, and Jennifer Seely (art) teaches high school submissions to: science in Shawville, Quebec. mail PO Box 473 Tamara Vardomskaya, a Ph.D. student in Shawville QC J0X 2Y0 Linguistics at the University of Chicago, CANADA attended the Clarion Writers Workshop this e-mail [email protected] past summer. Back issues are available for free download at All content is copyright © their respective mcwetboy.net/ecdysis. contributors. 2 Editorial: ‘But It’s Not Science Fiction’ The problem with a literary ghetto is that it’s In the 1970s, if I recall correctly, when frequently the residents, not those outside, Spider Robinson’s Callahan stories started ap- who want to lock the doors and throw away pearing in Analog, there were complaints that the key. they weren’t proper science fiction. And in the During the Hugo voting period, a few ar- 1980s the pseudonymous Sue Denim, writing ticles and blog posts discussing the nominees in Cheap Truth (now there was a fanzine), had made the point that while a nominated work this to say about Kim Stanley Robinson’s might be good as a story, it wasn’t science fic- “Black Air” (F&SF, 3/83): tion or fantasy, and therefore the author could It’s so nice to read a straightforward his- not in good faith vote for it. (Or, conversely, torical story, like that Frank G. Slaughter that it would be a travesty if that nominee used to write, and it’s just too bad he were to win the award.) had to tack on that fantasy mumbo The nominees in question included jumbo at the end just so he could sell it. Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages’s novella “Wa- kulla Springs” (Tor.com, 10/13), Rachel Swir- “Black Air” was nominated for a Nebula sky’s short story “If You Were a Dinosaur, and won the World Fantasy Award in 1984. My Love” (Apex, 3/13) and the Alfonso And while this line of thought doesn’t like get- Cuarón film Gravity. And had Vox Day not ting chocolate in its peanut butter when it made the ballot they might have said the comes to its reading material, its reaction is same thing about Ken Liu’s “Litigation Mas- positively anaphylactic when it comes to ter and the Monkey King (Lightspeed, 8/13). awards. I wasn’t there for it, but wasn’t there Before anyone gets the idea that this is a a big fuss when Apollo 13 won the best dra- new phenomenon, it isn’t: this is actually only matic presentation Hugo? the latest iteration of something that has been In the story notes to his most recent col- going on for at least several decades. I can lection, The Pottawotamie Giant and Other think of a few examples off the top of my Stories (PS Publishing, 2012), Andy Duncan head. I’m sure you can think of others. writes about how the Sturgeon Award jury 3 was torn about “The Chief Designer” Gravity is about the space program, but (Asimov’s, 6/01), his secret history of the So- it isn’t based on real events: strictly speaking, viet space program. Jury member Fred Pohl it’s in an alternate universe where the Hubble was against awarding to Duncan’s story, until and ISS are in compatible orbits, and the James Gunn asked whether Pohl, as former space shuttle (retired 2011) and Chinese space editor of Galaxy and If, would have had any station (planned for 2020) coexist. problems publishing the story in an sf maga- Explain to me, please, how stories about zine. Of course he wouldn’t have, and that set- spaceships aren’t science fiction. tled the matter: “The Chief Designer” won the As for “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Sturgeon Award in 2002. Love,” its main sin is that it’s a 950-word The problem here is a too-narrow defini- prose poem written in the subjunctive—if you tion of genre. Trying to define science fiction were—rather than adopting the usual genre and fantasy is a tremendous waste of time trick of making metaphors literal. In the in- that we nevertheless persist in indulging in. dicative it would have passed any purity test “This is science fiction; that is really fantasy; thrown at it. and that is actually mainstream and I don’t Science fiction is allowed to be literary. know why we’re discussing it here.” Truth be told, there’s a lot of science fic- It’s boring. And the truth is, each of the tion without spaceships and fantasy without works I’ve mentioned here can have a case dragons that some readers would fail to recog- made for its genre status. nize as science fiction or fantasy. And would, “Black Air” and “Wakulla Springs” are having it pointed out to them, refuse to accept fantasies; it’s just that the fantasy element it as such. No matter how loosely or tightly doesn’t box you about the ears with its obvi- you define the field, there will always be ousness. The existence of fantasy elements in some works at the edges—or even at the “The Litigation Master and the Monkey core—that some readers will simply refuse to King” largely depends on the reading proto- accept as science fiction or fantasy. cols you bring to it. Truth be told, some readers don’t want Fantasy is allowed to be subtle. to be challenged. The field is broader and “The Great Designer” and Apollo 13 are more interesting than they want to believe. about the space program, and they’re fiction, al- And really, the issue is a red herring. As I beit fiction based on real events. (One of my see it, the first question about a work should reading interests is the history of human not be whether it’s genre, but whether it’s any spaceflight: believe me when I say that Apollo good. The second question should not be 13 is a fictionalized version. You’re not watch- whether it’s genre, but whether it’s of interest ing a documentary.) to genre readers. 4 That’s an important distinction. But I suspect the problem comes down, I’ve often argued that we read science fic- once again, to our obsession with awards. We tion and fantasy because it gives our brains a don’t have nearly as much of a problem with certain fix. There’s no rule that says that fix these stories appearing in genre venues or can’t be found anywhere else—that was the even on our reading lists as we do with them premise of the “Nonfiction for SF/Fantasy appearing on our awards ballots. Readers” panel at SFContario 3, which pro- Which is to say: it’s okay to date them, duced a long list of recommended reads that but for God’s sake don’t marry one. readers of the genre might like. They ranged ❡ from science to history to histories of science to biography. This issue is late for several reasons. Regarding fiction, we could have an in- We were delayed first by a very full and teresting and fruitful discussion about what, busy summer that featured trips to Readercon, outside the genre, genre readers might like. Detcon, and the Maritimes for Jennifer and me, Prehistoric fiction certainly comes to mind: and the Clarion workshop for Tamara. the genre embraced Jean M. Auel long ago, Then, less pleasantly, we were entirely and had no trouble considering Kim Stanley derailed by Jennifer’s cervical cancer diagno- Robinson’s Shaman (Orbit, 2013) on various sis in early September. Her treatment is ongo- award long lists. And to some extent histori- ing and proceeding well; she’ll make a full re- cals: witness the presence of Nicola Griffith’s covery—but, as you can well imagine, getting Hild (FSG, 2013) on the Nebula final ballot. the next issue of the fanzine out the door is From which I infer that the feeling of be- rather far down on the list of priorities. ing transported to another world, supported !I’ve had to cut out a lot of material that I by a richness of detail—in other words, strange- had planned for this issue, simply because I ness—is key to the genre reading experience. didn’t have the time to write it. Fortunately, If an ostensibly non-genre work—and re- there’s still more than enough for you. member, genre is basically a marketing catego- We talk about ourselves a bit more than ry—pushed all these buttons and managed to usual in this issue, which is not something we make it to the final ballot, so what? normally make a practice of: we tend to like Isn’t it a good story? to stay behind the curtain. But Tamara’s Clar- Isn’t that what really matters? ion experience deserved attention, and I don’t It might mean that we’ve decided to mind—least of all not now—drawing atten- grow up, a little, as a subculture—not because tion to Jennifer’s drawings. I won’t apologize we’ve outgrown our genre roots, but because for being proud of my collaborators. we’ve decided not to be constrained by them. —Jonathan Crowe 5 Invitation to the Clarion Game The Internet and print abound by now with reports and diaries processing the experience that is the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Work- shop.