The British Boom: What Boom? Whose Boom?
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The British Boom: What boom? Whose boom? Thirteen ways of looking at the British Boom Andrew M. Butler Andrew Butler, ‘the greatest SF critic [First published in Science Fiction what, with the clarity of hindsight and the galaxy has ever known’ (Cheryl Studies, No 91, November 2003. the demand for narrative convenience, Morgan, Emerald City) is ‘a pipe- Reprinted by permission of the author we do with Romanticism and Modern- and Dr Arthur Evans, editor of SFS. ism. What this article sets out to do is to smoking, vaguely sarcastic Andrew and the SET editors have survey the terrain from a variety of per- academic’ who has a PhD in the attempted to preserve the style of the spectives, in the hope that this will help works of Philip K. Dick, and has pub- original as far as possible, including the to give some indication of the phenome- lished books on Philip K. Dick, use of American spelling.] non’s scope and characteristics. The Cyberpunk, Terry Pratchett, Film Boom contains cyberpunk, post- Studies, and Postmodernism, co- 1. ‘There certainly seems to be something cyberpunk, cyberpunk-flavored fiction, edited books on Terry Pratchett and of a boom. To a certain extent these things steampunk, splatterpunk, space opera, hard sf, soft sf, feminist sf, utopias, Ken MacLeod, and has been fea- are always artefacts — there’s no objec- dystopias, anti-utopias, apocalypses, tures editor on Vector since 1995. tive criteria by which one can judge “boom-ness” (boomitude? Boomosity?) cosy catastrophes, uncomfortable catas- The following article on the British — so the fact that everyone’s talking trophes, Bildungsromans, New Wave- Boom, described by the leading Brit- about it is to a certain extent definitional style writing, planetary romances, ish SF magazine Interzone as ‘a of the fact that something’s going on’ alternate histories, big dumb objects, farrago’, won the 2004 Pioneer (China Miéville in Butler, ‘Beyond’ 7). comedies, tragedies, slipstream, horror, Award (the Science Fiction Research fantasy and any combination of generic hybrids and cross-breeds. Hopefully a Association Award for Excellence in 2. Mapping the Terrain It is asserted that there is currently a series of micronarratives about Boom Scholarship). In his spare time writing and writers will avoid the dan- Andrew teaches Media Studies, Cul- boom within British science fiction — by editors, by critics, by authors, by readers, gers of prescription in an era when the tural Studies and Digital Culture at in the pages of Science Fiction Studies and macronarrative or metanarrative is no Canterbury Christ Church University in the publicity for some events at the longer achievable or desirable. College. I (BRG) ‘met’ Andrew first Institute for Contemporary Arts in Lon- It is worth first comparing the Boom through Acnestis, the prestigious don in May 2003. Let us assume that this with two other movements within science fiction. The British New Wave in British amateur publishing associa- is not a mass delusion, and there is in- deed a boom. The Boom is thought of science fiction is primarily associated tion. He has visited Melbourne twice with the Michael Moorcock era of New in recent years, and is welcome back mostly as a British Science Fiction Boom, and to limit it to this genre is clearly Worlds magazine from 1964 onwards, any time. within the parameters of a journal named dissipating at some point in the 1970s — Science Fiction Studies. But there is also a the experimental writings of J. G. Ballard, parallel boom within fantasy and horror, Moorcock, Barrington Bayley, Brian as well as within children’s fiction — Aldiss, John Brunner, and visiting dominated by the hype surrounding the Americans Thomas M. Disch, John publication of the fourth and fifth Harry Sladek, Pamela Zoline, and Norman Potter novels by J. K. Rowling and the Spinrad. If Moorcock can be said to be its fact that the third volume of Philip Pull- polemicist, its Ezra Pound figure, then man’s His Dark Materials trilogy, The Ballard was its resident T. S. Eliot — Amber Spyglass (2000), won the overall although arguably the New Wave had Whitbread Prize, the first children’s book found its creed in Ballard’s 1962 guest to do so.1 We could no doubt make a case editorial where he argued that ‘science for other, less cognate, genres. What we fiction must jettison its present narrative also need to remember is the generic slip- forms and plots [. I]t is inner space not page and interchange that goes on within outer, that needs to be explored. The only adult and children’s science fiction, fan- truly alien planet is Earth’ (117). Langdon tasy and horror. Jones’s The New SF: An Original Anthology It is impossible to draw a clear, stable of Modern Speculative Fiction (1969) an- boundary around these distinct and thology can stand as its archetypal collec- Andrew M. Butler, speaking at Aussiecon tion. New Worlds did continue to publish Three, 1999. (Photo: Paul Billinger.) overlapping booms, to subsume them within a single movement, but that is non-New Wave material, but writers 15 (1986) as its tombstone. Indeed, many of Chaz Brenchley, Keith Brooke/Nick The Boom is thought of the stories within the collection hardly Gifford, Christopher Brookmyre, Eric conform to the concept of cyberpunk as Brown, Molly Brown, Eugene Byrne, Pat mostly as a British it is now understood. In the years since, Cadigan, Richard Calder, Mark Chad- Science Fiction many other writers have been labeled as bourn, Simon Clark, Susanna Clarke, Boom . but there is cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk or cyber- John Clute, Michael Cobley, Steve punk-flavored, irrespective of their con- Cockayne, Storm Constantine, Louise also a parallel boom nection to the original impulse. Here we Cooper, Paul Cornell, Gillian Cross, within fantasy and have a model of how a movement can Peter Crowther, Russell T. Davies, Jack horror, as well as begin almost as a hobbyhorse, grow Deighton, Peter Dickinson, Eric Evans, through association with a number of Jasper Fforde, Christopher Fowler, within children’s fiction. writers, and then explode beyond the Maggie Furey, Neil Gaiman, Stephen control of its originators — and be in- Gallagher, David S. Garnett/David Fer- creasingly difficult to define as cyber- ring, Mary Gentle, Debi Gliori, Muriel punk. Gray, Colin Greenland, Nicola Griffith, such as Robert Presslie, Don Malcolm The Boom has no resident polemicist Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Peter F. Ham- and John Phillifent were more or less (although M. John Harrison, China ilton, M. John Harrison, Robert Hold- silenced. A movement can exclude as Miéville and others have found spaces to stock, Tom Holland, Tom Holt, Lesley well as include; indeed different hailers talk about it3), no key writer (although Howarth, Eva Ibbotson, Simon Ings, of the Boom have their own list of exclu- some would suggest Miéville), and no Brian Jacques, Robin Jarvis, Ben Jeapes, sions. defining anthology or magazine Diana Wynne Jones, Gwyneth In the previous paragraph I specified (although Interzone could take some of Jones/Ann Halam, Graham Joyce, Peter British New Wave, because the applica- the credit). Even such a thing as a starting Kalu, Garry Kilworth, William King, tion of the term to American writing has point has yet to be agreed. Mark Bould David Langford, Tanith Lee, Roger Levy, led to some confusion. Certainly Judith has outlined a number of starting points James Lovegrove/J. M. S. Lovegrove, Merril, in her Best of SF anthologies, was between 1982 and 1995 (Bould, ‘Boom’ Brian Lumley, Ian R. MacLeod, Ken looking to Britain for material, exposure 308–9) and each of these starting points MacLeod, Jan Mark, Graham Masterton, to which may have led to a greater would lead to a different conceptualiza- Paul McAuley, Geraldine McCaughrean, experimentation in form in US science tion of the boom. A writer like Mary Ian McDonald, Juliet E. McKenna, Robin fiction. There was a growing permissive- Gentle found success with Ash: A Secret McKinley, John Meaney, China Miéville, ness that led to a greater willingness to History (1999), winning among others the Martin Millar/Martin Scott, David explore sexual themes within sf. One British Science Fiction Association Mitchell, Michael Moorcock, Alan product of this was Harlan Ellison’s Award, which ought to put her smack Moore, Simon Morden, Richard Morgan, groundbreaking anthology Dangerous into the British Boom — although she’s Grant Morrison, Kim Newman/Jack Visions (1967), in which taboos (for the been a highly regarded writer since the Yeovil, William Nicholson, Jenny science fiction market) were broken. 1980s and was first published in 1977. Nimmo, Jeff Noon, Daniel O’Mahoney, This, along with a growing divide be- Perhaps we should borrow Borges’s ter- Darren O’Shaughnessy/Darren Shan, tween hard and soft science fiction, has minology and speak of precursors to the Stephen Palmer, K. J. Parker, Terry led to a retrospective acknowledgment of Boom, even of work precursive to the Pratchett, Christopher Priest, Philip Pull- an American New Wave, which could Boom. There are a number of writers — man, Robert Rankin, Philip Reeve, Alas- include ‘Aldiss, Ballard, Disch, Delany, Brian Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, M. John Har- tair Reynolds, Chris Riddell, Philip Heinlein [sic] and on’ (Brooke-Rose 99) or rison and Christopher Priest, among Ridley, Adam Roberts/A. R. R. Roberts, Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, Philip K. others — who have been successful in the Katherine Roberts, Justina Robson, J. K. Dick, Thomas M. Disch and Samuel past and are now enjoying a renewed Rowling, Nicholas Royle, Geoff Ryman, 2 Delany (Pfeil). Broadly speaking the period of success or republication. There Jan Siegel, Alison Sinclair, Gus Smith, American New Wave seems to be a new is also the problem as to whether the Michael Marshall Smith, Brian Stable- kind of content, a paradigmatic New British Boom should only include ford/Brian Craig/Francis Amery, Paul Wave, and the British one a new kind of British-born writers, or be expanded to Stewart, Charles Stross, Tricia Sulli- structure, a syntagmatic New Wave.