Thursday, April 26, 2012

Mundane Science Fiction - an Oxymoron?

This morning I learned for the first time about something called "mundane science fiction."  Here is how Wikipedia defines it: "It focuses on stories set on or near the Earth, with a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written" and the article goes on to state (in summary) that there is no evidence for the existence of any of the premises of SF, such as FTL travel and communication, intelligent aliens, alternate universes, etc.  Therefore, "the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet"; furthermore, the article states that "unfounded speculation about interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth [and] that this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth."

I couldn't disagree more!  I thought we were writing fiction here!  Most fiction -- even the most mainstream or literary non-science fiction is not totally reflective of everyday life.  The very idea of creative writing and art in general is to be creative -- to expand and enhance our perceptions of the human existence.  Tolkien spoke of the Sub-Creator, and that's how I like to think of the best writers.

The first people to create "science fiction" were sitting around a campfire shortly after the invention of language.  They looked at the stars and the seasons and the weather and the process of birth and growth and they invented explanations for these wonderful and fearful things according to the best understanding of their times.  They invented gods (the greatest fiction of all), and they invented myth, which enhances our perceptions of our humanity better than any experiment with molecules can do.  Today we may call this way of writing "fantasy," and in my opinion the borderland between SF, fantasy, and reality is where the most impressive creations lie.

If you want to write a story set on Earth, with science and technology as it exists today, that's fine, but you would do just as well to write a mainstream novel.  What "mundane" SF  seems to want to do is to eliminate or at least restrict the human imagination -- no mythmaking allowed!  In my opinion, the best Fantasists are writing modern myth.  Think what you can learn on a psychological basis from Frodo's final statement after he has endured so much suffering to save the world from evil, "I have come, but I do not choose now to do that I came to do!  I will not do this deed!  The Ring is mine!"  What about the mysterious insights obtained from reading about Ged as he chases his evil self across the oceans of Earthsea in the boat Lookfar, only to absorb it into his greater self when he finally catches it?

And if you want a more typical SF treatment, let me cite a couple of my favorite "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes.  One is "Darmok," where a race is encountered whose language is based on metaphor and thus, while the words can be translated by that improbable Universial Translator, the meanings cannot be comprehended without a knowledge of the myths of the culture.  Alone together on a dangerous planet, Jean-Luc Picard and the Captain of the alien ship have to communicate using their respective myths; Picard uses the Gilgamesh story.  And at the end Riker catches Picard reading the Homeric Hymns in Greek (in a "real" book, by the way) and the Captain explains, "More familiarity with our own culture might help us to relate to theirs."  Then in the episode "The Inner Light" a probe enables Picard to experience the life of a man on a dying planet and thus is able to keep the memory of that planet alive.  I have probably seen that episode a dozen times!  Sure, the science is improbable; no probe exists that could make Picard live that man's life and there is no such alien race that speaks in metaphors.  But there are universal truths expressed in all these examples.  It's not for nothing that the human species was endowed with the ability to suspend disbelief!

And one final word -- this business that SF creates a "dream of abundance [that] can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth."  In other words, anything that leads a person to conceive of something beyond what is known causes us to behave like spendthrifts and waste all the goodness that the Earth provides.  Are people really so incapable of telling the difference between fantasy and reality that they have to be shielded from the imaginary?  There are lots of reasons why a greedy, selfish, heedless humanity is likely to destroy its home planet. I really don't think imagining the possibility that the grass is greener elsewhere is going to be at the top of the list!  In fact, many works of SF, including my own, present a significantly cautionary tale about the future.


10 comments:

  1. Great post. There's a kind of literal-mindedness about the idea of mundane SF that I really dislike, even though I tend to be rather literal minded myself, in some areas. But when it denies the possibility of wild imagination, it goes too far.

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  2. Thank you,Catana! You could call this my philosophy of science fiction. There are good reasons why I call the founders of 30th-century philosophy the Mythmakers. I'm still planning to elaborate on the 20 Precepts - just haven't had time yet.

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  3. Perfect!
    My *other* WIP is set 55 million years ago on earth - but I'd call it fantasy, not SF. And yes - the mythmaking is all we have. I get so sick of 'gee whiz' SF/F. Tell me a STORY that resonates, not something that's just way cool.

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  4. Thanks for the comment, Julia! I actually kind of blended fantasy and SF in this post, since LotR and The Wizard of Earthsea are definitely fantasy, and both ST:TNG episodes have elements of fantasy in them, too. But the gist of the piece holds true for the best of both.

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  5. A beautifully written, cogent post. Hadn't thought (consciously) about your point that the best fantasists are writing modern myths, but the premise certainly rings true--in your own work as well.

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  6. Thanks, Jack! You're one of my true-blue fans! My Mythmakers, whose writings form the basis of the humanist philosophy of the last half of the 3rd millenium in my writings, are all writers (composers, artists) of fantasy. And wait till you get to the Ki'shto'ba series! It's quite an original treat, if I do say so myself (as shouldn't!)

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  7. That is funny. That means Arthur C. Clarkes "A Fall of Moondust" should be mundane science fiction. But plenty of hard SF people reject FTL.

    Mundane science finction should be science fiction for "mundanes" who can't handle good science. Stuff like Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Silly junk and barely funny.

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  8. I have no objection to good science - I think a writer should be careful to keep the science accurate when dealing with known facts. But I also have no objection to fictional physics, for example, if it's necessary to get you from here to an alien planet. I really like a blend of fact and fantasy, with good writing and (especially) skillfully depicted, believable characters - and if you have extraterrestrials, you need to work up a convincing alien conculture.

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  9. Great post. And you're so right with that last paragraph!

    Besides, I don't think sf - or fiction in general - is necessarily about the grass being greener elsewhere, I think it's about the grass being different.
    And, hey, why not? People like to discover new places and things.

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  10. Thanks for commenting! It's true - the creative imagination can give a different perspective, often one that illuminates reality.

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