SF Diplomat

BG3: How to Define a Genre and Why Not to Bother

My third Blasphemous Geometries column has just gone live over at Futurismic.  It is entirely the product of the SFF Masterclass in so far as it is an attempt by me to digest some of the ideas that we were exposed to (in particular postmodernism... I'm okay with Queer Theory).

State of the Union after the 2008 SFF Masterclass

I have weirdly sunburned forearms, a headache born of long periods of concentration, a dozen emails that I need to write and a smile on my face. This is generally a sign of a good weekend. I was lucky enough to attend the 2008 Science Fiction Foundation Masterclass and it proved to be something of an eye-opener to say the least.

The experience took me back to my first week at graduate school when we were told that, effectively, we'd be spending most of our time working on our own but despite this we were encouraged to attend the weekly research seminar because it allowed the creation of an 'intellectual community'. Needless to say, it did nothing or the sort. At its best it was a way of crash testing your ideas in front of an openly hostile audience, but it never instilled any sense that there was any kind of collective endeavor. If anything it did the exact opposite, driving home the idea that a researcher is all alone in a largely hostile universe.

The SFF Masterclass not only made it clear to me that, as an SF critic, I am part of a larger community. It also made it clear how effective and desirable that community can be at bringing you new ideas, perspectives and opportunities.

Though I wasn't able to socialise as much as I would have liked, I still got a huge amount out of it and I suspect this will slowly filter its way back out in my various writings.

So a large thank you to Farah Mendlesohn, Edward James, Geoff Ryman, Wendy Pearson and Gary K. Wolfe for the classes and John and Judith Clute for a rather fantastic brunch (if only for the spectacle of Gary Wolfe talking to M. John Harrison about an American publisher going insane while John Clute burbles away about Stephen Baxter novels and rabid voles.

Thanks also to my other class mates, who were all lovely.

Technorati Tags: SFF Masterclass

David Simon and Charlie Brooker on The Wire

This evening I was lucky enough to attend a preview screening at the BFI of the first episode of the fifth season of The Wire. Being a big fan of the series, I had already found my way to seeing it but what had really brought me there was the opportunity to see David Simon speak about The Wire, The Corner, Homicide: Life on the Street and his new HBO miniseries Generation Kill.

Simon saunters onto stage, accompanied by the TV critic Charlie Brooker. In his hand he cradles a large brandy glass filled with what appears to be urine but is rapidly said to be a blend of lemon and whiskey for the upper respiratory tract infection that is the true hallmark of all habitues of transatlantic travel; a mile high club for the cattle class age of mass transit.

The first thing that Simon tells us is that not only was his background not in television (Simon started out as a reporter before becoming a novelist) but he never watches television, and nor do any of the other writers of The Wire, perhaps explaining why the series is so unlike any other TV series. Having laid this astonishing fact upon us, Simon sits back and Brooker cues up the next question, but Simon has more as he launches into a tirade against network television and the impossibility of telling a story that is interrupted every thirteen minutes with adverts for soap and cars, Simon sarcastically suggests that when our ancestors gathered round a camp fire so that the elders could speak, it is unlikely that they were interrupted with "a word from our sponsor".

The conversation then drifts over to Homicide: Life on the Streets, Simon's first foray into TV. Not as warmly remembered as many other cop shows, was a strange blend of TV and the real world as it was a spin off series from St. Elsewhere based upon Simon's non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Occasionally brilliant, Homicide was the product of a losing battle between the creative team's desire to create a gritty and realistic police procedural, and the network's desire to broadcast pre-digested, empty-headed pablu as a delivery vector for adverts aimed at a largely undiscerning audience. "Where are the victories?" the suits would evidently ask in production meetings. Their demands for redemption, romantic sub-plots and action ran quite contrary to the desire of the writers and Simon speaks of the series' Writer Director Tom Fontana doing an "antler dance" while on the phone with the network executives. An antler dance being a name for putting a finger through your flies and making obscene gestures while on speaker-phone.

When asked about the possible role of racism in The Wire's lack of commercial success, Simon is, much like his series, unafraid of acknowledging that some matters are complicated. Rather than being a problem of racism, Simon sees it more as a problem of empathy. White Americans are so used to having TV series that are about them that they struggle to cope with series that are unapologetically not about them; "that's not my story" Simon says as he mimes turning the channel. By contrast, minorities, who are used to never having their stories told, are far more willing to watch stories that are not about them. Similarly, people from more cosmopolitan cities are more used to engaging with people that are not like them and as such their empathy can stretch that little bit further. Which is not only an interesting observation to make about different groups' need to identify with the protagonists of a piece of art, it is also an interesting point about the nature of politics. Is it an accident that people in cosmopolitan multicultural cities tend to be less right-wing than people from rural communities?

Simon is an amazingly articulate and erudite speaker. Instead of dishing the dirt on what happened on set or telling cute stories, he lunges into questions that are put to him. The talk includes quotations from Picasso and references to Greek Tragedy and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957). There is no false modesty about Simon, he is not only overtly political and clearly proud of what he has achieved with The Wire, he is openly scornful of TV as a medium. Most TV, Simon explains, aims to make you slump back in your chair with your mouth hanging open; passive, supine, easily manipulated. The Wire, on the other hand tries to make people lean forward and try to make sense of what are complicated ideas, densely layered and then fired unrelentingly at the viewer with every new episode and plotline.

David Simon is a speaker who makes you want to read and think. When he leaves the stage the applause are, somewhat predictably, almost deafening.

*

I have written about The Wire before - I have reviewed Series Two and Three at Videovista (though I have since reconsidered my views on series two) and I have written about series such as The Wire in my piece on economics as a basis for a new genre.

Technorati Tags: Criticism, Television, The Wire, Homicide, The Corner, David Simon, Generation Kill, Charlie Brooker, BFI, Jonathan McCalmont

REVIEW - The Country You Have Never Seen By Joanna Russ (2007)

My review of Joanna Russ' The Country You Have Never Seen has also been included in the launch issue of Fruitless Recursion.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the Kincaid (or am enjoying Farah Mendlesohn's new book) and I think that that is mostly down to the format, which I think attracts the attention more towards the critic than the stuff the critic is writing about.  There are some lovely moments in the book, and some great writing but I must admit that I found it a lot easier to dip in and out of the book than I did to sit down and read through it in a linear manner.

I've also been struggling with the book's title all day as I've been fiddling with Fruitless Recursions and what have you.  Today, the book has been known as "The Country You Have Never Been", "The  Country You Haven't  Seen" and  "The County You Have Never  Been", but that's hardly Russ' fault.

REVIEW - What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (2008)

My review of Paul Kincaid's What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction has gone out as part of the launch issue of Fruitless Recursion.

It was a book I undeniably enjoyed and was inspired by, even if it did remind me that I tend to be very short-termist in my reading tastes and as a result my knowledge of SF prior to about 2000 is really not what it should be.  The book brought this home to me by lavishing attention on Christopher Priest and Gene Wolfe.  I've never read any Priest and what Gene Wolfe I have read bored me.

Call for Papers : Fruitless Recursion Launches!

Fruitless Recursion has just gone live!

Fruitless Recursion is an online journal devoted to the review and discussion of works of criticism and non-fiction relating to the SF, Fantasy and Horror genres.

It is a paying market and it is currently looking for writers as well as subject matter. Go and have a look, I have kicked things off with a review of Paul Kincaid's What it is We Do When We Read Science Fiction and Joanna Russ' The Country You Have Never Seen.

I did consider calling it RubberGlueZine but I thought there were less heavy-handed ways of making the same joke :-)

Technorati Tags: SF, Fantasy, Horror, Criticism, Journal

Page 123, fifth sentence

I'm still coming to grips with the fact that it's okay for me to do more than post links on here, but seeing as the results of this meme were so cool, I thought I'd share them.

The tag is from Paul Raven, who has asked me to go to page 123 of a book at random and share the fifth sentence :

Never mind, no time to cogitate; she becomes so incensed at the codger's insults she shrieks "Now I will put you with the rest of my little pets!," throws acid in his face and drags him screaming behind the curtain.

The book in question is Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, the posthumous collection of reviews and essays by the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs. Note how easily that phrase hangs together; "legendary rock critic" and now consider whether there will ever be a "legendary SF critic". Then stop laughing.

The Value of a Haircut

This morning I was at the end of a cycle.

My productivity tends to follow two distinct cycles; the short cycle that coincides with my regular monthly column and film review deadlines and the long cycle whereby I decide what books I want to write about about. With my Neuropath and Little Brother reviews posted, my long cycle finished this week. It is usually quite a solemn moment as I experience existential angst over just how much creative freedom I have. In fact, just this morning I was considering the possibility of moving more towards writing about crime as the last three books I reviewed were all rather average.

But then I went for a haircut.

I'm not a religious man, nor am I particularly kinky but I have a good deal of time for the Catholics who go to Mass and the submissives who go for a good grovel (in fact, the former's merely an example of the former "We are not worthy O Lord!", "We praise thee O Lord!", "Yes! Piss in my mouth O Lord!") as I definitely buy into the role of ritual as a psychological signifier. It's just that in my case the signifier is getting my hair cut.

This is partly a physical thing; I'm a large, furry man with thick Irish hair. To speak of my hair getting 'too long' would be to miss the point. It is never too long as it never passes my collar. The problem is that once my hair reaches a certain length some kind of capillary Singularity takes place and I start to resemble something you might hunt through swamps with dogs and flaming torches.

Having my hair cut is a ritual of purification.

Ideally the Polish woman who cuts my hair would finish by pulling out a black attache case from which she would produce a foot long cut-throat razor with gold inlays. She would then poor vodka on the blade and set light to it, extinguishing the flames with a flick of the wrist before evening out my sideburns.

They always ask me if I want them to use clippers and I always say no. That would defeat the purpose.

REVIEW - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008)

My review of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother has also gone live at THE ZONE.

This was a surprisingly quick review given how long it is.  I could also have gone on a bit more as I think it's quite interesting the way Doctorow portrays adolescence and young adulthood, and how different it all is to the Jocks/Nerds dichotomy that once dominated US cinema.  Having said that, I think that Jocks/Nerds is derived from America's pre-WWII can-do anti-intellectualism whereas I think that Doctorow's view of highschool owes a lot more to films like Dazed and Confused.

Was a good book to write about though.

REVIEW - Neuropath by Scott Bakker (2008)

My review of Scott Bakker's Neuropath has gone live over at THE ZONE.

Neuropath is in many ways, exactly the kind of book that I enjoy writing about : It features some really interesting ideas and it doesn't quite work for reasons that are in themselves interesting.

Interestingly, Neuropath covers a lot of the same ground as Peter Watts' Blindsight, easily my favourite read of 2007.  However, since I reviewed Blindsight I have done some thinking about the role of folk psychology in fiction, prompting me to have second thoughts about some of the goings on in that particular work.  But having said that, I think Neuropath advanced my thinking on the matter quite a bit beyond the ideas I was throwing about when I wrote about Dexter.





NB : This review was based upon a review copy provided by the publisher