I’m of two minds on this. On the one mind, I think: let’s get some literary verve here! On the other, I think: what SF has is so unique, I’d hate to see it diluted by what passes for "imaginative" in the literary realm (i.e. The Lovely Bones–they also called Snow Falling on Cedars a mystery, which was a pretty decent novel but a dismal mystery).

So I guess I’d rather see better lines of communication develop between the nations–sort of like the struggle for unity going on now in Europe: a preservation AND a comingling of ideas and art.

Trent

I, likewise, am of two minds about SF as a literature distinct from mainstream and for the same reasons: there’s something special that comes out of SF. For example, Crichton (in my opinion) is not SF despite extensive plundering–I meant “use”–of SF tropes. (Would that be sfxploitation?)

Are the best FS writers of the last three decades the equals of mainstream lit? Hell no: they’re still spitting our dust out of their mouths. The level of invention required to satisfy the average SF reader would leave the most mainstream writers crying. At the same time, you still have to deliver believable characters, provide a satisfying emotional arc, keep abreast of what’s hot in research. All this for pennies on the dollar for what mainstream lit pays (Talking short fiction markets, here.) and you’ll never get a job in academia. It’s like being a woman in a men’s job market: you have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously.

But that’s “the best,” our Delaney’s and LeGuin’s. And notice how they’ve edged out of the genre over the years. Is there something going on that makes them uncomfortable? Or has the genre moved away from these artists who produced exceptional work of literary merit.

Sturgeon’s Law says that 90% of everything is, for the family crowd, garbage. Privatly, my opinion is that SF has greatly exceeded that level. If Sturgeon’s Law were holding for SF, approximately one story out of every issue of the major print magazines should be knock-your-socks-off, go straight to Esquire stellar. Two stories out of every issue of a minor tier magazine should be “worthy of note.”

Others are certain–and welcome–to disagree with me, but I don’t think we’re at that level. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong in this. It pains me to see SF works show up in leading mainstream magazines such as The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly written by non-SF writers that demonstrates better control of topic and narrative than anything I’m likely to encounter in a year of reading the leading mags in the field. What is put forth as our “best” won’t meet the minimum standards outside our field.

It’s like American companies trying to break into the Japanese market: our standards of quality will have to drastically improve before they’ll be willing to do business with us.

I think the ghetto of SF allows us the luxury of believing we are special, even superior, because the literary dialog stops at the nine walls and four towers and we just don’t know any better.

Best regards,

Alan Lattimore

Mea Culpas

First and foremost, my apologies to the incredibly hardworking people who are responsible for the print magazines, and therefor, for keeping the grand tradition of SF alive. My passion comes from my concern about the health of this field we all love.

One minor point:

You’re talking about the best paying literary magazines in the business. When Omni paid comparable rates, the quality was comparable. Lucius Shepard’s "Beast of the Heartland"–originally published in Playboy and subsequently in Asimov’s–was as good or better than anything anywhere in the literary field. Yet it didn’t get into anybody’s Year’s Bests anywhere.

When you move down to small press literary magazines, the qualities are comparable–I know because I’ve read them. When you read the small press lit magazines–and not the year’s bests–the same feeling you get from a pro SF mag is the same as the high quality small press mags (this assumes, of course, that a reader is capable of reading both types of literature).

Yes, New Yorker places jaw-dropping stuff throughout the entire year, but did you happen to read the latest Updike story? Kind of… rushed–it could have used some work. Also, how many stories do they publish a year? 50+. Asimov’s? ~100?

If you want idiosyncratic literary genre stuff, you might want to try Full Unit Hookup–a magazine that’s always evolving. Sturgeon’s 90% law holds true here, too. Usually one or two stand-outs (if he paid New Yorker rates, I’m sure they’d knock you out), a couple of interesting pieces, capable work, and a few things I probably would not have selected. Even still, there tends to be some thing that oddly compels in each work.

So comparatively, I do think the genre mags are doing pretty decent with what they’ve got. We want our jaws to drop with every story, but it probably won’t happen until writers get more "ethical" in their aesthetics, so to speak. So we must encourage the good stuff and dissect what doesn’t work and why.

As Vonnegut told us: so it goes.

I do think you’re doing the right thing, though. Demand quality. But as Jeff Vandermeer suggested, get active, too. I think dissection is an active and vital part of showing how we can achieve quality in the genre. If you write stories yourself, do that. If you want to publish, demand quality and be willing to work for it.

Take care.

Sincerely,

Trent Walters

Even more Mea Culpas. By citing Sturgeon’s Law, I have clearly, but unintentionally, declared 90%–or, in my assertion, more than 90%–of SF to be garbage. That isn’t my opinon at all. The majors showcase solid work and if the smaller mags I have read yeild less in terms of stylistic unity ot maturity, they often meet or exceed my expectations through sheer enthusiasm.

The point that I thought I was making, which Trent was kind enough to grant to me anyway, is that +90% of the SF I read does not compare to functionally equivalent mainstream periodicals. I was comparing based on rank. How does our best of breed compare to their best of breed? A deep, proud part of me wants the best SF, the best fantasy, in our top magazines to compete successfully with the offerings in the top non-genre outlets. It is with distress that I conclude what I encounter through my (spotty) attendence on the major print outlets doesn’t measure up.

Perverse snobbery requires me to admit that if a merger with mainstream requires SF to suddenly become absorbed with the petty dreams of middle-aged failed businessmen for barely post-pubescent girls–as seems to be the pattern in The New Yorker–I will remain quite happily here in my ghetto of FTL and Mark IV blasters.

Trent -

I hope you will forgive my use of titles–Mr.–and accept it as the sign of respect that it is. Since you have drawn my attention to it, I would prefer to avoid the frosty neutrality of the formal. I’m sure I will slide back and forth between titles and not titles for a bit. The classes I enjoyed the most in college were those which taught by the Socratic method, sprightly debates in which everyone was “Mr.” or “Miss.” If I am carried away by nostalgia for the heady discourse, bear with me.

I am certianly not the one to disect the spiral relationship between story rates and quality. Leave that to more gifted thinkers than myself.

FutureTense, back before it was FutureTense, was my effort to be an activist: to bring the books that I found wonderful, often fringe material, to the attention of others. It frustrates me no end: most of my friends are inactive SF readers because they can’t find new, interesting works to read. My library is often depleted from lending everything out. The second question I’m always asked when people find out I write SF is “what can you recommend?” Here are all these people who want cool ideas and solid, readable writing, going hungry in the midst of plenty. There is a real, untapped desire that isn’t, and perhaps can’t be, met through the SF offerings at the local Borders.

Stay on target, Luke.

I picked up an issue of FUHU and certaialy admired the effort. I hope it is only your modesty that excludes “Electric Velocipede,” another upstart that offers eclectic selection–occasionally astounding–at a bargain price. “Talebones” has been a recent delight as well. The stories may not be as polished as those in an issue of, say, F&SF–darn close, if you ask me–but they more than make up for it, in my mind, with enthusiasm.

A quick question: what do youmean when you refer to “‘ethical’ in their aesthetics?”

Best Regards,

Alan

Postscript-

If I write “major print mags” one more time, I think I’ll owe Ellen a brandy or moral equivalent the next time I run into her. I feel terrible. I just barely keep up with printed media and I don’t get over to Scifi.com often enough to feel like I can responsibly include it, or any of the e-format offerings, in my comments. So… off to Scifi.com. If baby Duncan continues his nap.

By "ethical," I meant more or less what you did in "The Chain of Responsibility Has to Start Somewhere." I think you talked about it, too: narrative arcs, characters, ideas, plot, theme. Not "garsh, it shore has purty prose." Each story raises or should raise its own aesthetics–a map to tell us how to read. Some authors require the course of their career for readers to get the aesthetics, however. As much maligned as the writers may have been early on, they tend to be the writers remembered.

Trent (sometimes Mr. Walters, sometimes Frank Dingleheimer)