FutureTense

Check out Fact Whore by Charles Coleman Finlay at Futurismic.

While you’re out and about, stroll over to Gabe Choinard’s s1ngularity.net’s for new fiction, presenting Closed Circle by Colin Brush.

Our beloved friend Anonymous has put up a thoughtful sally (scroll to bottom) into the place of war in genre writing, especially fantasy.

Steve Carper, a regular in the TangentOnline newsgroups, notices this is the first year none of the Nebula awards(R) went to print magazines.

Just two years ago, I remember hearing Gardner Dozois declaring the field to be as healthy–if not healthier–than ever. His criteria was awards. Asimov’s was raking them in, expecially the Hugos.

Now Gardner is gone; the Nebs, at least, are going to venues other than print mags; and SciFi.com finally has enough readers to get a story nominated for the Hugos.

As Ellen Datlow says, “Now that’s kind of scary.”

Great Escape came back from “All Star Adventures” and spent a week in turnaround as I tried to decide to do the 10% purge. At 16,000 words, its really too long. (Asimov’s doesn’t like anything longer than 15K.)

But I already have one story on my desk that’s getting the purge. GE would just just sit there. So… Off it went to Asimov’s.

I’ve also had two experienced industry people tell me that it’s movie material: Edward Scissorhands meets Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So now I get to tackle screenplay writing in my copious spare time.

I’ve been reviewing short fiction for TangentOnline for about four months now. It’s lots of fun. I get to make a total ass of myself on a regular basis. I get to say things like “I would have enjoyed the story more except I saw the ending coming from the second page” only to discover the author has won some world fantasy award and, essentially, I’m teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

Still, from time to time I will chronicle technical issues of writing and story construction that I run across with great regularity. Today’s issue is lack of identity.

I’ve run across a number of stories recently in which the main character is never named. It’s a fairly spread among the magazines I’ve read with the exceptions of F&SF, Asimov’s and Analog. I don’t get over to SciFi.com often enough to comment although I would be surprised it Ellen let many through.

I don’t have a particular grind about it. It does add an air of “beginning writer” for me: here is a writer who hasn’t learned how to introduce their characters yet. Either that or they don’t understand that how important it is.

When you enter a group of strangers, what’s probably the first thing you’ll do to be comfortable?

Introduce yourself. In our culture, introductions are THE start of any relationship that isn’t based on avoidance.

But the dandelion root goes deeper. Most of the stories I’m reading are third person omniscient or third person intimate. In both cases, the main character will possess both a name and an identity even if the author hasn’t figured out how to give it to the reader. If the reader shares the authentic experience of the characterwe should know a fair amount about their self concept, including their name. To deny the reader access to that name and sense of self is to both suggest pathology and prevent the reader from developing a strong connection to the character.

Would you date someone who wouldn’t tell you their name, their history, or reveal at least some of their internal landscape? I hope not.

The simple lack of a name introduces a veil between the reader and the character. But it also seems to introduce a fatal distance between the writer and the character. Although I’m not sure I could separate cause from effect, the stories that I’ve read with unnamed main characters tended to be more static even when other aspects were handed well. There was less change between beginning and end; the characters were less sympathetic; the stories were more one dimensional, proceeding along a track without surprises; the narratives tended to be plot driven.

I will also note these stories were generally more internal. It follows. When a character interacts with a strong friend or strong opposing force, the character’s name is bound to leak out through dialog. Stories with unnamed main characters tended to avoid conflict and have little action.

I’m sure there are stories out there with a functional requirement for the main character to have no name and/or no identity. Corwin wakes up in an institute not knowing his name in Zelazny’s Amber series. (Maybe the readers of this blog can come up with more examples.)

But Corwin’s issues of identity are not an accident, some glass gem glued to the side of the crown as an after thought. It is–and should be–the dominant theme until resolved.

So. Unless you are writing the tale of a character’s quest for identity–their own or someone else’s–please give me a name.

Best regards,

Alan Lattimore

Apologies for the site going stale. Life interferes. I had a car to fix up for sale, then a motorcycle–farewell beautifyl green Beamer–and renovations to finish off.

David Hartwell has declared the golden age of science fiction is twelve. If so, SF has yet to find its comback road.

We’re looking at schools for our oldest who will be entering either Kindergarten or first grade depending upon whether we can triumph over an insensitive administration. The school we visited today was having the standard Scholastic Book Fair. Over 700 items for sale, from early readers through YA material.

How many SF titles do you think were on the shelves? And how many SF related titles were on the shelves?

Fantasy was well represented even beyond J. K Rowling and knockoffs. Horror also made a proud stand beyond R. L Stine and the "Goosebumps" series. But there were no SF titles.

Zip.

Zilch.

Nada.

Heck, the spy/thriller genre was better represented. There were two Tom Clancy styled thrillers. One featured a boy saving the world from a disaffected Russian sub commander.

It goes beyond the absence of fiction. I could find only two SF/advanced technology related titles. One on ISS, the international space station, and another on the future of space exploration. First, it breaks my heart. Second, it worries me. Yes, its adults selecting what will be presented, but I assume they’re fairly responsive to their audience. One first glance, this looks to me like an audience that is divorced from science, technology, and the burn to explore both the world around them and the Universe far away.

A culture and a people afraid of technology and distanced from it are destined to become victims of it, not controllers or knowlegeable users.

Best regards,
Alan