In which Chaz is vexed. Again.

[desperance]

Hmmph. The new Interzone has an interview with Christopher Priest, which I read straight off, having so much enjoyed the movie of "The Prestige". And he said, on the essential difference between SF and fantasy:

SF is in the end about human responsibility: actions lead to consequences, and the fiction describes, discusses and evaluates those consequences. Those actions can be couched in reality, or they can be speculative in nature. Thus it is a moral fiction, and the highest forms of it can be accepted as literature. Fantasy is the opposite: it is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control. Once fantasy attempts to grapple with reality it ceases to be fantasy, so the generalisation holds.

So what are we to take from this: that fantasy is not a moral fiction, because it does not address human responsibility? Actions do not lead to consequences, in even the highest forms of the genre? 'Scuse me, but both parts of that seem to me to be large and pendulous bollocks, only waiting for the snip.

Also, that last sentence is a weasel. It's the squids-in-space argument: "I do not write [genre of your choice], because it is without merit; where it has merit - or indeed where I write it - then it is not [genre of your choice]."

Bah, I say. Also, humbug.

Snip.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

This is the man who declared for a decade that he didn't write sf and then got miffed when he was omitted from the CUP book.

It's nonsense. Quite a lot of fantasy is precisely about control of the irrational or the creation of rational paradigms for the fantastical.

Mendlesohn's corollary to Clarke's third law: "An sufficiently immersive fantasy is indistinguishable from science fiction."

[(Anonymous)]

As I recall it, Chris was more amused than "miffed" by the cock-up at Cambridge.

Jose

[fjm.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a cock up. He is the only omission that will be corrected, but I again point out that having spent a lot of time insisting he wasn't an sf author, he can't complain if the authors and editors took him at his word.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as I was the one he was "miffed" to, I stand by my description.

[(Anonymous)]

He didn't complain. He found it funny.

Jose

[szandara.livejournal.com]

That's just silly. I don't see a whole lot of difference between sf and fantasy, really. Both involve putting characters into an alternate universe containing situations and elements which are not currently possible. In SF, the impossible elements are usually technologies, often in an imagined future; in fantasy, the impossible is usually explained by magic, and set in some kind of imagined past.

But it's the same basic premise: what would happen to these characters if X was possible? And then it's matter of whether the writer gives the characters moral agency and spins out the consequences of their decisions in a plausible way, given the context of the story.

Fantasy is the opposite: it is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control.

So characters in SF, or naturalistic fiction for that matter, always have control of events, and those events are always rational? What crack is he smoking books has he been he reading? Pendulous bollocks indeed!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It would be true if all fantasy were Lovecraft.

Maybe he's only read Lovecraft?

[frumpo.livejournal.com]

A character creates devices which allow people to transport themseleves instantaneously to anywhere in their world and I want to explore the impact of such freedom of movement. If the device is activated by rubbing, I'm writing Fantasy. If it's activated by pressing a button I'm writing SF. Hmmmm.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The distinction is a matter of details, not themes. The remark quoted above says more about the person making it than it does about SF or fantasy, and what it mostly says is that he doesn't like fantasy and feels a need to justify his dislike.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Either the poor man doesn't read much fantasy or he doesn't grasp what he reads.

Bah, humbug, indeed.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

What I take from this, after 40+ years of reading SF and F, is that Mr Priest hasn't a clue about Fantasy. I also only mention in passing that saying events(,) over which man has no control isn't going to earn him any kudos with anyone whose intellect has moved on from the sexist attitudes of the '60s: Casey and Miller's Handbook of Sexist Writing has been around for long enough.

Some examples to back up his generalisations would be nice. I wish people who write about 'reality' in fiction would define what they mean by it - usually they mean 'realism' which ain't the same thing at all. Whenever anyone, anywhere writes about the SF:F debate (or SF/F:literature) there are never any examples offered as possible proof. It's just so sloppy!

Ooh, I'm annoyed!

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

In addition to everything everyone else said, he also makes an elementary error of assuming that just because fantasy has been written one way, it will always be written in that way.

I'm sure there were a lot of people like him complaining, before Hammett and Chandler and Carroll John Daly, that mystery fiction could only ever be cozy and mannered and artificial.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

This is the same Christopher Priest who wrote A Dream of Wessex and Inverted World and The Glamour? I mean I know he is the same one, that's a rhetorical question, but aargh.

That's just really bizarre.

[synedrian.livejournal.com]

Damn. That just shows that writers shouldn't be allowed to speak anywhere but on the pages of their books.* I've been reading his stuff for so many years, and rather hoped he was a god-like figure. Obviously not. Boohoo.

-------------------
*Unless they are Chaz, obviously.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing even Chaz puts his trousers on one leg at a time (to borrow from Mrs Lee)

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

As someone who witnessed Chris's 'Disco SF' manifesto all those years ago, I am torn between wondering whether he's just trying to irritate, or whether it was a genuine Margaret Attwood moment. Thinking back to his Interaction performances, I'm inclined to the latter. He really doesn't know what he's talking about.

But when did that stop any of us?

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

For those who weren't there, this was a BSFA meeting at which he resounding trashed the likes of Robert Silverberg (this was in his Valentine period, so Chris hadn't entirely lost his marbles) and claimed that there is no such thing as subtext in cinema. As the BSFA cinema hack at the time, we had a discussion. I won. He didn't think so.


Guess he's changed his mind about that, too. Subtext, I mean.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Personally I think that SF is a subcategory of Fantasy. Totally with you on the Bahs and Humbugs.

[(Anonymous)]

Got to now. At the worldcon, cp was asked about this and I overheard him say fantasy was a bit of a blindspot. He really diodn't mind about the Cambridge book, and said a lot of good things about you, Fara.

Jose (joscompo@yahoo.com)

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

From a 30-year perspective:

When there's science, it's science fiction. When there's magic, it's fantasy. When it's scary, it's horror.

Decide what's best to tell the story, whatever it is, and then do it. Repeat till you die.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Now that I can live with. Thank you.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[Fantasy] is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control. In fact, this describes a lot of my science fiction. I often write about the impact of technology on people who have no choice but to endure it and/or find a way to survive it. And really, isn't that the story of our lives? Global warming, for example?

To be honest, I'm tired of reading about the inherent virtues of sf over fantasy or vice versa. There are none, no matter who insists otherwise. I blame the severe stratification of the fantastic genre, which has been imposed on us by increasingly anal marketers, desperate to improve sales figures. The time was when you could call yourself a science fiction writer and then write whatever you wanted to. Robert Bloch, for example, called himself a science fiction writer till the day he died. I heard him talk about writing and story several times--always he talked about story. What's the story about? What's the point? What feels like the best way you can tell it--science or magic? Is it scary or not? Decide, then write it that way. James Gunn and Robert Heinlein told me the same thing.

So did Judith Merrill, but more indirectly. If you can, find copies of her old best-sf-of-the-year anthologies, which contain sf, fantasy, horror, and what has lately been called slipstream--things as varied as "The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud and "Bring the Jubilee" by Ward Moore, "Automatic Tiger" by Kit Reed and "The Television People" by Tuli Kupferberg.

In conclusion (she pronounced, finally taking a breath), writers would do better to concentrate on their own virtues rather than my-genre-can-beat-up-your-genre.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

writers would do better to concentrate on their own virtues rather than my-genre-can-beat-up-your-genre.

Yay, and amen.

I have some of the Merrill anthos, which I must revisit; I remember them as pivotal to my early reading.

[throughsoftair.livejournal.com]

Fantasy is the opposite: it is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control. Once fantasy attempts to grapple with reality it ceases to be fantasy, so the generalisation holds.

Hello, my name is Christopher Priest, and I haven't read any Tim Powers.

:)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

*coming late to the party*

And following on from fastfwd's definition: When there's science, it's science fiction. When there's magic, it's fantasy

Which means that - if anything - it's the other way about. SF is about dealing with a world in which there are forces you can't control, fantasy offers the possibility of a counter-force, magic, by which you can control them.

Gravity - not just a good idea...

[(Anonymous)]

... it's the law!

Surely SF is about using technology to control those forces - or at least bend the dumb consequences in your favour.

Simon M

Re: Gravity - not just a good idea...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

My technology barely manages to "deal with" natural forces: if you have a technology that actually controls them, can we all have some please?

Re: Gravity - not just a good idea...

[(Anonymous)]

Look, if everyone has it, how am I going to conquer the world? Bwahahaha.

We want our bookend back

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm... is this the same bloke what won a Clarke award?

Frankly, I don't see the point in making such 'this is/this isn't' statements, unless it's related to the quality of the fiction. Case in point: Another War was up for a World Fantasy Award. I could have sworn it was SF when I wrote it, but that wouldn't have stopped me from claiming the prize (if they'd offered it to me, which they wisely didn't).

I promise I'll still hang around with you all when I'm rich and famous.

Simon M