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

[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.