I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to talk about Worldcon 2009 again. However, it’s come to my attention that a pleasant chat I had with Kate Heartfield, a reporter with the Ottawa Citizen, resulted in my being quoted briefly in my hometown newspaper.
I felt compelled to share—particularly in light of this recent diatribe by SF author Kim Stanley Robinson against the Booker judges, which has lately done the blog rounds. I have to admit that I’ve never read any Robinson, but, based on how completely bang-on I think he is here, I’m going to make the time.
In response, according to the Guardian, Man Booker judge John Mullan is quoted as saying:
…that he “was not aware of science fiction,” arguing that science fiction has become a “self-enclosed world”.
“When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres,” he said, but now “it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other.”
…which is an appallingly ignorant statement about all literary genres, let alone those cherished by Fandom. Does Mullan really think that mysteries and westerns and romance novels and spy-thrillers and true crime potboilers and alternate histories all receive the same due as literary novels in the minds of the Man Booker judges? I feel I must rise to the defence of nerds and geeks everywhere: for I have met the enemy and truly they are us.
The reason SF, fantasy & horror fans have “special weird things they go to and meet each other” is not (generally) because of some kind of self-imposed exile, it’s the result of years of mainstream neglect, indifference and scorn. In its early days, SF was seen as the exclusive province of children or arrested adolescents. This golden age of acceptance that Mullan refers to never happened. At best, mainstream success came to SF/fantasy writers by virtue of their not being included in genre ghettos in the public’s perception.
Margaret Atwood has been nominated for the Man Booker five times in part because she steadfastly refuses to be labelled a science fiction writer, despite having spent years and years now writing science fiction.
SF fans, longing for acceptance and camaraderie, created Fandom organically as a means to celebrate the artistic achievement of creators who are often ignored by the mainstream—and more power to them.
Post a Comment