Book Notes: Controversialists At Loggerheads

Sorry, Gentle Reader. If I write more about politics just now, my brain is likely to explode. As I expect to need it for a few more years, I'll dedicate this fine morning to one of my other fascinations.

When I'm not haranguing you about some political, sociological, or religious subject, I'm writing:

• Science fiction,
• Contemporary supernatural fantasy,
• Erotica,
• Some other genre of fiction,
• C++.

There are "gray zones" along the edges of all the genres mentioned (and unmentioned) above...well, except for C++, which has an ANSI specification, though most compiler vendors think nothing of violating it. The "gray zones" are where a story more-or-less inside one genre incorporates elements from another one. When the proportions approach equality, we speak of "hybrids," as in SF/fantasy, SF/horror, and most controversially today, SF/romance.

Writer/commentator Theodore Beale, perhaps better known on the World Wide Web as "Vox Day," has some rather strident opinions about that last mixture:

I must confess that I am rather enjoying the way in which my original assertion from 2005 has now become an established meme in the science fiction community. Sure, they intend it in an ironic way, but the publication will almost certainly provide additional supporting evidence for my hypothesis that women have destroyed the SF/F literary subgenre by feminizing it.

Women Destroy SF — Special Issue

September 5, 2013 — It could be said that women invented science fiction; after all, Mary Shelley wrote what is considered by many to be the first science fiction novel (Frankenstein). Yet some readers seem to have this funny idea that women don’t–or can’t–write science fiction. Some have even gone so far as to accuse women of destroying science fiction with their girl cooties.

So to help prove how silly that notion is, Lightspeed is proud to announce that in 2014 we’ll be publishing a “Women Destroy SF” special issue, with a guest editor at the helm. More details to come soon, so watch this space!

Now, for starters, Beale/Vox obviously has rather high opinions of himself and his own work. I disagree with both -- I was unimpressed by what I read of his fiction, and his opinion writing is aimed mainly at stirring up controversies -- but then, most writers think well of themselves, and to blather onto the Web one must believe one's opinions to have some merit. Anyway, most of us aren't as smart or as skillful as we think we are.

Being an opinionated sort myself, I decided to challenge Beale/Vox with a few pointed questions:

You're treading on rather swampy ground here. While I too disdain, generally, bait-and-switch tactics of the sort to which you allude, there are some gaping gaps in your position as implied by the above statement:

1. Are you prepared to state that an SF story should not have any romantic elements in it? If not, what are you prepared to say, distinctly and definitively, about the admixture of romantic elements into an SF novel?
2. Whatever your opinion on question 1, are you prepared to offer a "template" for an SF story, in terms of allowed and disallowed plot elements, motifs, character types, stylistic choices, and so forth? If not, doesn't the whole contretemps come down to divergent tastes?
3. If we retreat from the intensive, and traditionally frustrating, effort to create a bright-line definition of what SF is (and therefore, what it is not), are you willing to give us an extensive -- i.e., by example and tabulation -- approach to distinguishing it from other genres?

In closing: Pub World -- i.e., the conventional publishing houses and their support structures -- are oriented to the market in a way more terrifying than most persons are aware. (I say that as one who gave up trying to batter my way through their gates some time ago.) They cannot know beforehand whether a book will attract a sufficient audience to be profitable. There's simply no good way to probe that question, which is what gives rise to the editors' maxim "Give us the same, but different." By implication, their receptivity to the sort of SF/romance hybrid you deplore must be satisfying the empirical test of profitability. No matter what that might say about the shifting tastes of readers who shop at the SF shelf, that vindicates both the decisions of the writers and the judgment of the publishers rather conclusively.

Beale/Vox replied:

I don't think so, Francis. Allow me to answer your questions.

1. No. Yes, to the extent that a novel that is primarily focused on romance and contains neither intellectual speculation nor science should not be considered a science fiction novel. Unless you are willing to go so far as to deny the existence of literary genres and sub-genres, you are indulging in little more than rhetorical hand-waving. It is not at all difficult to discern the difference between a science fiction novel like Frank Herbert's Dune, a romance novel like Danielle Steele's Matters of the Heart, a thriller like Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity, and a mystery like Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.
2. No. And no, it does not all come down to divergent tastes. Genres are observably distinct and one would have to be a complete fool to deny it. Now, cross-genre books do exist, but the point is that they are a mongrel literature, they are cross-genre rather than pure.
3. You are simply incorrect here. The publishers are not profit-driven, as evidenced by their continued failure to pursue very profitable markets. You are confusing the motives of the publishing company with the motives of their decision-making employees, which are entirely different, and in some cases, in direct opposition. Neither of the two decisions to which I referred had anything to do with profit; both publishers knew that picking up the books would be very profitable for them. That's why they were talking to me in the first place.

As I've previously noted, I will have to get to around 100k sales+downloads per year before the profit motive will begin to overwhelm the ideological one. The gatekeepers are ideological and short-sighted, but they're not completely insane.

that vindicates both the decisions of the writers and the judgment of the publishers rather conclusively.

First, note that your logic is circular, as you suggest that whatever the publishers publish must be the optimal decision by virtue of their deciding to publish it. Second, that is obviously false when the writers are getting increasingly smaller advances while the publishers are selling fewer and fewer new books.

Rather than batter the poor man unmercifully for his inability to confront actual logic -- after all, there are...persons who maintain that that logic stuff is merely a tool of patriarchal capitalist oppression -- I'll simply note the following:

1. To say that a category exists requires either an intensive definition or an extensive -- i.e., by example -- one. An intensive definition requires a genus and a differentia. To refuse to provide an intensive definition demands that one allow that there are "gray zones" around the category. To refuse to do either is to evade the question. This is the case regardless of what sort of category one addresses.
2. Any approach to a subject that fails to provide specific postulates, evidence, and logical assertions consistent with one's postulates and evidence is inherently a matter of opinion. Others, being entitled to their own opinions, need not accept it.
3. Publishers, like most of us, are in business for several reasons, but in the case of entertainment publishing, one of the dominant ones is to profit. A publisher that fails to do this will require either external support or a course correction, lest it fail. That some publishers -- mainly the ideologically-fixated ones -- are externally supported, and some others are failing as we speak, does not vitiate that statement. Neither does publishers' treatment of writers vitiate it; the reduction of advances and so forth are merely part of publishers' profit-seeking. Indeed, one of my agents used to brag that she specialized in getting advances for her clients that were unlikely to "earn out" in royalties. She noted that every agent strives to do exactly that...which is a large part of the reason for publishers' change in treatment of writers.

Ultimately, the entire subject is about divergent opinions and divergent tastes. I have opinions of my own on the subject, but I'm willing to call them exactly that -- my opinions -- and refrain from castigating those who disagree, or shoveling contempt onto writers who, secure in their own opinions, elect to "practice as they preach."