Harshing My Sensawunda

I like science fiction and fantasy. All of it.

Some of it, I like better than others. Space opera is fun. Talking head stuff is okay. I cut my teeth in short fiction on Isaac Asimov’s logic problems very thinly disguised as robot stories. It took me a while to get into the Foundation books and Lord of the Rings, but eventually I got there. I like the military stuff, obviously, and I dig things with an epic scope. And I’m not stranger to the literary stuff, though it’s not generally my first choice.

One of the things I like best about science fiction and fantasy are the depth and breadth of possibility. In some ways, all the rules are out the window when it comes to what can and can’t be done in the course of the narrative. Sure, I like to see consistency within the story, but overall it doesn’t matter to me too much whether or not, strictly speaking, what I’m seeing or reading is possible or, heaven forbid, realistic.

Which is why this kind of thing irks me.

Don’t get me wrong. When it comes to watching stuff that involves the military, I can get as nitpicky as anyone else. But you know what? No amount of awesome military detail can get me to like a story that sucks. And if the story is awesome enough, I can overlook plenty. One recent example, I watched Roberto Benigni’s The Tiger in the Snow, which featured a couple of appearances by US troops. In some ways, the troops are laughably incorrect: 3rd ID soldiers rolling their sleeves like Marines (or rolling their sleeves at all in a combat zone), M-60 tanks, and a soldier with his nametape displaying his first name.

But you know what? Fuck that. It was a good movie. I liked it. If Dale Dye had been involved, it would have looked a little better, but would that have added to the story, would I have enjoyed it more? I doubt it. Maybe I would have been a little less distracted. Maybe.

Between the “Mundane SF” movement (with its own manifesto, donchaknow) and some of the recent criticisms of seen of fantasy lately, it seems as though there’s this solid contingent somewhere within the genre that wants science fiction and fantasy to conform as closely to real life as is allowable, forcing the speculative aspects into a “minimum allowable” sort of shell. I mean, Chris Weigant complains about the Enterprise coming to a dead stop when they shut the engines off, but ignores the whole warp drive thing? Silliness.

I say, if you’re going to dream like this, if you’re going to create a new world, or a new future, go all out. Make it strange, make it crazy, make it weird. Sure, make it consistent. But you know what? It doesn’t have to be consistent with our experience here. It doesn’t have to be “Earth, with magic” or whatever. Yeah, I am absolutely defending how I like to write, but in that I’m also defending how I like to read and watch. There’s a place for stuff that is “Earth, with magic” or Mundane SF, or whatever you want. I’ll even enjoy reading/watching it. But it doesn’t have to be the whole of the genre.

And if you want to invent “responsive gravitic impellers” so that your star-fighters can do U-Turns in space? Go right ahead. I’ll read it.