On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Rhian Merris wrote:
> Lindy Wrote:
>
> ----------
> I am not comfortable dividing the sci fi category into "worthy"
> and "worthless," nor labeling someone negatively because of that
> person's taste in literature. Every one makes the distinction
> of worthiness on her or his own.
> ----------
>
> Excellent. And quite apropos, I would think, given the other thread
> about how "worthy" SF might be thought to be academically.
>
> Rhian Merris
> rhian.m.merris@cpmx.saic.com
>
Having been an sf fan since I was six and discovered The Spaceship Under
the Apple Tree, Zip Zip Goes to Mars, and Space Cat (sorry, this was the
mid 1950s), having gone on to read enormous quantities of the "junk" sf of
the sixties (ie. DC comics, Tarzan, Perry Rhodan, Captain Future, Lin Carter,
Gardner Fox, etc.), not to mention the officially sanctioned quality sf
(Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Blish) of that era, and having then
gone on to become an academic in English, I'm very familiar with both the
snobbery that causes mainstream academics to look down on science fiction
in general and the snobbery that causes readers of "quality sf" (Le Guin,
Dick, Russ, Gibson) to look down on what they call "Sci Fi" (Star Trek,
Star Wars, Piers Anthony, etc.), and I don't much like such attitudes.
Snobbery aside, however, it does need to be said that all science fiction
isn't the same, doesn't serve the same purposes, and isn't likely to
interest the same people. Ursula Le Guin and William Gibson are both trying
to do something fundamentally different from what your average Star Trek
novel is trying to do. There is an overlap, and that's why all three
qualify as science fiction, but there's still a major difference as well.
Similarly, when Vonda McIntyre published her recent major novel she was
trying to do something different from and more ambitious than what she tries
to do with her Star Trek novels, excellent as those books are.
Some books are designed primarily to be a good read, mind popcorn, perhaps
superb mind popcorn with added vitamins and minerals, but still popcorn.
Other books are designed to deal on a much more complex level with a
variety of artistic, political, personal or moral issues. Such books, when
they succeed, might be said to be "more important" or "better" than the
lighter entertainments in that they're a lot harder to do. But "better"
in this case isn't, or shouldn't be, a moral issue; it's an aesthetic issue.
Besides, different people read for different reasons. Heck, each individual
reads for different reasons at different times. The Female Man, Motherlines,
and The Dispossessed are three serious SF novels that I have enormous regard
for and reread periodically, but when I go to the beach I'm much more likely
to take something by Lois McMaster Bujold or even, gasp, a Star Trek novel.
Mike Levy
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