The Secret History of Science Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||
edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Tachyon, 384 pages | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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A review by Martin Lewis
This is the third in a series of themed anthologies edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel for Tachyon. In each
case, the theme has been loose, elusive and not without controversy. Feeling Very Strange (2006) set out to be
the definitive slipstream anthology but, in this reviewer's eyes, it is far too partial and parochial to be regarded
as such, even taking into account my objection to the definition they use as their starting point. Rewired (2007)
tried to pin down the equally slippery concept of post-cyberpunk. Paul Kincaid viewed this as a mixed success in
his review for SF Site, describing it as:
The Secret History of Science Fiction uses Jonathan Lethem's infamous 1998 Village Voice
article, "The Squandered Promise Of Science Fiction," as a starting point to discuss literary science fiction. The
hyperlink Kelly and Kessel provide to Lethem's article in the book is unfortunately already dead but you should be
able to find a mirrored copy, if you search online. In brief, it posits that 1973 was a potential turning point for
science fiction and that if Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon had been awarded the Nebula that year (it was
shortlisted), science fiction could subsequently have been "gently and lovingly dismantled, and the writers
dispersed." Obviously, this didn't happen. Lethem bemoans this as "marking the death of the hope that science fiction
was about to merge with the mainstream."
Kelly and Kessel believe Lethem overstates his case (as well they might). They therefore take it as their mission
to prove that the promise of science fiction was not, in fact, squandered -- although this title was imposed on Lethem
by his subeditors, it was actually originally "Why Can't We All Just Live Together?" -- and that since 1973 great
science fiction has come both from within the genre and without:
The anthology is a secret history in that it aims to present an alternative chronology of the genre since 1973,
one that diverges from the public face of science fiction, one that is more likely to be to Lethem's taste. So it is
slightly unfortunate that the editors start the anthology with "Angouleme" by Thomas M. Disch (originally published
in 1971) and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin (listed as 1975 here but actually 1973,
revised 2003). The former predates Lethem's cut-off point and is part of the New Wave movement that he explicitly
praises in his article (it was included by Michael Moorcock in his definitive 1983 anthology, New Worlds). The
latter is hardly a secret, it is one of Le Guin's most famous stories and winner of the 1974 Hugo for best short
story. They are both impressive stories but they don't really provide much of counterargument; Lethem is an
admirer of both writers and, although he alights on 1973 as a totemic "hidden tombstone" moment in his article,
it is clear his problem is mostly with science fiction in the 80s and 90s.
Stories from these decades do, in fact, make up the bulk of The Secret History of Science Fiction. Before
these though, there are two more representatives of the 70s: "Ladies And Gentlemen, This Is Your Crisis" by
Kate Wilhelm (1976) and "Descent Of Man" by T.C. Boyle (1977). Wilhelm's use of reality TV is perhaps overly familiar
three decades later, but her focus on two members of the audience rather than the contestants makes her story more
memorable than it initially seems. Boyle is the first representative from the other side of the divide, although
his story, in which the protagonist unwillingly finds himself competing for the affections of his partner with one
of the chimps she studies, is not really science fiction at all. There are some nice moments of body horror but
the story is overwhelmed by smugness and smartarsery (the usual complaints levelled at postmodern fiction, in
other words). Sometimes this is innocent, as with the pointless factual footnotes, sometimes it is less so, as with
the grotesque accent of the only black character (the janitor): "Yo's wonderin what me an Mastuh Konrad was jiving
bout up dere, isn't yo?" (p. 64) Clues are lacking, but presumably this is meant to be ironic, as is the
caricatured South East Asian accent of Mrs U-Hwak-Lo, because otherwise it would be straight up racist.
Putting the 70s behind us, authorial intent is similarly murky in the other weak link in the collection, "The
Ziggurat" by Gene Wolfe (1995), a novella that takes up the largest chunk of the anthology. The issue here is
sexism rather than racism; there is no doubt that the central character is a misogynist, what is less clear is
how much Wolfe is aware of this. Either way, it is bizarrely paced and plotted and deeply unsatisfying.
The rest of the stories are much better, particularly those by what we like to call mainstream writers. (Kelly
and Kessel use this term and, although I am not especially happy with it, I will use it here for ease.) They do
share a similarly loose allegiance to science fiction, though. Margaret Atwood's short "Homelanding" (originally
1989 but this version 1994) is notionally a first contact story but is really only directed inwards (rather
wonderfully) at the human race. Similarly Don DeLillo's "Human Moments In World War Three" (1983) places
his characters in a manned military weapons platform in orbit, allowing them the space and perspective to
reflect on life below. "93990" by George Saunders (2000) is as short as Atwood's piece but the opposite in
tone: clinical, deadpan and with a punchline at humanity's expense. Carter Scholz's "The Nine Billion Names Of
God" (1984) takes the form of a series of letters between a fictional Scholz and the equally fictitious editor
of a science fiction magazine who does not take kindly to Scholz submitting the famous Arthur C. Clarke story
under his own name. Like Saunders's story, it isn't SF at all, although it could be considered a kind of
science fiction criticism:
It is not just those writing from outside the tradition of science fiction skating the periphery either. Karen Joy
Fowler's "Standing Room Only" (1997) is a typical Fowler story in that you can only tell it is science fiction
if you know where it was published. It appears at first to be simply historical fiction set in Washington in the
period leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but because we read science fiction and because we know
it was originally published in Asimov's we understand that the strangers the narrator describes are actually
voyeuristic time travellers. Well done us. "Schwarzschild Radius" by Connie Willis (1987) similarly takes its
heft from history; in this case, Karl Schwarzchild's time on the Eastern Front in the First World War. There is
no time travel here, little SF at all; instead, Willis uses Schwarzchild to create a metaphysical singularity
in the centre of her story. It reads more like slipstream than SF and, in fact, it would form a nice companion
piece to Fowler's "Lieserl" in Feeling Very Strange.
You will note that I have spent a considerable portion of this review talking about what is and what isn't
science fiction. It is often remarked, with some truth, that SF critics get too hung up on taxonomy. At the same
time, it is hard to ignore the issue when you are reviewing a book entitled The Secret History of Science
Fiction. Even those stories which are unambiguously science fiction tend towards a similar type. Regardless
of the background of the writer, familiar tropes such as spaceships are lacking here. Obviously this is a
collection of literary SF but the two aren't incompatible (just ask M. John Harrison). Kelly and Kessel
acknowledge the lack of the future in their anthology and suggest "one of the consequences of the rapprochement
between sf and the literary mainstream is this move to set stories in the present." (p. 16) This is one thing
but I would suggest that five stories out of nineteen set not even in present but in the past is far too many;
not just any past either but, in four out of five cases, the recent American past. (The exception is Willis's,
set on another continent.) Kelly and Kessel's latest effort is as parochial as their previous anthologies. This
is really The Secret History of American Science Fiction; Margaret Atwood is the only
contributor from outside the US.
And what of the three central writers themselves? Yes, not only is Lethem represented here but Kelly and
Kessel have included stories by themselves. This is extremely bad
practice, a dereliction of duty and, to an extent, calls their judgement into question. In a comment on
the Locus
Online review by Paul Witcover which raises the same issue, John Kessel nobly takes the blame for this fact and,
less nobly, attempts to justify it. However, it is impossible not to call bullshit on this feeble pretence. His
story -- "Buddha Nostril Bird" -- is actually very good (much more so than Kelly's stale take on time travel,
nuclear war and nostalgia) but it does not belong here on principle.
As for Lethem, Kelly and Kessel group him with Boyle, Saunders and DeLillo as a postmodernist, a writer whose
stories are "not predicated on exploration of character, but instead use sf to explore ideas, make social comments,
or play games" (p. 14) Yet on the very next page they say that his story "Hardened Criminals" "literalizes the
title's cliché to create a background for the exploration of a son's relationship to his father." (p. 15) That
sounds a lot like exploration of character to me and indeed it is. I seem to end up re-reading "Hardened
Criminals" (1996) every couple of years and it grows on me more each time, not just as a character study (and
Lethem excels at alienated young men) but as it becomes increasingly clear how it has provided some of the
first steps towards themes he has later developed in his work.
In this context, I cannot help but compare it to "Light And The Sufferer" (1995), his story which was
anthologised in Feeling Very Strange. According to Kelly and Kessel, the former is an exemplar of literary
SF whereas the latter is an exemplar of slipstream. I will confess to seeing no meaningful difference between the
two stories in terms of their genre. (If anything "Light And The Sufferer" is the more science fictional.) Both
are told in the first person by disaffected, under-achieving young men who have casually drifted into trouble
after high school, both are set (explicitly or implicitly) in Lethem's native New York and both are heightened
by a single intrusion of the fantastic into the world. They paved the way for both his first realist novel of
New York, Motherless Brooklyn (1998), and then his most autobiographical novel, Fortress Of
Solitude (2003). (Ironically, Fortress Of Solitude is one of the few pieces of Lethem's work, along
with As She Climbed Across The Table (1997) -- his tribute to DeLillo -- which I would describe as
slipstream.) This comparison between these two Lethem stories empathasises that however good Kelly and Kessel
are at identifying fine stories they are much less successful at matching them to the aims of their
anthologies. Ultimately, judged against either of the two measures that they suggest in their introduction
to The Secret History of Science Fiction, the book is a failure.
Firstly, as a rebuttal to Lethem or an attempt to show continued cross-fertilisation, this anthology is much
too late. A response was needed in 1998 and that is what Ray Davis provided in an article for The New York Review
Of Science Fiction entitled "Things Are Tough All Over" (it is available on
his web site). Davis makes all the
obvious rejoinders but also finds much to agree with and, in the
exchange
which followed, there is a great deal of rapprochement. Kelly and Kessel's introduction follows something of a
similar path but to do so from the distance of a decade is deeply disingenuous.
So they are knocking on an open door. Kelly and Kessel admit as much when they remark that "the walls that
separate mainstream from science fiction are, in fact, crumbling." (p. 17) The battle has already been won (or,
perhaps more accurately, there never was a war). The situation Lethem sought clearly exists:
Secondly, as an actual history, an attempt to carve out the "Great Books theory of post-1970 SF" Lethem refers
to, it is much too thin. A project that grand requires an anthology on the scale of The Norton Book Of
Science Fiction, edited by Le Guin and Brian Attebery. (It is worth noting that the Gloss, Willis and
Atwood stories collected here all also feature in that volume.) In his comment to Witcover, Kessel notes:
This explains but does not excuse. Beyond a wider range of fiction, it is unfortunate that Kelly and Kessel
were unable to include the text of Lethem's essay or any of his correspondence with Davis since it is so integral
to their project. On the other hand, Kelly and Kessel do like to include interstitial material between the stories
in their anthologies which, in this case, means a series of quotes from the contributors on both science
fiction and literature in general. However, excepting the name of the author, these quotes are irritatingly
unattributed, rendering them devoid of context and diminishing their value. Each of these authors has interesting
and important things to say but here they are reduced to sound bites. All taken together this means that despite
the obvious quality of The Secret History of Science Fiction's contents it is impossible to shake the
feeling that this anthology is far too much of a jobbing work.
Correction: In the original version of this review, Martin Lewis incorrectly stated that James
Patrick Kelly and John Kessel included stories by themselves in their
anthology Feeling Very Strange. He regrets the error.
Martin Lewis lives in East London. He is the reviews editor of Vector and also regularly reviews for Strange Horizons. He blogs at Everything Is Nice. |
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