Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2001 | |||||
A review by Nick Gevers
Spinrad's essay is pessimism of an astutely entertaining kind: we thrill to its
horror, and then look about us in the growing realization that perhaps it is all
true. Perhaps SF is decaying into self-referential compost; perhaps a sad sort
of steampunk-sclerosis has overtaken it. If the touchstone of the genre is
now the comfortable past, evidence should be readily forthcoming. And
lamentably it is: the same issue that prints Spinrad's effusion bears a cover
on which World War II aircraft cavort in dogfight mode, its single nod to
the future a crudely-executed flying saucer which is hardly the soul of
novelty either. The novella thus illustrated, "Shady Lady" by R. Garcia y
Robertson, is retrospective bilge of the most execrable sort, the tale of how a
bunch of stock period flyboys venture backwards and forwards in time in
company with a wet-dream Soviet aeronautical bimbo, the past and future
places they visit anodyne and anonymous. Garcia y Robertson manages the airfield
atmosphere of 1944 competently enough, but from there achieves no take-off;
Asimov's should ground him until he can do much, much better.
March's other stories are a good deal superior to "Shady Lady," certainly far
more forward-looking; but Kage Baker's "The Dust Enclosed Here" is still
haunted by the past, reviving as it does the spirit of Shakespeare in a future
of barren censorial virtual-realism. Spinrad would no doubt gripe at the
creative habits of Baker, whose protagonists invariably wander and plunder
the aisles of history; but Baker at least is explaining critically how such
analeptic appropriations can invigorate us, how Shakespeare has much to
impart yet. Nisi Shawl designs the far future of "Shiomah's Land" as a
reiteration of the pagan past, and yet this is less nostalgia than a reminder
that historical cycles repeat themselves, that history is the future's testing
ground. Indeed, the sense grows that the better SF authors are not so much
accepting the "retro" ethic of postmodernism as they are waging war on it
from within, fighting on a field of its choosing but with weapons of their
own. SF is at heart mimetic and moral, and never more so than in Robert
Reed's superb "Past Imperfect," which savages postmodern heedlessness in
terms Spinrad could only endorse, terms that resign the past to subjectivity
but claim the present and future for rational understanding and right action.
If Spinrad would only look around him with a less jaundiced gaze, he would
find many SF novels with a similar imperative, many SF writers for whom
history is merely a foundation to aspire from.
Two further stories are unambiguously set in the future, but of course they
bring their baggage with them. Lisa Goldstein's "The Go-Between" is a
rather ordinary tale of human-alien diplomatic relations, these relations
being mediated by dogs, which Goldstein maintains are intelligent
(questionable in the extreme) and forgiving (possible). With vastly more
atmosphere and sense, Allen Steele in "The Days Between" narrates the
experiences of a communications officer awakened from hibernation while the
rest of his starship's crew sleep on; there is a real quality of nightmare here,
cogently rendered, further confirmation of the quality of Steele's ongoing
"Alabama" sequence, of which this is the second episode. We may go to the
stars, but we'll take our loneliness with us.
March's poems are quite impressive, forming a kind of triptych surrounding
the ambivalence towards space travel that Steele explores. Linda Addison's
"The Reluctant Astronaut" contends that we already have all we need on
Earth; "On Balance" by Timons Esaias hesitantly asserts that going out there
is worth the price; and Geoffrey A. Landis' "Gulliver's Boots" is a
bracingly comic reminder that the excursion may not be voluntary. Indeed.
SF exists to remind us of that fact. History is our launching pad, the stars our
destination. Pace Norman Spinrad, we can still Hope. Or Fear.
Since completing a Ph.D. on uses of history in SF, Nick Gevers has become a moderately prolific reviewer and interviewer in the field of speculative fiction. He has published in INTERZONE, NOVA EXPRESS, the NEW YORK REVIEW OF SF, and GALAXIES; much of his work is available at INFINITY PLUS, of which he is Associate Editor. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa. |
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