"wisecracking Anglo-Saxon engineers addicted to alcohol and tobacco"
April 30, 2017 3:13 PM Subscribe
Yeah there's is adaption decay where people's view of sometng is from depictions and adaptations of it- the further you get from the real thing the hazier and further from the reality while tropes and conventions start to ossify around it
posted by The Whelk at 3:36 PM on April 30, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 3:36 PM on April 30, 2017 [11 favorites]
I dunno about the scientific accuracy one - one of the author's own illustrative examples has rats with opposable thumbs developing hyper-intelligence due to radiation exposure. The latter is straight out of super hero schlock, the former completely ignores a lot of practical mechanical details. I guess by "scientific accuracy" he means accuracy with respect to science-class Science (TM) rather than the much broader conception of science as the study of the mechanisms of the world? Like okay, maybe you've your big Science details about rocketry and light speed correct, but you're still ignoring fairly fundamental biology basics...
posted by Dysk at 3:37 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 3:37 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Like, from my own reading, I think it's more accurate to say that there was a certain type or domain of science with respect to which audiences demanded accuracy, while being happy to ignore glaring errors or liberties in others. Accuracy with respect to the latest space travel physics or tech was a point of pride, accuracy with respect to medicine or geology, not so much.
posted by Dysk at 3:42 PM on April 30, 2017 [18 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 3:42 PM on April 30, 2017 [18 favorites]
I've recently been rereading some older fantasy series, and the entire "lost space colony discovers magic" genre (a la Pern and Darkover) can be traced back to the pulps wanting people to justify fantasy through Science! (tm)
I think there were specific parts of science that people were willing to hand wave away -- even today, "hard" science fiction is usually pretty poor when it comes to biology. To be fair, biology was less understood at the time, but I think most of the science began and ended at physics.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:22 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
I think there were specific parts of science that people were willing to hand wave away -- even today, "hard" science fiction is usually pretty poor when it comes to biology. To be fair, biology was less understood at the time, but I think most of the science began and ended at physics.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:22 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Caves of Steel may not have any explicitly evil characters, but boy is it, and all the characters in it, massively sexist. It was the first book that made me really understand the level of sexism present in scifi from that era. (For some reason the Foundation series never quite hit me the same way; perhaps just because I read it so much younger.)
In fact honestly I was so busy being pissed at everyone in the book that I didn't really notice if the characters were evil or not. Before I read it, I kind of had in my head a lower level of sexism as the norm -- so my personal myth that finally got busted was that I'd be able to handle the sexism. hmm, NOPE.
posted by nat at 4:33 PM on April 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
In fact honestly I was so busy being pissed at everyone in the book that I didn't really notice if the characters were evil or not. Before I read it, I kind of had in my head a lower level of sexism as the norm -- so my personal myth that finally got busted was that I'd be able to handle the sexism. hmm, NOPE.
posted by nat at 4:33 PM on April 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
In fact, you might say that early science fiction fandom were obsessed with scientific accuracy to the point it was borderline anal retentive. Nearly every single one of the lettercols in Astounding Science Fiction were nitpickers fussing about scientific details.
I think the distinction we have to draw is that they were as obsessed with scientific accuracy as you could be if you were a writer in a pre-internet time. This wasn't a point where you could go get a simple explanation of a given scientific concept on Wikipedia to sanity-check. So they'd do their research very thoroughly about one small subset of something, it just wasn't practical to do it on a larger scale. I think the inclinations never really changed--friend of mine got a "correction" comment posted to a Yuri on Ice fanfic about a detail that they'd had different from the show that turned out to have been something the show got wrong and I gather it turned into a bit of an argument. But now we have so much more information available that the standards for accuracy have gotten higher.
posted by Sequence at 4:41 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
I think the distinction we have to draw is that they were as obsessed with scientific accuracy as you could be if you were a writer in a pre-internet time. This wasn't a point where you could go get a simple explanation of a given scientific concept on Wikipedia to sanity-check. So they'd do their research very thoroughly about one small subset of something, it just wasn't practical to do it on a larger scale. I think the inclinations never really changed--friend of mine got a "correction" comment posted to a Yuri on Ice fanfic about a detail that they'd had different from the show that turned out to have been something the show got wrong and I gather it turned into a bit of an argument. But now we have so much more information available that the standards for accuracy have gotten higher.
posted by Sequence at 4:41 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
That's so cool though that they refused to make the villains minorities in the 20s and 30s though. I had no idea.
posted by corb at 4:51 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by corb at 4:51 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
This wasn't a point where you could go get a simple explanation of a given scientific concept on Wikipedia to sanity-check.
You could've done with the Encyclopedia Britannica (or similar) though, which would probably have been available in your local library's reference section. Wikipedia is awesome, but it's not like they invented the encyclopedia. So it's not going to have the latest and greatest of everything, but the absolute basics of medicine and biology (the stuff that's most commonly messed up)? They'd've had that. And that's before we even get to medical or anatomy references and so on.
posted by Dysk at 4:52 PM on April 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
You could've done with the Encyclopedia Britannica (or similar) though, which would probably have been available in your local library's reference section. Wikipedia is awesome, but it's not like they invented the encyclopedia. So it's not going to have the latest and greatest of everything, but the absolute basics of medicine and biology (the stuff that's most commonly messed up)? They'd've had that. And that's before we even get to medical or anatomy references and so on.
posted by Dysk at 4:52 PM on April 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
I'd also point out that most people won't have read much actual pulp SF, but they might well know pulp SF movies and serials, which absolutely were all of those things.
posted by Scattercat at 5:09 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 5:09 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
This has some interesting tidbits, but the formatting is giving me hives and it needs an editor to give it once or twice over. This is presumably just a hobbyist doing something on their own time, but it seems like a great case for tumblr just being a rehash of all the old ugliness of Geocities. My lawn, remove yourself, etc.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:15 PM on April 30, 2017
posted by Going To Maine at 5:15 PM on April 30, 2017
There are no non-parody examples of Superman changing in a phone booth; he just never did this.Grr, he absolutely did this in Max Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters.
posted by migurski at 5:15 PM on April 30, 2017 [17 favorites]
I'm so not sold. I do agree that alcoholic Anglo-Saxon engineers is a pretty important role model (as long as you throw in sexist) but as someone who grew up on this stuff it seems pretty straw-man heavy.
He knows Edgar Rice Burroughs exists but strong-jawed, muscular, womanizing heroes doesn't mention John Carter? He doesn't mention Heinlein's Fifth Column, in which scientists save America with a ray gun that only kills Chinese people, in a discussion of racism? Not to mention Farnham's Freehold? Asimov, who wrote a novel in which evil rulers were Tyranni from the planet Tyrann, is "best known" for never having evil characters?
The positive version of the claim, that there was a whole lot that didn't match the stereotypes and was wonderfully weird is absolutely true. But I guess that 's not listicle worthy?
ETA: Also what Scattercat said.
posted by mark k at 5:16 PM on April 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
He knows Edgar Rice Burroughs exists but strong-jawed, muscular, womanizing heroes doesn't mention John Carter? He doesn't mention Heinlein's Fifth Column, in which scientists save America with a ray gun that only kills Chinese people, in a discussion of racism? Not to mention Farnham's Freehold? Asimov, who wrote a novel in which evil rulers were Tyranni from the planet Tyrann, is "best known" for never having evil characters?
The positive version of the claim, that there was a whole lot that didn't match the stereotypes and was wonderfully weird is absolutely true. But I guess that 's not listicle worthy?
ETA: Also what Scattercat said.
posted by mark k at 5:16 PM on April 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
(If anyone doesn't know the plot of Farnham's Freehold: After a nuclear war black cannibals from Africa colonize the US. White heroes try to preserve civilization.)
posted by mark k at 5:19 PM on April 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by mark k at 5:19 PM on April 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Grr, he absolutely did this in Max Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters.
I'm so not sold. I do agree that alcoholic Anglo-Saxon engineers is a pretty important role model (as long as you throw in sexist) but as someone who grew up on this stuff it seems pretty straw-man heavy.
Yeah - the other part of this that bugs me a bit is that it feels very poorly sourced. It’s a list of stereotypes composed by the writer, with counterpoints provided by the writer without linking to any external sources. I admit that I’m finding it a bit hard to disambiguate how much of this is bad presentation and how much of this is bad research. It just feels like “I have opinions!” Like, it’s interesting to juxtapose this article with this one posted two weeks ago about how Kirk has ben falsely remembered as a brash idiot. While it’s certainly also argumentative, it’s of a bit of a different caliber. But then, that was a magazine article, not a personal blog post. “best of the web” has entered a weird point where hobbyist writing can be graded against academic research and publications because they’re all online.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:24 PM on April 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
I'm so not sold. I do agree that alcoholic Anglo-Saxon engineers is a pretty important role model (as long as you throw in sexist) but as someone who grew up on this stuff it seems pretty straw-man heavy.
Yeah - the other part of this that bugs me a bit is that it feels very poorly sourced. It’s a list of stereotypes composed by the writer, with counterpoints provided by the writer without linking to any external sources. I admit that I’m finding it a bit hard to disambiguate how much of this is bad presentation and how much of this is bad research. It just feels like “I have opinions!” Like, it’s interesting to juxtapose this article with this one posted two weeks ago about how Kirk has ben falsely remembered as a brash idiot. While it’s certainly also argumentative, it’s of a bit of a different caliber. But then, that was a magazine article, not a personal blog post. “best of the web” has entered a weird point where hobbyist writing can be graded against academic research and publications because they’re all online.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:24 PM on April 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
This article gets so much wrong I am having trouble taking any of it seriously. In fact, it's pissing me off.
> "Mystery buffs and historians, for example, can’t find a single straight example of 'the Butler did it.'"
How about Mary Roberts Rinehart's 1930 bestseller "The Door", in which the butler did it? And novels after that seldom repeated it because it became an instant cliche with that book.
> "It’s a thing people think is a thing that was never a thing, and another example would be the idea of the 'silent film villain' in a mustache and top hat ..."
In film, that one dates back to at least 1913's "Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life". The reason most film examples to be found are parodies is that it was already a hoary old trope even then; it wasn't original to movies, it was a holdover from Victorian stage melodrama.
> "There are no non-parody examples of Superman changing in a phone booth; he just never did this."
The Mechanical Monsters has already been brought up, it was mentioned he used a phone booth to change on the 1940's radio show, and he used a phone booth to change in the newspaper comic strip by 1942.
I mean, just ... GAH! And that's before even getting to the stuff about the pulps. "E.E. Smith’s Lensman series ... was shockingly scientifically grounded." HOLY CRAP ARE YOU SERIOUS? HAVE YOU READ EVEN A PAGE OF THOSE? THE NAME OF THE WHOLE SERIES COMES FROM A BASICALLY MAGIC TELEPATHIC SUPERHERO-MAKING DEVICE.
The muscular pulp hero with a chin never existed? Some more E. E. Smith: "Dr. Marc DuQuesne was in his laboratory, engaged in a research upon certain of the rare metals, particularly in regard to their electrochemical properties. He was a striking figure. Well over six feet tall, unusually broad-shouldered even for his height, he was plainly a man of enormous physical strength. His thick, slightly wavy hair was black." But, OK, it's acknowledged that Smith comes close to that trope, as well as Edmond Hamilton with Captain Future, although Hamilton isn't mentioned by name. But, I mean, how about C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith? Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark? Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter? Robert E. Howard's Conan? Etc., etc., etc.
I could go on. Yes, the pulps were often more complex and interesting than they get credit for. They were also often EXACTLY what the stereotype is. Denying this in a remarkably inaccurate and poorly researched piece does little to help explain the vast range of pulp fiction stories.
posted by kyrademon at 6:06 PM on April 30, 2017 [46 favorites]
> "Mystery buffs and historians, for example, can’t find a single straight example of 'the Butler did it.'"
How about Mary Roberts Rinehart's 1930 bestseller "The Door", in which the butler did it? And novels after that seldom repeated it because it became an instant cliche with that book.
> "It’s a thing people think is a thing that was never a thing, and another example would be the idea of the 'silent film villain' in a mustache and top hat ..."
In film, that one dates back to at least 1913's "Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life". The reason most film examples to be found are parodies is that it was already a hoary old trope even then; it wasn't original to movies, it was a holdover from Victorian stage melodrama.
> "There are no non-parody examples of Superman changing in a phone booth; he just never did this."
The Mechanical Monsters has already been brought up, it was mentioned he used a phone booth to change on the 1940's radio show, and he used a phone booth to change in the newspaper comic strip by 1942.
I mean, just ... GAH! And that's before even getting to the stuff about the pulps. "E.E. Smith’s Lensman series ... was shockingly scientifically grounded." HOLY CRAP ARE YOU SERIOUS? HAVE YOU READ EVEN A PAGE OF THOSE? THE NAME OF THE WHOLE SERIES COMES FROM A BASICALLY MAGIC TELEPATHIC SUPERHERO-MAKING DEVICE.
The muscular pulp hero with a chin never existed? Some more E. E. Smith: "Dr. Marc DuQuesne was in his laboratory, engaged in a research upon certain of the rare metals, particularly in regard to their electrochemical properties. He was a striking figure. Well over six feet tall, unusually broad-shouldered even for his height, he was plainly a man of enormous physical strength. His thick, slightly wavy hair was black." But, OK, it's acknowledged that Smith comes close to that trope, as well as Edmond Hamilton with Captain Future, although Hamilton isn't mentioned by name. But, I mean, how about C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith? Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark? Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter? Robert E. Howard's Conan? Etc., etc., etc.
I could go on. Yes, the pulps were often more complex and interesting than they get credit for. They were also often EXACTLY what the stereotype is. Denying this in a remarkably inaccurate and poorly researched piece does little to help explain the vast range of pulp fiction stories.
posted by kyrademon at 6:06 PM on April 30, 2017 [46 favorites]
I think that once you've had it hammered into you that "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Luke, I am your father" are misquotes (not to mention "Play it again, Sam"), you tend to assume that all scifi tropes are wrong.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:19 PM on April 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:19 PM on April 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yeah, he gets a bunch of stuff wrong (mostly in the service of flatly stating "this never happened" when the thesis was "this was not really done often enough to be a true cliche"), but there is a point to be made that the marketing for a lot of SF and fantasy was often a lot more pulpy than the actual content, particularly WRT the cover illustrations; this was also true of SF TV and movies (Princess Leia showing leg, and Luke a ripped six-pack, on the original Star Wars poster; the detached Statue of Liberty head on the poster for Escape from New York, when the Statue being intact is part of the worldbuilding, since it's the watchtower for the Manhattan prison).
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
(copied from a discussion on facebook)
That piece is at least fair-to-middling true.
I don't think the Lensmen were just murder machines. They were also putting together a grand coalition against Boskone, and part of the explicit message was the importance of connecting with entities of good will even if they think very differently from the way you do.
There's a bit of a cheat about the amount of science-- the fans may have cared more than the authors, or perhaps it's much easier to demand scientific accuracy than to write a scientifically accurate story.
My impression is that more of the pessimism in pulp sf was in the short stories, but I'm not sure I've got this right.
****
mark k,
In Farnham's Freehold, white heroes *succeed* in preserving civilization, but only because the black/african/slaver/cannibals are unaware of their own privilege.
The book is surprisingly good about microaggressions.
kyrademon,
DuQuesne was a villain with sporadic heroic tendencies.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:20 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
That piece is at least fair-to-middling true.
I don't think the Lensmen were just murder machines. They were also putting together a grand coalition against Boskone, and part of the explicit message was the importance of connecting with entities of good will even if they think very differently from the way you do.
There's a bit of a cheat about the amount of science-- the fans may have cared more than the authors, or perhaps it's much easier to demand scientific accuracy than to write a scientifically accurate story.
My impression is that more of the pessimism in pulp sf was in the short stories, but I'm not sure I've got this right.
****
mark k,
In Farnham's Freehold, white heroes *succeed* in preserving civilization, but only because the black/african/slaver/cannibals are unaware of their own privilege.
The book is surprisingly good about microaggressions.
kyrademon,
DuQuesne was a villain with sporadic heroic tendencies.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:20 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm sorry but the first villain I associate with pulp-era science fiction is Ming the Merciless. Preeeeety sure there's some racial caricature there. Or does the author not count it because it was a comic strip?
posted by condour75 at 7:44 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by condour75 at 7:44 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Nancy Lebovitz, it has been many years since I read it and I'm not intending to go back. But even as a teenager the portrayal struck me very much as belonging to a genre where white guys end up in a court in the exotic orient and find the rulers powerful, but decadent and bloated. Tying it to modern views of privilege and micro-aggressions is interesting but are you really saying that you think it's meant to be read in any significant way as a commentary on the subtleties of American race relations?
posted by mark k at 8:05 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by mark k at 8:05 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
"Isaac Asimov Presents" are a series of telephone-book thick anthologies starting in 1939, and ending in 1952. I gave my local library something on the order of $50 in '80s money in overdue fines, I read it and re-read it. These were the stories that inspired him. (Yes I know he's problematic, and only Ray Bradbury remains unsullied from that era, because of course he was.)
The one I read, Dr. Asimov made sure to let the reader know that "Muties" in one story referred to mutineers, and not mutated humans. In another, a John Galt sort of super-man has an observatory and rocket-garage on top of Mount Everest, and idly discards the Theory of Relativity as useless mumbo-jumbo while accelerating his rocket far beyond light speed! It was useless yet exciting. That's the point.
Asimov was a horrible sexist, yes, but he was also a relentless anti-bigot, to the point where the paperback of Caves of Steel I got had an African American as R. Daneel Olivaw right there on the cover.
Man. The past sucks. All our gods have feet of clay. Asimov died from Aids. I wonder how many more millions his Estate killed trying to keep that secret? How many "progressive" writers living and working in LA have completely dismissed their local history, 1871?
Yet, when these debased, lesser gods write, when they choose to be made of marble and of granite... maybe there is something to be gleamed.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:16 PM on April 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
The one I read, Dr. Asimov made sure to let the reader know that "Muties" in one story referred to mutineers, and not mutated humans. In another, a John Galt sort of super-man has an observatory and rocket-garage on top of Mount Everest, and idly discards the Theory of Relativity as useless mumbo-jumbo while accelerating his rocket far beyond light speed! It was useless yet exciting. That's the point.
Asimov was a horrible sexist, yes, but he was also a relentless anti-bigot, to the point where the paperback of Caves of Steel I got had an African American as R. Daneel Olivaw right there on the cover.
Man. The past sucks. All our gods have feet of clay. Asimov died from Aids. I wonder how many more millions his Estate killed trying to keep that secret? How many "progressive" writers living and working in LA have completely dismissed their local history, 1871?
Yet, when these debased, lesser gods write, when they choose to be made of marble and of granite... maybe there is something to be gleamed.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:16 PM on April 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
are you really saying that you think it's meant to be read in any significant way as a commentary on the subtleties of American race relations?
Farnham's Freehold, iirc, is what happens when a guy who has absorbed racism as mothers' milk but doesn't think he's racist because he lives in a time of literal segregation, tries to write an anti-racist novel. He's absolutely trying to talk about American race relations, but it's just horrible anyway.
posted by corb at 8:25 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Farnham's Freehold, iirc, is what happens when a guy who has absorbed racism as mothers' milk but doesn't think he's racist because he lives in a time of literal segregation, tries to write an anti-racist novel. He's absolutely trying to talk about American race relations, but it's just horrible anyway.
posted by corb at 8:25 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
mark k,
Yes, there's quite a bit-- Joseph (the houseboy who's studying to be an accountant) has a fair amount from his point of view about the unthinking insults he gets from white people.
And the Chosen aren't decadent. They're slave-owners and cannibals, but they seem to be capable enough. There's no reason to think their culture is going to fall because of its own weight.
I think Heinlein tried to write a novel opposing racism, but he was too racist himself to do a good job. Still, it may have been the best thing of the sort done at the time. Note that he had the guts to write about black and white Americans rather than make as generalized metaphor about humans and aliens.
He makes an overt point that there is no such thing as a natural slave race or master (of slaves) race, it's all circumstance.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:28 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yes, there's quite a bit-- Joseph (the houseboy who's studying to be an accountant) has a fair amount from his point of view about the unthinking insults he gets from white people.
And the Chosen aren't decadent. They're slave-owners and cannibals, but they seem to be capable enough. There's no reason to think their culture is going to fall because of its own weight.
I think Heinlein tried to write a novel opposing racism, but he was too racist himself to do a good job. Still, it may have been the best thing of the sort done at the time. Note that he had the guts to write about black and white Americans rather than make as generalized metaphor about humans and aliens.
He makes an overt point that there is no such thing as a natural slave race or master (of slaves) race, it's all circumstance.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:28 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
“Pulp scifi writers in the early days were indifferent to scientific reality and played fast and loose with science.” FALSE.
Oh, no way. Pulling up my handy Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes, I note: garage mechanics creating an AI; faster than light travel; time travel; shapeshifting aliens; intelligent life at the microscopic level; an omnipotent boy; a superintelligence drug; aliens in the void destroyed by cats; interdimensional portals.
posted by zompist at 9:42 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, no way. Pulling up my handy Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes, I note: garage mechanics creating an AI; faster than light travel; time travel; shapeshifting aliens; intelligent life at the microscopic level; an omnipotent boy; a superintelligence drug; aliens in the void destroyed by cats; interdimensional portals.
posted by zompist at 9:42 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
And Bradbury is practically the poster child for indifference to scientific reality. (Not, I hasten to add, that there's anything wrong with that!)
posted by Shmuel510 at 10:12 PM on April 30, 2017
posted by Shmuel510 at 10:12 PM on April 30, 2017
I guess by "scientific accuracy" he means accuracy with respect to science-class Science (TM) rather than the much broader conception of science as the study of the mechanisms of the world? Like okay, maybe you've your big Science details about rocketry and light speed correct, but you're still ignoring fairly fundamental biology basics...
As James Nicoll put it, Biology is the red-headed stepchild of science fiction, the one that sows up at school with mysterious bruises. But at least its position is better than Anthropology or Sociology. History is OK, as long as it's the history of Rome or the English Empire or the American Revolution.
posted by happyroach at 10:14 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
As James Nicoll put it, Biology is the red-headed stepchild of science fiction, the one that sows up at school with mysterious bruises. But at least its position is better than Anthropology or Sociology. History is OK, as long as it's the history of Rome or the English Empire or the American Revolution.
posted by happyroach at 10:14 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
And Bradbury is practically the poster child for indifference to scientific reality.
...I'm aware of his work.
posted by The Tensor at 10:54 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
...I'm aware of his work.
posted by The Tensor at 10:54 PM on April 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
As James Nicoll put it, Biology is the red-headed stepchild of science fiction, the one that sows up at school with mysterious bruises. But at least its position is better than Anthropology or Sociology. History is OK, as long as it's the history of Rome or the English Empire or the American Revolution.
Yep. Don't even get me started on made-up religions in sci-fi. Demonstrates a complete and utter contempt for anything remotely resembling theology or sociology of religion. And just, all the arbitrary decisions with respect to world- or society-building that make no sense whatsoever. You can't just decide that your society does x or has y feature - you need to consider if there is a plausible mechanism for how that could have come about. Otherwise, you're destroying believability, credibility, and immersion.
posted by Dysk at 11:46 PM on April 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yep. Don't even get me started on made-up religions in sci-fi. Demonstrates a complete and utter contempt for anything remotely resembling theology or sociology of religion. And just, all the arbitrary decisions with respect to world- or society-building that make no sense whatsoever. You can't just decide that your society does x or has y feature - you need to consider if there is a plausible mechanism for how that could have come about. Otherwise, you're destroying believability, credibility, and immersion.
posted by Dysk at 11:46 PM on April 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
this brought to mind a pulp story I read where a spaceship gets hijacked and the captain and crew are chucked out of the ship. The raiders are shocked when instead of landing on the planet they intended, they land on earth and are brought to justice!! The captain and crew clung to the side of the shuttle and turned it round (weightless, y'see) and redirected it to land back on earth. All survived re-entry
posted by KateViolet at 2:04 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by KateViolet at 2:04 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Nancy Lebovitz -- fair point about DuQuesne, but I think my larger one still stands.
posted by kyrademon at 3:49 AM on May 1, 2017
posted by kyrademon at 3:49 AM on May 1, 2017
Don't even get me started on made-up religions in sci-fi. Demonstrates a complete and utter contempt for anything remotely resembling theology or sociology of religion.
Lack of depth of understanding doesn't imply contempt. (Contempt, in my book, would be the regard that much of organized religion shows for science fiction's older sibling fantasy, as witness the number of attempts to literally demonize RPGs and ban the likes of the Harry Potter books from schools.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:54 AM on May 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Lack of depth of understanding doesn't imply contempt. (Contempt, in my book, would be the regard that much of organized religion shows for science fiction's older sibling fantasy, as witness the number of attempts to literally demonize RPGs and ban the likes of the Harry Potter books from schools.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:54 AM on May 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
kyrademon, I have a special hatred for DuQuesne because apparently being pro-genocide (eugenics, I think) is part of why he's cool. (End of Skylark Duquesne) Not lying doesn't make him cool when he's pro-genocide. Admittedly, the pro-genocide stuff is at the end of the series.
The article was about science fiction, not fantasy, so Conan doesn't count. I'm not sure that Northwest Smith was ever physically described. You've probably got a point about Eric John Stark and John Carter.
I'm not sure what actual era is covered by "pulp".
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:09 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The article was about science fiction, not fantasy, so Conan doesn't count. I'm not sure that Northwest Smith was ever physically described. You've probably got a point about Eric John Stark and John Carter.
I'm not sure what actual era is covered by "pulp".
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:09 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
(Contempt, in my book, would be the regard that much of organized religion shows for science fiction's older sibling fantasy, as witness the number of attempts to literally demonize RPGs and ban the likes of the Harry Potter books from schools.)
Yeah, 99% of US Christianity also shows an utter contempt for any kind of theology or sociology of religion. The world is bigger than America though, and the American (and more broadly, anglophone) take on organised religion is hardly universal.
posted by Dysk at 8:32 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, 99% of US Christianity also shows an utter contempt for any kind of theology or sociology of religion. The world is bigger than America though, and the American (and more broadly, anglophone) take on organised religion is hardly universal.
posted by Dysk at 8:32 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
99% of US Christianity isn't creating fictional religions as part of worldbuilding for a fantasy setting. So I'd consider this a non-sequitur at best, and likely an active derail. Can we keep this thread actually on topic?
I mean, we all have our hobbyhorses, but you don't see me replying to this thread with comments about my favorite cocktails, right?
posted by happyroach at 9:31 AM on May 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
I mean, we all have our hobbyhorses, but you don't see me replying to this thread with comments about my favorite cocktails, right?
posted by happyroach at 9:31 AM on May 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yes, the pulps were often more complex and interesting than they get credit for. They were also often EXACTLY what the stereotype is.
Yes, the whole piece would be more effective if the author had started from the thesis that there are forgotten subtleties and complexities in the sci-fi pulps and then proceeded to categorize a few. The opposite tack, besides being simply wrong in many cases, is hampered by a too vague definition of "pulp sci fi"—is pulp sci fi art still pulp sci fi?—and an even hazier idea of what criticisms might actually be made of the genre. (Note here the conflation of about thirty years of pulp sci fi, from the 30's to the 60's, too.) 2015's Tomorrowland isn't a "misconception" of pulp futures, it's a riff on cultural attitudes embodied by "Googie" and "Populuxe" and by Walt Disney's own Tomorrowland, the ultimate source for such futures lying somewhere between Frank R. Paul, Things To Come, and Art Deco.
The muscular pulp hero with a chin never existed?
I must say, that is some chin.
“Pulp scifi writers in the early days were indifferent to scientific reality and played fast and loose with science.” FALSE.
Many early sci fi writers were interested in science—engineering, the industrial, or the physical sciences, usually—and many did try to keep their stories from violating the scientifically plausible by too much. That is true. Trying to argue more broadly that early sci fi writers did not "play fast and loose with science" however, simply ignores all the fiction in the science fiction—the whole point of which was to be dramatic, entertaining, and fantastic.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:34 AM on May 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yes, the whole piece would be more effective if the author had started from the thesis that there are forgotten subtleties and complexities in the sci-fi pulps and then proceeded to categorize a few. The opposite tack, besides being simply wrong in many cases, is hampered by a too vague definition of "pulp sci fi"—is pulp sci fi art still pulp sci fi?—and an even hazier idea of what criticisms might actually be made of the genre. (Note here the conflation of about thirty years of pulp sci fi, from the 30's to the 60's, too.) 2015's Tomorrowland isn't a "misconception" of pulp futures, it's a riff on cultural attitudes embodied by "Googie" and "Populuxe" and by Walt Disney's own Tomorrowland, the ultimate source for such futures lying somewhere between Frank R. Paul, Things To Come, and Art Deco.
The muscular pulp hero with a chin never existed?
I must say, that is some chin.
“Pulp scifi writers in the early days were indifferent to scientific reality and played fast and loose with science.” FALSE.
Many early sci fi writers were interested in science—engineering, the industrial, or the physical sciences, usually—and many did try to keep their stories from violating the scientifically plausible by too much. That is true. Trying to argue more broadly that early sci fi writers did not "play fast and loose with science" however, simply ignores all the fiction in the science fiction—the whole point of which was to be dramatic, entertaining, and fantastic.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:34 AM on May 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
mark k: wrt Farnham's Freehold (and, while I'm on the topic of Heinlein and racism, let's add in Sixth Column), I think you're missing a couple of angles.
Firstly, Sixth Column, a much earlier book that played power chords in the key of Yellow Peril. SC was written to order for John W. Campbell and published in early 1941. Heinlein was handed a plot by Campbell (who was notoriously racist) and allegedly rewrote it, downplaying the racist elements, per the Patterson biography. Yes, it's pretty bad to modern eyes. All I can say—if I want to defend it—is that at the time, Heinlein needed the money badly.
FF is a different matter. It's also execrable, but interestingly so. Remember it's a work written by a white Californian dude in 1958-60: what did Heinlein imagine he was doing? Well, he already had a pronounced tendency towards alegorical writing: and the civil rights movement would have been visible in the news at the time. My reading of Farnham's Freehold is that Heinlein was trying to caution his whitebread audience against racism by example; "here's why racism is bad: this is what it might be like if you were on the receiving end of it in the imagined future."
The problem with FF is that racism was so deeply ingrained in the culture Heinlein had grown up in that he wasn't self-aware enough to realize how he was recycling racist cliches in a manner that served to reinforce racism. Arguably, any white cishet male dude born in 1907 writing about anti-black racism in 1958 was setting himself up to end up as a teachable moment (and not in a good way): he was the classic example of Martin Luther King's quip about well-meaning white folks being part of the problem. And a good caution unto this day to be careful about writing about the Other using the language of Othering.
posted by cstross at 12:18 PM on May 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
Firstly, Sixth Column, a much earlier book that played power chords in the key of Yellow Peril. SC was written to order for John W. Campbell and published in early 1941. Heinlein was handed a plot by Campbell (who was notoriously racist) and allegedly rewrote it, downplaying the racist elements, per the Patterson biography. Yes, it's pretty bad to modern eyes. All I can say—if I want to defend it—is that at the time, Heinlein needed the money badly.
FF is a different matter. It's also execrable, but interestingly so. Remember it's a work written by a white Californian dude in 1958-60: what did Heinlein imagine he was doing? Well, he already had a pronounced tendency towards alegorical writing: and the civil rights movement would have been visible in the news at the time. My reading of Farnham's Freehold is that Heinlein was trying to caution his whitebread audience against racism by example; "here's why racism is bad: this is what it might be like if you were on the receiving end of it in the imagined future."
The problem with FF is that racism was so deeply ingrained in the culture Heinlein had grown up in that he wasn't self-aware enough to realize how he was recycling racist cliches in a manner that served to reinforce racism. Arguably, any white cishet male dude born in 1907 writing about anti-black racism in 1958 was setting himself up to end up as a teachable moment (and not in a good way): he was the classic example of Martin Luther King's quip about well-meaning white folks being part of the problem. And a good caution unto this day to be careful about writing about the Other using the language of Othering.
posted by cstross at 12:18 PM on May 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
I've never read the book and have no plans to, But I've always liked that Baen cover art of the big warning sign. Going by the Wikipedia synopsis, that art has little or nothing to do with the plot; that would seem to make it perfect for this thread.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:42 PM on May 1, 2017
posted by Going To Maine at 12:42 PM on May 1, 2017
This article is . . . poorly researched, if we're being generous.
The article was about science fiction, not fantasy, so Conan doesn't count.
A. It's a little soupy because the author's playing fast and loose with the timelines and genres involved, but it's debatable how much distinction was being made at the time; pretty sure when Weird Tales came out there wasn't a pulp science fiction magazine that referred to itself as such. Lovecraft and Howard were being published right alongside Smith.
B. The point kyrademon's making still applies even if you get rid of the genre edge-cases.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The article was about science fiction, not fantasy, so Conan doesn't count.
A. It's a little soupy because the author's playing fast and loose with the timelines and genres involved, but it's debatable how much distinction was being made at the time; pretty sure when Weird Tales came out there wasn't a pulp science fiction magazine that referred to itself as such. Lovecraft and Howard were being published right alongside Smith.
B. The point kyrademon's making still applies even if you get rid of the genre edge-cases.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Farnham's Freehold comments are interesting, I'll grant that I probably underestimated the anti-racist intent but "execrable" still seems about right*.
Perhaps most surprisingly I now remember** way more of that novel then I'd ever imagined. The number of neurons permanently wasted on pulp-SF plots and AD&D rules I read in my early teens must be mind bogglingly large.
*To clarify one point, me calling his depiction of the rulers "decadent" was sloppy, but I guess I was trying to get at some poor-man's version of orientalism. Western stories about eastern despots don't make them incompetent but they do throw on the same sort of irrational rituals like cannibalism and cutting off of thumbs that Heinlein did with the African overlords. Maybe the intent wasn't to belittle them but he's certainly adopting this narrative convention.
**I'd completely forgotten about Joseph until Nancy Lebovitz mentioned him. But now I recall he really bothered as the black best friend trope, even if I didn't know what that was then. Proof that the white hero is a stand up guy. Also, Joseph choosing to accommodate to his role among the thumb-cutting slaving African tyrants really bothered me--I read it as if blacks weren't real Americans with real American values even if I'm now willing to consider that perhaps was't the point. Just recounting my emotional response. I can't speak to any particular literary insight at this distance.
posted by mark k at 11:16 PM on May 1, 2017
Perhaps most surprisingly I now remember** way more of that novel then I'd ever imagined. The number of neurons permanently wasted on pulp-SF plots and AD&D rules I read in my early teens must be mind bogglingly large.
*To clarify one point, me calling his depiction of the rulers "decadent" was sloppy, but I guess I was trying to get at some poor-man's version of orientalism. Western stories about eastern despots don't make them incompetent but they do throw on the same sort of irrational rituals like cannibalism and cutting off of thumbs that Heinlein did with the African overlords. Maybe the intent wasn't to belittle them but he's certainly adopting this narrative convention.
**I'd completely forgotten about Joseph until Nancy Lebovitz mentioned him. But now I recall he really bothered as the black best friend trope, even if I didn't know what that was then. Proof that the white hero is a stand up guy. Also, Joseph choosing to accommodate to his role among the thumb-cutting slaving African tyrants really bothered me--I read it as if blacks weren't real Americans with real American values even if I'm now willing to consider that perhaps was't the point. Just recounting my emotional response. I can't speak to any particular literary insight at this distance.
posted by mark k at 11:16 PM on May 1, 2017
This article is . . . poorly researched, if we're being generous.
Re-reading the post and the comments here (including mine) I'm remembering how I would get annoyed back when I was reading this era SF when someone (who clearly hadn't read much of it) dismissed it as all about robots and spaceships.
So I'm softening a bit. I mean, I don't think it works but the charitable reading is that the author wanted to highlight some good, or at least different, types of SF that were also around and unwisely framed it as a Cracked-style "five things everyone gets wrong about '50s SF." Trying to sell someone more than you can deliver is always a mistake.
posted by mark k at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Re-reading the post and the comments here (including mine) I'm remembering how I would get annoyed back when I was reading this era SF when someone (who clearly hadn't read much of it) dismissed it as all about robots and spaceships.
So I'm softening a bit. I mean, I don't think it works but the charitable reading is that the author wanted to highlight some good, or at least different, types of SF that were also around and unwisely framed it as a Cracked-style "five things everyone gets wrong about '50s SF." Trying to sell someone more than you can deliver is always a mistake.
posted by mark k at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
("Execrable" is still right, it's just a somewhat complicated kind of execrable.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:28 AM on May 2, 2017
posted by tobascodagama at 5:28 AM on May 2, 2017
« Older Slowcore: A Brief Timeline | The dummy is a trifle. It is nothing. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by gusottertrout at 3:22 PM on April 30, 2017 [5 favorites]