SF/F Fence: I Do Not Want a Fence At All
Jul. 9th, 2010 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateelliottI really enjoyed this post by Justina Robson* on Babel Clash.
Personally I’m fed up to the back teeth of everyone gnawing away on these sets and their rules (shall we have another round of What is Science Fiction anyone, or do you have lives to be getting on with?) because what this boils down to is solipsism in the end; each of us states what we like and don’t like…except for this exception here…
She's writing a response as part of an ongoing conversation with Mark Chadbourn, who himself posted on the topic Time For SF and F to Split? in which he wonders if "if it’s time for fantasy and SF to dissolve the marriage of convenience."
I myself consider science fiction and fantasy as subsets of the Literature of the Fantastic, or Speculative Fiction, that expansive set of stories that aren't firmly set in the "real world" as we think we understand it. Give me something that's one toe out of the real, and I'll happily call it SpecFic. You may, of course, call it what you wish because I'm feeling Just That Generous this evening.
Because I read both sf and f and enjoy them both to the point where I don't much distinguish between them, I simply don't see the utility in separating them out from each other. Why make my book shopping life less convenient?
Robson goes on to address an issue that also crops up with tedious regularity in the endless rehashing of the question of the so-called sf and f split:
If you don’t like something, then leave it alone. Of course, people who can’t leave it alone feel that the structure of the world itself is in some way at stake, hence all the moralising they throw out about Fantasy being pappy comfort food for poor little popsyminded fools who can’t face up to ‘reality’. Just count the number of assumptions in that.
Elsewhere I have briefly addressed the question of whether fantasy is By Nature conservative, consolatory, and reactionary fiction. By Nature? No, I don't think so. Is some fantasy written that way? Sure. So is some sf. So are other stories, in other venues and genres. Yet it's also possible to find in a work what you believe you will find, rather than what is there. And sometimes, in a related manner, work that is lauded as cutting edge or transgressive may not seem so to everyone who reads it. These facts tend to make me cautious about making sweeping generalizations about entire rafts of work, when oftentimes the differences between "iike" works may in fact be greater than the similarities except in the minds of the lumpers.
Oh, dear. Does this mean we have simply returned to the ancient and venerable Splitter Vs Lumper debate?
Or is this the point where the structure of the world itself is in some way at stake? (My favorite line!!!)
In any case, Robson's article is a fun and, I thought, incisive read, as part of an interesting and ongoing conversation this week between her and Chadbourn.
I write both science fiction and fantasy, although the bulk of my recent work is fantasy. And you know what? For me, it all writes from the same place.
* Haven't read her work. Obviously must seek it out.
** Author of the Age of Misrule trilogy, which I read and enjoyed some months ago and described as "Susan Cooper for adults."
Personally I’m fed up to the back teeth of everyone gnawing away on these sets and their rules (shall we have another round of What is Science Fiction anyone, or do you have lives to be getting on with?) because what this boils down to is solipsism in the end; each of us states what we like and don’t like…except for this exception here…
She's writing a response as part of an ongoing conversation with Mark Chadbourn, who himself posted on the topic Time For SF and F to Split? in which he wonders if "if it’s time for fantasy and SF to dissolve the marriage of convenience."
I myself consider science fiction and fantasy as subsets of the Literature of the Fantastic, or Speculative Fiction, that expansive set of stories that aren't firmly set in the "real world" as we think we understand it. Give me something that's one toe out of the real, and I'll happily call it SpecFic. You may, of course, call it what you wish because I'm feeling Just That Generous this evening.
Because I read both sf and f and enjoy them both to the point where I don't much distinguish between them, I simply don't see the utility in separating them out from each other. Why make my book shopping life less convenient?
Robson goes on to address an issue that also crops up with tedious regularity in the endless rehashing of the question of the so-called sf and f split:
If you don’t like something, then leave it alone. Of course, people who can’t leave it alone feel that the structure of the world itself is in some way at stake, hence all the moralising they throw out about Fantasy being pappy comfort food for poor little popsyminded fools who can’t face up to ‘reality’. Just count the number of assumptions in that.
Elsewhere I have briefly addressed the question of whether fantasy is By Nature conservative, consolatory, and reactionary fiction. By Nature? No, I don't think so. Is some fantasy written that way? Sure. So is some sf. So are other stories, in other venues and genres. Yet it's also possible to find in a work what you believe you will find, rather than what is there. And sometimes, in a related manner, work that is lauded as cutting edge or transgressive may not seem so to everyone who reads it. These facts tend to make me cautious about making sweeping generalizations about entire rafts of work, when oftentimes the differences between "iike" works may in fact be greater than the similarities except in the minds of the lumpers.
Oh, dear. Does this mean we have simply returned to the ancient and venerable Splitter Vs Lumper debate?
Or is this the point where the structure of the world itself is in some way at stake? (My favorite line!!!)
In any case, Robson's article is a fun and, I thought, incisive read, as part of an interesting and ongoing conversation this week between her and Chadbourn.
I write both science fiction and fantasy, although the bulk of my recent work is fantasy. And you know what? For me, it all writes from the same place.
* Haven't read her work. Obviously must seek it out.
** Author of the Age of Misrule trilogy, which I read and enjoyed some months ago and described as "Susan Cooper for adults."