One might argue that this is the way such things inevitably turn out, that the commercial center is inevitably going to be playing to the maximum demographic of any literary mode, that the maximum demographic is always going to be the middle of the intellectual bell-shaped curve, and that therefore the mutational literary action has to come from the fringes.
But for a while now, the numbers have been showing that that business model, that literary configuration, is breaking down. The number two bookstore chain, Borders, got in so much trouble that it tried to sell itself to Barnes and Noble, number one. But Barnes and Noble wasn't buying because their numbers were going south, too.
The model is breaking down for the book business in general, not just SF, and at the retail end, which has long since come to wag the publishing dog, and, I would argue, precisely because the power to decid what gets published has migrated from editors and publishers to bookstore chains and their buyers.
Sales are off not just because the general economy is in the shitter, but because the central product is not exciting the central readership, either for SF or for fiction in general, and this stuff is what the dominant retail book chains have to rely upon by the nature of their current business model.
One person is responsible for ordering all the SF for all the stores of a major book store chain, maybe something over a thousand titles a year, quite an exhausting job, you can well imagine.
You say you can't imagine it? You say it's impossible for a human being to read and evaluate an average of over three books a day?
Well, of course you're right. It is impossible. Hence the necessity of something like BookScan. Hence the need for computerized ordering based on previous track records rather than individual literary evaluation, let alone passion. Hence the general lack of buzz, passion, sense of wonder, literary excitement, in what gets ordered at the commercial top of the lists. None of that can be factored into the equation on which the program runs.
In the case of SF, which is what we are about here, the combined fandoms and specialized readerships for the tie-in sub-sub fictions, well-publicized by the major media properties into which they are tied, and the synthetic fandoms and specialized readerships created by and for things like the post Frank Herbert Dune series, taken together were enough, up to a point, to keep the center holding.
But now that point has been passed and the center is falling apart. This sort of publishing has to be based on creating the kind of relationship that SF publishing once had with SF fandom in general, but between far more narrowly targeted but much large fandoms for specific multimedia universe formats like Star Trek, Star Wars, Matrix, and so forth, and for such formats created by print media in the first place like the Dune series or Marvel superheroes.
A bit like the cult biz, religious and otherwise, a bit like the heroin or crack biz, dependent on regular and hopefully regularly increasing sales to customers loyally fixated on the product.
However, by now the media SF dog that has been wagging the tie-in SF publishing tail to its profit is shaking the life out of it. The more that middle of the road SF book publishing becomes dominated by tie-ins to pre-existing media formats—film series, TV series, comic book series, video game series—the more the various fandom readerships for these series come to get their fixes from the primary multimedia series themselves. And when the novel series running along independent formats reach a certain level of specialized readership, they get turned into multimedia formats themselves, the results being more of the same.
One moving image is worth a lot more than a thousand words to a demographic whose allegiance is to format, characters, and fantasy universe. The bottom line being that in the end format literary television can't complete with television itself for the same demographic.
Prose fiction, therefore, has to deliver experiences that film, TV, video games, and so forth cannot, and I would submit that the main reason prose fiction sales have been declining is that what is being published hasn't been doing this very well.
When it comes to speculative fiction, whose tropes and imagery have come to assume a pretty dominant position in the realm of media fiction, this has become particularly essential. But, on the other hand, the essential literary nature of speculative fiction makes it easier to accomplish in literary terms, for what prose fiction can do that visual media fiction cannot do and will never be able to do is transport the consciousness of the reader into the interior consciousness of a fictional character.
Just as a skilled Method actor can become the character for the duration of the tale, so can the reader of prose fiction, through the skill of the writer. And true speculative fiction is centrally about the interface, the feedback relationship, between the total exterior surround—technological, economic, political, esthetic, media, etc.—and the interior consciousnesses of the characters embedded in it.
It's not that so-called “mainstream” or “contemporary” fiction can't do this, it's that mostly it's given up trying to deal with the endlessly and rapidly mutating exterior surround and turned inward to an unhealthily dominant degree, and itself become another marketing genre targeted at a limited fringe demographic, if perhaps the largest.
It's not so much that speculative fiction can do it, it's that speculative fiction must do it, to be literarily successful on its own inherent terms, and to be commercially successful in the end by delivering what the media product to which it has become tied to the point of aping cannot. Son of Man, Neurogenesis, Butcher Bird, and The First Law trilogy all do that. So why have they all been relegated to fringe publication?
Partly, I believe, because the fringe readerships they centrally appeal to may be limited in size, or at least such is the marketers’ perception. Partly because the current failing business model, tranching fiction up into restrictive genres marketed to specialized demographics, doesn't get that fiction that crosses at least two of these genre boundaries and therefore appeals to more than one readership demographic—for instance in the manner in which Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union is speculative fiction, detective fiction, and literary fiction—can easily enough succeed commercially if it succeeds literarily.
What the failing publishing model obfuscates and therefore cannot comprehend is that the very concept of genre itself is the problem, not the solution. Genrefication by its very nature cannot help but erode the viability of the commercial center by slicing it up into material for targeted readerships.
The ultimate solution is going to have to be dissolving genre boundaries both commercially and literarily and publishing more novels like The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilité d'unelle), by Michel Houellebecq, and publishing them in the same manner.
In France, Houellebecq has always been a “literary” author, but also almost from the beginning a best-selling author, and for a decade or so maybe the most famous and commercially successful French author—certainly the most famous and successful one with a well-regarded literary reputation. Yet while he was a respected literary author prior to his second novel, it was that book, The Elementary Particles (Les Particules élémentaires), which both won him a prestigious literary prize and launched him into commercial and literary superstardom.
And though it certainly wasn't published as such or greeted as such, The Elementary Particles, this novel which gained Houellebecq fame, fortune, and reputation as a “serious literary writer” in France and which was published as commercially successful “serious literary fiction” by Knopf in the United States, fulfills any conceivable definition of SF.
True, the bulk of the novel, written in Houellebecq's characteristic bitterly misanthropic yet somehow deeply enjoyable style, is devoted to the story of two half brothers, their messed up lives and sexual obsessions, and diatribes against the “baba cool” remnants of the 1960s counterculture. But the novel ends with the despicable human race replaced by a scientifically created post-humanity that reproduces by cloning, thus avoiding the dysfunctional linkage of sexuality and repro
duction. And unlike most other so-called “mainstream” writers trying their hand at science fiction, when Houellebecq introduces a speculative technological or scientific element, he does so with the rigor of a hard science fiction writer and then some.
In commercial marketing terms, with The Elementary Particles, Michel Houel-lebecq reached two readership demographics in the United States as well as in France, the readership for “literary fiction” and the readership for “science fiction,” with a novel that was not restrictively packaged or promoted to specifically place it in any genre category. When combined these relationships were enough for it to sell like a major best-seller in France and a minor one in the United States..
With The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq did the same thing commercially and achieved the same sort of commercial and critical success. But here the SF is front and center—indeed dominant from the very beginning and all the way through—though Houellebecq achieves an even stronger balance between the psychological and the speculative, the deep interior of his character or characters and the external surround, like all the best science fiction thematically focused on the interface and feedback between them.
I say “character or characters” because in one way there are several and in another only one. For once again Houellebecq is concerned with humanity versus post-humanity, here from the outset. The story is told from alternating viewpoints in alternating time-streams.
In the present or near future we have the singular human Daniel, the archetypal Houellebecqian bitter, unloved and unlovable, sexually obsessed, near psychopathic anti-hero.
In the future, we have a series of iterations of Daniel, beginning with number 24 and concluding with 26, with access to his memories, but themselves emotionless post-human clones of “Daniel 1,” isolate members of the successor race created by the Elohimites, a techno-religious science fictional cult with strong echoes of a minor French cult called the Raelians and also of Scientology, which replaces the world's monotheistic religions within the lifetime of Daniel 1.
Houellebecq's concern with the psychic results of the speculative element is front and center here, and his rendering of the necessary scientific and technical material knowledgeable and convincing enough to satisfy the shade of John W. Campbell. If this isn't a science fiction novel that touches all the science fictional bases, then nothing is.
But Houellebecq is as concerned with the bleak inner life (or lack thereof) and chillingly gross sexual obsessions of the human Daniel 1 as he is with his future post-human iterations, thus combining the virtues of the literarily successful science fiction novel with those of the successful so-called literary novel. Thus, in marketing terms, hitting two fringe demographics and capturing a readership greater than the sum of their parts.
And unintentionally, perhaps, creating a novel that is both a model for and a metaphor of the direction speculative fiction, and perhaps prose fiction in general, is going to have to take to live long and prosper in the twenty-first century.
Things have fallen apart, the old center cannot hold.
But if there are nine and sixty ways of composing genre lays, by the very numbers of the bottom line, there are no less than 4761 possibilities of cross-genre synthesis, and every single unique one of them can be right.
Those who are not busy being born are busy dying.
Those who adapt, survive.
Copyright © 2009 Norman Spinrad
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss
Our own Shelia Williams will be at CapClave. Also, consider FenCon, Foolscap, AlbaCon and ConClave this month. Plan now for social weekends with your favorite SF authors, editors, artists, and fellow fans. For an explanation of con(vention)s, a sample of SF folksongs, and info on fanzines and clubs, send me an SASE (self-addressed, stamped #10 [business] envelope) at 10 Hill #22-L, Newark NJ 07102. The hot line is (973) 242-5999. If a machine answers (with a list of the week's cons), leave a message and I'll call back on my nickel. When writing cons, send an SASE. For free listings, tell me of your con 5 months out. Look for me at cons behind the Filthy Pierre badge, playing a musical keyboard.—Erwin S. Strauss
SEPTEMBER 2009
4-7—DragonCon. For info, write: Box 16459, Atlanta GA 30321. Or phone: (404) 909-0115 (10 am to 10 pm, not collect). (Web) dragoncon.net. (E-mail) [email protected]. Con will be held in: Atlanta GA (if city omitted, same as in address) at the Hyatt. Guests will include: far too many to list. Huge multi-media event. Five-figure crowd expected.
4-7—DiscWorldCon. (480) 945-6890. nadwcon.org. Mission Palms, Tempe AZ. Terry Pratchett, Diane Duane, P. Morwood.
4-7—Anime Vegas. animevegas.com. Cashman Center, Las Vegas NV. Clinkenbeard, Jewell, Rusika, Bailey, Willingham.
4-7—AnimeFEST. animefest.org. Hyatt Regency, Dallas TX.
4-7—AlCon. alcon.org.uk. Leicester UK. Martin Billamy, Ahemi Soloway. Anime, and other aspects of Japanese culture.
5-7—KumoriCon. kumoricon.org. Hilton, Portland OR. Soul Candy, Last Stop Tokyo, Svetlana Chmakova. Anime.
5-7—Abrams, Inc. +44 (0) 1234 752-485. massiveevents.co.uk. Park Inn, Northampton UK. Michael Emerson. Media.
11-13—Nan Desu Kan. ndkdenver.org. Marriott Tech Center, Denver CO. Japanese anime, art, games, culture generally.
11-13—ScareFest. (859) 233-4567. thescarefest.com. Lexington Center, Lexington KY. Horror and the paranormal.
18-20—FenCon, Box 701448, Dallas TX 75370. fencon.org. Crowne Plaza. Bujold, Cornell, DeCandido, Ulbrich, K. Miller.
18-20—Horror Realm, Box 10400, Pittsburgh PA 15234. (412) 216-0317. Crowne Plaza South. Ken Foree, Sharon Ceccatti.
18-20—Dark Xmas, 1485 North Rd., Warren OH 44484. darkxmas.fatcow.com. Denise Crosby, Cory Haim, G. Tom Mac.
18-20—StarFury, 148a Queensway, Bayswater London W2 6LY, UK. +44 (0) 7930 319-119. Blackpool UK. Media.
25-27—Foolscap, Box 2461, Bellevue WA 98111. (206) 938-2452. foolscap.org. Marriott, Redmond WA. SF writing and art.
25-27—ConCeption, 2112 W. Galen Blvd., #8-199, Aurora IL 60500. concentricconventioncompany.com. Glen Ellyn IL.
25-27—HorrorFind Weekend, 9722 Groffs Mill Rd., Owings Mills MD 21117. horrorfindweekend.com. Hunt Valley MD.
25-27—AnimeFest. newyorkanimefestival.com. Javits Center, New York, NY. Anime.
OCTOBER 2009
2-4—Browncoat Ball. browncoatball.com. Governor Hotel, Portland OR. For fans of Firefly and Serenity.
2-4—RealmsCon, Box 271555, Corpus Christi TX 78427. realmscon.com. Holiday Inn, Emerald Beach. Many guests. Anime.
9-11—AlbaCon, Box 2085, Albany NY 12220. 973242-5999. albacon.org. Best Western Sovereign. E. Hand, S. Hickman.
9-11—ConClave, Box 2915, Ann Arbor MI 48106. conclavesf.org. Crowne Plaza Airport, Romulus (Detroit) MI. B. Gehm.
9-11—GayLaxiCon, Box 6045, Minneapolis MN 55406. gaylaxicon2009.org. M. Weis. For gay fans and their friends.
9-11—Spooky Empire. (954) 258-7852. spookyempire.com. Wyndham resort, Orlando FL. Horror.
11-18—Star Trek Cruise, 163 S. End, St. Augustine FL 32095. (888) 361-5708. Sailing from Los Angeles CA. Tim Russ.
15-18—Con on the Cob, 372 Alpha Ave., Akron OH 44312. (330) 734-0337. cononthecob.com. Hudson OH. L. Elmore.
16-18—CapClave, c/o Box 53, Ashton MD 20861. caplave.org. Hilton, Rockville MD. Harry Turtledove, Sheila Williams.
16-18—Arcana, Box 8036, Minneapolis MN 55408. (612) 721-5959. arcanacon.com. St. Paul MN. “The Dark Fantastic."
16-18—ValleyCon, Box 7202, Fargo ND 58106. valleycon.com. Doublewood Inn. George R.R. Martin. SF and fantasy.
AUGUST 2010
5-8—North American SF Convention, c/o SAFE, 2144 B Ravenglass Pl., Raleigh NC 27612. raleighnasfic2010.org.
SEPTEMBER 2010
2-6—Aussiecon 4, GPO Box 1212, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia. aussiecon4.org.au. World SF Convention. US$175.
AUGUST 2011
; 17-21—Reno Worldcon, Box 13278, Portland OR 97213. rcfi.org. Reno NV. The 2011 World Science Fiction Convention.
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Visit www.dellmagazines.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Asimov's SF, October-November 2009 Page 35