It’s been more than a month, and I’m still thinking about what Moebius said.Moebius is more properly called Jean Giraud, but I learned about his work from the pages of Heavy Metal and my local comic book stores, and when I think of the man I think of the pseudonym. He was one of the guests at the World Fantasy Convention this year, and as a featured guest, they gave him a panel to himself. In most of these panels, there are two people, one the interviewer and one the guest; for Moebius, they merely handed him a microphone and let him talk.Giraud’s audience was densely populated with professionals in the field. I was in the second row from the front, and the people sitting within my field of vision had received close to a dozen Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. The artist seemed to enjoy the attention, and proceeded to speak for an hour on a variety of things, ranging from philosophy to art to movies to fantasy. That last part almost seemed obligatory; after all, it was the World Fantasy Convention. Yet it was during his musings on the field today that he made an observation which struck me.
I do not posess Archie Goodwin’s memory for quotation, but I can paraphrase with the best. He was talking about the difference between science fiction and fantasy, and why one was more popular when he was young while the balance has shifted today. Fantasy, he said, was focused on the past when he was growing up. Fantasists wrote of old days, of royalty, the fae, magic, honor, and other ideals. Science fiction, on the other hand, was focused on the future or the futuristic, and was the field that looked forward with earnestness and hope. Today, he suggested, fantasy is the field that looks out at the world with hope, while science fiction has lost most of its idealistic fervor in favor of dystopeas and gritty realism.
My first instincts were to disagree. After all, that analysis was not in keeping with the books I’d been reading. But then I realized my reading habits were deceptive. With the books at hand for me, I often find myself shifting from a Selina Rosen novel from a couple of years back to a Brian Aldiss novel of the 1960s with a stop off in the 1980s for a bit of light horror fun with Graham Masterton. So I tried to think of the novels I’d read recently, seperating them out across the times they were written. And I believe I’ve come to agree with Moebius, at least in terms of time periods and thematic viewpoints.
What does that really mean, though? Beyond the casual analysis?
Well, if he’s right about the cause and effect, it might provide an easier guideline on what can be done to revive a flagging genre than anything else. Maybe, just maybe, a large percentage of the reading population is looking for simple enjoyment out of their books, something which will excite them, thrill them, scare them, inveigle them, bedazzle them, romance them… and at the end of the line, offer them a sense that life can be better and justice will be served.
It would certainly go a way toward explaining why romances, mysteries and contemporary fantasies seem to be favorites with the reading public.
This has been needling me for over a month. I’ve decided that the only way of getting rid of the question is to throw it open to others. We need to explore what fled Pandora’s Box in order to get conflicts for a story. Do people, en masse, also need to find the hope that remained inside?
And if so, are there enough authors who wish to tell those stories, and publishers who want to push them?
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
John Skipp
Dear Bill –
These days, I find myself trying to play it both ways: telling tough, harsh, painful tales, with a lot of laughs and thrills along the way, that end on a note of hard-won light and hope.
But I gotta admit. it’s very tempting to dispense with the darkness and head straight for the light. Cuz if there’s one thing I know, it’s that PEOPLE WANT TO BE HAPPY. And are starving for simple, soul-satisfying pleasure.
The thing about wading through the grit, pain and horror is this: a lot of people who need the light most have also SEEN FAR TOO MUCH to buy into happy-face, candy-ass bullshit. Easy answers will not do. They need stories that acknowledge their scar tissue, their hard-earned knowledge of how life actually is.
That said, we have never been hungrier than we are right now for legitimate, non-pandering hope and delight.
If you’ve got some, feel free to bring it RIGHT ON OVER HERE, BABY! Cuz I would love me some o’ that! And I guarantee you, I am not alone.
Yer pal,
Skipp
Dec 11th, 2007
Dave Wilson
I found this one extremely thought-provoking…It’s certainly true that the SF paradigm has shifted. I mean, where the hell is my flying car, you know? Most of the bad things predicted for this time frame (which was once the future) have come to pass in one form or another…a lot of the hope has been washed aside by cynicism, egocentric politicians and businessmen (and individuals, for that matter)
People love hope. The biggest selling fiction piece in recent times was The Da Vinci Code, which ends in hope for the future of a different sort - though more fantasy than SF.
I still prefer endings with a bright light (even if it’s far in the distance).
D
Dec 11th, 2007
Bill Lindblad
I’d like to think that you can’t do a successful horror book without generating anxiety and fear… but you both hit upon what’s been bugging me. The end.
Maybe I’ve just had an unrepresentative streak, but a lot of the horror novels I’ve read recently have had downright gloomy ends for their protagonists. That’s not a knock on the quality of the book, mind; they’ve been very well written. But they’ve been bleak.
And then I thought about the recent books I’ve been reading from people who were producing novels back in the 1980s and before. It seems that most of the novels end on an upbeat note, even if there’s been some serious trouble for the protagonists (and death of some likeable characters) along the way.
But, again, I’m not a professional reviewer; I read a number of books, but they’re all across the spectrum in genre and time period. Maybe I’m seeing a trend that isn’t really there.
Dec 11th, 2007
Reply to “Opening Pandora’s Box”