IN THIS ISSUE/DANS CE NUMÉRO:
Editors/Co-Rédactrices Celu Amberston, Elaine Chen
Contributors/Collaborateurs Mici Gold, Michèle Laframboise, Paula Johanson, Holly Phillips, Diane Walton, Mark Shainblum
Translators/Traducteurs Yves Meynard, Daniel Sernine, Jean-Louis Trudel
SF Canada President/Président Mark Shainblum 4702 Queen Mary Rd, #6 Montreal, QC H3W 1W8 (514) 737-6270 mark@angloman.com
Vice-President/Vice-président Susan Mayse tzum@illahie.com
Secretary-Treasurer/Secrétaire-trésorière Annette Mocek c/o The Merril Collection of SF 239 College St, 3rd Floor Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 (416) 393-7748 amocek@tpl.toronto.on.ca
Administrative Assistant/Adjointe administrative Ed Willett 303-2333 Scarth St, Regina, SK S4P 2J8 ewillett@sasktel.net Fax no./Numéro de fax: (306) 565-2996
EDITORIAL ADDRESS/ADRESSE DE LA RÉDACTION:
Communiqué c/o Celu Amberston
106-355 Anderton Ave
Courtenay BC, V9N 2G9
(250) 898-8339
celu@uniserve.com
MAILING ADDRESS/ADRESSE POSTALE:
SF Canada c/o Ed Willett
303-2333 Scarth St
Regina, SK S4P 2J8
ewillett@sasktel.net
Fax no./Numéro de fax: (306) 565-2996
Communiqué is published by SF Canada. All credited material contained herein is copyright 2003 by the author of the piece; any other material is copyright 2003 by SF Canada. The electronic version of Communiqué may be printed out for personal use only. Reproduction or electronic distribution of the articles is with permission of the author only. Printed in Canada. Membership: $25. Subscription: $10. To join, send name, house and computer addresses, phone number, and details of qualifying publication. To subscribe (hardcopy), just send name, address, and fee. Sample issue for SASE.
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Born in London (UK) from Canadian parents in 1960, Michèle Laframboise has been equally drawn toward writing and comics while pursuing studies in geography, and later in civil engineering, at the Ecole Polytechnique of Montréal. She met her husband while drawing comics for the student paper.
She published her first comic book in 1987 and four others followed before her first SF novel, Ithuriel, was published, at the same time as her first young adult novel Les Nuages de Phoenix. The latter won the Cecile Gagnon Award for a new author (which is not a science-fiction award) in the fall of 2001.
All her works reflect her social preoccupations and the growing population of “cast-offs” from the system.
Ithuriel, the code name of an ambitious project pursued by a group of scientifics, might be the key that will put an end once and for all to world conflicts…thus giving his master an unquestionable supremacy but at the price of a child’s innocence.
There is no real “villain” character: the scientists working on the Ithuriel project are highly motivated (each in their own way) idealists and do it for a noble cause, and one of them has endured suffering and loss in his childhood.
Meanwhile the main characters are “rejects”, products of globalization, disabused and anxious to get on with their lives unnoticed. Stephan, an ex-convict, carries in his bloodstream a mortal enemy. Haunted by hideous memories, he only hopes to live day after day, forgotten by the authorities. In his life enters Lara, a frail girl-child, at once ignorant and genially gifted, carrying nightmares…
There is also Antoine, a disgusted Québec patriot, who only wishes to finish his days on his secluded retreat, away from the all the noise and paranoia rooted in terrorism attacks and world pandemics. Cassandre, Antoine’s young niece, raised without father or guidance, dreams of dance, with a deep rebellion burning inside her. It will take much to make them leave their comfortable shells and confront the reality of an odd experiment.
Les nuages de Phoenix (“The Clouds of Phoenix”) treats the theme of colonization on a (previously inhabited) world, and of difficult father-daughter relations. The main character is a handicapped girl who walks with an exoskeleton and talks with a voice synthesizer that renders an older woman’s voice instead of a ten-year old girl’s.
Solitary and dreamy, Blanche can run faster than anyone else, thanks to her exoskeleton legs. She spends endless hours contemplating the clouds, who seem to write signs in the Phoenix green sky. Lupianne, her older sister, thinks it is only a meteorological phenomena, an opinion shared by her father, who is much too anxious about the colony’s air production center falling quotas.
Only Sabian, a lonely painter, believes that a link exists between the clouds signs and the ruins of an ancient destroyed city downstream from their own town.
Suddenly, the weather degrades, the temperature rises, the clouds multiply... Will Blanche and Sabian be able to convince the authorities that a danger lurches over their colony?
This fantastic comic book explores, in a graphic B&W style, the consequence of wishing for a talent without wanting to work for it. The heroine, Karine, finds out that her new-found talent was in fact robbed from Leonid, a gifted pianist. How can she hope to repair the damage?
A space-op saga, filled with humour, drama and strangeness, will begin next fall: The Jules-Verne is sent to the far reaches of the prepossessing Gayan Alliance for a long-term mission. Aboard, young Armelle, native of Dome 38, Mars, finds herself more than happy to escape her dreary life with her two mothers on the once-thriving, now-falling apart colony.
But she quickly finds out that their lives rest in the hands of a disgraced man who, nineteen standard years before, fled the Ark Blockade Battle as soon as the engagement began. From more than thirty ships, his was the only one to return. The strangest thing is that he hadn’t even been punished for it.
Through the eyes of Armelle, a shy Martian with brittle bones, we follow the Jules-Verne, an old Aries-class cruiser lead by Anton Kurian, its irascible and alcoholic commander, Mari Jo Alfonso, the stormy second officer, and The Weasel, a Supply and Maintenance officer who has a lot on his hands to keep the ship from disintegrating...
Two mature novels are also in the writing. She is working on a comic book adaptation of “The Eight Register”, a splendid uchrony written by Alain Bergeron. Another comic book is shaping on for next year. She juggles her time with her husband and SF fan and her three-year old son.
For more on Michèle Laframboise and her work, visit her website www.michele-laframboise.com.
Née à Londres en 1960 de parents canadiens, Michèle Laframboise a toujours été partagée entre les arts et les sciences. Elle s’est adonnée à l’écriture et à la bande dessinée tout en poursuivant ses études de géographie, puis en génie civil à l’Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal. Elle y a d’ailleurs rencontré son mari.
Elle travaille à présent sur deux romans et une adaptation BD du Huitième Registre, une uchronie d’Alain Bergeron. Un autre album de BD est prévu pour l’an prochain. Lorsqu’elle n’est pas occupée à écrire ou à dessiner, Michèle partage son temps entre son mari, son fils de trois ans et ses fans.
Elle a publié son premier album en 1987. Quatre autres ont suivi avant que ses premiers romans SF ne soient publiés. Les Nuages de Phoenix (Médiaspaul) a gagné le Prix Cécile Gagnon pour la relève en littérature jeunesse à l’automne 2001. Ithuriel (Naturellement) a été finaliste pour le Prix Aurora 2002, pour le meilleur roman écrit en français. Les écrits de Michèle Laframboise reflètent ses préoccupations sociales.
Dans Ithuriel, un groupe d’idéalistes, mettent au point un ambitieux projet qui pourrait mettre fin aux guerres. S’il réussit, Ithuriel conférera à son maître une indéniable supériorité, mais au prix de l’innocence d’une enfant. Cette société mondialisée a produit une population croissante de rejetés, désabusés du système. Parmi eux, Stephan, un ex-prisonnier qui porte en lui un ennemi silencieux, et Antoine, un patriote québécois déçu exilé aux EU. Dans leurs vies, jaillit une frêle enfant, porteuse de cauchemars…
Son roman SF jeunesse, Les Nuages de Phoenix, explore le thème de la colonisation d’un monde anciennement occupé, et sur la difficile relation entre un père et ses filles. Le personnages principal est une fillette handicapée qui marche avec un exosquelette et parle grâce à un synthétiseur vocal.
Solitaire et rêveuse, Blanche contemple le ciel vert de Phœnix. Les nuages semblent tracer des signes qui pourraient signifier un message important. Sa sœur aînée, Lupianne, n’y voit qu’un caprice de la météo, tout comme leur père, trop préoccupé par le rendement des souffleuses d’air. Seul Sabian, un artiste marginal, croit au lien entre le langage des nuages et les ruines d’une cité détruite s’élevant en aval de leur ville. Soudain, le climat se dégrade, la température augmente, les nuages se multiplient…
Sa BD fantastique Pianissimo (Zone Convective) raconte dans un style graphique les conséquences de souhaiter un talent sans vouloir faire d’effort pour l’acquérir. Karine, l’héroïne, se rend compte que son merveilleux talent a en réalité été volé à Léonid, un pianiste doué. Comment pourra-t-elle réparer les dommages?
Le Jules-Verne est un space-opéra bourré d’humour, de drame et d’étrangeté. Un vieux vaisseau, le Jules-Verne, part pour une longue mission. À bord, la jeune Armelle est d’abord heureuse d’échapper à sa vie étriquée avec ses deux mères sur Mars, une colonie jadis plus prospère. Mais elle découvre vite que leurs vies reposent entre les mains d’un homme tombé en disgrâce qui avait lâchement fui une bataille dix-neuf ans plus tôt…
Pour mieux connaître Michèle Laframboise et ses créations, visitez son site www.michele-laframboise.com.
In her article “Report on the Surrey” (Communiqué No. 33), Celu Amberston asks the question I’ve asked myself at the SF events I’ve attended – where the heck are all the Asians? As a Canadian-born Chinese Torontonian, it’s shocking to step off the street and find myself surrounded by homogeneous faces. I’m not used to feeling self-conscious in a city that boasts an enormous Asian community.
It’s not that we’re uninterested in SF. The Canadian National Comics, SFX and Anime Expo is always packed with fans who are more representative of Toronto’s multiculturalism, and I think it’s safe to guess that the media-based cons are similarly attended. So why are we conspicuously absent from SF literary events? I can only speak for Chinese-Canadians, but I’ll give it a go.
Celu suggests that high registration fees bar minorities from attending cons. I don’t think the prices affect Chinese-Canadians any more or less than they affect anyone else. The Chinese-Canadian community encompasses all levels of income. In Toronto I see both ends of the spectrum: the immigrants who toil in the factories along my bus route; and the slick youths and their chic pixie-like girlfriends, whose fathers send money from Hong Kong to pay for their souped-up Hondas and Acuras (at least, that’s where I assume they get their money, since I’ve never seen these kids flipping burgers).
Celu also speculates that perhaps Asians aren’t interested in expressing themselves and their ideas through SF. I believe that Chinese-Canadians simply aren’t encouraged to express themselves at all – not because North American society is holding us back, but because of our cultural attitudes toward individuality and independence:
Immigrants normally have high hopes for their children; after all, most have come to Canada to pursue opportunities that are unavailable in their country of birth. In most Chinese families, kids are pressured to become doctors, since medicine represents all the qualities that Chinese value: wealth, community status, and academic prowess. Become a poor, struggling, lowly writer? Ai-yah! Maybe as a hobby, but all extracurricular pursuits must be put aside until you establish your eminent career. (My friend’s strict father used to tell him, “Once you are a doctor, the girls will come to you.”)
My twentysomething-year old cousins waste several hours a day commuting back and forth from University of Toronto, as their mother will not allow them to move out, not even into residence. “Why can’t they just tell her to stuff it?” my bewildered boyfriend says. “Because they can’t.” I say. “Why not?” “They just can’t. You don’t understand.”
What doesn’t he understand? I can hardly describe it. The hierarchy of relations and ancestors who insist on peering over your shoulder. The sense that your life is not entirely your own. It’s not like American family sitcoms, in which children fear losing their parents’ unconditional love. It has nothing to do with love, or honour, as the clichés of Oriental mystique would have you believe. I think it’s disappointment that we can’t deal with, and the loss of – for a lack of a better word – acknowledgement.
Blame it on Confucian values – harmony can only be achieved if everyone knows their place and observes the proper protocol. Defying or falling short of parental expectations is unthinkable (whereas in North American society, teenage rebellion is considered normal and even expected), and non-Chinese have trouble respecting that as they think you’re not strong enough to stand up to your parents.
The compulsion to obey your parents means that no matter how old you are, you are a child. The North American model is to kick out the kids once they turn 18 – if the kids haven’t moved out already. The Chinese model is for the kids to live with the parents until they get married – and once they’re married, the parents live with them.
Pursue writing, and face an uncertain future during which you’ll likely have to support yourself with menial, low-paying jobs? Traditional Chinese parents would cringe. Non-Chinese parents likely have the same reaction, but they tend to let their baby out of the nest. He’s an adult; it’s his life.
If you are a perpetual child who must defer to your elders, you are never encouraged to express your individuality – which, in the Western world, is the basis of all art ever since the Romantics decided that starving in a garret was more noble than selling out. It seems inflammatory to suggest that Asians have trouble thinking for themselves – but I’ve encountered too many examples: the post-doc who will not do anything unless he has been instructed by his professor; the Tokyo fashionistas who will copy a look from a magazine, item for item, and don’t care if a dozen others are also wearing the same outfit; the artist who, once he felt he could paint the perfect lotus, burned hundreds of previous attempts; the engineering grad students who apply to med school because they’re not sure what else to do after they get their Masters.
A German businessman and a Chinese businessman were discussing American history. The German asked the Chinese what he thought the effects of the Civil War on the U.S. were. The Chinese man, with millennia of history stretching out behind him, said, “Too soon to tell.”
It’s too soon to tell if cons are alienating Asians. Give it another generation; those who were torn between conflicting Chinese and North American values will likely raise their own kids differently. Writing conferences should be geared toward writers (who are a minority themselves), not local demographics. I don’t think we need special treatment.
Dans son article “Report on the Surrey” (Communiqué No. 33), Celu Amberston pose la question que je me suis posée moi-même à chaque événement de SF auquel j’ai assisté – où sont donc tous les asiatiques? En tant que torontoise chinoise née au Canada, il est choquant pour moi de m’y retrouver entourée de visages homogènes. Je n’ai pas l’habitude de me sentir mal à l’aise dans une ville qui compte une énorme communauté asiatique.
Ce n’est pas que nous ne sommes pas intéressés à la SF. L’exposition torontoise Canadian National Comics, SFX and Anime Expo est toujours pleine de fans qui sont davantage représentatifs du multiculturalisme torontois, et je crois qu’on peut supposer qu’il en est de même des conventions médiatiques. Alors pourquoi sommes-nous aussi absents des événements littéraires? Je ne peux parler qu’au nom des canadiens d’ascendance chinoise, mais je vais quand même essayer de fournir une réponse.
Celu suggère que les frais d’inscription élevés empêchent les minorités d’assister aux conventions. Je ne pense pas que les prix affectent les sino-canadiens ni plus ni moins que personne d’autre. Tous les niveaux de revenus se retrouvent parmi la communauté sino-canadienne. À Toronto, je vois les deux extrémités du spectre: les immigrants qui peinent dans les usines le long de mon trajet d’autobus; et les jeunes hommes chics avec leur copines habillées comme des poupées de luxe, qui payent leur Hondas et Acuras gonflées avec l’argent que leurs parents envoient depuis Hong Kong (enfin, je suppose que c’est là qu’ils trouvent leurs revenus; je n’ai jamais vu ces gamins-là se faire suer au-dessus du gril d’un McDo).
Celu suppose aussi que les asiatiques ne sont peut-être pas intéressés à s’exprimer à travers la SF. Je crois que les sino-canadiens ne sont simplement pas encouragés à s’exprimer, point – non pas parce que la société occidentale nous en empêche, mais à cause de nos attitudes culturelles à propos de l’individualité et de l’indépendance.
Les immigrants ont normalement de grands espoirs pour leurs enfants; après tout, la plupart sont venus au Canada pour y exploiter des opportunités qui n’étaient pas disponibles dans leur pays natal. Dans la plupart des familles chinoises, on met de la pression sur les enfants pour qu’ils deviennent médecins, car la médecine représente toutes les qualités que les Chinois admirent: la richesse, la condition sociale, et l’excellence académique. Devenir un pauvre écrivain solitaire? Ai-yah! Comme passe-temps, d’accord, mais toute activité hors-programme doit être mise de côté tant qu’on n’a pas bien assis sa carrière. (Le père très strict d’un ami avait l’habitude de lui dire “Quand tu seras médecin, les filles viendront à toi d’elles-mêmes.”)
Mes cousins, dans la vingtaine, perdent plusieurs heures par jour pour se rendre à l’Université de Toronto et en revenir, car leur mère ne leur permet pas de quitter la maison, même pas pour habiter en résidences étudiantes. “Pourquoi ne lui disent-ils pas d’aller au diable?” me demande mon copain, incrédule. “Parce qu’ils ne peuvent pas,” lui réponds-je. “Pourquoi pas?” “Ils ne peuvent simplement pas; tu ne comprends pas.”
Qu’est-ce qu’il ne comprend pas? Je peux à peine le décrire. La hiérarchie de parents et d’ancêtres qui regardent par-dessus votre épaule. Le sentiment que votre vie ne vous appartient pas tout à fait. Ce n’est pas comme les comédies à la télé américaine, dans lesquelles les enfants craignent de perdre l’amour inconditionnel de leurs parents. Ça n’a rien à voir avec l’amour, ou l’honneur, comme les clichés sur l’Orient voudraient vous le faire croire. Je crois que c’est le désappointement que nous ne pouvons pas supporter, ainsi que la perte de ce que, faute de mieux, je nommerais la reconnaissance (N.d.T. acknowledgement: reconnaissance, non pas dans le sens de gratitude, mais d’être reconnu).
On peut blâmer les valeurs confucianistes – l’harmonie ne peut être atteinte que si chacun sait quelle est sa place et observe le protocole approprié. Défier ou même ne pas répondre complètement aux attentes de ses parents est une chose impensable (alors que dans la société occidentale, la rébellion adolescente est considérée normale; même, on s’y attend). Les non-Chinois ont du mal à respecter cette façon de voir les choses: ils pensent que vous n’avez pas la force de résister à vos parents.
Le besoin compulsif d’obéir à vos parents veut dire que quel que soit votre âge, vous êtes encore un enfant. Le modèle nord-américain, c’est de jeter vos enfants à la porte quand ils atteignent 18 ans – s’ils ne sont pas déjà partis d’eux-même. Dans le modèle chinois, vous vivez chez vos parents jusqu’à votre mariage – et une fois que vous êtes marié, vos parents vivent chez vous.
Vous voulez poursuivre votre rêve de devenir écrivain, au risque de devoir vous supporter pendant de longues années difficiles avec des emplois médiocres et mal payés, tout ça pour un avenir incertain? Vos parents chinois traditionalistes seront horrifiés. Des parents non-chinois auront sans doute la même réaction, mais ils laisseront d’ordinaire leur enfant quitter le nid comme il l’entend. C’est sa vie, après tout. Il est un adulte, il peut faire ses propres décisions.
Si vous êtes un perpétuel enfant qui doit s’en remettre à la volonté de ses aînés, on ne vous encouragera jamais à exprimer votre individualité – laquelle, dans le monde occidental, est à la base de toute activité artistique, depuis que les Romantiques ont décidé qu’il valait mieux crever de faim dans une mansarde que de trahir son rêve. Ça peut paraître incendiaire de suggérer que les asiatiques ont du mal à penser par eux-mêmes – mais j’en ai rencontré trop d’exemples: l’étudiant au postdocorat qui ne fait et ne peut rien faire de lui-même à moins que son professeur ne l’ait demandé; les maniaques de mode à Tokyo qui vont copier un look depuis les pages d’un magazine, à chaque détail près, et qui se moquent bien de savoir qu’une douzaine d’autres portent exactement le même ensemble; l’aquarelliste qui, une fois convaincu qu’il avait réussi à peindre une fleur de lotus parfaite, a brûlé des centaines d’essais antérieurs; les étudiants nantis d’un diplôme d’ingénieur qui font application en médecine parce qu’ils ne savent pas trop quoi faire d’autre maintenant qu’ils ont décroché une maîtrise.
Un homme d’affaires allemand et un homme d’affaires chinois discutent de l’histoire américaine. L’Allemand demande au Chinois ce qu’il croit qu’ont été les effets de la guerre civile américaine sur les USA. Le Chinois, conscient des millénaires d’histoire qui s’étendent derrière lui, répond: “Il est encore trop tôt pour le dire.”
Il est trop tôt pour dire si les conventions aliènent les asiatiques. Donnons-leur une autre génération; ceux qui ont été déchirés entre les valeurs chinoises et nord-américaines élèveront sans doute leurs enfants différemment. Les conférences en littérature devraient être orientées vers les écrivains (qui sont eux-mêmes une minorité) et non pas en fonction du profil démographique local. Je ne crois pas que nous ayons besoin d’un traitement de faveur.
We set arbitrary “deadlines” of February, May, August and November. This keeps us organized. I’m pretty much reading manuscripts continually, to keep up with the hundred or so manuscripts in the slush pile that we get every month. I send a lot of rejection letters along the way.
Then at the end of each quarter, I decide which stories need to be read by the other editors – Peter Watts, Holly Phillips, Jena Snyder and Derryl Murphy. Jena is usually my second reader, who will cull a number of stories from my “maybe” pile to make it less daunting for the others. In the old days, all the original editors lived in Edmonton, so we passed the bundles of manuscripts to each other, and had the reading done fairly quickly. The volume was smaller then, too.
We don’t trust Canada Post with original manuscripts, so we photocopy all the stories and mail them to the editors. Then I wait for the others to read them. Summer is always a slow time, simply because people take holidays. And we all have lives.
My aim as the general editor, is to have all the stories in a particular quarter (eg. May 31 deadline) completely dealt with (rejected, request for rewrite, or purchased) by the next deadline.
Mailing address: ON SPEC Magazine Box 4727 Edmonton, AB Canada T6E 5G6 www.onspec.ca
Nous avons fixé des “dates de tombée” arbitraires en février, en mai, en août et en novembre. Si ce n’est que pour nous obliger à respecter nos propres échéances. Mais je n’arrête jamais de lire les manuscrits que je reçois, pour ne pas être submergée par la centaine de manuscrits, à peu de choses près, que je reçois tous les mois. Ce faisant, j’expédie déjà un certain nombre de lettres de refus.
Ensuite, à la fin de chaque trimestre, je décide quels textes méritent d’être lus par les autres responsables de la direction littéraire – Peter Watts, Holly Phillips, Jena Snyder et Derryl Murphy. En général, Jena passe tout de suite après moi pour éliminer certains des textes dans la pile des “peut-être” afin de la ramener à des dimensions moins intimidantes pour les autres lecteurs. Autrefois, tous les directeurs littéraires habitaient à Edmonton et il était possible de se remettre mutuellement les paquets de manuscrits en mains propres. La ronde de lectures était vite complétée. Autrefois, nous recevions aussi moins de textes.
Nous ne confions pas de manuscrits originaux à Postes Canada. Par conséquent, nous n’envoyons que desphotocopies de tous les textes. Puis, j’attends que les autres répondent. Cela prend parfois du temps, surtout l’été lorsque les gens partent en vacances. Et puis, ils ont leur propre vie.
Mon but, en tant que directrice générale, c’est d’avoir réglé avant l’échéance d’un trimestre (le 31 août, par exemple) le cas de tous les textes reçus durant le trimestre précédent (celui se terminant le 31 mai, donc) en optant pour l’achat, le refus ou la demande de réécriture.
Adresse postale : ON SPEC Magazine Box 4727 Edmonton, AB Canada T6E 5G6 www.onspec.ca
Hi all!
I am thoroughly bewildered... I mean... honoured to address you all as the new President of SF Canada. (Okay, you, in the back row! None of that bowing and scraping, please. Just call me “Your Presidentialship” and all will be well.)
I don’t know how it happened. Hugh Spencer called me the evening before the AGM teleconference and I distinctly remember the third word I said to him after “hello” being “NO!”, but somehow, here I am. Anyone else ever have that experience with Hugh? Handing over of ATM cards and PIN numbers? Long term loans of vehicles, precious gems or spouses? Gives a whole new sense to the old “Fans are Slans!” thing, doesn’t it?
But seriously, I am in point of fact very happy and honoured to be here, especially in the upcoming WorldCon year, and I want to extend a very warm welcome to my fellow members of the 2002-03 Executive, Susan Mayse (Vice-President) and Annette Mocek (Secretary-Treasurer) and those colleagues as yet unnamed. I also want to publicly thank the outgoing Exec, Hugh Spencer, Chris Atack, Sally Sproule and Mici Gold for their outstanding work over the last two years. Our membership is higher than it’s ever been, our financial house is back in order and we have nowhere to go but up! (He said, smiling a broad smile and kissing a bunch of babies.)
We’ve already started batting around some very cool ideas for SF Canada’s structures, services and participation at WorldCon, and I invite anybody who wishes to participate to drop me a line at the earliest opportunity. In particular we wish to augment our offerings and services in French, and if anybody wishes to help out on that score, please contact me right away.
Thanks for listening!
And Hugh, your secret’s out.
SF Canada President Mark Shainblum
Vice-President Susan Mayse
Secretary-Treasurer Annette Mocek
Administrative Assistant Ed Willett
Salut tout le monde!
Je suis complètement abasourdi... je veux dire, honoré... de m’adresser à vous en tant que nouveau président de SF Canada. (Allons, vous dans la dernière rangée, pas de prosternation, je vous en prie. Appelez-moi “votre présidentialité”, ça suffira.)
Je ne sais pas comment c’est arrivé. Hugh Spencer m’a téléphoné le soir avant l’assemblée générale, et je me rappelle distinctement que le troisième mot que j’ai prononcé après “allo” a été “NON!”, mais pourtant me voici président. Est-ce que quelqu’un d’autre a vécu une pareille expérience avec Hugh? Lui avez-vous cédé votre carde de guichet et votre NIP? Prêté à long terme un véhicule, des bijoux ou une épouse? Cela donne un tout nouveau sens au slogan “Les fans sont des Slans”, non?
Sérieusement, je suis en fait très content et honoré de me retrouver à ce poste, spécialement en cette année où approche la World Con. Je veux souhaiter une chaleureuse bienvenue à mes collègues du nouveau conseil de direction, Susan Mayse (vice-présidente) et Annette Mocek (secrétaire-trésorière), de même qu’aux collègues non encore désignés. Je veux aussi publiquement remercier l’exécutif sortant, Hugh Spencer, Chris Atack, Sally Sproule et Mici Gold, pour leur travail exceptionnel ces deux dernières années. Notre membership est plus nombreux que jamais, nos finances ont été remis en ordre et il ne nous reste qu’à aller de l’avant! (dit-il en souriant largement et en embrassant un tas de bébés).
Nous jouons déjà avec de très chouettes idées quant aux structures et aux services de SF Canada, de même qu’à sa participation à la World Con. J’invite quiconque veut participer à m’envoyer un mot à la première occasion. En particulier, je souhaite que nous augmentions nos services en français; si quelqu’un veut aider de ce côté, je l’invite à me contacter sans tarder.
Merci de m’avoir écouté. (Hugh, ton secret est dévoilé!)
Président Mark Shainblum
Vice-président Susan Mayse
Secrétaire-trésorière Annette Mocek
Adjointe administrative Ed Willett
William “Bill” Antony Swithin Sarjeant died July 8, 2002, in Saskatoon. He wrote the fantasy series The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse (Princes of Sandastre, The Lords of the Stoney Mountains, The Winds of the Wastelands, and The Nine Gods of Saffadné) under the name Antony Swithin.
SF Canada sent the Sarjeant family a card of condolence and donated $100.00 to the William A.S. Sarjeant Memorial Fund. In return, we received a warmly worded letter of thanks from Peggy Sarjeant, as well as from Sandy Lazar at the University of Saskatchewan, where the fund has been established.
Peggy Sarjeant, his wife, writes, “Bill’s connections with fantasy and sci-fi aficionados were very important to him and he particularly enjoyed meeting his Canadian colleagues.” She also lets us know that the Rockall website will still be maintained, and that the family hopes his unpublished Rockall novels will eventually see print.
For a complete summary of his numerous accomplishments and contributions to the Saskatoon community, please visit www.sfcanada.ca/autumn2002/sarjeant.htm.
The Rockall website can be found at www.lights.com/rockall.
William (Bill) Antony Swithin Sarjeant est mort le 8 juillet 2002 à Saskatoon. Sous le nom d’Antony Swithin, il était l’auteur de la série de fantasy “The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse” [La périlleuse quête de Lyonesse], composée des volumes suivants: Princes of Sandastre [Princes de Sandastre], The Lords of the Stoney Mountains [Les Seigneurs des Montagnes Perrières], The Winds of the Wastelands [Les Vents des Terres mortes] et The Nine Gods of Saffadné [Les Neuf Dieux de Saffadné].
SF Canada a envoyé à la famille Sarjeant une carte de condoléances et a fait un don de 100$ au fonds établi à la mémoire du défunt, le William A.S. Sarjeant Memorial Fund. En réponse à ces envois, nous avons reçu une chaleureuse lettre de remerciements signée par Peggy Sarjeant, ainsi qu’un mot de Sandy Lazar à l’Université de Saskatchewan, où le fonds est domicilié.
Sa veuve, Peggy Sarjeant, nous a écrit que Bill chérissait ses rapports avec les amateurs de science-fiction et de fantastique, et qu’il avait particulièrement apprécié de rencontrer ses collègues canadiens. Elle nous a également indiqué que le site Internet dédié à Rockall, l’île qui a inspiré le cadre de sa série, demeurerait en-ligne et que sa famille espérait arranger la publication des romans inédits de la série.
Pour en savoir plus sur les nombreux accomplissements de William Sarjeant et ses contributions à la ville de Saskatoon, on peut visiter le site suivant: www.sfcanada.ca/autumn2002/sarjeant.htm.
Le site de Rockall se trouve à l’adresse suivante: www.lights.com/rockall.
“Fantasy” implies the creation of a whole new world (even if the world is strikingly similar to our own), the weaving of a tapestry in which magic and myth are weft and woof with characters, events, the milieu as a whole. Magic and myth have logic, purpose, continuance in the stream of cause and effect. They become, in other words, integral elements in both the narrative structure, and the imagined world.
“Magic realism,” on the other hand, provides no such matrix for its magical events. On the contrary, the ordinariness of setting and character, the rooting of the story in the earth of everyday, form the essential shell...that the fantastical elements then crack open to allow the light and darkness of the Other to shine through.
In much of the magic realism written in the post-colonial world (Latin America, Africa, India, the Caribbean, North American First Nations, etc) that crack, that Other, carries a political message. The shell of the ordinary has been constructed from materials left behind by a history of conquest, imperialism, and abandonment. The cracks might run along the imperfect joins between imperial- and self-rule, or in the gaps left by forced and voluntary migrations. And the Other that comes through might be the ghost of the past coming to meet with the wish-child of the future, be she hope, or fear, or the strange human twin that is both.
But there is another crack I would like to consider, a rift that runs between the borders of magic realism and contemporary fantasy. Are there stories falling into that dark cleft? Stories written by white North Americans and Europeans, stories set in the Europe, the North America of today, stories built from the ground up out of scraps of the ordinary, and then cracked by something new?
There is a kind of story being written today that has begun to narrow the divide between magic realism and classic myth-and-magic fantasy. Stories like Kelly Link’s “Vanishing Act,” Jack Dann’s “Marilyn,” or “The Abortionist’s Horse” by Tanith Lee, to name only a very few. These stories do have magical (or at any rate, inexplicable) events at their hearts, yet their settings, their characters, their foundations are very much of the world as we know it. They are built on the ground of everyday.
In “Vanishing Act,” a girl’s missionary parents send her away from the turmoil of Southeast Asia in 1970 to her aunt’s house in America. Yet, the aunt’s house is hardly in a state of calm. As we see through a cousin’s eyes, this family, too, is being disrupted by human folly, and by the times. Gradually, as the story unfolds, the girl learns how to disappear, and by the end, she has gotten so good at it even her cousin, who has watched her with morbid interest, knows she is gone. Where? Back to the massacres of Indonesia? To the postcard dream of herself with her parents in a boat on clear water? Or has she become lost in the space between?
In “Marilyn,” a young man invokes the spirit of the sex goddess to suffocate the horrors of his time in Vietnam, and in so doing the innocence of his boyhood longing becomes – literally – soaked in blood.
In “The Abortionist’s Horse,” a woman coming to terms with an accidental pregnancy is haunted by the ghost of the outlaw abortionist who had serviced the community in the days when such things were not only illegal and immoral, but could destroy, sometimes literally, a young woman’ life. By the end, the haunting (or was it her own misgivings all along?) frightens the protagonist into a spontaneous miscarriage.
I chose these examples because each of these authors uses not just the stuff of everyday, but the stuff of history, of a shared social trauma, to construct his or her narrative. The cold war massacres in Indonesia and the contemporary ignorance of Americans wrapped up in concerns about divorce and the draft. The loss of innocence, and home, on the part of American soldiers in Vietnam. The legacy of the criminalization of abortion that still haunts us so bloodily today. Could the authors have written about these subjects without resorting to the fantastic? Yes, certainly. It has been done many times.
Which is, perhaps, the point. While the conventional mainstream narrative builds a structure corresponding to consensual reality, this stream of contemporary fantasy (all the stories mentioned above first appeared in genre publications) builds a similar structure, but then begins to break it down before our eyes. And Something comes through.
What is that Something? Is it analogous to the sociopolitical commentary many see in the magic realism of the post-colonial world? Could some writers who identify with a dominant global culture also recognize a need to crack the consensus and let a little darkness seep through? Are there rifts and discontinuities within the past and present structure of North American culture that could be explored? It seems to me that the only answer to these questions is Yes. Obviously, unequivocally, yes.
Call it fantasy, magic realism, or what you will, but that dark Something is coming through, and sometimes, if you catch it in just the right light, it casts a shadow that looks an awful lot like Truth.
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“Vanishing Act” by Kelly Link, from her collection Stranger Things Happen. First appeared in Realms of Fantasy, 1996.
“Marilyn” by Jack Dann, from the 14th edition of Datlow and Windling’s Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. First appeared in Eidolon Magazine, Autumn 2000.
“The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare)” by Tanith Lee, also in the 14th Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. First appeared in Dark Terrors 5.
For classic magic realism, look for books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, or Louise Erdrich, among many, many others. Happy reading!
Le terme de “fantasy” sous-entend la création d’un nouveau monde dans son entier (quand bien même ce monde serait remarquablement semblable au nôtre), l’élaboration d’une tapisserie dans laquelle le mythe et la magie sont entretissés avec les personnages, les événements, l’environnement de l’œuvre. La magie et le mythe ont une logique, un but, des conséquences, dans le torrent des causes et des effets. Ils sont, en d’autres termes, partie intégrante à la fois de la structure narrative et du monde imaginaire.
Le “réalisme magique”, par contre, ne fournit aucune matrice de ce genre dans laquelle imbriquer ses événements magiques. La banalité du décor et des personnages, l’ancrage de la narration dans le quotidien, forment une coquille solide… que les éléments fantastiques viennent fissurer pour laisser entrer la lumière et l’ombre de l’Autre.
Dans la plupart des œuvres de réalisme magique écrites dans le monde post-colonial (Amérique latine, Afrique, Inde, Caraïbes, Premières Nations d’Amérique du Nord, etc.) cette fissure, cet Autre, portent un message politique. La coquille de l’ordinaire a été construite avec les matériaux laissés derrière par une histoire de conquête, d’impérialisme, et d’abandon. Les fissures délimitent les transitions imparfaites entre la domination impériale et l’auto-gouvernance, les lacunes laissées par les migrations tant forcées que volontaires. Et l’Autre qui perce la coquille pourrait être le spectre du passé venant recontrer l’embryon du futur, qu’il soit espoir, peur, ou l’étrange hybride humain des deux.
Mais il y a une autre fissure dont je voudrais parler, une faille qui court le long de la frontière entre le réalisme magique et la fantasy contemporaine. Y a-t-il des textes qui tombent dans ce sombre gouffre? Des histoires écrites par des nord-américains et des européens blancs, des histoires qui se déroulent dans l’Europe et l’Amérique du Nord contemporaines, construites entièrement à partir de lambeaux de la réalité ordinaire, pour être ensuites fissurées par quelque chose de nouveau?
Il existe un genre de texte qui s’écrit aujourd’hui, qui commence à combler la brèche entre le réalisme magique et la fantasy classique, celle du mythe et de la magie. Des nouvelles comme “Vanishing Act” (“La disparition”) de Kelly Link, “Marilyn” de Jack Dann ou “The Abortionist’s Horse” (“La monture de l’avorteur”) de Tanith Lee, pour n’en nommer que quelques-unes. Ces histoires abritent des événements magiques (ou à tout le moins inexplicables) en leur centre, mais le décor, les personnages, les fondements du texte appartiennent au monde que nous connaissons. Elles sont construites sur le sol du quotidien.
Dans “Vanishing Act”, les parents missionaires d’une jeune fille l’envoient vivre chez sa tante en Amérique, loin des troubles de l’Asie du Sud-Est de 1970. Et pourtant, le logis de sa tante est tout sauf un havre de paix. Comme nous le voyons à travers les yeux de sa cousine, cette famille-là est elle aussi bouleversée par la folie humaine et par le climat de l’époque. Graduellement, à mesure que l’histoire se déroule, la jeune fille apprend comment disparaître; à la fin, elle y est devenue tellement habile que même sa cousine, qui l’avait épiée avec une fascination morbide, sait qu’elle est partie. Où? Est-elle revenue aux massacres de l’Indonésie? S’est-elle réfugiée dans un rêve d’Épinal, en compagnie de ses parents sur un bateau voguant en eaux calmes? Où s’est-elle égarée quelque part dans l’espace intermédiaire?
Dans “Marilyn”, un jeune homme invoque l’esprit de la déesse de l’écran afin d’étouffer les horreurs de son séjour au Vietnam; ce faisant, l’innocence de son désir enfantin se retrouve - littéralement - baignée de sang.
Dans “The Abortionist’s Horse”, une femme essayant d’accepter sa grossesse accidentelle est hantée par le fantôme de l’avorteur hors-la-loi qui avait desservi la communauté à l’époque où de telles choses étaient non seulement illégales et immorales, mais pouvaient littéralement détruire la vie d’une jeune femme. À la fin du texte, les manifestations surnaturelles (ou peut-être seulement les appréhensions de la protagoniste) provoquent une fausse-couche.
J’ai choisi ces exemples parce que chacun de ces auteurs utilise non seulement le quotidien mais la substance historique d’un traumatisme social partagé pour construire son texte. Les massacres indonésiens de la guerre froide et l’ignorance contemporaine des Américains obsédés par le divorce et la conscription. La perte de l’innocence chez les soldats américains pris dans la guerre du Vietnam. Les séquelles de la criminalisation de l’avortement qui nous hantent toujours aujourd’hui. Ces auteurs auraient-ils pu traiter de ces sujets sans recourir au fantastique? Certes oui. Cela a été fait maintes fois.
Et c’est peut-être justement là l’important. Alors qu’un texte de littérature générale construit une structure correspondant à la réalité consensuelle, cette branche de la fantasy contemporaine (ces trois nouvelles ont paru dans des publications de genre) construit une structure similaire pour immédiatement commencer à la démolir sous nos yeux. Et quelque chose traverse alors la frontière.
Qu’est-ce que ce quelque chose? S’agit-il d’une forme du commentaire sociopolitique que l’on retrouve dans le réalisme magique du monde post-colonial? Se pourrait-il que certains écrivains qui s’identifient à une culture globale dominante perçoivent quand même un besoin de fracturer le consensus et de laisser quelques parcelles d’obscurité filtrer à travers? Y a-t-il des failles, des discontinuités dans la structure passée et présente de la culture nord-américaine qui pourraient être explorées? Il me semble que la seule réponse à ces questions est un oui tonitruant.
Nommez-le fantasy, réalisme magique, ce que vous voulez; ce quelque chose est en train d’émerger. Et parfois, sous un certain éclairage, il jette une ombre qui ressemble à s’y méprendre à la Vérité.
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“Vanishing Act” par Kelly Link, de son recueil Stranger Things Happen. Première parution dans Realms of Fantasy, 1996.
“Marilyn” par Jack Dann, du 14e volume de l’anthologie de Datlow and Windling Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Première parution dans la revue Eidolon, Automne 2000.
“The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare)” par Tanith Lee, également dans Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, volume 14. Première parution dans Dark Terrors 5.
Pour le réalisme magique classique, voir les romans de Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, ou Louise Erdrich, parmi beaucoup d’autres. Bonne lecture!
21-23 - Ad Astra
Toronto, the Colony Hotel, 89 Chestnut St., near the University and Dundas subway station and near city hall. Toronto’s SF convention. GoH: Michael Moorcock; Artist Gohs: Robert Gould and Alan Lee. Membership: TBD. For more info, write them at Ad Astra, P.O. Box 7276, Station “A”, Toronto, ON Canada M5W 1X9; phone 905-305-0827; email adastra_reg@hotmail.com; or see their web site at www.ad-astra.org.
23-26 - Wiscon 27
Madison, Wisconsin, Madison Concourse Hotel, 1 West Dayton St. Rooms: $89/night (up to 4); call 1-800-356-8293 (mention Wiscon 27). The only feminist science fiction convention in the world. GoHs: Carol Emshwiller, China Miéville. Panels, art, lots more! Basic membership: $40 through 30 April 2003; there are other membership categories. For more info, write: SF3, P.O. Box 1624, Madison, WI 53701-1624 or email: info@sf3.org or visit their web site at www.sf3.org/wiscon.
28-Sept 1 - TorCon 3
Toronto, ON, Metro Convention Centre, North Building. Hotels: Royal York (location of TorCon 2), Crown Plaza, and Renaissance Toronto Hotel at Sky Dome. 61st World Science Fiction Convention. GoHs: George R. R. Martin, Frank Kelly Freas; Fan Goh: Mike Glyer; Toastmaster: Spider Robinson. Membership: (Attending) Present rate: Cdn$250/US$170; in January: Cdn$275/US$185. For more info: write TorCon 3, P.O. Box 3, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W 1A2; email info@torcon3.on.ca or visit their web site at www.torcon3.on.ca.
2-6 - Noreascon 4
Boston, Massachusetts. Hynes Convention Centre. Hotels: Sheraton Boston Hotel; Boston Marriott Copley Place. 62nd World Science Fiction Convention. Gohs: Terry Pratchett, Wiliam Tenn; Fan GoHs: Jack Speer, Peter Weston. Membership: (Attending) $140 through Feb 28, 2003. For more info, write: Noreascon Four/MCFI, P.O. Box 1010, Framingham, MA USA 01701-1010; or fax: 627-776-3243; or email: info@mcfi.org; or visit their web site at: www.noreascon.org.
21-23 - Ad Astra 2003
La convention de science-fiction deToronto, Hôtel Colony, 89 rue Chestnut, près des stations de métro University et Dundas et près de l’hôtel de ville. Invité d’honneur: Michael Moorcock; Artistes invités d’honneur: Robert Gould et Alan Lee. Adhésion: à déterminer. Pour en savoir plus, écrivez à Ad Astra, c.p. 7276, succursale A, Toronto, ON Canada M5W 1X9; téléphone 905-305-0827; courriel adastra_reg@hotmail.com; ou visitez leur site web au www.ad-astra.org.
23-26 - Wiscon 27
Madison, Wisconsin, Hôtel Madison Concourse, 1 rue West Dayton. Chambres: $89/nuit (jusqu’à 4 occupants); appelez au 1-800-356-8293 (en mentionnant Wiscon 27). La seule convention féministe de science-fiction. Invités d’honneur: Carol Emshwiller, China Miéville. Tables rondes, exposition et bien davantage! Adhésion de base: $40 jusqu’au 30 avril 2003; Il existe d’autres catégories d’adhésion. Pour en savoir plus, écrire à : SF3, P.O. Box 1624, Madison, WI 53701-1624 ou par courriel: info@sf3.org ou visitez leur site Web au www.sf3.org/wiscon.
28-Sept 1 - TorCon3
Toronto, Palais des congrès de Toronto (Édifice Nord). Hôtels: Royal York (site de TorCon 2), Crowne Plaza et Renaissance Toronto Hotel au Sky Dome. 61e Convention mondiale de science-fiction. Invités d’honneur : George R. R. Martin, Frank Kelly Freas; Invité d’honneur fanique: Mike Glyer; Animateur : Spider Robinson. Adhésion: (participation sur place) 250$CAN/170$US; à partir de janvier : $275CAN/$185US. Pour en savoir plus, écrivez à : TorCon 3, c.p. 3, succursale A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W 1A2; ou communiquez par courriel : info@torcon3.on.ca ; ou visitez le site Web : www.torcon3.on.ca.
2-6 - Noreascon 4
Boston, Massachusetts. Centre des congrès Hynes. Hôtels: Sheraton Boston Hotel; Boston Marriott Copley Place. 62e Convention mondiale de science-fiction. Invités d’honneur: Terry Pratchett, William Tenn; Invité d’honneur fanique: Jack Speer, Peter Weston. Adhésion: (participation sur place) 140$US jusqu’au 28 février 2003. Pour en savoir plus, écrivez à : Noreascon Four/MCFI, P.O. Box 1010, Framingham, MA USA 01701-1010; ou par télécopie : 627-776-3243; ou communiquez par courriel : info@mcfi.org ; ou visitez le site Web : www.noreascon.org.
When our six-year-old daughter’s stubbornness turned round on her father and me one afternoon, we put her outside on the porch for time out. A few minutes sitting in the spring chill would cool her off and she’d be ready to come inside and be peaceable.
Instead, after a minute or two, we heard her calling us outside. Gone was the fussy whining to get her own way; she sounded gloriously happy.
“Come out!” she cried. “You’ve got to see this! The geese! The geese are here!”
Over the farmhouse, arrowing in a vee against the blue sky was a flock of Canada Geese. A long line of geese ran alongside them, then another flock, and another. Our daughter was jumping up and down, too excited to speak at first. “Hear them? I hear them,” she squealed. “Just like my Oma showed me in the fall – but they were going the other way then.”
We called our son upstairs and out to see them, too, as flock after flock joined the first until the stream of birds was over a mile long and almost half a mile wide. The end of the flight was just coming in sight, over the trees to the south of the old Alberta farmhouse, when the leading edge of the flock began to turn.
They were riding the wind with maybe one or two wingbeats in a mile, and we could hear them counting cadence as they passed overhead. Was it the wind in their feathers, or only the wind we heard as we watched them? Then the flock was turning.
The leading edge had come round in a great sweep half a mile across, rising above the rest of the flock that was still approaching. They rose in a great spiral, rising clockwise two full turns before the last of the flock found the column of rising air and turned into it.
“A thermal,” my husband said. He pointed out the freshly-plowed field on the quarter-section across the gravel road. It showed up black and stark among the dry brown brush not yet leafing out for spring. “The black earth must be warming in the sun, warmer than the unplowed fields and bush, and a thermal is rising from it.”
This wasn’t watching a magpie hover over the chicken shed, or a hawk spiralling over the hayfield; seeing all those birds moving together at once was like seeing an elemental of bird-ness on the move, shifting a feather to turn, travelling miles without a wingbeat, only their bleating calls up and down their vees and slanting columns.
The great arc of birds turned once, twice in the air, sunlight flashing on the wings as the birds shifted up effortlessly from one hundred to five hundred feet in the air. Then Bernie and I gasped and looked at each other.
“Ted Sturgeon’s story – “ he said.
“‘The Golden Helix,’” I said at the same time. “Where the people brought to a new planet see a flight of beings like angels, like a swarm of bees, turn in the air in a giant spiral.” That golden flight of beings honouring the life before them in a spiral dance, turning around and up and around and down, was an image that stayed with us since we read all Theodore Sturgeon’s books together.
In our first years together, a friend had asked us if we could put up a visiting author and his wife for the weekend. That was how we met Ted and Jayne Sturgeon, who travelled in a Volkswagen, bought day-old bread and found it no hardship to stay up till one in the morning talking with us and our friends about stories and science, invention and scrimping.
Jayne’s plain clean scent was a healing beauty; and Ted’s white hair, curling back from a thinning crown showed us strength and beauty unexpected in a man past sixty.
It was at that time that our twins were conceived, my husband and I learned later; there could not have been a more auspicious influence upon the moments of our children’s beginning. Ted and Jayne kept in touch after that weekend, always delighting to hear news of the twins. It didn’t end with Ted’s death two years later, or with Jayne’s new marriage a few years after that. As she sent congratulations for the twins’ birth, and put her arms around me in a crowd after a memorial reading, we sent her best wishes for her new marriage.
It had been years since we had seen them, and a year since Ted’s books were boxed away in storage. But the flight of geese over our house had brought back that powerful image from his story, one Ted hadn’t known the genesis of himself.
His introduction to the story in the anthology, boxed in storage eight hundred miles away from the farm, mentioned that “The Golden Helix” had been written some ten years before the discovery of the DNA molecule’s spiralling nature; the double helix was a powerful, moving image that had come to him as he wrote, and he didn’t know where he had got the idea for a great cloud of being turning in the air.
Now we had some idea, an understanding of how the sight of several thousand birds moving in concert could stay with someone who had seen it once. A memory like that could stay sleeping in the mind of someone who had never imagined crowds of people like the sea, or how the heat of the sun on a chill day could lift birds from yards overhead to a mountain’s height without them stirring a wing.
Now we knew something more of the mind behind the stories that were the best of our book learning; the man who brought out the best in us during three nights’ conversation and who maintained a connection with us as if two low-income students living in an industrial park were worth the friendship of a celebrated author. He ate our day-old bread before driving home with his wife in their VW Beetle to eat day-old bread, for there wasn’t much more coming in to their home than ours. We stood outside the farmhouse a long while, in the chill spring air. The sun warmed one side of us as the birds rose, caught a crosswind and continued north, at twice the speed they had arrived. We went in at last when the birds were gone.
Ted was four years dead by then, but when he was failing some writer friends sent him to Hawaii for a month. Though he died a few weeks after returning to the West Coast, I like to think of him on the beach at the end of his life. The waves must have curled around his feet, and the birds flew overhead.
Discussion has been edited for length.
Holly Phillips
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 10:21:44 -0700
Help! I’m mired in an argument with my sister (professor of literature, and you gotta wonder how that happened) about the relative merits of contemporary fantasy and literary magic realism. It would be very useful if I could bombard her with a pile of novel/antho recommendations. I’ve been trying to convince her that people like Katherine Dunn, Angela Carter and Joyce Carol Oates are not doing anything dramatically different than a lot of people being published as fantasists these days, especially in short story collections. But titles would be handy, as these damn academics insist on the citing of texts.
My sister really does try very hard not to belittle what I write, but she has been known to intimate that I write SF&F because I’m poor and it’ll make me more money than lit. (I now pause for the burst of hysterical laughter.) Any titles you think of would be of immeasurable assistance – keeping in mind that she refuses to believe that Frankenstein is SF. Apparently it’s too meaningful to be genre.
Marie Jakober
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:22:10 -0700
Isn’t that exactly the point in the literary vs. genre debate? Everything meaningful is too meaningful to be genre. Who calls The Handmaid’s Tale SF? Who calls Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre romances? Who calls Beloved a historical novel? Really good genre by definition ceases to be genre as quickly as the transformation can be managed. That’s why the invention of magic realism was such a wonderful thing. It’s the old “I am firm, he is stubborn, you are pig-headed” debate: all a question of terminology.
Alyx Dellamonica
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:42:32 -0800
I strongly agree that a person who already believes that SF and Fantasy are trash lit is not going to be convinced otherwise. Possible reasons, as I see it, for defining a boundary between fantastic fiction and other kinds include the following:
The above are reasons of varying validity, and I’ve tried to state them in a way that isn’t completely overwhelmed by my own judgments.
The Is-It-Lit argument – which I encounter yearly in one forum or another – rises when people move from recognizing there is a difference to claiming that one category or the other is inherently better. Humans are wired this way, I think: we create a boundary, we figure out what side of it we lie on, we decide which side is better and then either freak out if we’re on the wrong side or lapse into patting ourselves on the back.
Holly Phillips
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 17:02:35 -0700
Some very interesting ideas. The only thing I might add is that from an academic’s perspective (as I understand my sister’s take) a huge part of what makes lit “Literature” rather than plain ol’ fiction is the way it messes with language and structure as much if not more so than subject matter. Her contention seems to be that no matter how weird or compelling a story might be, if the narrative structure is just ho-hum O. Henry (or Bradbury) style fiction, it isn’t really lit. Which sort of says to me, lit is what academics study, so therefore whatever academics study is lit. This may be a little simplistic and I don’t want to sound anti-academic, but I don’t think you can deny the impact that modern literary theory has had on what’s been written – and that the result is writers essentially writing for the theorists. I don’t say this is necessarily a bad thing. I’m actually a big fan of Michael Ondaatje. But it does seem to result in an artificial divide – and as you say, Alyx, any divide seems to result in good vs. bad.
Kate Riedel
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:51:30 -0500
I have similar problems with my English-teacher sister who’s very proud that I have actually been published, but is a little uncertain about the kinds of things I publish (she, however, is under no illusion that I’m getting rich!)
I’ve recently been forcing myself to do some reading in both lit-ra-chur and genre because I was beginning to wonder why I bother writing if I find reading anything such a chore lately. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that too many genre writers concentrate on the story as opposed to the writing, while too many literary writers concentrate on the writing as opposed to the story – the really good ones in either genre or literature do both.
Mici Gold
Tue, 26 Mar 2002 08:15:59 -0500
As an administrator for the Sunburst Award, I can say that Canadian literature is famous for the fact that its best, most awarded authors write both “literature” and “genre”, that the dividing between them in Canada is less clear than in the U.S., for example. Many of the titles on our eligibility list this year were, in fact, not published or marketed as genre works. The purpose of the award is to draw attention to those books which, in fact, are both good literature and good fantastical works. This is why we instituted the award, to advertise that fantastic writing is not sub-standard writing just because of its content or methods. Moreover, at the straight-forward literary convention where we presented our first award (to Sean Stewart for Galveston), the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, our event was the centre of attention. Interest is “out there.” Maybe your sister needs to rub shoulders with readers for a while, instead of her fellow academicians.
Sandra Kasturi
Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:38:50 -0500
I had always heard that Europe was a much better place for mid-list genre writers because it was far less genre-oriented than North America, and people tended to not to be as rabid about defining a literary work as being of one particular genre. Which is why, for example, Jonathan Carroll sells much better in Europe than he does here.
Joël Champetier
Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:55:22 -0500
There is a certain truth here. Academics and journalists seems a little bit less genre oriented than in US. In France, some comics will get serious review in serious weekly papers, and most scientific vulgarisation magazines will review science-fiction novels. Kim Stanley Robinson, Norman Spinrad, and others are considered serious thinkers.
But in the literary institution, the gap is still very open and very wide. “If it is good, it is not science-fiction” is still heard everyday. Élisabeth Vonarburg gets that reaction all the time. People are genuinely surprised when you tell them that a movie like The Truman Show is SF. How can that be? It’s not in space. It’s clever.
Just also keep in perspective that the French readership is very much smaller than the Anglo one (US, Canada, etc...). Being twice as popular per capita in France still means you are going to sell much less books than in the US. France will be a “much better place” to live and have a career if you don’t mind being more respected than rich! ;-)
Karl Schroeder
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 11:14:05 -0500
For a while now I’ve been quite tired of the conservatism and lack of originality I find in recent SF&F. I find myself longing for the Good Old Days of the New Wave, when there was real experimentation going on – non-objective prose, in-your-face moral revolution, invented languages, and a real presence of SF in the counterculture (where now SF is Big Business, and the enemy of the counterculture). If SF is innovative, where’s this generation’s Plus? And why do I keep meeting people who say, “I used to read SF back in the 70’s”?
I’d agree that we’re “extraordinarily open to genuine experimentation” as long as that experimentation doesn’t include literary form. Raise your hands, everybody who’s lately written a story or novel in the non-objective form of Alain Robbe-Grillet, or the cut-up form of William S. Burroughs, or in stream-of-consciousness, or in parallel columns (seen in Dhalgren, and yes, recently in Aristoi). Anybody writing in second-person lately? Or in the poetic impressionistic manner of Ondaatje’s Billy the Kid? How many truly unreliable narrators are there in SF?
In fact, raise your hands anybody who’s read any of the experimental styles listed above recently. Extraordinarily open? Prove it! Show me the experiments!
I’m all for congratulating ourselves on what our genre can do that no other genre does. But let’s not pretend that we’ve somehow absorbed or transcended the mainstream. The fact is, most SF writers are so desperate to get published that they expunge any trace of literary radicalism from their work; we have developed an accurate and pernicious instinct about exactly where it’s safe for us to experiment, to the point where the non-publishable possibilities are within our blind spot now.
Anyway, experimentation has no value in and of itself; it’s back-room work that has value only insofar as it aids us in expressing ourselves. It’s what we express that counts, and in that regard SF has no current traction in the real world, the way it (briefly) did during the flowering of the counterculture. I know of no one currently expecting reading to be a transformational experience. Of course, I’d love to be proved wrong.
Jean-Louis Trudel
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 14:06:23 -0500 (EST)
How often do transformational experiences come along? Maybe only when you’re 12 or 13, or at least under 25. In terms of the Zeitgeist, I do get the impression cyberpunk has resonated, and is now wending its way into the general culture after having infiltrated it in many ways (rock, movies – The Matrix was epochal for some younger fans I know – cartoons, aesthetics, etc.).
The traction of SF may depend on historical context. In prosperous times, people fixate on decadence (which is why cyberpunk may have connected). In desperate times, people look to the future (which would be how Depression-era New York nourished gee-whiz, at times utopian science fiction). What of the times in between? Science fiction seems to have mostly connected when it predicted disasters (atomic, environmental, societal). When the disasters started coming true in the 70s, science fiction authors were vindicated... and became extraneous to the culture. :-)
Jan Lars Jensen
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:30:10 -0700
As I read these messages, I can’t help but notice the synchronicity with an e-pistolary debate going on at the Locus website re an alleged split between SF and literary fiction. Forgive me if somebody has already pointed to it but people may want to check it out for some tangential arguments: www.locusmag.com/2002/Features/Letters03.html
Phyllis Gotlieb
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 22:11:09 +0000
This discussion makes me smile. Tiredly. I recall my first agent trying to sell my work in the late fifties and sending me rejection letters complaining that my work was “too arty and hifalutin.” The road ran a little smoother when I learned to scrape off some of the adjectives and adverbs, but you’ve got to remember that there are still a lot of readers who want SF to be a guilty pleasure.
Kate Riedel
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 19:23:08 -0500
A friend who was a trained musician told me once that musicians love Schoenberg, because they recognize the rules that Schoenberg broke, and the new rules he tried to establish, within a common musical context. She admitted, and understood, that the ordinary joe/josephine was unlikely to like Schoenberg, because they didn’t have the musical context.
But do musicians compose only for other musicians? Do visual artists create only for other artists? That seems a little self-defeating, maybe even missing the point entirely.
To be sure, in music, art, writing, there’s an educational process involved, especially when anything new (or rather different; very little is new) is attempted. But if nobody’s listening/looking/reading, then who’s going to be educated? So who are we writing for? Other writers? Or potential readers?
Peter Watts
Sat, 30 Mar 2002 14:15:53 -0500
Overall I’m sympathetic to Karl’s complaints about stylistic fossilization – but at the same time, stylistic experimentation for its own sake is asking for trouble. Form should follow function. If you’re trying to evoke a chaotic, confused sense of future shock, Brunner’s scrapbook style works perfectly. Burroughs was writing not only about junkies, but as a junkie – how else could Naked Lunch have been written, given that? Delaney’s tricks in Dhalgren were perfectly consistent with the premise of a journal kept by an amnesiac, unreliable narrator caught in a free-form temporal loop. These folks presumably decided on what to say, then figured out the most appropriate style in which to say it.
But to arbitrarily decide up front that you want to “stylistically experiment” would be, I think, asking for trouble. (I suspect that The Female Man was inflicted on us as a result of this attitude.)
We build worlds, sometimes sketching in whole universes. We fuck around with the laws of physics. We are, at our best, trying to convey Big New Radical Ideas; and maybe fancy experimental prose does not always serve in their expression.
In describing an event, you can bear witness through a beautiful stained-glass window if the event itself is a familiar one that everyone can relate to – in fact, the fractured technicolour perspective can show the familiar in new and exciting ways. But if you’re describing something that no one has ever seen before, you want a clear windowpane that doesn’t distort the vista beyond; otherwise, the viewer has no way of knowing what parts of the tale are real and what parts refractory. So just maybe, part of the dullness of conventional SF prose results from an attempt to keep strange and unfamiliar things in clearer focus.
Paula Johanson
Sat, 30 Mar 2002 14:55:30 -0700 (MST)
Amen, brother. Stylistic experimentation for its own sake is wanking. A writer can learn from it and eventually produce something else that is finely crafted.
Considering the SF elements that are in our daily lives and being debated in every level of government, I think that a strongly conservative writing style just might be verrrryyy reassuring for people who have quite enough weirdness and alternative viewpoints and reasoning to integrate into their perceptions.
Holly Phillips
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 12:05:51 -0700
LeCarre and Gibson, like Watts and others, have taken to meshing tenses and POVs, even switching them in mid narrative stream, with generally happy results, and I think it’s fair to say that these guys are good writers who receive good reviews and have a good, not to say booming, readership to boot.
Increased sophistication in readers of popular fiction? Change moving from the fringe in? I dunno... I will say, though, that at this point in my writerly development short stories are the bestest place ever for fooling with the rules. A lot of them probably are wanking but they do seem to exercise skills for, er, the real, er, thing. Oh boy, I better get the aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks out of Dodge before the metaphor gets out of, er, hand.
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New Genre (magazine)
Edited by Adam Golanski and Jeff Paris
Recommended by Kate Riedel
Restored my faith in both reading and writing. Issue #2 is worth the money just for the two editors’ separate essays on the relationships between genre and literary stories, and the benefits of reading as much of everything as you can. The first essay by Adam Golaski speaks tellingly of “limited allegiances”. The second essay by Jeff Paris is entitled “The Neglected Commonalities” which puts the aim of New Genre very nicely into three words. The website is www.ngenre.com.
Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Recommended by Marie Jakober
A novel in which a Latin American dictator lives three hundred years and local capitalists sell the Caribbean to the Americans, replacing it with a lunar desert. SF by anybody’s measure.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Somewhere to Be Flying by Charles de Lint
Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
Shakespeare’s Dog by Leon Rooke
These are examples of genre-as-good-literature books on the Sunburst Award’s FAQ sheet. Not everyone will agree with all our choices, but we selected them for their success and familiarity to non-genre readers. (Mici Gold, Sunburst Award administrator)
The Wealdwife’s Tale by Paul Hazel
Recommended by Holly Phillips
A very funky retelling of the seven swans fairy tale.
By the same author:
The Finnbranch Trilogy (Yearwood; Undersea; and Winterking)
Recommended by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Really Something Else! Not exactly brain candy, nor especially A Pleasant Read, but, pushing the envelope of fantasy.
Blindness by José Saramago
Recommended by Holly Phillips
Everyone in Portugal goes inexplicably blind. Um. Everyone who’s read Day of the Triffids raise your hand. Except of course Saramago’s writing is strange and wonderful and absolutely unique – and he’s European – and there aren’t any alien plants – so hey presto! Nobel prize and don’t you dare try to tell anyone it’s SF outside this group, ‘cause those lit types can be dangerous, especially with those little cocktail swords at the wine and cheese.
Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukevich
and
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
Recommended by Jan Lars Jensen
It is too bad that there aren’t many small SF publishers devoted to the literary/experimental range of the spectrum. I’ve often idly thought of starting one myself; alas, a person can support only so many money-losing daydreams. But I do find hope in the example of Small Beer Press, which got off to a great start last year by publishing one of our PKD award nominees, Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukevich, and the much praised Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link, both collections. The books themselves are as beautiful fetish objects as anything produced by the big corporations, and the accolades received are proof that an appreciation of and demand for this kind of fare does exist.
Pilgrim by Timothy Findley
Recommended by Mici Gold
Findley criss-crosses back and forth between what “literary” writers do and what “genre” writers do, usually in the same book!
The Knife-Thrower and Other Stories by Stephen Millhauser
Recommended by David Nickle
A contemporary fantasist with literary chops. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, which is a respectable and mainstream rich folks award, he was also nominated for a
World Fantasy Award, which is the kind of award they give to poor people who can’t afford to write real literature. Many of the stories from The Knife Thrower appeared in magazines like Harper’s and The New Yorker (which is read by wealthy and sensitive people) but were reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (which is filled to the brim with icky genre stuff written to keep coal in the furnace
through the winter).
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Recommended by Elaine Chen
Time travel and Jane Eyre, together at last. Literary detective Thursday Next must apprehend the nefarious archcriminal who abducted Jane Eyre from the eponymous novel. Literati would cringe at the genre elements; die-hard SF aficionados would name a dozen writers who have handled the concept more deftly. Otherwise a good-humoured, entertaining novel, whose alternate lit-obsessed England feels like it’s out of a Monty Python skit.