The author’s name, facility with language, best-seller-dom,
college degrees, previous success, and awards are irrelevant. Authors can lose sensa-wunda
with one book. They can regain it with the next.
An example for me is Frank Herbert’s DUNE books. The
original “first book” made me say to myself, “Wow. I never thought of that.” It
is now buried among seventeen books written by Herbert himself, his son, and
Kevin J. Anderson.
Don’t get me wrong – the sensa-wunda does not necessarily
speak to quality. A book that evokes this sense can be a well-written piece of
literature, but to evoke a sensa-wunda this isn’t an essential ingredient.
With my own, personal definition in place then, how would I
evaluate science fiction being published today?
Oh, one last thing, this wasn’t my own idea – it was a panel
discussion at a small convention I attended recently. The guest was a favorite
author of mine who HAS written several books that evoked a sensa-wunda in me.
He had several things to say – but the rest of the panel and the crowd had even
more to say. One of the things that was iterated over and over…by this group of
mostly overweight social misfits…was that of COURSE speculative fiction hasn’t
lost its sensa-wunda! Of COURSE everyone in the room was elderly because
science fiction is evoking that sensa-wunda in the young people of today! Wasn’t
it obvious...
Nope. It weren’t.
Eric James Stone’s “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made”
(Analog, September 2010) is a recent example. While life forms living in the
atmosphere of the Sun aren’t new here – David Brin did them in his first novel
SUNDIVER – evangelizing them into the Church of Latter Day Saints did evoke
that sensa-wunda in me.
Chen Qiufan wrote “Year of the Rat” in the July/August 2013
issue of F&SF. His dark world of a future that holds bioengineering gone
awry is both cautionary and it took me someplace I had not been…in its vision,
it evoked my sensa-wunda by creating a place so dark and with characters so
real that I couldn’t help but set it down and go, “Wow. I never thought of
that.”
As far as novels go – I don’t know. How can you possibly
compare anything to James Morrow’s TOWING JEHOVAH for sheer sensa-wunda? The
concept there, while antithetical to my own personal beliefs is absolutely
stunning. Gene Wolf’s BOOK OF THE LONG SUN does the same thing for me. When I
finished the first two books, I had to wait for some time before proceeding on
with the last two. I’m still waiting, actually...Mary Doria Russell’s THE
SPARROW is another book that evoked a startling sensa-wunda. How about more
recently?
One place to start looking is novels that won both the
Nebula and the Hugo. The Nebula is the speculative fiction equivalent of the
Oscar which is presented by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences. The Hugo is more like the People’s Choice which is sponsored by
Proctor & Gamble after polling the world movie, TV and music public. The link
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hugo_and_Nebula_awards
presents novels that have won both a Nebula and a Hugo. I’ve read many of them,
but since the question above is “Has Science Fiction Still Got It?”, I’m going to stay within five years of
the present.
There are three novels that won both since 2008: THE YIDDISH
POLICEMAN’S UNION, WINDUP GIRL, BLACK OUT/ALL CLEAR, and AMONG OTHERS. I read
the second and did not personally experience a sensa-wunda. I plan on reading
the other three eventually but just haven’t gotten to them.
Since 2008, the novels that have left me with that feeling do NOT include any of the dozens of “military SF” books. I don’t even think their intent is to create a sensa-wunda – their intent is to entertain. I WAS entertained with several of them, but I never thought “Wow. I never thought of that.”
This list (http://listverse.com/2008/03/03/top-10-most-influential-science-fiction-writers/)
is made up of 8 dead white guys plus two living white guys. How can THIS be a
valid list of the “10 Most Influential SF Writers”???? Where’s Octavia Butler?
How about Ursula K. Leguin? Samuel R. Delaney? Sheesh! (All of these have made
me utter the sentence, “Wow. I never thought of that.” But since then – AND science
fiction?)
Hmmm. Let’s see: though it wasn’t to my taste and I can’t
say I “liked” it, LITTLE BROTHER was chilling and definitely evoked a sensa-wunda.
Others by a favorite author of mine didn’t evoke the sensa-wunda though they
were entertaining. Still others exited the realm of novel and became exercises
in axe-grinding, strident polemics, or thinly-veiled propaganda.
To answer the question simply then, I’d say that science
fiction still has a sensa-wunda. But I have serious concerns. This year’s Hugo
winner, while immensely entertaining and by an author who made me say, “Wow. I
never thought of that.” with his first novel makes me worry.
By some definition, science fiction is "the literature of ideas", by others: “…Damon Knight…‘what we point to when we say it’…Mark C. Glassy…‘you don't know what it is, but you know it when you see it.’…Robert A. Heinlein ‘realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method…’Rod Serling...the improbable made possible.’…Lester del Rey…there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction.’” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction)
Science fiction still has it, but it seems like it is sparking that sense less and less and returning to the old stuff more and more. This won't go very far in drawing new, young readers and writers and it stands on the brink of losing older readers and writers as well.
My takeaway from this is that I need to be
on the lookout for and WRITE science fiction that evokes this sensa-wunda. Anyone
else have an opinion they’ll share?
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