Using the panel
discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in London, August
2014, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the
BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is
provided below…
“Ideology versus
Politics in Science Fiction – Most “political” science fiction doesn’t really
deal with politics, it deals with the setting out of ideologies. In other
words, it tells stories that have little to do with running a government. The
result is a debate of ideas where the political is described by greed and corruption,
but never the merely bureaucratic. Why are these tropes recycled time and
again? How can politics be approached in a more authentic way and remain
interesting to readers? With: Teresa Nielsen Hayden (M), Martin McGrath, Laurie
Penny, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jon Courtenay Grimwood” (page 61)
Fascinating thought – and it forced me to weed through my
books.
Where do we actually SEE government in a novel?
Once set of books where I’ve seen not only the working of a
government – but that HOW the government works is integral to the story is in
Lois McMaster Bujold’s VORKOSIGAN books. In them, the entire series begins with
an attempted overthrow of the standing government. Miles, the usual viewpoint
character, is CREATED by this event. Without this seminal event – the crippling
of Miles – the rest of the series would not only be impossible, but it would be
downright boring.
Who Miles is, is a direct result of politics in motion.
Rereading the blurb above, though, made me realize that the “complaint”
seems to be that “‘political’ science fiction doesn’t really deal with
politics, it deals with the setting out of ideologies.” So I suppose George
Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD would be the “political” SF
the author of the blurb is looking for. Most in the panel might mark THE LATHE
OF HEAVEN as political SF; or DUNE…no?
Probably not, because we never see the Landsraad actually
meet or debate. We just see Paul Muad’dib overthrow the government and declare
himself God Emperor and then never talk about politics again...We see the
machinations of the Harkonnen family as it works to outmaneuver the Atreides
family, then again, it’s a space adventure and while the discerning 29 people
voted that it’s political SF, the majority
won’t read it that way. Look at the movies – very little politics, lots of
explosions and special effects!
The VORKOSIGAN novels can’t possibly be political SF novels,
either voted on by the body of people nominating Best SF or suggested by the site owners. No one voted them onto the list, yet the introduction
of reproductive freedom for women strikes me as eminently political.
I would argue that DUNE is more of a political novel than
BRAVE NEW WORLD. I would argue that ANCILLARY JUSTICE (and ANCILLARY SWORD) are
more political SF novels than THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE because they
demonstrate the effect of political decisions on the “voters” or the proletariat,
in fact, again, they posit such a radical change as the feminization of the
generic pronoun. While CAT’S CRADLE may have received raves as a literary novel
and hold the fifteenth spot on Best Science Fiction Books list of political
novels, CJ Cherryh’s FOREIGNER books don’t even rank – yet every novel turns on
political machinations of the complex world of the Atevi, the place of Humans
in that world, and the actions of one particular Human, the paidhi, Bren
Cameron.
What exactly were the criteria that the voters of on the Best
list and the organizers of LonCon laid down for the discussion?
Your thoughts?
Program Book: http://www.loncon3.org/documents/ReadMe_LR.pdf
Image: https://www.yourprops.com/movieprops/original/4bc92f25856ac/Star-Trek-VI-The-Undiscovered-Country-Klingon-Mask-2.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment