Starboard Wine by Samuel R. Delany

Author:Samuel R. Delany [Samuel R. Delany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 2012-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

NEW YORK, MARCH 1979

1. In a letter of several pages commenting on a draft of this article, Russ mentions that she has; and she concurs with the opinions expressed above.

2. Russ comments: “Don’t believe I ever read The City and The Stars, but have a vague memory of a short story that made the point that a really sophisticated technology would look like ‘nature.’” This comment recalls a number of similar ones made over the years by Clarke himself.

7

An Experimental Talk

After a decade of desultory SF convention going, during which time I’ve listened to a goodly number of SF writers give their guest-of-honor speeches, I’ve noticed that those speeches seem to be of three basic types.

The first and by far most prevalent type is the, “There have been certain unfortunate, deviant, and pernicious trends in science fiction manifested of late, by and large by some of our newest and youngest writers, that are perverting the good, pure, true values of good, pure, true science fiction” speech. This talk ends with a reaffirmation of the values of good, pure, true science fiction: “Science fiction provides a sense of wonder. Science fiction is the literature of ideas. The purpose of science fiction is to entertain. Science fiction shows man triumphant in the universe.” Everybody applauds wildly and usually gives the speaker a standing ovation. And, if you’re me, you wonder, What’s with these twits? And you’re glad you don’t live under the sort of dictatorship that allows these guys actually to legislate against unfortunate, deviant, pernicious trends.

The second type of SF convention guest-of-honor speech explains how critics are ruining science fiction, how criticism is the blackest of evils, and how too much analysis is bad for the field.

I find it endlessly fascinating that the SF writer most closely associated with this particular speech is himself the author of a two-volume critique of the Bible and another two-volume critique of Shakespeare, and has edited and critically annotated an edition of Lord Byron’s comic epic Don Juan. When I casually mentioned this to him once, he immediately countered, “Well, I mean bad criticism, of course. That is, bad reviewing. I mean, bad book reviewing.”

“Bad book reviewing is destroying science fiction?” I asked.

“Well,” Dr. Asimov countered pensively, “it certainly is not helping.”

Bad book reviewing does not help science fiction. Certainly no one could argue with that. But about good Dr. Asimov’s various convention speeches the most courteous remark we can make is, “That’s not what you said on the dais.”

The third type of guest-of-honor speech begins with some variation of, “I am going to take this opportunity you have given me to talk, not about science fiction, but rather about …” ecology, elections, banking laws, the space program, ESP research, computer technology, the ERA, police brutality…. You name it, at one time or another we’ve heard it.

Among this last group of speeches have been some of the most interesting. By and large, though, they do not get the standing ovations. However interesting they are, they tend to leave the audience feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.