J.G. Ballard on Science Fiction
I’ve been reading J.G. Ballard’s autobiography, Miracles of Life, and was struck by some passages on science fiction – particularly as it seems he’s talking about SF in 2012, rather than the 1950s. I am offering some quotes below with no further comment.
Ballard on American science fiction:
Some [magazines], like Astounding Science Fiction [today: Analog], the front runner in both sales and prestige within the field, were heavily committed to space travel and tales of a hard-edged technological future. Almost all the stories were set in spaceships or on alien planets in the very far future. These planet yarns, in which most of the characters wore military uniform, soon bored me. The forerunners of Star Trek, they described an American imperium colonising the entire universe, which they turned into a cheerful, optimistic hell, a 1950s American suburb paved with good intentions and populated by Avon ladies in spacesuits. (p. 165)
. . .
Mary [Ballard's wife] listened to me for hours as I described the kind of fiction I wanted to write, urging me to keep up a steady flow of short stories and to ignore the strong hostility they provoked from the s-f fans within the field. I submitted my stories to the American s-f magazines that I had read in Moose Jaw [flight training centre in Canada], but all came back to me, usually with very dismissive rejection notes, which revealed the narrowness of mind that lurks behind American exuberance. A fierce orthodoxy ruled, and any attempt to enlarge the scope of traditional science fiction was regarded as conspiratorial and underhand. (p. 179)
. . .
It seemed to me that psychological space, what I termed ‘inner space’, was where science fiction should be heading. But I met tremendous opposition. The editors of the American s-f magazines were nervous of their readers, and would refuse to accept a story if it was set in the present day, a sure sign something subversive was going on. It was a curious paradox that science fiction, devoted to change and the new, was emotionally tied to the status quo and the old. (p. 192)
Posted on January 26, 2012, in Uncategorized and tagged j.g. ballard, science fiction. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
“but all came back to me, usually with very dismissive rejection notes, which revealed the narrowness of mind that lurks behind American exuberance.”
Um no, Mr Ballard. They didn’t like your stuff just the same as you didn’t like that dreadful ‘hard-edged technological’ stuff, and neither is more valid than the other.
“seemed to me that psychological space, what I termed ‘inner space’, was where science fiction should be heading.”
Um why, Mr Ballard? Because you say so, you arrogant prick?
Of course that was the soft sciences SF of the time, Lavie, probably because the kind of writers involved found real empirical science a bit difficult to handle and wax arty-farty about.
I liked the following quote from Ballard’s Miracles of Life:
“Above all, science fiction had a huge vitality that had bled away from the modernist novel. It was a visionary engine that created a new future with every revolution, a hot rod accelerating away from the reader, propelled by an exotic literary fuel as rich and dangerous as anything that drove the surrealists.”
He was a bit of an arrogant prick, it’s true. But then he was one of the most talented writers of his generation, rather than a writer of derivative, pornographically violent space operas.
Meow.
i am horrified about what sort of pornography you are getting off to.
I just had to pop back and thank you, Damien. Your ‘pornographically violent space operas’ has sold me a minimum of three extra books already.
Cheers!
Mr. Ballard was and is certainly entitled to his opinions about where American SF was going or should be going.
However, his opinions and beliefs are not, to put it mildly, gospel.
The Evolution and development of SF is and always will be contentious. And no one has a monopoly on truth. And, ultimately, its the readers who decide where the field goes, or doesn’t, by voting with their time and money.
And, ultimately, its the readers who decide where the field goes, or doesn’t, by voting with their time and money.
That’s not actually true though, is it? There are plenty of hugely commercially successful authors who don’t change the direction of the field at all and are simpy replaced by the next generation of commercially successful. Equally, there are writers who don’t sell particularly well but inspire other writers and are disproportionately discussed by critics.
It is undoubtably true that readers have an impact on the overall direction of the field through their purchasing decisions but there is no “ultimately” about it. Writers and publishers are much more influential.
Hahaha. Some things don’t change.
hey fans: driving through Detroit you get the feeling of being in his novel Crash without the padded writing, or having to plow through a dissipating fog machine of adjective dictionaries.
if you have seen Detroit (up close and personal) you can sorta grasp what JGB was trying to do. but folks, the real dystopia civilization-is-over/hell that is Motor City Alpha is so much more savory/scary.