Excited for the Mundane (or James Patrick Kelly’s editorial)

This week I got the new March issue of Asimov in the mail. The next day came the April issue of Analog. Needless to say, I’m excited. I always start with the editorials, because those take less time to get through, and usually contain information I can immediately glean. So unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to any of the short stories yet. But if I run across one I really like, I guarantee I’ll write about it here. Historically, Analog has the best stories, steeped more in the Hard Sci-fi. I don’t know if that tells something about me or not. I’d like to say I’m good at science, but I’m not. I have a long way to go, and maybe that’s why I enjoy the science aspect in the Analog issues.

But James Patrick Kelly’s editorial on the Mundane SF movement in Asimov’s caught my eye (see “mundane” for the full article). I’ve heard about this new movement, and if you’re into SF, you probably have too. But this is something that I’ve only paid attention to peripherally. It’s caused quite a stir in the SF community, with many people taking sides on the issue. But Kelly does a good job explaining the purpose of the movement without endorsing it. By the term mundane, he refers to the definition: “of this world, relating to matters of this world.” He quoted Geoff Ryman, a charismatic proponent of Mundane:

We felt as if SF had accumulated so many improbable ideas and relied on them so regularly, that it had disconnected from reality. The futures it was portraying were so unlikely as to be irrelevant, if not actually harmful. Julian Todd, a British SF writer, pointed out the moral problems as well. If we keep telling ourselves that faster-than-light travel will whisk us to scores of new Earths, then we’d feel better about burning through this one.” (Speech at BOREAL 2007 SF convention)

So has science fiction become more fantasy? And where does that leave the rest of SF? I think Ryman does a good job conveying his concerns and the pluses of the movement. I think this new “mundane” SF has its place. For me, though, I enjoy it all (without regard to literary movements). Sometimes I feel that literary movements can be good, and can help break out of the mold and revitalize stagnation. But ultimately, they can cause divisions and hold people down. I can’t choose a side because I like space opera (such as David Weber’s Honor series) just as much as I like this concern for near-future earth-based issues. I don’t know if this is going to be the next new thing, and maybe it already is, but I’d like to think there’s still a place for spaceships and aliens. I’m rather partial to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “Thought Experiment” Barbarian Confessions in Asimov’s; an excerpt reads:

We need more grand adventure, more heroes on journeys, more uplifting (if not downright happy) endings. Yes, we can keep the good sentence-by-sentence writing, the good characters, and the lovely descriptions the New Wave steered us to. We can even keep the dystopian fiction and the realistic, if difficult-to-read, sf novels, so long as we do them in moderation. They cannot—and should not—be the dominant subgenre on the shelves.

I think everything has its place. If Mundane becomes the next new thing, I’ll gladly accept it, but I’ll still love space opera, and I’ll still love the classics (i.e. Heinlein and Asimov). As far as a writer, I feel like I don’t need to tie myself down to any one specific sub-genre. I feel that story and character are my main focuses, but I definately feel mundane has something to offer to my writing. James Patrick Kelly’s editorial reminded me that I needed to look more into what it’s all about.

For anyone else who is interested in learning more, check out the Mundane-SF blog.

~ by daniel on January 25, 2008.