I don't hate "mundane" SF

[mckitterick]

Just wanted to get that out there. I realized something today:

I think there's a lot of positive aspects about the subgenre as defined: Being rigorous in the approach to writing SF, sticking to probable futures rather than improbable ones. In fact, it doesn't seem new to me: Wasn't the New Wave all about sticking to mundane themes? Haven't many SF authors been doing this all along? Just yesterday, Jim Gunn and I were discussing this, and he said, "Pretty much everything I write has fit the description of mundane SF."

What bothers me about the mundane-SF notion boils down to its perceived attitude that writers working in other subgenres of SF are being lazy or just tossing in existing tropes like confetti rather than using these elements to tell stories they can't tell using the mainstream (heretofore defined as "mundane") literary tropes of everyday life in the here-and-now.

Granted, many authors use SF tropes without thinking them through, using them only as stage-dressing (see Lucas as our tale's primary villain). But I don't think anyone in SF has been advocating that as a solid approach to writing. Certainly, the subgenre of hard SF has always strove (striven? *g*) to be rigorous and to test their theories before deploying them into fiction.

So the mundane-SFers seem to be setting up a straw-man argument. That's what bothers me about it.

Chris

Comments

[archway.livejournal.com]

I have been considering this a bit since you posted this originally. I wonder what the definition of mundane fantasy would be?

[everflame.livejournal.com]

Maybe something similar to Magical Realism? Which, although it contains magic and fantasy, concerns only things that the characters "realistically" believe in. Because it's in the realm of mostly Latin writers, most of the magic concerns Latin-American beliefs like the stigmata or La Llorona. With a more broad definition, perhaps that could be applied to the likes of Charles de Lint.

[archway.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!
Yes, I was wondering specifically about two very different works: ( The Haunting of the New by Ray Bradbury and Hippopotamus by Steven Fry.

...or Sock by Penn Jillett...

Huh.~S~

Juicy things to contemplate...

[chernobylred.livejournal.com]

As usual, I agree with everflame...Magical Realism. Tom Robbins is the best example of Magical Realism I can think of in American fiction. It's notable, however, that Magical Realism, as far as I can tell, doesn't set itself apart as a genre. It's an aspect of the literature--it doesn't define the literature.