Justina Robson's odd remarks on avoiding death being quintessentially American: some truth to that, but it derives more from Americans' not accepting boundaries than from some anti-realist streak; after all, we're notoriously the pragmatists. Recall that "laughing gas," the first anasthetic, was invented by an American because the European prevailing notion was that pain was natural, inevitable and maybe even curative. Cryonics is American because it is a true attempt to invest in a better future, avoiding true death along the way. In this pushing against limitations Stan Robinson is a fully paid up advocate.
The high note, tho, is Steve Baxter's interview. The center of hard SF is working against constraint (see above) and Steve does this with considerable research and thought--that's the seat of his remarkable success, not just 5000 words/day output. (I'll admit that's impressive. Most I've ever written was 10,000/day, the last part of a novel, Cosm-but that was from pent-up narrative energy, my hard disk having failed the day before...)
In any case, hard sf remains the most difficult sf discipline, I believe, and thus the greatest opportunity, for the reader knows what the author works against. This element of credibility gives the subgenre a certain reach that other sf must labor harder to attain, methinks. I learned this especially when Cosm got optioned by Fox Studios for a film; they insisted that I agree to be a scientific consultant to the film, through to end of principal photography, because they knew they couldn't maintain the authenticity without help.
Good to see an outstanding Texas fmz!
The collection, in all its massive riches, does give the impression that the press is presenting a seamless whole. In the fore part of the volume, the great works. In the latter part, the lesser. Yet if you spend time with the chronological notes, and with Kornbluth's life story, you begin to see you are faced with an oddity likely unparalleled in publishing. You are faced with a major collected-works volume that dedicates a third of its 670 tightly-packed pages to Juvenilia. A third of the titles in the book Cyril Kornbluth wrote before age twenty. Many of these, moreover, are longer works.
Kornbluth's stories fall neatly to each side of WW II, with the earlier ones the product of a teenager and the later ones the more seasoned works of a mature writer. So neat an arrangement falls into confusion when faced with the stories themselves, especially when they are arranged as they are here--that is, intermixed.
While other writers have been prolific in their teen years, probably no other writer was so memorably prolific. I find it interesting that your own review gives over an entire paragraph to early works, mentioning them as "fantasy gems." It underlines the fact that CMK was remarkable in his precocity. Some of his early tales are not discernably juvenilia--although which ones are, or are not, depends upon the reader. For me, "Mr. Packer [Goes to Hell]" is a bit of a toss-off with some interest and charm; you find it is a deft fantasy worth singling out. (James Blish, you will be glad to know, leaned your way, not mine.)
This tends to confuse matters, if you are the sort to try to identify what is "usual" for the author. For instance, you state that depth "is unusual among Kornbluth's characters." Anyone reading CMK's solo novels would quibble with you; anyone who read only the stories of his maturity would quibble with you. Among his earlier stories I would partially agree with you, then note how suprising it is how many of them are people with three-dimensional beings.
It is a weakness of the volume's presentation that you are led to the conclusion you reached, which is why I say you unwittingly criticized the presentation, not the works themselves.
In addition to the fact that different readers disagree as to which juvenilia are the most notable, some of us believe CMK to be adequately significant to make us want to have all the juvenilia handy. Some of us also find CMK's juvenilia more readable than the mature works of many another SF writer. A few readers, who are well-versed in the field, list certain of those early works as among the best short fantasies of this century.
One point of correction: His Share of Glory does not contain the complete solo output of CMK. It excludes the excellent novels, pseudonymous and otherwise, and mystery work. The possibility remains that unknown pseudonymous works exist. Many of the early collaborations, moreover, are essentially solo CMK works, with the "collaborators" having done no more revisionary work than any editor might have done. Even as a teenager, others rode his coattails. Tim Szczesuil and NESFA should be applauded for the effort involved in bringing out this work. CMK's stories are a significant part of what makes SF matter.
Andy Hooper's letter was, as it was no doubt meant to be, intensely irritating. He's probably right that your promotion for your zine was somewhat excessive. But Hooper's rule that only faanish fanzines written by people who view fandom exactly as he does are worthy of Hugo nominations is quite constricting. Nova Express seems to me to fill the niche that used to be filled by Quantum/Thrust, with some SF Eye genes thrown in. Does Hooper really believe that that the Quantum nominations were also illegitimate? (Cheer up; I recall that Hooper's view of Tangent was that no one he knew read Tangent, so therefore Tangent was not worth reading.)
Your article on a "postcyberpunk manifesto" was somewhat interesting. But I detect an underlying undercurrent-that cyberpunk was a movement as heroic to you as Astounding writers are to fans who came of age in the 1940s. But it's clear that cyberpunk is comparable to the New Wave in that the best cyberpunk writers have evolved into something else, while the worst will be forgotten. Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, for example, seems to me to be a very good science fiction novel in the tradition of Frederick Pohl or Norman Spinrad that does not seem "punky" at all and is barely cyber.
Nor is it clear what, if anything, the "postcyberpunk" novels of the 1990s have in common. Why is Greg Bear a "postcyberpunk" writer when Greg Benford or David Brin is not? Why is Kim Stanley Robinson's work not "postcyberpunk?" It's likely that today's science fiction, like that of the 1970s, is not dominated by a particular innovation or by a particular group of writers, and attempts to create artificial coherence, as you have done, are a waste of time.
Matthew Nadelhaft misreads Damon Knight's importance as a critic.
It's true that much of Knight's criticism reads today like fanzine
fluff, but Knight was one of the first people to take SF seriously.
His criticism is out of date because his targets are now forgotten
(is anyone enthusiastic about The Blind Spot?) and because the rotten
SF he railed against is as dead as the pulps. But even though
Nadelhaft is right that Knight's view on SF is somewhat constricting,
Knight is a lively writer, and his best criticism is still important
and valuable.
I especially found the Post/Cyberpunk symposium of great value. My
greatest worry, I suppose, is that in attempting to keep up with
science fiction and change, SF novelists will write so complicated
and dense fiction as to make it too difficult to read for all but a
few. Is there a danger of elitism and exclusiveness here? Are "we"
abandoning the "mass" audience of readers in the supermarker checkout
lines? Is our audience virtually limited to "aware" college and high
school kids? Too much intellectualism here? Well, food for thought.
My problem with cyberpunk was those me-too authors who thought the medium was the message and created nothing original. Postcyberpunk will have the same flaw. But like every fad, some work will be new if you can only find it.
Stephen Baxter's comment about growing up with war monuments was
telling. The horror of war is that it never ends.
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