More Mish Mash

Click the pic to WATCH the original

Bill the SciFi guy has an excellent piece commenting on Biology in SF’s poll concerning the intersection between science and science fiction. This is an academic exercise and pretty straight forward – until you get to IO9’s butting in on the subject.

Sensationalism and promoting stupidity seem to be concerns of the scientists who respond to the BiSF questions – and IO9’s headliner. The piece features some early covers from Amazing Stories featuring artwork that ANY sensible fan would have hidden in a brown paper bag – back in the 40s. The intent is clear – here’s Science Fiction, doesn’t it look amazingly (!) stupid.

Bill correctly points out that the goal of SF has never been to educate people, it’s been to entertain. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. Hugo Gernsback specifically stated that scientifiction’s purpose was to candy coat science lessons for the general public. But note – he said that back in 1925 or thereabouts, he said it about scientifiction and authors and fans have been rejecting that proposal since 1925 or thereabouts. All you need to do is read one page of Ralph 124C41+ to know that candy can’t coat.

The other point I’d like to make is – what are these people reading? I know plenty of SF writers who struggle mightily to ‘get the science right’…oh, well, yes, they are older writers and yes, their books are older books based on older science…

My major concern is the apparent conflating of literary SF with television and movie SF in the minds of many of the contributors. Look. We already know that virtually all of television and most movies pander to the least-common-denominator (just like IO9). American Idol is a hit show. ‘Nuff said, right? This is like watching a contest between two village idiots trying to out-stupid each other. The irony of course is that the more intelligent idiot is better able to out wit his opponent…

It also reminds me of the SNL Billy Crystal sketch featuring the stupid security guards: “You know what really hurts? When you take a pencil and shove it all the way into your ear.” “Yeah, that really hurts! I hate that…”

Sometimes reading IO9, I WANT to shove a pencil all the way into my ear… that I do read IO9 (occassionally – the aggregator is holding some 90 posts for me at this moment) of course begs the question – which village idiot am I – the smart one or the stupid one?

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Started reading Jack Dann’s Dreaming Again, the sequel to the ground-breaking Australian anthology Dreaming Down Under. Jack first came to my attention as editor of the Wandering Stars anthology (SF by Jewish writers centered around Jewish themes – oy vey!). Ellison, bad boy editor of what is perhaps THE seminal SF anthology series Dangerous Visions (and Again, Dangerous Visions) really liked the first antho.

What I’d really like to do is interview Dann and Ellison side-by-side regarding the process of encouraging and inspiring authors to flirt with the edges of their game. Dann’s editorial introduction is strongly reminiscent of Ellison’s in DV (though a bit more staid) and it will be interesting to see if DA opens my eyes as widely as DV and A,DV did back in the day.

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More from the stupidity department. This time – SciFi dot calm. Ten ways to update TDTESS.

I’ll add one item to the beginning of their list.

0. IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE UPDATED

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Via BoingBoing – GGA art on paperback covers. Not bad – but I go more for the SCWiP type gal.

For the uninitiated – GGA = Good Girl Art. SCWiP – Scantily Clad Woman in Peril.

Here’s a comparison:

GGA on the left, SCWIP on the right. I don’t know, but thongs and pasties appeal to me more than jeans and leather jackets…

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And finally – I’ve come to the conclusion that if your primary experience of SF is television and movies – SHUT THE EFF UP! about Science Fiction. You don’t know what it is, your perception of what it might be is seriously twisted and flawed and I resent having to waste my time explaining the differences to village idiots. You’ve got the medium you deserve, keep it to yourselves and go play in traffic or engage in some other activity that will remove you from the gene pool as quickly as possible.

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Housekeeping: I’ve yet to add a bunch of you to my blog roll and my apologies. It will be happening soon.