Science Fiction’s Past Meets Its Future
16. Apr, 2009 
3 Comments
From SFSignal to Cinematical to this:
The award-winning, genre-bending author Michael Chabon has been hired to do some script-doctoring on the John Carter of Mars project.
I love this guy and I love this quote:? “I wrote my original screenplay The Martian Agent back in 1995 because I wished I could do [Edgar Rice] Burroughs’s Barsoom. So this is pretty much a dream come true for me.”
Chabon is a highly respected literary author who has previously championed the cause of science fiction, but to hear him say that getting to do his own vision of ERB’s Barsoom is a dream come true is to really hear someone who is respected for their use of language, their characterization and their highly-polished literary craft say “that goofy old, non-literary, cardboard character stuff is really cool”.
Of course, Chabon might have used a word like nifty-keen, but that’s beside the point.
Could it be that the old 81 year rule applies to literature as well as economics?? Revenge of the Purple Prose?? (Has anyone ever used that for a title?? If not, I’m calling dibs on it).
There must be something about those old tropes that these ‘new’ authors find amazingly attractive – compelling even beyond their fond childhood memories.? Maybe science fiction was telling us something all along;? maybe there really are messages and lessons buried in there.
Maybe, if the ‘SF must become literary’ crowd would stop and listen to at least one of their all-time heros for a second, they might have something to think about.
G I think you missed my point. Chabon has made his respect and interest for the genre clear in writings and interviews.
There has long been a movement to take SF in a more literary direction, supposedly to gain more ‘respect’. Chabon, as a respected ‘literary’ writer, demonstrates that this is a fool’s errand. SF works by ‘literary’ writers are usually marketed as something else, with the writer’s eschewing all knowledge of and connection to the genre. Chabon does the opposite – he embraces it.
You sound so surprised! Chabon did win a Hugo for novel last year, has published a Sherlock Holmes pastiche (The Final Solution) and has basically been a grrk fan forever. His wife writes mysteries. Why wouldn’t he be overwhelmed at the opportunity to introduce John Carter to generations? It could be his biggest moment, and the one that will be most remembered (if done well).