Chapter I: Of Critics and Crabs, A Survey of Science Fiction Criticism

Now that Time has promoted science fiction addicts from the class of "such pariahs as matchbook collectors, astrologers, dog breeders... " to "the social level of horse players ($50 and $100 windows), opera lovers, physicists, bridge careerists and sportscar nuts,"[1] perhaps one can ask no more. Also, if Mr. Kingsley "( Lucky Jim)" Amis had, in his New Maps of Hell which Time was reviewing when it expressed the above "approval," suitably demonstrated the worth of science fiction,[2] we might not need to consider science fiction criticism in general but could turn directly to the works. However, neither of them has given us "the answer." Amis is mainly dealing in apologism and rationalization, pitched in terms of the "true confessions of an addict." His major contribution is a detailed analogy between science fiction and modern jazz, which is helpful, but unfortunately leaves the impression (which he later expresses overtly) that science fiction is something different from the rest of literature. Time, on the other hand, is being clever.

Science fiction, of course, does not exist. This is an assumption, and as such I shall not attempt to elaborate upon it to too great an extent. My point is purely that we must realize before proceeding that in the field of literature as a whole there are many works which share the common science fiction characteristics of being either future-projected or taking place in a non-"historical" past or present, and which are not fantasy because they entail no contravention of the known laws of the universe. The only apparent reason for a critic to call a work of this sort "science fiction" is to trade upon the pejorative value of the term (or if he is a "fan," to trade upon the approbative value). Mr. Kenneth Methold, who has independently stated my feelings, makes the next logical step, after pointing out the error of making science fiction into a "genre" of the same sort as the "Western":[3]

Eighty percent of science fiction may be rubbish [what we are calling here "pulp"], but this is little justification for ignoring the worthwhile twenty per cent... It is, in fact, time that science fiction was released from the "novelty corner" and included in that class of writing known simply as "fiction" where it would receive the attention and respect that any serious and competent novel deserves.

And this is the other assumption I wish to make. However, its justification will be more involved than the simple semantic argument against the employment of "science fiction" as a blanket pejorative (and the consideration of works like Brave New World as "something else"--i.e., as "too good to be science fiction"). The justification leads us perforce to the problem of what reasons the critics offer for condemning or praising science fiction in general. We must consider such reasons before we can in good conscience consider Methold's and my assumption that science fiction is deserving of serious criticism to be acceptable.

The first aspect of the problem of science fiction criticism is that of definition and classification, which most try--but none really manage. Let us concede that, as in all areas of literature, the task of definition is more trouble than it is worth--the boundaries are simply too fuzzy. Mr. Damon Knight, a science fiction author cum critic whose book of science fiction criticism (done as straight literary criticism--the only such work I have come across), In Search of Wonder,[4] I shall refer to again, resolves things admirably by saying of science fiction that "like the 'Saturday Evening Post', it means what we point to when we say it."

Classificatory schemes run rampant through the body of science fiction criticism, probably because once you say "science fiction" is like "Westerns" or "detective stories," or better still "it's all gadgetism and escapism," you double your pejorative punch. The range is amusing, from fourteen year old Tom Pulvertaft' s "Five Types of Science Fiction"[5] (which Spectator apparently printed because they don't care too much for science fiction and because young Tom wanted money for a typewriter) to Dr. Zoe Treguboff's intelligently-conceived dozen types in her doctoral dissertation, which was a content analysis of science fiction.[6] Though science fiction author Jack Williamson called it "Science Fiction in a Robot's Eye" in an Astounding Science Fiction article, "content analysis" can be quite useful for our purposes. It entails the questioning of a panel of readers to determine their reactions as to what was "in" a group of randomly selected stories, hence furnishing a rather solid statistical basis for argument. Dr. Treguboff used 103 samples chosen from the 1951-1953 issues of Astounding, Galaxy, and If: Worlds of Science Fiction at random. I shall refer to her statistical findings as the need arises.

For the sake of novelty, as well as because it is not a useful enterprise here, I shall refrain from offering my impressions as to the categories into which science fiction stories break down. I should like to point out, however, a possible misassumption of, among others, Mr. Amis's. One should not be deluded by the fact that science fiction has a virtual corner on today's satire market into thinking that all science fiction is satire or satirical even in a broad sense of the term. Aside from brave new worlds, the legitimate province of science fiction also includes such works as More Than Human and The Puppet Masters (both discussed in Chapter III) which respectively deal, ultimately, with the progress in the future, and the special talent in the "present", of humanity. As a simple polarity to satire, and leaving out some other types, science fiction also actively advocates points of view--as opposed to criticizing ones which are felt to be bad. Amis's discussion is so largely in terms of the values of social criticism that the "other" breeds of science fiction tend to be obscured.

Speaking of breeds of science fiction, I should like to mention that I am dealing here strictly with modern science fiction, and for that matter modern criticism, both post-1946. I must admit that I agreed wholeheartedly with Professor Norbert Wiener, whose opinions are doubly to be esteemed--both as one of the country's most renowned scientists, and as an occasional author of science fiction (as "W. Norbert")--, when he urged upon me the importance of the older members of the canon. Much can be gained if only in the way of understanding from looking at writers from Verne and Wells through all the utopians, and Swift and Voltaire, all the way back to Lucian of Samosota--or even to Plato. However, it is today's science fiction which is subjected to the critical denigration which, as Patrick Moore says, Verne, for example, was not: Verne's work was treated on its own merits by his critics, but the intervening pulps gave science fiction a black eye which critics today seem loath to let heal.[7] The black eye must be healed before the mascara of such issues as Wiener's discussion of "The Need for Interdisciplinary Thinking in Science and Literature" can be appreciated. I repeat, then, that what we are about is a just investigation to determine whether science fiction is more than the "pulp" of what I take to be the middle period. To quote Mr. Amis:[8]

It is hard to believe that anything likely to interest a grown man could lie under a cover-picture of a multi-armed alien Santa Claus, an ASF cover of a year or two ago, which I thought fairly amusing, or within a journal called Fantastic Universe or Astounding Science Fiction, but I hope to establish that these natural suspicions are often unjustified.

A. "Silly" Arguments

The most fatuous and annoying attack on science fiction, though compensatingly the easiest to rebut, is what I call the "kid stuff" approach. There are two forms, one of which consists of the journals' persistence in reviewing science fiction as juvenilia. The worst offender is Library Journal, which relegates science fiction to its "Junior Libraries" section. One L. Bulman[9] reports that he rejected Heinlein's Star Beast in his library because of an episode in a "divorce court" wherein children divorce their parents, and decries "the vast amount of bad science fiction ground out even by good authors who seem to be groping fruitlessly for new ideas." In case no one has told him, such "new ideas" are the life-blood of literature in general, and of science fiction in particular. (The title of the article, by the way: "Using Science Fiction as Bait"--to get the kiddies into the library, so that they will get around to the better stuff.) Following Bulman, science fiction anthologist Groff Conklin indulged in a bit of apologism called "What is Good Science Fiction?" which spoke, per contra, of the "moral" value kiddies can derive from the good stuff.[1O] Still in the Junior section, though even more out of place because grown-up himself, H.A. Webb stresses the prevalence of social philosophy and the tracing out of the impacts of science in science fiction.[ll]As bad as Bulman's is an article in The Horn Book ("of Books and Reading for Children and Young People") , in which we find a New York librarian declaiming, "We have steered clear of questionable ethics, morals, and philosophies and have selected stories which meet our standards for good fiction."[12] I trust she keeps Lolita out of her juvenile book shelves also, although it would seem that it has exactly the same claims for inclusion as most of the science fiction books which suffer the fate--and that is simply the age of one or more of the major characters.

The apparent reason for assumedly serious, intelligent individuals missing the point of such devices as divorce courts for children (it's an "off-beat" idea, hence satire; it's not a suggestion, hence subversive as juvenile fiction) is that the "product-image" or popular stereotype of science fiction is too much in terms of "Flash Gordon" or "Superman" comic strips--hence they expect science fiction novels to be juvenile, and if they contain juveniles as characters they must be intended for children. To the same depth of analysis, Lolita has dozens of analogues in Saturday Evening Post stories about step-fathers who win the love of their precious but bewildered little adopted daughters. John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding since the 30's , has pointed out that Buck Rogers is precisely as representative of science fiction as Dick Tracy is of detective stories; both fields are amenable to sophisticated, serious works, but the successes of both have been capitalized upon by the real "pulps"--the comics .[13]

The next most silly attacks are found in the "clever" English periodicals. Of the three I shall mention (four, if you count Master Pulvertaft), the most egregious is one A.C.B. Lovell who took it upon himself to issue a "Counterblast to Science Fiction."[14] His most notable comment is in regard to Astounding, of which he declares, "The very title ... is repellent." Mr. J.B. Priestley, the professed "historian of Western Literature" displays a lamentable literary blind-spot in a pair of New Statesman articles. His extensive readings, he says, have led him to see three types of science fiction, Western, Gadget, and Human:[15] The value judgments are built in, only the "Human" story can ever be any good for him. He claims that "No civilized men are wanted in the age of space. No art, no philosophy, not [sic] wit and humor, no passion and tenderness." Perhaps the examples mentioned in Mr. Amis's book will serve to disabuse him of this notion, which seems to come from reading too many pulps picked up in railroad stations. His criticism of "escapism," in "Who Goes Where," is effectively scuttled by his own admission that one of his favorite science fiction novels is Occam's Razor, which I would point out deals quite literally with escapism--into another "time-track."[16] Finally, one A. Staggers staggers through a good deal of double-talk allegedly parodying the pseudoscientific jargon he has encountered in science fiction.[17] The overall point is that these men are writing "humor"--or perhaps what they think is satire. We must recognize this fact, and not expect a reasoned critique. I think what they are doing can be legitimately branded as reactionary, and after having duly mentioned its existence I shall pass on to more reasonable arguments. I mention such "criticism" simply to impress upon the reader just how much hostility has been mobilized against science fiction only because it has a "bad name," and not even on the pretence of keeping literature "pure."

Bordering between the former ridiculous and latter sublime, however, are three issues which are both "silly" and, in a sense, "philosophical": In the first place, there is the whole issue of the science fiction-Western parallel. The most common claim is that science fiction is composed of "space operas" in which spaceships have been substituted for horses and rayguns for sixguns. Now, granted there are numerous works (mostly from the '30s) which are guilty of this charge. However, 1.) they were strictly for entertainment--as Westerns were before the new "psychological" binge--, and 2.) they aren't being written anymore. The same overall answer which holds in regard to Westerns also applies to the "it's all gadgetry" and "escapism" charges--the objectors simply haven't read enough science fiction. This is especially true of Clifton Fadiman, who rather breathlessly expostulated in Holiday, "Begotten by Imagination on the body of Technology there springs forth the wild child, Science Fiction, grasping in his hand--the gadget..."[18] He also speaks of it as an "outlet for our daydreams." The works I treat in Chapter III, by no means uniquely isolated examples, should dispel the above "that's all there is" type charges.

The question of "gadgets" deserves further treatment. Clearly, the link between science and technology means that "science" fiction will frequently have recourse to the introduction of technological changes into stories. However, it is folly to assume that "they are all 'about' gadgets." There are stories, granted, which exist solely to have fun with the extrapolation of a new "gadget." A good example is the "Lewis Padgett" (he's a known pseudonym, and it just occurred to me that maybe he is a pun on "gadgett") series about Gallagher the genius-only-when-inebriated and his narcissistic robot, Joe. Or go back to Hugo Gernsback, who is considered to be the father of modern science fiction; in his epoch-making (not good, mind you, just epoch-making), early twentieth century Ralph 124C4l, among other things, like Huxleyian hypnopaedia, he also coined the word "television." Let's not hold him responsible for the result, let's just realize that science fiction gadgets can be interesting and they can also play integral parts in the development of a story, especially a satire. "Classic" examples are the two-way television in 1984 and the Hatchery (to name just one) in Brave New Wor1d; but even a more recent, less renowned, book (Shepard Mead's The Big Ball of Wax) employs a gadget dubbed XT (which transcribes and transmits experiences--including sex, naturally) as the means by which the admen achieve the ultimate in captive audiences. Our moral is that gadgets are necessary for the construction of "serious" satire. As well, I might add, they are functional in serious investigations of human nature; e.g., Isaac Asimov's robotics stories, one of the most interesting of which deals with a professor's attempt to discredit a robot which reads proof--and makes corrections which the professor (humanistically though) resents ("Galley Slave" in the December, 1957 Galaxy).

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©2003 Michael A. Padlipsky. All rights reserved.