By Daniel Rigney
I confess I don’t know my Asimov from a hole in the ground when it comes to science fiction. Sure, as a kid I read a few sci-fi and futurist standards. Stranger in a Strange Land. 1984. Brave New World. I watched The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. I knew the Jetsons personally. But while I’ve always been interested in the future, and in the possibility of deeper intelligence in the universe, I’ve drifted away from science fiction proper as I’ve travelled through time.
Today I’m baaaaack, and reporting to you from Worldcon, an annual international science fiction and fantasy convention held this year in San Antonio, Texas.
I’m visiting as an alien ethnographer from the strange world of Sociology, and trying to blend inconspicuously with the thousands of SciFoids and Fantasians who have converged on this gathering of their tribes.
As I wander about the convention center chatting with these peculiar Earthlings and observing their native tribal rituals, such as 'filking,' I gather images and impressions of what is (for me) still largely an alien subculture.
My mission is to report unusual sightings and impressions, and to transmit these to a remote corner of the blogosphere known as Open Salon. (Think of OS as the space bar at the end of the universe.) Herewith a few of my unscientific observations:
Sighting 1: Is this costume player (‘cosplayer’) the Hulk, or some other fantasy character entirely? Most likely an Orc. Note the blood on the business end of the stone axe. I’m giving this character a wide berth.
Sighting 2: Plague doctor with bird mask and finger claw. Similar masks were worn in 16th-century Europe to ward off disease.
Sighting 3: An 18th-century gentleman of means, it would seem. Can anyone identify this character?
Sighting 4: Young woman with pet velociraptor, proving conclusively that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
Sighting 5: 41st-century space navy recruiting station based on the “Honorverse” series by David Weber.
Sighting 6: When you witch upon a star …. Is that you, Professor McGonagall?
Sighting 7: Catwoman is the one on the right. Ribbons worn by the conventioneer on the left indicate significant past involvement in the ceremonial rituals of the science fiction and fantasy community.
Impressions Here are a few of my sociological impressions of this fascinatingly fictional-yet-real cultural world and its inhabitants.
Worldcon or Anglo-Americon?
Most of this week’s attendees are from the US, but Canadians and Brits are also well-represented in the program. British literary influences are evident everywhere, carrying forward the fantasy traditions of English authors from H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling and the creators of steampunk -- a newer genre that combines elements of Victorian English culture and industrial futurism. Some contemporary sci-fi and fantasy writers continue to base their worlds on English prototypes, and particularly on mythic and stylized representations of the Middle Ages and the Victorian era.
The sci-fantasy culture represented here today is overwhelmingly white-Anglo in its ethnic composition, though I see signs of ethnic diversity here and there. The program devotes several sessions to SF in the non-Anglophonic world, including Mexico, Brazil and other Latin American cultures (e.g., sessions on “Alternate Mexico,” “Magic Realism,” and Brazilian folklore and speculative fiction), Japan (e.g., manga and anime), and the Arab World (“How Arab SF Could Dream a Better Future”).
In the swirled world of the 21st century, civilizations are becoming ever more transnational and cosmopolitan. It's likely that the ethnic horizons of sci-fi and fantasy culture will continue to expand accordingly, as an emerging generation of writers explores more fully the creative possibilities of cultural pluralism and hybridization.
The Geek-Nerd Alliance
Sci-fi and fantasy cultures are generally reputed to be 'geeky' and 'nerdy,' respectively, so I feel right at home here. In this community, science geeks and humanities nerds and their mutant offspring (gerds? neeks?) seem to wear these labels proudly, as badges of honor. I myself am now the proud owner of a souvenir t-shirt that reads “Nerd? I prefer the term intellectual badass.”
The Geek-Nerd alliance against the Ordinaries (see also ‘muggles’) seems to cut across age categories. I’m struck by the number of tribal elders who are here to enjoy the festivities. Facial fur, long hair and ponytails are common among younger and older men alike. Older participants, both men and women, seem to enjoy a decent measure of honor and respect in the community, and the convention as a whole is pleasantly intergenerational.
Like every microcosmic civilization, this one has its pantheon, its grand masters (as in chess world), its journeymen and women, its apprentices and initiates, and its multitude. The culture celebrates its heroic authors in elaborate award ceremonies, conferring Hugos (readers’ choice awards), Nebulas (analogous to Academy Awards in film), and John W. Campbells (including an award for best new writer) upon its finest word wizards. Like every cultural world, this one is stratified by status and commercial success, but in ways that don’t seem to glorify overlords at the expense of underlings.
Genderworld
On the whole, this seems a peaceable kingdom. Some signs of conflict have arisen, however, around issues related to gender. Feminist critics argue that science fiction and (perhaps to a lesser degree) fantasy literatures have been dominated historically by male authors and their strong male characters, both benevolent and malevolent, while female characters in these genres are typically relegated to secondary and conventionally sex-typed roles.
Critics have challenged sci-fi’s male-centered world in recent decades – for instance, by creating women’s science fiction organizations such as Wiscon, and by promoting the creation of kick-ass female characters.
Taking an eyeball census of the convention crowd, I see a roughly equal balance of men and women here, though perhaps more men in the science fiction sessions and more women in sessions devoted to fantasy lit. (I wonder if, in this culture, robots are from Mars and unicorns are from Venus.) But I hesitate to generalize. Some forms of speculative fiction, such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, clearly have broad appeal across gender lines.
I’m the only male at a kaffeeklatch (an informal roundtable) led by the accomplished fantasy novelist Carol Berg. Ms. Berg has created no fewer than five distinct ‘worlds’ or ‘universes’ in her thirteen published novels. She tells us she was a math major and a software engineer before venturing into fantasy writing. She and several other authors here combine backgrounds in science with an interest in literature, helping to bridge the cultural chasm that normally separates the domains of science and fiction.
Good vs. Evil
For as long as I can remember, science fiction and fantasy characters have typically (though not always) been combatants in an ongoing and often cartoonish struggle between Absolute Good and Absolute Evil. Superman vs. Lex Luthor. Batman vs. the Joker. Luke vs. Darth Vader. Harry vs. Valdemort. Ronald Reagan vs. the Evil Empire.
In recent years, however, the science fantasy universe seems to have become less Manichean and morally absolutist, and more willing to acknowledge moral complexities and ambiguities. Even heroic characters like Harry Potter and Batman show signs of more sinister Jungian shadow-selves in later episodes.
Sci-fi and fantasy literature may be less technologically optimistic than it once was, with the widening realization that new technologies often have hideous intended and unintended consequences. In one session (“Consensual Realities”), several allusions are made to the emerging possibililty of a total surveillance state, and of the abuse of technological power by corporatist oligarchs. Doomsday machines are still emerging from the imaginations of speculative writers, and ecological science fiction in the tradition of Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia will likely proliferate in the future as our awareness of anthropogenic climate change and environmental devastation continues to grow.
Rarely, though, are science fiction and fantasy explicitly ideological or political. These genres (along with mystery and romance fiction) remain avenues of escape for many who seek fictional refuge from their lives in the so-called 'real' world. My limited impression is that sci-fi culture includes within its ranks many who are politically apathetic and disengaged, and others who are self-described ‘libertarians,’ but relatively few progressive activists and even fewer traditional conservatives. On the surface, this does not appear to be a highly politicized culture.
Fantasy literature, even when it is not overtly political, may nonetheless contain political messages in coded form. George Orwell’s Animal Farm, for instance, is commonly read as a coded critique of Stalinism – though contrary to popular misconception, it is not a critique of socialism per se. (Eric Blair’s own politics were democratic-socialist.) I wonder what coded messages we might see in future fiction, perhaps warning us of the perils of electronic technology and counter-technology, of the creation of ever more devastating and uncontrollable weapons of mass destruction, of mass unemployment brought on by the automation of nearly everything, or of the long-term effects of the carbon economy on the sustainability of ecosystems in the new ‘anthropocene’ epoch that we and our machines have created together.
Science fiction and fantasy continue to serve as escapist literature for many. Yet ultimately there is no escape from political and social issues. The world of fiction is surrounded on all sides by a greater and more compelling reality which can’t be simply wished away. That reality includes, for instance, the economics of the publishing industry and the disruptive technological transition from print to electronic media, which are now colliding, for better or worse, with traditional sci fi culture itself.
But within this larger reality, speculative fiction continues to be a critical source of creative images, stretching our minds to consider alternative futures, both promising and cautionary, and to dream of possible and impossible worlds.
So dream on, Fantasians. Your future is just beginning.
Danagram
All photos are by author with subjects’ permission.
I confess I don’t know my Asimov from a hole in the ground when it comes to science fiction. Sure, as a kid I read a few sci-fi and futurist standards. Stranger in a Strange Land. 1984. Brave New World. I watched The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. I knew the Jetsons personally. But while I’ve always been interested in the future, and in the possibility of deeper intelligence in the universe, I’ve drifted away from science fiction proper as I’ve travelled through time.
Today I’m baaaaack, and reporting to you from Worldcon, an annual international science fiction and fantasy convention held this year in San Antonio, Texas.
I’m visiting as an alien ethnographer from the strange world of Sociology, and trying to blend inconspicuously with the thousands of SciFoids and Fantasians who have converged on this gathering of their tribes.
As I wander about the convention center chatting with these peculiar Earthlings and observing their native tribal rituals, such as 'filking,' I gather images and impressions of what is (for me) still largely an alien subculture.
My mission is to report unusual sightings and impressions, and to transmit these to a remote corner of the blogosphere known as Open Salon. (Think of OS as the space bar at the end of the universe.) Herewith a few of my unscientific observations:
Sighting 1: Is this costume player (‘cosplayer’) the Hulk, or some other fantasy character entirely? Most likely an Orc. Note the blood on the business end of the stone axe. I’m giving this character a wide berth.
Sighting 2: Plague doctor with bird mask and finger claw. Similar masks were worn in 16th-century Europe to ward off disease.
Sighting 3: An 18th-century gentleman of means, it would seem. Can anyone identify this character?
Sighting 4: Young woman with pet velociraptor, proving conclusively that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
Sighting 5: 41st-century space navy recruiting station based on the “Honorverse” series by David Weber.
Sighting 6: When you witch upon a star …. Is that you, Professor McGonagall?
Sighting 7: Catwoman is the one on the right. Ribbons worn by the conventioneer on the left indicate significant past involvement in the ceremonial rituals of the science fiction and fantasy community.
Impressions Here are a few of my sociological impressions of this fascinatingly fictional-yet-real cultural world and its inhabitants.
Worldcon or Anglo-Americon?
Most of this week’s attendees are from the US, but Canadians and Brits are also well-represented in the program. British literary influences are evident everywhere, carrying forward the fantasy traditions of English authors from H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling and the creators of steampunk -- a newer genre that combines elements of Victorian English culture and industrial futurism. Some contemporary sci-fi and fantasy writers continue to base their worlds on English prototypes, and particularly on mythic and stylized representations of the Middle Ages and the Victorian era.
The sci-fantasy culture represented here today is overwhelmingly white-Anglo in its ethnic composition, though I see signs of ethnic diversity here and there. The program devotes several sessions to SF in the non-Anglophonic world, including Mexico, Brazil and other Latin American cultures (e.g., sessions on “Alternate Mexico,” “Magic Realism,” and Brazilian folklore and speculative fiction), Japan (e.g., manga and anime), and the Arab World (“How Arab SF Could Dream a Better Future”).
In the swirled world of the 21st century, civilizations are becoming ever more transnational and cosmopolitan. It's likely that the ethnic horizons of sci-fi and fantasy culture will continue to expand accordingly, as an emerging generation of writers explores more fully the creative possibilities of cultural pluralism and hybridization.
The Geek-Nerd Alliance
Sci-fi and fantasy cultures are generally reputed to be 'geeky' and 'nerdy,' respectively, so I feel right at home here. In this community, science geeks and humanities nerds and their mutant offspring (gerds? neeks?) seem to wear these labels proudly, as badges of honor. I myself am now the proud owner of a souvenir t-shirt that reads “Nerd? I prefer the term intellectual badass.”
The Geek-Nerd alliance against the Ordinaries (see also ‘muggles’) seems to cut across age categories. I’m struck by the number of tribal elders who are here to enjoy the festivities. Facial fur, long hair and ponytails are common among younger and older men alike. Older participants, both men and women, seem to enjoy a decent measure of honor and respect in the community, and the convention as a whole is pleasantly intergenerational.
Like every microcosmic civilization, this one has its pantheon, its grand masters (as in chess world), its journeymen and women, its apprentices and initiates, and its multitude. The culture celebrates its heroic authors in elaborate award ceremonies, conferring Hugos (readers’ choice awards), Nebulas (analogous to Academy Awards in film), and John W. Campbells (including an award for best new writer) upon its finest word wizards. Like every cultural world, this one is stratified by status and commercial success, but in ways that don’t seem to glorify overlords at the expense of underlings.
Genderworld
On the whole, this seems a peaceable kingdom. Some signs of conflict have arisen, however, around issues related to gender. Feminist critics argue that science fiction and (perhaps to a lesser degree) fantasy literatures have been dominated historically by male authors and their strong male characters, both benevolent and malevolent, while female characters in these genres are typically relegated to secondary and conventionally sex-typed roles.
Critics have challenged sci-fi’s male-centered world in recent decades – for instance, by creating women’s science fiction organizations such as Wiscon, and by promoting the creation of kick-ass female characters.
Taking an eyeball census of the convention crowd, I see a roughly equal balance of men and women here, though perhaps more men in the science fiction sessions and more women in sessions devoted to fantasy lit. (I wonder if, in this culture, robots are from Mars and unicorns are from Venus.) But I hesitate to generalize. Some forms of speculative fiction, such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, clearly have broad appeal across gender lines.
I’m the only male at a kaffeeklatch (an informal roundtable) led by the accomplished fantasy novelist Carol Berg. Ms. Berg has created no fewer than five distinct ‘worlds’ or ‘universes’ in her thirteen published novels. She tells us she was a math major and a software engineer before venturing into fantasy writing. She and several other authors here combine backgrounds in science with an interest in literature, helping to bridge the cultural chasm that normally separates the domains of science and fiction.
Good vs. Evil
For as long as I can remember, science fiction and fantasy characters have typically (though not always) been combatants in an ongoing and often cartoonish struggle between Absolute Good and Absolute Evil. Superman vs. Lex Luthor. Batman vs. the Joker. Luke vs. Darth Vader. Harry vs. Valdemort. Ronald Reagan vs. the Evil Empire.
In recent years, however, the science fantasy universe seems to have become less Manichean and morally absolutist, and more willing to acknowledge moral complexities and ambiguities. Even heroic characters like Harry Potter and Batman show signs of more sinister Jungian shadow-selves in later episodes.
Sci-fi and fantasy literature may be less technologically optimistic than it once was, with the widening realization that new technologies often have hideous intended and unintended consequences. In one session (“Consensual Realities”), several allusions are made to the emerging possibililty of a total surveillance state, and of the abuse of technological power by corporatist oligarchs. Doomsday machines are still emerging from the imaginations of speculative writers, and ecological science fiction in the tradition of Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia will likely proliferate in the future as our awareness of anthropogenic climate change and environmental devastation continues to grow.
Rarely, though, are science fiction and fantasy explicitly ideological or political. These genres (along with mystery and romance fiction) remain avenues of escape for many who seek fictional refuge from their lives in the so-called 'real' world. My limited impression is that sci-fi culture includes within its ranks many who are politically apathetic and disengaged, and others who are self-described ‘libertarians,’ but relatively few progressive activists and even fewer traditional conservatives. On the surface, this does not appear to be a highly politicized culture.
Fantasy literature, even when it is not overtly political, may nonetheless contain political messages in coded form. George Orwell’s Animal Farm, for instance, is commonly read as a coded critique of Stalinism – though contrary to popular misconception, it is not a critique of socialism per se. (Eric Blair’s own politics were democratic-socialist.) I wonder what coded messages we might see in future fiction, perhaps warning us of the perils of electronic technology and counter-technology, of the creation of ever more devastating and uncontrollable weapons of mass destruction, of mass unemployment brought on by the automation of nearly everything, or of the long-term effects of the carbon economy on the sustainability of ecosystems in the new ‘anthropocene’ epoch that we and our machines have created together.
Science fiction and fantasy continue to serve as escapist literature for many. Yet ultimately there is no escape from political and social issues. The world of fiction is surrounded on all sides by a greater and more compelling reality which can’t be simply wished away. That reality includes, for instance, the economics of the publishing industry and the disruptive technological transition from print to electronic media, which are now colliding, for better or worse, with traditional sci fi culture itself.
But within this larger reality, speculative fiction continues to be a critical source of creative images, stretching our minds to consider alternative futures, both promising and cautionary, and to dream of possible and impossible worlds.
So dream on, Fantasians. Your future is just beginning.
Danagram
All photos are by author with subjects’ permission.
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