Maybe It's That Simple

I'm having more of a slog through the latest issue of Helix than usual, partly because of a recurrent back spasm that renders me intermittently immobile, but also because I usually start with the John Barnes column, The Well-Bitten Hand, and there's a lot to gnaw on this time. To begin with, Barnes is telling us what being a semiotician means to him, and since he gets paid to be one, it's a good thing to pay attention to what he says, money being what it is and all.

Also, in the first part of his essay, he's dealing with some of the issues that are often trotted out when people discuss science fiction, and, more specifically, why some people don't like science fiction, and perhaps why some people have trouble reading science fiction. This is often summed up in the phrase, "The door dilated," which is supposed to signal the savvy SF reader that we're not in Kansas anymore, but which troubles the regular reader, because, perhaps, we're not in Kansas anymore.

I'm actually giving away a bit of my own argument here with that last sentence, because the sort of literary analysis that Barnes is critiquing calls these things "reading protocols," and suggests that non-sf readers either do not possess the protocols that make sf readable, or they do not enjoy using those protocols.

My own suggestion, which Barnes does not really mention (though I'm sure he's considered it), is that some people just don't like science fiction. It's not as if this is a feature of the landscape that is confined to literature; there are plenty of sf movies, tv shows, comics, etc., and there are many, many people who simply don't care for them. The same is true of various sorts of fantasy. A friend of mine had a long-running (and joking) argument with his wife and daughter about Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. They loved it; he refused to even watch it. He preferred The Sopranos, which is a different kind of wish fulfillment fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. He even agreed with this when I pointed it out. However, he still preferred The Sopranos.

Similarly, there are currently entire genres that are, by classical standards, science fiction, but which regular science fiction readers disdain because they don't speak to whatever said sf readers really want. I'm thinking here of the cross-genre romances, the paranormal romances, the time-travel romances, and so forth, which spoil all the good sf action with that "chick lit" stuff.

In any case, I'm pretty sure that Barnes skips over this part of the argument because he wants to get on about reading protocols generally, and what he calls "dip and flip," as a result of a series of observations he's made of people reading in public places:

One thing stood out vividly: about half the observed readers who appeared to be under 35 began each new page by looking at the center, scanning outward from there in a sort of loose clockwise spiral, and then beginning to read left-right-diagonal-down once they had found something of interest. From eavesdropping I could tell they were looking for a word or phrase to catch their attention, checking back to contextualize it, and then reading only as long as the text was still about that word or phrase (or until another word or phrase took over as focus of interest). And like many of the ad-readers and sentence-excerpters, their conversation indicated that for them, that word or phrase was what the article was "about."

(I put "about" in quotation marks because in different reading protocols "about" seems to mean something different to some readers than it does to others.)

Barnes correctly notes that the "dip and flip" protocol screws up any attempt to convey ordered information, so it is particularly vexing to technical writers and the writers of clean, linear fiction. Indeed, as a card carrying member of both groups, let me suggest that Barnes is being very kind by not suggesting the traditional label for such reading protocols: functional illiteracy.

Of course this is an argument that goes back forever, and includes the Evelyn Woods "Speed Reading" controversy of decades ago.

"What is astonishing is that they think that 80% comprehension is enough. Kennedy was a speed reader. 'Bay of Pigs?' That must have been in that other 20%." –The Firesign Theater.

Barnes spends the rest of the article on providing some tips for how stodgy old linear writers can tap into the "dip and flip" market, primarily by telling their stories in small, bite sized chunks, each of which must have a sugar glaze and a crunchy center. And, truly, I'm pretty much fine with that as far as it goes. Make the scenes shorter, put in some self-contained vignettes, make both geography and point-of-view less static, and more energetic, sure. I'd have done even more of that in SunSmoke, if I'd thought I could get away with it.

But, ultimately, I don't think that there is as much gold in them thar hills as we'd like to think. It's true that the number of casual readers dwarfs the number of dedicated ones, but it's not obvious that one can make all that much of a cake from crumbs. And if I want to really connect with a readership, I think I'll go after readers who want to connect back.

Helix #7

I don't detect much of a theme in this outing for Helix, which is fine. There are a couple of recurring chords, so I'll get to those.

First, however, let me recommend "Drooling Wizards" by Laura J. Underwood. This story has no redeeming social value that I can detect, but who cares when you have an opening like this:

The chronicles of Drooling Proper state that in the history of Upper Drooling, the village had never been without an idiot. This, of course, was before Dumb Willy went off and got himself trampled to death by an irate ram of large proportions. (We shall refrain, dear reader, from listing the more sordid details as to why this occurred and assume that all imaginations will come up with their own). Naturally, the folk of Upper Drooling were aghast to find themselves void one idiot. It left open far too many assumptions about the rest of the good citizens of that fair haven. Besides, how could a proper village function without a proper idiot?

"To this end, the mayor of Upper Drooling, the most Honorable Joseph Dribbling (yes, indeed, he was related to the founders of Dribbling-By-The-Brook several leagues to the north, but there was a nasty falling out within the family, the culmination of which was that Joseph's ancestors left the rest of the Dribblings behind to find sanctuary in Upper Drooling) took it upon himself to declare a state of emergency, and most hastily wrote a letter to the Idiot's Guild in the city of Greater Drooling on the River Drowning.

Mistaken identity, magic gone awry, true love, what more does word candy need?

"Night of the Living POTUS" by Adam-Troy Castro is also slight, albeit with what I suspect is a real visceral horror at the American political landscape, a zombification of the past (personified by American Presidents), and possibly a comment on how the future betrays the past and vice versa. There may be some satire to it, but satire is fragile, and I'll let other readers make their own judgments on that one.

"Suicide Drive" by Charlie Anders and "Family Tree" by Vaughan Stanger may be considered to share a theme, old #1, in fact, Space Colonization. "Family Tree" takes place in an alternate universe where the Apollo Program went a little faster, had a later accident, and wound up putting a colony on the Moon. There is a substantial amount of symbolism and possibly even sub-text operating, with the protagonist, a teacher hitting mandatory retirement torn between immigrating to the Moon or tending to her (objectified via SF trope) memories of her dead husband. This is past vs future again, with the dice loaded for the future.

"Suicide Drive," on the other hand, paints a bigger canvas on the space colonization side (an extra-solar colonization attempt), with a much bigger price, and a smaller canvas for memory: a hidey hole for the son of the Leader who made the colonization attempt, and an unseen interviewer. The old Campbellian future suggested that the world would suffer nuclear war, but that was an acceptable price to pay for nuclear powered space travel and interstellar empire. "Suicide Drive" notes that the alternatives are seldom known in advance. What then?

The implied risks and rewards are more prosaic and personal in "Salvager's Gold," by Selina Rosen. This is a story that could have fit into an issue of Galaxy or F&SF in 1950s, though it wouldn't have made the Year's Best in either. Happy ending, though, and I like it when the trashman gets a happy ending.

"The Last Man's First Year on Earth," by David W. Goldman is far and away the most creepy story in this issue of Helix, and has a pretty good take on what "alien" means as well. It also has some good new drugs that aren't just another kind of speed (I've complained about SF's limited imagination in drugs in the past, and wrote "Tranquility" to try to make up for it), and, if I'm not mistaken, a new sexual perversion, which is something any author can be proud of.

"Seraphim" by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff is a hard story to characterize. One might compare is to "A Matter of Muskets" by Berry Kercheval in Helix #4, but the latter was slight, and not as difficult an effect to achieve. "Seraphim" might be an "ancient astronauts" story (although "ancient" here is only 1896), or a Mad Scientist story, or a Secret Society story, or any combination thereof. I will note that it gets the style and tone of a circa 1900 newspaper story almost exactly right, and that is mighty damn difficult and my hat is off to Ms Bohnhoff for that and more.

As always, I remind my readers that Helix is reader-supported, and your contributions give you advance peeks of new issues as well as that familiar warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that your money is not going to the Great Fascist Insect.

Helix #6

William Sanders suggests that Helix #6 is dark, which is reasonably true, but hardly pins it down, does it? I'm bound to wonder about the real crux of the matter, given the nature of Helix, specifically self-anointed as a distant descendant of Dangerous Visions, a place to find good stories that other venues find hard to handle.

One uncharitable, and I assume probably incorrect view, would be that Helix gets a lot of good stories about the same subject, or pushing the same point of view. Certainly we readers were spared a number of video-games-are-real stories over the years, by editors who could see a cliche coming. Doubtless there are other themes that were old before they ever left their infancy.

But there are broader, more general themes in SF, that get new flesh, new paint, new liposuction and presto, another story that looks new, hell, it may even be new, but the shock and awe dissipates long before one gets to its core. That's part of the "genre" business, of course, and probably not even a sin, much less a tragic flaw. Nevertheless, it offers a handle for real criticism as opposed to mere review.

So there's this thing, just a little hiccup, really, or an itch that one cannot localize. Try to scratch it, and I find myself wondering about the life and times and such. Once having made a tentative identification, I need to maybe check some earlier Helix stories to see how many of them also carry the virus, one that looks to be a purer strain in Helix #6.

First, though, let's put a label on it and thereby change its nature, because naming does that. I'll try to keep it broad, so there's plenty of room for argument. Then too, there's the joking callback to The Graduate:

Plasticity.

The stories in Helix #6 are playing games with plasticity, of body especially, of society somewhat, of mind, well, there's the rub.

I hope none of these are spoilers, and I always recommend people read a story before reading my comment on it (and really, what are the relative number of readers, anyway, between me-by-my-lonesome and Helix?).

• "The Button Bin," by Mike Allen: Putting on a monster like a suit of clothes.
• "The Makeover Men" by Jayme Lynn Blaschke: Genetic therapy as the equivalent of cosmetic surgery.
• "The Mechanical Mechanic, His Apprentice, and the Judge" by Sarah K. Castle:War veteran with numerous prosthetics.
• "Kill Me," by Vylar Kaftan: Mutilation, death and resurrection via implantedcybernetic storage device.
• "The Golden Whip" by Jay Lake: Technobureaucratic apotheosis via nanotech implants.
• "The Snake's Wife" by Ann Leckle: Primitive sex change surgery.
• "The Last Stand of the Elephant Man" by Jennifer Pelland: Futuristic resurrection and soul swapping in a jaded society.

In contrast to the fairly extreme changes of physical appearance and life circumstances that appear in these stories, the people themselves, their characters, their personalities, those change little, and what change does occur, it is well within the ordinary limits of human beings.

Now granted, this last part is a feature, not a bug. Audiences are not going to tune into characters that are something other than human. In fact, as I think I�ve noted before, modern audiences will seldom connect to characters of other than modern sensibility, so that writing about a real historical character always has the tug-of-war between being faithful to the real historical personage and not losing the audience.

That segues to the biggest problem with "The Last Stand of the Elephant Man," an account of Joseph Merrick's awakening in a future where his soul (we'll call it that) has been placed in an undeformed body, while his body is inhabited by a futuristic thrill/fame seeker. Whatever the merits of the story as a commentary on the decadence of a celebrity worshiping society (who, us?), having Merrick as the point-of-view character, and worse, being authorially privy to his thoughts, kept dropping me out of the narrative. The story makes much of how people's knowledge of Merrick comes primarily from the motion picture (if the theatrical production was mentioned I missed it), but does not really supply us with much to fill in the blanks, other than possibly some Victorian prudery, and some intellect.

Both "The Button Bin" and "Kill Me" are psycho-sexual creepshows, and stand or fall on the creepiness factor, which is pretty high, so good on them. There is a little bit of the "oh, not that again," in character's revelation in "The Button Bin," but that's probably just me. On the plus side, the words-in-a-row writing is good.

"The Makeover Men" manages to turn an end-of-the-world scenario into a tale of dueling narcissists, with the future of the world going to Quagmire from Family Guy, more or less. Then the post-theocratic tale "The Mechanical Mechanic, His Apprentice, and the Judge," barely manages to hit the broad side of a barn in warning us about religious authoritarianism and patriotic hypocrisy. Still, the barn does have a broad side, so de gustibus.

I think "The Golden Whip" is the shortest and most economical of the stories here. It mines the cyberpunk style and world-view, and, assuming I interpreted it correctly (always a risk with writing that slings stream-of-consciousness plus the occasional verb-less sentence), it's a reminder of how easy it is for elephants to trample mice, or, for that matter, mice to trample mice, given the nature of giant organizations and slick technology.

"The Snake's Wife" could probably have been written any time in the last hundred years (maybe more), and I mean that in a good way. That is one of the advantages of classic land-far-away fantasy: it has no real sell-by date. It's also nice to see that the "prophecy is literally true but watch out for the loopholes" thing can apply to the gods who make the prophecies come true as well. The tale might have benefited from a little more cutting (no pun intended) and names that were easier to keep track of, but those are some more things whose effectiveness has varied within the past century, not to mention from reader to reader. The story gives the impression of being a part of a larger work, which I hope is not the case, because I like the feel of things whose edges lead into the mist.

Vamp in the Middle

“I’m playing this song with a vamp in the middle…” – John Hartford

vamp - n.
1: a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men
[syn: coquette, flirt, vamper, minx, tease, prickteaser]
2: an improvised musical accompaniment
3: short form for vampire

The first time I read Fritz Leiber’s “The Girl With the Hungry Eyes,” I was probably in my early teens, in transition from the triumvirate of Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke to Leiber, Sturgeon, and Sheckley (I might have said Bester instead of Sheckley, but Bester had at least temporarily left the field for the steady paycheck offered by Holiday magazine).

“Girl” made it to television in the early 1970s, as one of “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery” episodes. “Night Gallery” was an embarrassment toward the very end to Serling’s television career, the embarrassment being primarily to due the producer, Jack Laird, who also sometimes wrote and directed, or at least got credited as such. “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” was particularly mishandled, beginning with the casting of Joanna Pettet as “The Girl.” Pettet is conventionally good looking, and appeared in several other Night Gallery episodes, both of which reducing her impact as “The Girl.” "The Girl" should, at the very least, have eyes that dominate her face. Amy suggests Christina Ricci, and I think Ricci would nail it (not that Ricci was even alive in 1972, but you get the idea).

A bit of searching also tells me that there are two films with the same title, one an exploitation film (about lesbians) made by William Rotsler in 1967; Rotsler was a friend of Lieber’s and probably got permission to use the title for a film not based on Leiber’s short story. The other is an actual vampire film made in 1993 by someone named Jon Jacobs, and by all reports is just god-awful.

I re-read “Girl” after seeing the Night Gallery episode, just to make sure I remembered it correctly, i.e. as being good. It was. I then re-read it maybe a decade later, and remember a faint sense of disappointment. The vernacular used to tell the story seemed stilted, and I was bothered by just how many times and how many ways Leiber telegraphed the ending.

Then I re-read it last night for this essay, and lo and behold, it’s even better than I thought when I first read it. The vernacular style is irrelevant (and my older and wiser self realizes that for me to critique a vernacular from several years before I was born is just me being an ass). And the multiple attempts by the narrator/author to prepare the listener/reader for the ending feels like a man trying to work up the nerve to divulge something so horrific that he hardly dares remember it. And no matter how many times I’ve read it, the ending still punches through my defenses:

“I want you…I want everything that’s made you happy and everything that’s hurt you bad. I want your first girl…I want that pinhole camera… I want your mother’s death… I want Mildred’s mouth. I want the first picture you sold…I want the gin. I want Gwen’s hands. I want you wanting me. I want your life. Feed me, baby, feed me.”
--Fritz Leiber, “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”

I’ve made no secret of my nigh-unto-worship of Fritz Leiber as a writer, and I’m hardly alone. Stephen King and Neil Gaiman have both said as much. And I’ve written a long essay on Leiber, "Sleeping in Fritz Leiber's Bed," New York Review of Science Fiction, May, 2004.

In that essay, I also talk about a kind of fantasy story that is about fantasy, rather than having actualized fantasy elements. Lieber’s “The Secret Songs” and “The Winter Flies” (aka “The Inner Circles”) are examples, as is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and "That's What Happened to Me" by Micheal Fessier (which is also an “unreliable narrator” story).

Although “Vamp in the Middle” was always the title, my Hollywood Pitch title was “The Fabulous Baker Boys meet The Girl with the Hungry Eyes.” Of course there are three young musicians in Vamp, and only two Baker Boys, but the image of a musical group auditioning for a “chick singer” who could show some cleavage and help them get gigs was one of the images that fused together in the story. Another was one of someone staring into the depths of a mirror, trying to see her own reflection, but never being able to convince herself that she was real when she was alone.

There are, after all, reasons for all those hoary vampire tropes. Some people do need other people around to reassure themselves of their own reality, and those people are very attracted to show business and the possibilities of gorging themselves on fame.

The hardest thing about “Vamp” was the ending, of course. I knew I’d never be able to match the impact of “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes,” and besides, I was tapping into a different Leiberian ore body anyway. The narrator is yet another lost soul who has somehow escaped what should have been his doom, but he’s not sure what it was he escaped, and what sort of life he then committed himself to. Ultimately, he’s not even sure he didn’t imagine it as some sort of dark tale constructed out of a much more mundane and sordid reality.

My thanks to William Sanders who recognized the ambiguity, and to Lawrence Watt-Evans, for convincing Mr. Sanders that the right sort of ambiguity still qualifies as speculative fiction.

http://www.helixsf.com/index.htm

Helix is view supported, just like Public Television, only without those annoying pledge drives. Or like a church. So drop some coins in the collection plate and make the devil dance.