Οι μύθοι της επιστημονικής εποχής
Σε μια εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρουσα (και αρκετά αστεία) συνέντευξή του στο SFSignal, o John C. Wright αναφέρεται στο φιλοσοφικό υπόβαθρο της ε.φ. και επιχειρεί να δώσει ένα καταληκτικό ορισμό για το λογοτεχνικό αυτό είδος, ενώ ο Neil Gaiman καλεί τους νέους συγγραφείς στις επάλξεις του.
Λέει ο Wright:
Science Fiction is the mythology of the scientific age.A myth is a story, or account, which tells the truth untruthfully, which is to say, by figures and images rather than literally.
Science fiction deals with the myth of the scientific world-view, not the facts of science[..]it is the mythical image, the figures of science, not the facts, that make a tale SF.
Stories with Time Machines and Faster-Than-Light drives are science fiction, not fantasy, even though the current science rejects the possibility of such inventions. Likewise, ghost stories are fantasy, even if scientific research into ghost sightings is neutral on the matter. The point here is that a ghost story could have been told in Shakespeare’s day, or Homer’s, because a ghost is a literary device accepted by the audience for the sake of the tale as real, i.e., as realistic. Likewise, the time machine or FTL drive is accepted by the science fiction audience as realistic, even if not real: fantastic inventions are part of the myth of the scientific age.
A hard science fiction tale centers its plot on the science or technology; a soft science fiction tale assumes the scientific world-view in the background, and concentrates on other story elements; a space opera is an adventure taking place in a science-fiction-flavored background. Stories with spiritualistic elements are science fiction to the degree that such elements are treated scientifically rather than anthropomorphically. Hence, a psionic boy with telepathic powers due to his mutation is a science fiction character; but a prophet who reads the unspoken thoughts in the hearts of men due to a blessing from the elf-queen, is a fantasy character.
A story is not science fiction that does primarily emphasize the scientific world-view, in the same way that a story is not a western that does not take place primarily in the old west. An SF story with junk science in it [..] is still science fiction, even as a story with an historically illiterate portrayal of the Old West is still a Western [..].
Παρακάτω, στην ίδια συνέντευξη, αναφέρεται στη σχέση της φιλοσοφίας του συγγραφέα με την αφηγηματική ροή και στην επιδεξιότητα με την οποία οι καλύτεροι συγγραφείς ε.φ. συνταιριάζουν τα δύο απαραίτητα αυτά συστατικά για να παράγουν μυθιστορία.
Ο Neil Gaiman, απαντώντας με χαρακτηριστικό φλέγμα στον Robert Sawyer που θεωρεί την ε.φ. κατάλοιπο του 20ου αιώνα (ντροπή σου, Bob!), διατρανώνει την πεποίθησή του πως το είδος δεν έχει πεθάνει και ενθαρρύνει τους νέους συγγραφείς να την επιλέξουν ως όχημα:
I am, I pride myself, old enough to remember 2001 (the year, not the movie) and, although I was looking quite carefully, I completely failed to notice people announcing that since there were no orbital space stations and Black Monoliths, they would now, disappointed beyond endurance, be “bailing” and no longer read science fiction. But then I’m also old enough to remember readers not giving up reading SF in 1984 despite a peculiar lack of Big Brother, the non-appearance of the Anti-Sex League, and Margaret Thatcher’s obdurate refusal to rename the British Isles “Airstrip One”.
I’d happily encourage any young person to enter SF as a profession. I don’t believe SF is dead, or any deader than it was in 1983. I do feel that SF right now, like SF then, is waiting for new paradigms, for some new fiction that brings the same fresh buzz that Bill Gibson’s “Neuromancer” did when it was published in 1984, the same sense that this was Today’s Future, rather than Yesterday’s; and that we’ll get that from the young writers who, today, just have dreams that one day they could, possibly, make a living from making things up…
ΥΓ: Παραπάνω, στο ίδιο άρθρο, ο Neil αναφέρεται στην ανακάλυψη κοινότητας κινηματογραφόφιλων στις κατακόμβες του Παρισιού!
