Happenings: Veiled Delays

[coalescent]

I think I've decided that Sunday evening gigs are a good thing. They're social, but they don't go on too late and if you necessary you can just stand there in zombie mode and let the music wash over you. And when you get back, you can have toast. Tonight I was back at the Zodiac with Mike to see Delays (no 'the,' despite what that URL would have you believe).They were great, a bit like what you might get if you raised the unnatural offspring of Ash and The Byrds in an environment littered with early-nineties synth samples. Even money says they'd sound incredible playing in the open air at some sunny summer festival. This despite having a keyboard player whose only special skills seemed to be looking like this but dancing like Kevin the teenager. Support was from The Veils, who turn out to offer significantly less sub-Placebo pointlessness than you might expect from some of their promotional photos, and in fact were the best support band I've seen for ages.

All this at the end of a weekend spent, in the main, convalescing from an irritatingly persistent bout of the flu. After three nights of going to bed at 9:30 I think I've bested it, though, and I have at least made good progress on the reading front. I've now read three-and-a-half of the Clarke Award nominess, and should easily finish the fourth by Wednesday, so I won't feel like a complete fraud. Maul was good, and clever, but not great; although given that I have to discount Pattern Recogntion (on the grounds - and believe me, it causes me physical pain to say this - that even John Clute can't convince me it's SF) I'd have to say it's the strongest of the nominess that I've read so far. Any which way is going to be an interesting result this year, it seems.

(The icon change comes because, beautiful as it is, I got a little bored with the Alethiometer, and because I've also been kickin' it old-school style down home on the umta range. Expect it to last until that final episode airs on Sky. Sniff.)

Comments

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

social, but they don't go on too late and if you necessary you can just stand there in zombie mode and let the music wash over you.

Niall = OLD.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

No, Niall = convalescing. Or did you not get that far? :-p

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Oh, I did. But I still felt like calling you old.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I suppose that in the light of your callow youthfullness, I would seem old. But for future reference, I prefer the term 'experienced'.

...No, wait, actually I'm not sure that I do.

I shall consider the correct terminology for you to use and get back to you.

[wg.livejournal.com]

you like calling everyone old

*sighs, as she is actually* old

[ajr.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I really like the new icon. Much, much more than I liked the Alethiometer icon.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Really? Any particular reason?

(And IIRC credit goes to the lovely despotliz. Although it may have been the lovely hawleygriffen. They have both icon-ed me up in the past, anyway.)

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Minly due to your complete lack of competence at cropping a picture to a 100 x 100 square than my artistic talent. :p

New journal layout++

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Why is everything coming out in italics?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Minly due to your complete lack of competence at cropping a picture to a 100 x 100 square than my artistic talent. :p

So I know how to outsource. Sue me! And hey, it's not like I even know what image manipulation software this crazy OS has, anyway...

New journal layout++

Hurrah! The despot seal of approval!

(Apart from the broken tag of doom upthread.)

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Really? Any particular reason?

On a scale of one to ten, it looks SO DAMN COOL. :)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, there is that. Also, his nose comes off. :)

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

[SHOCK]even John Clute can't convince me it's SF[/SHOCK]

I'm not sure Clute would convince anyone with this passage:

SF is no longer about the future as such, because "we have no future" that we can do thought experiments about, only futures, which bleed all over the page, soaking the present. [...] In 2003, SF stories can no longer fruitfully be defined as texts which extrapolate particular outcomes from particular "nows"; such stories that are published as SF are, in fact, nostalgia blankets: Instant Collectibles [what an astonishing thing to say... - Gareth]. In 2003, on the other hand, any story about the case of the world, any story the world can be seen through, is in fact SF [And by this definition, I take it wishes to "claim", come the time, Cloud Atlas, for the betterment of The Genre of SF ;o)]. (Mundane novels, which are set in the world like fish in an aquarium, cannot grasp the tank, cannot see the case for the trees.)

At this point, isn't he just drawing a line between literary fiction and non-literary fiction; fiction that questions the world and fiction that doesn't? I don't see how "any story the world can be seen through" can be called SF... unless SF becomes all literary fiction.

Perhaps - of, quite probably - I am missing something.

He contines:

But it is not just a question of point of view. In a world whose appearance—whose case—can be altered at the touch of a mouse, words become Word. In 2003, we shape reality by saying it. Like terrorists, we world-build by changing the case.

And I would question how "world-building" is exclusively something SF can play with; and if it isn't something exclusive to SF, how can it be used in a description of a new form of SF...

My head... hurts. A bit.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Apologies for late-night typos. Must go to bed now.

I may read a bit of Snow, endeavoring, as I read, to discern whether or not it is a "story about the case of the world" and whether or not it is SF. :o)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

For a minute there I thought you meant the new Adam Roberts novel, the one that's not out until August, and was wondering how on earth it could not be SF...Then I realised that you probably meant the new Orhan Pamuk, don't you?

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Yes - the Pamuk.

The Roberts novel had slipped my mind...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

At this point, isn't he just drawing a line between literary fiction and non-literary fiction; fiction that questions the world and fiction that doesn't?

Not quite; his position is that Pattern Recognition looks at the world from the outside, that this is a defining feature of sf, and that therefore Pattern Recognition is sf. Whereas something like, say, Snow, may question the world but does so on the world's terms, and therefore it is not sf. I think.

But I think this argument is to suggest that films like Memento and Adaptation are sf, when clearly they're not; however sfnal their approach, they are still fundamentally about the world as it is now. They're not about a changed world, nor even about the process of change. Same with PR.

Of course there isn't a sharp line between genres; I think of them more as overlapping sets, like a Venn diagram. PR lies in the shadowed area between 'contemporary' and 'science fiction.' For that reason it is fascinating, and provocative, and like all the best fiction makes you look at the world around you in a different way, and I think it deserves to be on the Clarke shortlist...but it overlaps because it shares the techniques, not because it shares the material, so I can't quite bring myself to really think of it as sf.

And hell, I'm normally broad-church on this stuff. Cloud Atlas, for instance, I will quite happily rope in as sf. Those two central stories are (a) literally the centre of the novel, and (b) clearly standing on the shoulders of giants, unlike some mainstream attempts at sf. Certainly Cloud Atlas is other things as well - hell, it's basically every genre at once - but in this case, I think an sf reading is still a useful exercise.

I know snowking thinks PR is sf, but he hasn't actually provided any arguments yet...

And I would question how "world-building" is exclusively something SF can play with

Er, what other type of fiction builds worlds out of whole cloth?

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Since we're talking about the Clarke Awards, question for me is: is Pattern Recognition sufficiently SF that is someone from the general, non-SF reading public read it, would they go "Ooh, that's a good piece of SF!" or just "Ooh, that's a good book!"?

If it's the latter, I don't think it should win a Clarke Award. Much as I love Neal Stephenson and worship the ground his Unix-loving feet walk on, I can't say that about Quicksilver.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

is Pattern Recognition sufficiently SF that is someone from the general, non-SF reading public read it, would they go "Ooh, that's a good piece of SF!" or just "Ooh, that's a good book!"?

I would say the latter. On the other hand, the general, non-SF reading public is known to be notoriously wrongheaded about these things at the best of times, so... ;-)

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I have the same question about the Clarke award but I disagree about what the answer should be. It shouldn't have the general public saying "It's good for SF". If the the general public was interested in good pieces of SF, they wouldn't be the general public. They'd be SF fans.

Quicksilver is about science. Both the development of the scientific method and the development of economics, the soft science that rules all. Science fiction, for me, is about our cultural interaction with science and the technology it produces. And things that go fast and explode, obviously.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Well, for one, Cayce has a superpower. She's allergic to brands. Her Dad possibly speaks from beyond the grave. Other than that, it's a technothriller plot revolving around an idea that doesn't exist in the real world (using $SPOILERS to $SPOILERS) and that's just enough for me.

However, Gibson is treating this world as an SF world. The mad ideas, the odd historical remnants and shiny technology. Factual as if it were fictional. It's an interesting technique (when used once) and I think the genre stretches enough to let this one in. It's not all that SF but it's very not mainstream. Perhaps it should be rebranded as Technological Fiction. I need to dig out my notes on the Charlie/Cory interview as someone coined the term Nowpunk for it. This means Quicksilver is Thenpunk, I guess.

Also: It's clearly an alternate world with different chemistry as shown by the first page. We don't have long chain monomers!

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

his position is that Pattern Recognition looks at the world from the outside, that this is a defining feature of sf, and that therefore Pattern Recognition is sf

I'm going to have to re-read the review, because I find this whole "looking at the world from the outside" to be very tenuous - it implies that SF is always, in its appreciation of the world, one step above all other literatures, and all other literary modes; but it doesn't really state how PR is doing this "looking in from the outside" (or, it doesn't state it in a way I find convincing).


Whereas something like, say, Snow, may question the world but does so on the world's terms, and therefore it is not sf. I think.

But "on the world's terms" is bizarre - don't all writers write within the terms and conditions of our world? How can an SF writer\cultural analyst attain this lofty, quasi-godlike position of being outside of the "world's terms", looking in on it??

I think, crudely, that it is hot air.

But I can see how Clute's agenda, in a way, is to keep himself in a job; if he can appropriate major literary fiction like Cloud Atlas and PR into the SF canon, he can provide himself with something to write about.

In a way, the piece is a repositioning of himself as a critic. He is moving away from the "nostalgic" fluff of "old" SF, and moving into a patch of mainstream fiction he can (try) and call his own.

More on this later - must rescue kievs.

Anon,

G.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Er, what other type of fiction builds worlds out of whole cloth?

I've always felt, even when I was reading SF quite regularly, that all fictions engaged, to differing degrees, in world-building. Yes, they may be drawing on a world familiar to the reader, or taking certain "cues" from the real world, but they are still constructing a world from their imagination and communicating it to us.

And does Gibson build a world out of "whole cloth"?

Also, I'd argue that historical fiction engages in world-building.

And I think Henning Mankell "builds worlds", if in a more subtle fashion than, say (to take a name from random), David Brin.


Of course there isn't a sharp line between genres; I think of them more as overlapping sets, like a Venn diagram. PR lies in the shadowed area between 'contemporary' and 'science fiction.'

But 'contemporary' isn't a genre, surely?? Or if it is a genre, it is only a genre that exists in the minds of SF fans. :o)

Contemporary crime fiction and contemporary science fiction may exist, as opposed to classic crime fiction and classic science fiction; but contemporary fiction is just that: fiction that is contemporary.

It's a temporal label, not a stylistic label or a description of a particular literary mode.

Perhaps I'm being unfair.

:o)

Let's see if my canary powers continue.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Last year I couldn't get hold of a copy of "The Separation". It won the award.

This year "Maul" has failed to appear from the library. I'm putting my money on it to win.

Re: Let's see if my canary powers continue.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, the copy I read just went back to Maidenhead library...can you arrange really long-distance inter-library loans? :)