Re: Stretching the OSS

by John Michael Greer
(Cumberland, MD, USA)

That's an interesting question. I think a good case can be made for membership in the OSS when a story takes place entirely in our solar system but the broader context involves some degree of reference to interstellar travel. (Lovecraft is an example of this, to return to my usual hobby horse -- a lot of his critters, from the Great Old Ones through the Great Race of Yith to the ancient beings in "At the Mountains of Madness" -- all came from the stars originally.)

With this in mind, I wonder whether you'd consider three of Cordwainer Smith's SF stories for inclusion in the OSS listings. Most of his writings, of course, were set in a classic CRIM setting, with interstellar travel in planoforming ships a routine if not risk-free activity, but his stories "Mark Elf" and "The Queen of the Afternoon" are set on a future Earth of distinctly OSS flavor, and "When the People Fell" is a story about the Chinese colonization of a very OSS Venus.

{comment from Zendexor: Yes, I clean forgot "When the People Fell" - I was thinking about Cordwainer Smith recently, and about how he never set any stories on our neighbouring worlds - yet he did, and that's the one; what's more, it's a good story. I seem to remember, also, that one of his characters in another tale - it may have been Rod McBan - paid a brief visit to Mars.

But of course the main case for discussion of Smith here stems from his tremendous visions of a future Earth.}

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Jul 09, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Ages
by: Dylan Jeninga

Perhaps an "age of confusion"? Certainly, things seem pretty scrambled on this side of the pond.

Also, I seem to have run A. Stuart off with all of my posting. Sorry, Stew. He had an interesting idea too, about looking at the solar system from without.

{Z: Perhaps ages of confusion are especially fertile ground for literary creativity! There's a cheering thought.}
Jul 09, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Addendum
by: Dylan Jeninga

Also, Z, you're right that there are people who don't seem to get it. There are also those who refuse to get it, will under no circumstances get it, are utterly uninterested in changing their worldview and refuse to accept that anything other than a cross-burning Klansman is a racist (and some don't even go that far). Those people are also often labeled "racist", and rightfully so, even if the don't actively contribute to oppression.

Again, I'm not scholar on this subject, and I'm doing my best to articulate what I've learned from those who know from experience.

I highly recommend, to any interested readers, the works of Octavia Butler or Samuel Delaney (especially some of his later stuff). I haven't read it all, but what I have read tackles these subjects masterfully.

This'll be my last addendum, I know I can be pretty long winded. Compliments to anybody who made it through all this!

{Z: I don't know Octavia Butler. I love Delaney's "Fall of the Towers" trilogy - have read it several times and will doubtless read it again. Magical.

Regarding racism, one final word: though we can disagree on the precise definition, I reckon it should be clear to all that to call someone "racist" must be to level a very serious and specific charge against that person. I don't buy the "we are all racists" thing that one sometimes hears, because that dilutes a term which we may well need to keep ready for use not only against cross-burning Klansmen but against another Hitler.

Therefore we need another term for the systemic socio-economic bias thing. I haven't a clue what word to use.

But maybe there isn't one; or maybe such nuances are beyond the resources of general conversation at the moment. Maybe, also, I have been too hard on my fellow-Terrans of the Age of Stupid. A kinder term that "Stupid" might perhaps be "Groggy". It's hardly surprising that, as they blearily awaken from millennia of oppression, some cultural strands exhibit a certain lack of intellectual sharpness. A sort of hangover, you might say...}


Jul 08, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Yerby
by: Dylan Jeninga

Frank Yerby is somebody I'll have to add to my reading list, then!

A. Stuart is right about intellectuals - I've heard it said that sometimes, rather than opening one's eyes to the fallacies in their beliefs, education can provide someone with the mental wherewithal to justify them.

And Zendexor makes an interesting point about vegetarians. I know, logically, vegetarianism is the best option for the planet and humanity - it's more efficient, and doesn't produce as much greenhouse gas as things like cattle farming. But I haven't switched because, in all honesty, it would be hard!

The path of least resistance, economically, socially and in the name of convenience is to continue eating meat. It's worth noting that racist, sexist, and other bigoted social systems survive the same way.

And I imagine Z is right that, someday, our descendants will look back on our carnivorous ways and shake their heads. Especially as cattle production is such a contributor to climate change.

To return to discussions of science fiction, I've long enjoyed the notion that insect farming might become more common as traditional agriculture becomes more difficult. It's compatively easy, requires little space, and the yield is nutritious. It would require a redefinition of "food" for many, but needs must.

I've slipped the idea into the early drafts of a few short stories, but it was never really relevant to the plot.

{Z: Re insect farming: an interesting example of cultural irrationality, is that most of us are quite happy to eat marine arthropoda while turning up our noses at the idea of eating land-based members of the same phylum. Crab? Lobster? Prawn? Yes, please! Grasshopper? Yuck!}
Jul 08, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		appreciation of the debate
by: Zendexor

I'd love to hear more about the "Nation of Islam"s trillions-year-old Earth and the split-off Moon. Priceless stuff.

Re the "black geniuses" theme, for a while I had enjoyed the writings of Frank Yerby. Complicatedly impressed and infuriated with his Old South racist characters in "Benton's Row", I was absolutely amazed to learn, some years later, that this writer is black. Amazed because it implies a truly heroic forgiveness on his part, the way in "Benton's Row" he gets inside the mind of Southern oppressors and makes them human; well, that's what a writer is supposed to do - but what an achievement for a descendant of the victims! And he does it without any nudge-nudge-isn't-this-awful; he lets it speak for itself. A great mind.

Dylan's point on "systemic racism" is vital. It explains a lot, and is undoubtedly true, the nuanced way he puts it. The problem is, such a concept seems to be too much to handle for most folk in our era, the Age of Stupid. It gives dunderheads the green light to trivialize the practical application of the term "racism", to a degree which is appalling when one considers the gravity of the charge. I say this reluctantly, after decades of sad experience.
Jul 07, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		P.S.
by: Dylan Jeninga

Also, I'm very pleased to hear you enjoyed Rogue Planet! I like to write little one-off's like that. I just penned one which isn't scifi but rather about the sudden appearance of fantastical creatures in everyday life.

I'd like to write something a little longer now I've got a hankering to get back to Mars, maybe a WOM. It's percolating, anyhow!
Jul 07, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Definitions
by: Dylan Jeninga

Interesting that the definition of "racism" seems to be bubbling up out of the stew of conversation a a lot, here.

I'll not try to define it myself, but, in the apparent absence of any persons of color, pass on what they have taught me, and maybe address the broadness of the term. Inevitably, I'll do so imperfectly, and I hope our readers will be forgiving.

It might seem that "racist" gets thrown around for things that aren't obviously racist. However, there are two kinds of racism, and one of them is harder to spot.

Flagrant bigotry of Campbell or Lovecraft's variety is easilly identified and, while problematic, is the more easily defeated form. Far more complicated, difficult and nefarious is racism of the systemic variety, which can't usually be pinned on any one individual.

Here, things get a bit abstract, and far more delicate. Systemic racism would refer to the unspoken, often un-thought-of bias present in our cultural infrastructure. That African Americans are statistically more likely to be saddled with poverty and overpolicing, as well as find it more difficult to obtain gainful employment despite adequate qualifications - these are just a few symptoms of very old social systems that are difficult to really wrap one's mind around. These systems are usually not deliberately enforced, and we are so used to them that they are practically invisible (unless one, by bad luck, happens to be born on the wrong end of them.)

Please note that while I have tried to define systemic racism, I have not tried to address what causes and perpetuates it. The answer, inevitably, is a complicated mix of history, econimics and societal convenience that is beyond my abilities to articulate.

The wide-reaching meaning of "racism", then, is (in my opinion) likely part of an effort by the affected groups to raise awareness of the systemic variety of oppression. Expanding the meaning of the word is important, for it serves to alert those of us unaffected by it that it needed expanding in the first place.

The lesson of Jack Vance's "the Languages of Pao" was that language is a powerful tool for social change. Unlike Pao, however, this particular change is largely for the better.

Jul 07, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Race Redux
by: Anonymous

A few more tidbits about race. It seems the concept of race has been reinvented as a sort of ĂĽberculture uniting various groups/nationalities under one umbrella cultural identity. This explains how the term "racist" is used so broadly these days. But for some odd reason this redefinition is never admitted to explicitly.

I could criticize this as pan-Africanism reusing a charged, well-known label to its own benefit, but that's hardly the issue. The real issue is how this silent redefinition also (re)normalizes the old meaning of race, encouraging people to see others as innately different and irrevokably separate, and helping to popularize blatantly racist ideologies.

One example of the latter is the "Nation of Islam" (not to be confused with regular Islam). It's basically a scifi alternate history tale, featuring a trillions-year old Earth and an original black race going as far back, responsible for splitting off the Moon from the Earth and inventing the other races. (No wonder they're into Dianetics.)
Jul 07, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Race etc.
by: Anonymous

Dylan, I hope your Early Assimov copy makes a good recovery. And yes, I very much enjoyed reading Rogue Planet. A very inspiring read.đź‘Ť

As to Campbell's racism, intellectuals are uniquely talented at insulating their views from reality. As the veritable (black!) genius Thomas Sowell has said "Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important."

Though to be fair, people thinking in racial categories isn't actually abnormal, it's still very current, not least among progressives and minorities. And perhaps, I fear, it's even natural—we're visual creatures looking for patterns and we have this stubborn tendency of automatically ascribing innate properties according to the various boxes our superficial minds create.

But some racial notions are immistakably ridiculous, like Campbell's apparent expectation of native Americans to volunteer to toil away for the benefit of a colonial industral society. If we're going to talk about "intelligence" and praise it into the high heavens as the be-all end-all, then it has to be said that being a 'freeloader' in a healthy natural environment is by far the "smart" choice to make.

Lovecraft's fear of having mixed ancestry inspired a great deal of fascinating literature. For Campbell on the other hand, well, I doubt his racism had any such contructive influence.
Jul 06, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		The Unfortunate Proofs
by: Dylan Jeninga

I was going to search out the relevant passage from "The Early Asimov", but my copy fell to pieces when I picked it up from the book shelf! It's currently sitting beside me, patched together with still-drying Elmer's glue. Keep it in your thoughts, friends.

Still, there's no shortage of awful things uttered by Mr. Campbell. This one's from his 1963 editorial entitled "Segregation":

"The Caucasian race has produced super-high-geniuses by the dozen in the last five thousand years; the Oriental race has, also. The Negro race has not."

Or this lump of coal from the 1965 editorial called "Breakthrough in Psychology!", wherein he calls for the harsh punishment of protesters:

"Ninety per cent of the Thoughtless Liberals’ excuses for the JD (juvenile delinquent), and for the arrogant defiance of law by many of the Negro "Civil Rights" groups […]"

I could practically transcribe the entirety of "Colonialism", an April 1961 editorial with a self-evident subject matter, but this quote in particular stood out to me:

"The American Indians were pushed out by the white colonists in North America, because it proved impossible to establish co- endeavor. The Indian would not learn from the White . . . the
Indian wanted to be a Noble Savage, which included not working for his living, not grubbing in mines for metals, or slaving in workshops to forge and shape steel, or stewing vile chemical brews to make gunpowder."

Implying that the Native Americans were at fault for their treatment at the hands of the United States was not, I think, common practice at the time, which decidedly puts Campbell in a special class of racist.

Samuel R. Delaney received a rejection from Campbell, who said that he "liked" the novel, but did not like that the main character was black. Delaney describes it in his own words here:

http://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html

(He also rejected a work by Joe Haldeman for starring a woman. Rough all around.)

In his later years, things seem to have only gotten worse, with Mr. Campbell putting stock in what would become the cult of Scientology and claiming to have discovered psionics. As Asimov described him, he became a "shadow" of his former self.

So, what do we make of this? There can't be any doubt that John W. Campbell, a man important to the history of Science Fiction, stood in many ways against the principles of social awareness that have since been present in the genre since its inception. The future, of course, belongs to everyone, and at its best sci-fi can act as a harbinger of that, demonstrating that anybody can be an asteroid miner, robot-engineer, or star-explorer. Would it be best, then, to keep this skeleton in the closet?

I think that would be irresponsible. To ignore Campbell's bigotry would be tantamount to pretending it never existed. We can't undo the shortcomings of our forebears, but we can be open about them, exploring them through dialogue and fiction as a way of ensuring that we continue to work past them. And we can make certain that those writers and fans who might not have had a seat at Campbell's table have a seat today.

The thing he helped create - scifi as we understand it - is not diminished by his flaws as long as we understand them and work to ensure they no longer influence it.

{Z: Hear, hear! Thanks for these data which are an eye-opener for me. The clincher, in my view, is Campbell's rejection of the Delany story. That reveals JWC's innermost attitudes. Some of the rest could be contextualised in non-racist terms - e.g saying the Negro has produced no 'geniuses' (presumably he meant 'known geniuses') could have been accompanied by an ecological explanation as to why civilization arose in temperate climes (though it's hard to fit Egypt into that theory); the bit about the native Americans could be slanted in their favour by the observation that the clash of cultures was a tragic inevitability due to irreconcilably different ways of viewing land "ownership". But the Delany rejection proves JSC to be a real racist. Sad.

We need to keep our historical awareness receptive to the amazing paradoxes of human nature. Also as sf fans we are perhaps better qualified than most, to wonder how the moral imbecilities of our own time will look to future ages. Thomas Jefferson's words about slavery beginning "I tremble for my country..." could be adapted to "I tremble for my species..." (e.g. in the presence of commissioners from the Galactic Federation)... For example, though I am a meat-eater and will always be so, I suspect the far future may morally belong the the vegetarians, who will look back on my alimentary practices with utter horror and disgust. It's only a suspicion - but it is quite easily imaginable. As for our current society's attempt to preserve a philosophic distinction between abortion and infanticide, I regard that as clearly untenable in the long run, though for cultural reasons it will remain a psychological necessity for a long time to come.}
Jul 06, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Campbellian Shortcomings
by: Dylan

It's unfortunate, when figures who are otherwise important let us down so. Asimov, in one of his "Early Asimov" books, describes how he mostly avoided using aliens in his later works because Campbell had the conviction that they must be lesser than humans in some way, particularly white humans. I also recall a video series on the history of scifi, which discussed how eventually Campbell's blatant racism drove some younger authors away from him.

As for Lovecraft's bigotry, I don't have much to add there, others more qualified than I have dissected it. In particular, I hear "The Ballad of Black Tom" by Victor Lavalle expands on the setting of Lovecraft's famously racist "The Horror at Red Hook" while deconstructing and offering a retort to its problems. It's been on my "to read" list for a while now.

{Z: Lovecraft's racism is clear enough, but clarity is absent from more modern discussions of the topic. People bandy the word "racism" around without showing much awareness that it means the doctrine, or belief, that some ethnic groups are genetically superior to others. Thus, mere cultural prejudice is often stigmatised as "racist" by those who don't realize that their condemnation implies the view that cultures are biologically determined - which is itself a racist view; i.e. they are racists themselves without knowing it. That said, I'm quite ready to believe that John Campbell really was a racist - if someone can produce a quote that proves it. It wouldn't be the first time that an estimable man is shown to have a disturbing flaw and (as Dylan puts it) lets us all down. A good friend of mine, now dead, used to horrify me by his anti-Semiticism, though fortunately it was all bombast and no action. How an otherwise kindly chap could go on like that is beyond me - but people are nutty as fruitcakes some of the time.}
Jul 04, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Ol' Donny Stuart
by: Dylan Jeninga

I've been meaning to read that forever, it's supposed to be a gem. The inconsistent qaulity of Campbell's writing is interesting, reminiscent of Lovecraft (the two were also infamously racist, although I don't think that explains it).

It's kinda nice to get confirmation that somebody read Rogue Planet, view counters don't necessarily communicate who read the story and who clicked away. I hope you enjoyed it!

And should you ever decide to pen that story, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

{Z: Campbell was a great imaginer, but, in my opinion, not usually much of a writer, though his faults don't show in the excellent "Who Goes There?" Lovecraft in his final great phase was streets ahead of him. By the way I didn't know about Campbell's racism; I remember he penned a respectful tribute to the assassinated Martin Luther King in one of his editorials.

Rogue Planet is currently top of the fiction charts on site - 23 views in the past four days; second comes The Nebulee with 17. The short-short is a Dylan speciality; it takes a rare talent to create an atmosphere and pack a punch in it all within such a short span. Of course, to those who can do it, it doubtless seems easier than other options - that's human nature.}
Jul 04, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		The Thing, Humour, Dinosaurs
by: Anonymous

Ah, Who Goes There, the great novel which inspired John Carpenter's The Thing. On that note, you may call me A. Stuart. A nice pseudonym.

As for is there more where that came from? Yes, certainly. Though whether I can commit to writing a whole story is another matter I'm afraid.

There's also the matter of aliens coming out of nowhere to rain down bombs onto our Sun, which may or may not have any effect... well, I might end up writing a comedy then.

Say Su-Rakhan paid his visit to their world 65 million years ago, we'd basically have to thank this collision of systems for our existence. What would the aliens' reaction to this be? Would the death of the dinosaurs be a good thing to the aliens because they were servants of Su-Rakhan at the time or would they sympathise with them and be horrified at our gratitude?

So many directions I could take this.
Jul 04, 2018
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Who Goes There?
by: Dylan Jeninga

Greetings, stranger! Did you intend to keep yourself anonymous, or are you one of our regulars who unintentionally left their name out?

I like your brief alien vision of a catastrophic Solar System clash from an alien's perspective. Is there more where that came from?
Jul 03, 2018
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Lex Talionis: A Prelude
by: Anonymous

And with the recent story The Rogue Planet in mind, we can include alien perspectives as well. SS as a remnant, SS as a destination for exploration, SS as a visitor, or an invader!

*Ahem*

"Ah, young Taklo, let me tell you of those days long past, when Su-Rakhan the Destroyer laid waste to our world. His fiery chariot appeared in the sky, its light alone set our world ablaze, but Su-Rakhan was not content, the Great Destroyer sent out his mighty army; the Titans Uptaro and Saturo, the Giants Orano and Neptaro, the magician-brothers Lunoro the Gray and Orto the Blue, and an endless army of fiery angels of death. They came down upon our lands. No god, no mountain, no ocean survived. Finally satisfied, Su-Rakhan flung us into the unending darkness and left us for dead.

But Su-Rakhan made a mistake, for we survived. We tracked the path of his fiery chariot through the heavens for eons untold and now our great masters-of-mind have constructed our very own chariot. A reckoning is coming for Su-Rakhan.

As they say: An igg for an igg, a trak for a trak."

{Z: This preview doubtless concerns a tale in which our familiar Solar System has become blurred into a kind of looming myth, tantalising the dreamers of some future age. The feel of immense time having passed, allowing us to look back at ourselves as legend, is an indescribably potent idea; see the work of Cordwainer Smith and also Hodgson's The Night Land.}
Jul 03, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Murky identification
by: Anonymous

Ah, but who's to say a desert-Earth can't secretly be Mars, or a jungle-Earth can't secretly be Venus? If space colonization takes off, but the worlds grow apart/high-tech society breaks down, will the colonists remember where they came from? Or you could have corporate overlords deciding their subjects are better off not knowing they're on another planet.

And planets could switch orbits (https://sciencing.com/planets-changed-positions-20126.html) and take on very different characters over time. If enough time passes and only limited details are available, who's to say which is which?

{Z: Note, for planets' changed positions see Larry Niven's "A World Out of Time", the climax of which is set three million or so years in the future}
Sep 02, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
by: John Michael Greer

Zendexor, I won't argue -- Smith rarely sat down at his typewriter without producing marvels, but I'd have a hard time naming one that's better.

Another far future Earth I've always found evocative is M. John Harrison's "The Pastel City" -- reminiscent, in a certain sense, of Clark Ashton Smith's Xothique tales or Jack Vance's Dying Earth, though without the explicitly fantastic elements that dominate so much of those author's future-earth work. Harrison's tale has spaceflight as one of many classic SF elements in the backstory, of course. I wasn't a great fan of Harrison's later Viriconium stories when I read them -- though it's been a while, and heaven knows my tastes have broadened somewhat -- but "The Pastel City" itself, to my ear, never hits a false note.

...and it suddenly occurs to me -- I'm not sure why it took this long for the penny to drop -- that Harrison may well have borrowed some features of his Viriconium-era Earth from OSS Mars. The dying world, the red deserts of rust, the mix of ancient high-tech and dark age rough-and-tumble -- it has more than a bit of Barsoomian flavor. I wonder how deliberate that was.

And that sets my mind jumping ahead: there have been other future Earths that have the same character of other OSS worlds. Brian Aldiss' "Hothouse" is distinctly Venusian in its heat and damp and overwhelming greenery, for example. Interplanetary literary influence? Hmm.

{Reply from Zendexor: On your recommendation, I shall probably give "The Pastel City" a try. I remember seeing it in paperback with a great Bruce Pennington cover.

We are certainly living upon an amazing planet and this is some consolation for those of us who dreamed of that fast expansion into Space which was aborted by cutbacks in the space program.

Your thoughts about Earth acquiring characteristics of other worlds inspires me to speculate: if we all were reduced in size by a factor of ten, Earth might then, for us, become the equivalent of Jupiter in effective surface area!}
Sep 01, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Re: Stretching the OSS
by: John Michael Greer

Zendexor, you're quite right about Rod McBan's stop on Mars, of course -- I should have remembered that! And Cordwainer Smith's portrayal of Old Old Earth has always struck me as one of the most astonishing of SF visions, partly because of the riotous exuberance of it, and partly because of the brilliant way he handled the partly-familiar, partly-alien sense of a far future setting. I was literally in the middle of a science fiction trivia competition, fielding a question about Cordwainer Smith, when I realized that "Meeya Meefla" was what umpty-dozen centuries had made of "Miami, Fla."

Hmm. A related question -- would you consider stories set on a future Earth without benefit of space travel to count as OSS stories? (Full disclosure: I've recently started writing a column of reviews of old deindustrial-SF novels for a newly started SF magazine, so books of this sort come readily to mind.) For example, Poul Anderson's "The Winter of the World" is a good rousing tale set on Earth in the midst of a future ice age, tens of thousands of years from now; there's nary a spaceship to be seen, nor any sense that space travel is even so much as a distant memory. Is that OSS or is it something else?

{reply from Zendexor: I never twigged Meeya Meefla, doggone it! - thanks for the enlightenment.

I would class Anderson's "Winter of the World" as OSS-affiliate, maybe. Certainly a discussion of it would not be out of place on this site, provided it were linked via the following chain of association: OSS planets - planet Earth - future of Earth. After all (and this is the crucial test) supposing we had an equivalent tale set entirely on the surface of some other OSS planet, with "nary a spaceship to be seen", would that not be OSS? Put that way, the answer is inescapable. For that matter, Robert Gibson's "Uranian Gleams" is set entirely on Uranus, if you ignore the introductory framing device of the Earthly historians. And Brackett's "The Sword of Rhiannon" is entirely set on Mars, with no interplanetary aspect. So yes, let's include "The Winter of the World", which sheds awesome light upon the future evolution of mankind and of his terrestrial environment, and so is truly "Earth in the round".

As is Cordwainer Smith's "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", which I tend to think of as his mightiest story, and one of the best tales in the sf genre. That's an Earth story through and through, and anyone who wants to talk about it in the pages of this site ought to be allowed to do so.

Of course the sf literature on the future of Earth is so vast that there might in theory be a danger of overbalancing the site, swamping it with a deluge of Earth-related discussions. Well, I say we should accept that risk. The other worlds shouldn't complain - they outnumber Earth sufficiently, after all!}

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