this world
Those of us who follow the fantastic genres have been on the lookout for the next literary movement ever since the cyberpunks traded in their mirrorshades for bifocals. Several candidates have presented themselves over the years. Slipstream <scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw12963.html>, for example. Or The New Weird <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Weird>. But are these movements in the strict sense of the word, or are they creatures of intense critical discourse, or perhaps of savvy marketeers? What are we to make of the fact that some writers identified as exemplars of these movements deny that they share the same agenda as their alleged comrades?
It takes two things to launch a movement, it says here: charismatic leadership and an aesthetic that offers an alternative to the literary status quo. No, no, wait a minute, make that three things: a movement also needs a catchy name. And it may well be that its name has kept MundaneSF <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction> from enlisting more readers and writers. I’m certainly no expert at naming movements, but mundane does not seem to be the most auspicious label to give a group of ambitious writers who have joined in common cause. My dictionary defines mundane as “1. ordinary, commonplace, not unusual, and often boring. 2. of this world, relating to matters of this world.” Clearly it is the second meaning that pertains, but the movement marches onto the scene with that first meaning in tow.
And while MundaneSF has challenged the scientific rigor and intellectual honesty of the genre, it has also been criticized as misunderstanding the nature of modern science fiction and rejecting many of its marvelous pleasures.
So what is the alternative that this movement offers? And who are its charismatic leaders?
privileging the likely
Once upon a time there was an actual Mundane Manifesto on the web. It has long since disappeared, but you can always Google it to see if it has popped back up again. However, it’s entirely possible that it never will. Its author, Geoff Ryman <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Ryman>, has written, “The first Mundane Manifesto had a mocking tone (self-mockery as well) and that seems to have got up some people’s noses. I came up with the idea of calling it Mundane and the basic concept of privileging the likely over the unlikely, but it’s gone through many revisions since as smarter people than me have gone through what the movement might mean or do. We need a new manifesto urgently.”
While we’re waiting for someone to issue the Mundane Manifesto 2.0, we’ll have to make do with the Mundane-SF blog <mundane-sf.blogspot.com>. Several writers contribute to it, some of whom prefer to remain anonymous, some of whom would appear to have been present at the birth of MundaneSF at the Clarion Writers Workshop <clarion.ucsd.edu> in 2002. Like any blog, it presents as a miscellany of comment and linkage, along with occasional forays into mundanespotting on bookshelves and magazine’s tables of contents and announcements of markets that are kindly disposed toward the movement. However, here is a blog worth checking regularly to get the latest from the MundaneSF brain trust. The proprietors warn the casual surfer: “We will transform the way you think about SF” and more often than not, they do.
For example, it was while perusing the Mundane-SF blog that I got sidetracked by a link for Long Bets <longbets.org> a website that features “a public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake.” While not exactly science fictional, it presents a unique forum for the kind of futurist speculations central to MundaneSF. An expert makes a prediction about some issue important to society. If someone disagrees, they make a bet against the prediction. On the bet page, the bettors submit their arguments—and back them up with a sum of money to go to the designated charity of the winner. For example, of particular interest to the Mundanes and science fiction fans in general is Bet 1: “By 2029 no computer—or ‘machine intelligence’—will have passed the Turing Test.” Agreeing is Mitch Kapor <kapor.com>; Ray Kurzweil <kurzweilai.net> disagrees. The stakes: twenty thousand dollars. Book lovers will want to consider the back and forth on Bet 6 “By 2010, more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks.” Two thousand dollars is at stake as Jason Epstein <jasonepstein.cgpublisher.com> and Vint Cerf <ibiblio.org/pioneers/cerf.html> square off. This is a fascinating site!
Meanwhile, back to the movement. The first I ever heard of MundaneSF was in 2004. I had been asked to teach Clarion West <clarionwest.org> in Seattle with my friend John Kessel <www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/index2.html> and our week at the workshop immediately followed Geoff’s. John and Geoff and I went out to dinner on the changeover day with the Clarion West administrator, Leslie Howle, to catch up on happenings around the critique table. Geoff had been talking with the students about mundane science fiction during his week and shared a précis of the discussion with us. I admit that I was perplexed at first by his thinking: how was MundaneSF all that different from what had up until then been called hard science fiction?
Of all of those associated with MundaneSF, Geoff is by far the best known—and the most charismatic. He has spoken and written eloquently about the movement’s goals in any number of online venues: Infinity Plus < infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgr.htm>, Locus <locusmag.com/2006/Issues/01Ryman.html> and the Chronicles Network <chronicles-network.com/forum/11294-geoff-ryman-interview-in-four-parts.html>. Here’s some of what he has had to say:
“We felt as if SF had accumulated so many improbable ideas and relied on them so regularly, that it had disconnected from reality. The futures it was portraying were so unlikely as to be irrelevant, if not actually harmful. Julian Todd, a British SF writer, pointed out the moral problems as well. If we keep telling ourselves that faster-than-light travel will whisk us to scores of new Earths, then we’d feel better about burning through this one.” Speech at BORÉAL 2007 SF convention.
“And there’s the argument which gradually won me over: apart from anything else, if you’re writing science fiction you want to be privileging the more likely over the least likely, especially if the least likely happens to coincide with all your hopes, dreams, and desires. If it’s more likely and you’re not looking at it because it seems less attractive, that’s probably where you should go. That’s where you’ll find the new material, the difficult material.” Locus 2006
I may be naïve, but it seems to me that any rational consumer of science fiction must acknowledge that Geoff is scoring points here. (Note: although I ultimately accept Geoff’s interpretation of the subtext of FTL, that we can burn through this planet on our way to colonizing New Asimov and Heinlein Five, I do have to stretch to get to acceptance.) Faithful readers of this column will recall that I wrote of the near insurmountable difficulties in creating starships <archive.org/details/Free_Reads_21_On_The_Net_FTL> or time machines <asimovs.com/_issue_0407/onthenet2.shtml>. So how can the new—or old—space opera be “science” fiction? How much of science fiction’s cherished canon is . . . well . . . fantasy?
nots
This question has sparked a fierce debate. When the advocates of MundaneSF call science fiction to account, they assert that many of our most cherished tropes must be reassigned to our less realistic sister genre. Which tropes? Well, consider that the movement has captured one of SF’s most prestigious showcases, the British magazine Interzone <ttapress.com/category/interzone> for a special MundaneSF issue <freesteel.co.uk/cgi-bin/mundane.py> and has issued a checklist of prohibited topics. Know that the table of contents will not contain FTL, psi, nanobots, aliens, computer consciousness, profitable space travel, immortality, mind uploading, teleportation, or time travel.
Here are the guest editors setting out their agenda in no uncertain terms: “For one issue only, we are going to set aside all the noise and electric guitars and anything-goes-as-usual mentality associated with contemporary Science Fiction, and do it properly.”
Hmm.
As you sift through the smoking ruins of your library, it may be time to reconsider the definition of science fiction.
properly
What the MundaneSF movement is asking in their polemical way is important: what is proper to science fiction? Are we to be futurists <wfs.org> who wrap our predictions in plot, character, and setting? How much may we deviate from what scientists and technologists tell us is possible and what is the price we pay for straying too far into the precincts of pure imagination?
The criticism of MundaneSF has two chief threads: it is unnecessary and it is wrong-headed. A blog rant <ianmcdonald.livejournal.com/2378.html>
of the brilliant Ian McDonald <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_McDonald_(author)> covers the ground nicely. “But I wrote all this (MundaneSF-eligible masterwork like The River of Gods <trashotron.com/agony/columns/2004/08-23-04.htm>) without knowing of the Mundane Manifesto, let alone that such a movement existed, and certainly without having read a single word of the dogme. If I had, it would have been much worse a book for it. For at one level you can call such a dogme creative constraint. At another it’s box ticking. Ignorance, in my case, was bliss. And I wish I was ignorant again, because I don’t want those boxes there, to either have to tick or ignore.” Later he writes, “It’s a poor manifesto that would venerate Verne (tech-speculation) but consigns much of H.G. Wells’ core texts to the ‘bonfire of stupidities’ (interplanetary war, aliens, time-travel . . .). To me, one of the strengths of SF is that it is an allegorical literature: parables and myths of our age.”
exit
The question of exactly who are the MundaneSF writers is a vexing one. Those who identify themselves as such have been circumspect when naming the names of others who may not share their ideological zeal—or even be aware that a mundane ideology has been promulgated. Instead they point to texts that pass their tests without necessarily dragooning the writers into their movement. Indeed, even Geoff Ryman has committed literary sins against the movement’s agenda.
Like Ian McDonald—indeed, like most science fiction writers—I have written some stories that fit the MundaneSF prescription and some that do not. I find myself in sympathy with their arguments when I recall my intentions as I wrote those particular stories that pass their test. It is difficult to write about futures that could actually come to pass, and not only are most of the tropes they decry unlikely, but some are in dire need of an aesthetic makeover. And yet, since so many of my best known—and favorite—stories are clearly not Mundane, I can’t in conscience declare myself for the movement.
But I am listening to what they say.
