The End of Science Fiction, Part Two


 


Though on the other hand, science fiction could be dying because of this:

In the late Sixties, Frank Herbert, already an acknowledged science fiction virtuoso, created his magnum opus, first serialized in Analog, in the late days of John W. Campbell: a book called Dune . Rather than a lucky choice, Dune was a culmination: Herbert was already a master at creating many-layered stories, where not one line of speculation, but six or seven, were treated at once. Even for Herbert, Dune was a leap: detailed planetary ecology combined with a question--how would human society evolve, denied computers? that he gave at least four different answers to--and he had the insane audacity to layer the story of Oedipus on top of the story of Mohammed. And as was the case with Herbert, created radically new concepts that immediately felt like they'd been around forever. Herbert's prose was as thick and as dense as his conceptualizing, but it also worked viscerally.
The book was an immediate sensation, and Herbert pursued the themes in sequels that took startling right turns and reverses--and became one of the most hotly pursued movie properties in history. (An aside: if you thought that David Lynch's film was a piece of monstrous butchery, be aware that a 3-hour version of the film exists and has been broadcast, and IMHO answers just about all the objections raised by the theatrical release.)

Fast forward to the 21st Century, and Frank's been in his grave for a while. Under the administration of the estate, Herbert's son and a partner have been writing prequels to the Dune series--and each more formulaic and fatuous than the last. In the place of Frank's intricate web of Bene Gesserit, Mentat, Spacing Guild, Bene Tleilaxu, Fremen, Pahdishah Emperor and major houses, you have the eeeevil computer Omnius, bent on enslaving mankind!

Don't ask me why, having read the previous volumes, I picked up Dune: the Machine Crusade . It was one of those inadvertent book club purchases--but if it sits there, sooner or later my hands find its spine and I begin to read.

The book begins with a long series of acknowledgments, which are elaborate even as book acknowledgments go. A whole series of editors and marketers and representatives of the estate and so on.

And by page 12, I am reading this:
"We have alreeady lost Ellram, Peridot Colony, Bellos and more.But at IV Anbus, the Army of the Jihad draws a line in space!"

Draws a line in space.

I shut the book.

Dozens of editors, proofreaders and reviewers, and nobody--nobody--points out how stupid that sounds?
How that maladapted metaphor clanks so sourly that it calls into question not only the stupidity of treating war in space like it's World War Two in Mylar suits, but the authors' basic ability to write?

Nobody?

I worked in comics. I know the lure of the exploitation of an existing property as opposed to coming up with new stuff. Even though the actual toilers in the vineyard would always opt for the latter, from the corporate chair there's no contest. Intellectual property is the gift that keeps on giving.

But what I don't understand is a big project overadministered in spades, and everybody reads that line without wincing. Nobody cares that it's a metaphor that makes no sense, that paints a ridiculous picture: a groaner, a howler. They all read it and saw nothing wrong.

So what we have is not just the cynical exploitation of an artist's legacy by those who follow after. Nothing new there. What induces despair is that this is an exploitation perpetrated on literates by illiterates.

Welcome to America, the dead voice says; welcome to the 21st century--to the Kali Yuga. Where we can't even get crap right.

Posted: Sunday - June 10, 2007 at 02:06 AM        

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