Maybe The Fun Is Gone From Science Fiction

Sam Riddleburger and I have been having a private exchange regarding The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. Sam wrote me to say he recalled liking the book when he was a kid. He also said,

"I just wanted to point out that the great Stanislaw Lem, who wrote an extremely detailed "realistic" account of space travel in "Fiasco," frequently used the "jump out of a rocket and meet an alien" technique for other books. And they're a lot more fun than Fiasco." (Links added by me.)

Sam's mention of fun got me thinking. Last year while I was on the Cybils scifi/fantasy panel, we didn't get a lot of science fiction books. Maybe only one. I've also read that true science fiction isn't very popular with kids these days. Maybe now that we are so science literate (I'm sure scientists would say we're not) that even young children have some basic knowledge of the reality of conditions in space, computers, gene therapy, artificial intelligence, and God knows what all, science fiction no longer has enough fun to attract young readers.

Or certainly it can't have much magic when it's loaded down with reality. Now, I know a lot of science fiction readers like and want reality. But I'm guessing most of those readers are over the age ten. It may be a lot harder for today's eight-year-olds to imagine themselves loaded for bear with space travel equipment than it was for eight-year-olds of old to imagine themselves dropping down onto the moon with nothing more than a couple of sandwiches to hold them over until tea.

I'm not saying that that is the case. I'm just raising it as a possibility.

By the way, Stanislaw Lem also wrote Solaris, which, when I saw it as a movie, I did not understand at all. Perhaps I'll try again now.

When Do Real People Become Stereotypes?

And, if real people have become stereotypes, should we stop writing about them?

I've been thinking about these questions for a while. It's not unheard of for me to read a book, enjoy it, think it's well done, believe that the characters are drawn from life, but still find them to be stereotypes.

A case in point: Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams. Keep in mind, please, that this is a very good book. But as I was reading it, I was noticing the realtor mom, the dad who drives a car he can't afford and pushes his son in sports, the teen athlete who hates his sport and is pushed into it by his father, and the crotchety old grandfather. Though these characters were all well done in this particular case, we have seen them all before, right?

Yeah. I've seen them in books, but I've also seen them here in town or in neighboring towns. The parents who push their kids in sports are real. They're not just stereotypical characters. They exist. I could tell you stories, but I won't because you probably already know them. And I would be afraid I'd be dealing in a stereotype, anyway. The crotchety old farmer who won't sell his land to developers is a staple on TV, but I hear stories about them around here all the time. The stereotypical mom realtors (We went on vacation with one of those a few years ago; she directed us to a nice condo in Myrtle Beach.) are all waiting for the old coots to die so that their property will become available for age-restricted communities because, try as they might, those cranks can't take their land with them.

So, what I'm wondering is, what does it all mean? What are writers to do when the reality of their lives has already been written about so much that the people they know have become stereotypes? Not everyone will be able to pull off dealing with this problem as well as Abrahams does in Down the Rabbit Hole. You can probably make an argument that it's not as pressing an issue for children's and YA writers because everything is new to those readers. I think that's legitimate up to a point, but it just puts the problem off. I think it's always going to be there, because, sad to say, aren't we all stereotypes?

Oh, darn. I think I might have read about an exercise to rid your writing of stereotypes, but I've forgotten it. I can't begin to guess where I found it, either.

I Guess Guys Need This Kind Of Thing Periodically

I've been wondering how The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden differs from The American Boy's Handy Book by D. C. Beard.

They have similar titles and similar retro covers. They both include information on tying knots. The American Boy's Handy Book was all over the place in the 1980s. The Dangerous Book for Boys is all over the place now.

Well, it turns out that The American Boy's Handy Book was originally published back in 1882. The paperback released in 1983 was a centennial edition. Though in the 1980s it was a nostalgia piece (The Washington Post said it evoked "the kind of boyhood that nearly every American man would like to have had himself, and hope that his son (or daughter) might still enjoy"), back in its day it was presumably the real deal. Its author, Daniel Carter Beard, a civil engineer, surveyor, and artist, was also the first National Commissioner of the Boy Scouts. A mountain in Alaska was named for him.

The Dangerous Book for Boys started out in the United Kingdom where, presumably, they don't have The American Boy's Handy Book. According to an interview at Amazon with one of the authors, it was written in response to our overprotective culture that, the author believed, "isn't doing our sons any favors." The Dangerous Book is a contemporary work and covers things Beard wouldn't have known about back in the 1880s, such as paper airplanes and girls.

I think Beard would have appreciated the Igguldens' concern about our culture. In his preface, he says "Let boys make their own kites and bows and arrows" suggesting he thought that in his own time boys were, if not overprotected, at least being given too much in the way of material things that they could just as well make for themselves. (The italics in that quotation were his, by the way.)

I do think, though, that if you're really looking for dangerous things to do with your boys, you might want to hunt up the old The American Boy's Handy Book. In addition to explaining how to make a Buckeye Bow, Beard covers home-made "hunting apparatus," which sounds a little rougher and tougher than skimming stones, one of the topics in The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Yes, folks, there was a The American Girl's Handy Book. I haven't found anything on A Dangerous Book for Girls, yet.