At the Frontiers of Criticism

Some years ago I attended a graduate seminar on H. G. Wells. The set reading was The War of the Worlds (1898). Before the session began I turned to a colleague and asked him what he thought of the book. ‘Well’, he said with a shrug, ‘it’s science fiction, I mean, what can you say?’ The rest of the seminar continued in this fashion. Of course, Wells’s literary alacrity was recognised, his depiction of England was praised, and The War of the Worlds was duly celebrated as one of the all-time great bicycle novels. But science fiction? What was there to say? Nothing, in fact. The seminar took it as its unspoken modus operandi effectively to dissolve notions of genre. It seemed that for Wells to be recognised as a literary practitioner, his work must be seen to exceed the parameters of science fiction.

Anyone familiar with the genre and its history will be aware of this scenario. Indeed, anecdotes of this type have become almost a staple of science fiction criticism. As Sherryl Vint demonstrates in Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed, the genre emerged out of and was formalised by the activity of ‘multiple communities of practice’ (p. 93):

Unique among popular genres, [science fiction] is characterized by a highly interactive relationship among its authors, readers, and fans, particularly in the early days of the pulp magazines when fiction labelled sf was largely read by only a small group of enthusiasts. The pulp magazines almost immediately began to publish letters columns, and [Hugo] Gernsback actively sought feedback from his readers about future publications …

(p. 7)

This combination of an ostensibly open discussion playing out within the boundaries of a specialised editorial remit helped to fortify a thematic and stylistic consensus. In turn, this developed into the predominant critical oscillation surrounding the genre’s reception. On one side there is the defensive bunker philosophy which seeks to promote science fiction as ‘the literature of ideas’. On another there is the text-based approach that privileges science fiction as ‘the literature of cognitive estrangement’ (p. 38). The former describes a continuum of editorial practice and reader consumption leading from the dictates of John W. Campbell to the proliferation of fan-authored ‘slash’ fiction.¹ The latter outlines the academic movement towards science fiction studies pioneered by Darko Suvin between 1973 and 1979. Suvin positioned the likes of Ursula Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, and Philip K. Dick as writers who moved away from the generic trappings of ‘conventional’ science fiction. This literary activity was a matter of writerly innovation that Suvin offered as a riposte to the ‘literature of ideas’: works of techno-fantasy that prioritised imaginative innovation over linguistic productivity. Although this dialogue has remained fluid, Vint suggests that it is a polarity that has remained at the centre of science fiction as both form and practice. Engagement with the ‘megatext’ that is science fiction asks readers, writers, and critics either to work to maintain a cultural and semiotic heritage or to elevate certain ‘deviant’ texts beyond its boundaries.

In Science Fiction, Vint’s positive evaluation of the form marshals a wide range of convincing evidence. This critical impetus and confident mapping also coincide with something of a cultural history of its reception. As a result, the book clearly defends science fiction while at the same time managing to avoid the polarisation that underpins either short-sighted celebrations of the genre or negative assessments of its most conventional examples. In this respect, the ‘perplexity’ that the book addresses is threefold. It deals with questions of evaluation, classification, and interpretation. Vint attempts to define what science fiction is, what constitutes its primary subject matter, and also makes a case for why it should be seen as culturally significant.

In tying these questions together, Vint shadows Suvin by interrogating the ‘literature of ideas’ trope and unpacking the manner in which the label has come to problematise the attempt at a linguistically focused...