Gregory Benford

Chapter 2: Benford in His Own Words

Chapter2 BENFORD IN HIS OWN WORDS Toward a Craft of Science Fiction Gregory Benford has written much nonfiction commentary over his long career, both on his own fiction and on that of others. He has also written on philosophical, cultural, and political issues that concern science fiction. These writings are essential to understanding Benford’s science fiction, for in their aggregate they define his science fiction as a literature of action. The purpose of his SF is not to describe possible futures or to predict them (this for Benford is nonscientific, for there is no way to verify predictions). Instead, science fiction engages the future, and in doing so it gives mankind an active role in creating that future. As Benford puts it, the science fiction writer should aim to be ahead of the future, rather than simply flow with it. Over the years, Benford has written criticism and commentary in many forms and venues—for the diverse fan audience in fanzines and “sercons” (serious and constructive criticism), in science columns in SF magazines (Ted White’s Amazing Stories), in general interest magazines, and in blogs. He has written scripts for televi- Benford In hIs own words 21 sion series, as well as prefaces and commentary for numerous nonfiction compilations, such as the recent Popular Mechanics series, with titles like The Amazing Weapons that Never Were (2012). But he has also, surprisingly, written extensively in academic journals such as Extrapolation (1969 to the present), Foundation (U.K., 1972 to the present), and Science-Fiction Studies (1973 to the present). He is also a member of the editorial board for Science-Fiction Studies. In all of these venues, Benford has produced a vast amount of commentary , both on science fiction and on the culture of science. What I propose—as means of seeing clear in the myriad texts—is to focus on the series of essays Benford wrote for UC Riverside’s Eaton Conference. I do so for several reasons. Benford was one of the founding contributors to this conference, which began in 1979 with the participation of a number of UC faculty. He remained active as a core contributor to the Eaton Conference, which in its initial format ran from 1979 to 2008. In 1979, science fiction was a field rarely if ever addressed in academic circles. The idea was to generate an ongoing series of forums, each tightly focused on a single important aspect of the genre (for example, science fiction and fantasy, the theme of immortality). The format was to bring together writers, prominent fans, scientific professionals, and editors, along with teachers and academic scholars. Conferences were small, only the best papers were accepted, and everyone listened to everyone else’s paper. Discussion was lively. Graduate students presented ideas before noted writers like Brian Aldiss, Theodore Sturgeon, and Gregory Benford, academics like Harold Bloom and Leslie Fiedler, and scientists like Marvin Minsky. Much as with the French colloquia at Cérisy-la-Salle, polished essays from presented papers, along with recorded commentary, were shaped into published volumes, each focused on its single topic. Over the history of the conference, thirty-two volumes, one per conference, were published in academic presses. The result was a formidable body of criticism that, collectively, served to define the genre. From 1979 to 2009 Benford published a series of essays in these Eaton volumes. Because they were conceived in the demanding and focused context of the Eaton Conference, all of these essays are tightly reasoned, their main points carefully argued. They are classic works in the true sense. Essentially, Benford presented an essay whenever a conference topic coincided with his preoccupations and writer’s concerns of the moment. They are, therefore, a 22 Chapter 2 testament to the growth of the writer’s mind and craft. The abiding concern of Benford, as science fiction writer, is the ways in which scientific methods and ideas might interact with narrative structures to create a genuinely sciencegenerated fiction. As the conference evolved, Benford had a hand in isolating the themes and concepts deemed essential to defining science fiction and thus in setting the conference topics. As he addressed these topics in succession, grounding his observations in novels and stories he was writing at the time, a core of critical thought gradually developed in organic fashion. If these Eaton volumes, taken collectively, generated a poetics of science fiction, Benford’s essays, within them, set forth...