Science Fiction Studies

# 17 = Volume 6, Part 1 = March 1979

ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

Marc Angenot

The Absent Paradigm: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Science Fiction

Abstract.--The fact that an SF narrative lacks empirical referents does not necessarily distinguish it from narratives called "realistic." What characterizes SF semiotically is that it is a discourse based on an understandable syntagmatic structure built, at least in part, through illusory absent paradigms--i.e., neologisms, exolinguistics, etc.--where the reader is forced to invent, ex nihilo, contextual meaning. SF is thus conjectural and "utopian" (no-place) in two significant ways: in the estranged yet intelligible universe it offers to the reader, and in the mode of textual decipherment the reader uses to ultimately conceptualize such a universe. Following a brief explanation of the fundamentals of Saussurean linguistic theory, this essay attempts to provide the groundwork for a semiotic definition of SF and to demonstrate how it differs from "realistic" discourse. Such an investigation is indispensable for an understanding of the genre as a whole and for any consideration of SF relative to its social context.

[A response by Andrzej Zgorzelski, and Marc Angenot's reply, appears in SFS 21 (July 1980).]

Charles Elkins

Science Fiction versus Futurology: Dramatic versus Rational Models

Abstract.--It is now common practice for some thinkers, ranging from academics engaged in philosophical speculation about the nature of the future to professional futurologists, to argue that SF is a valuable adjunct to future studies. However, my thesis is that there are genuine problems in this relationship. These stem in part from the nature of "futurology," especially in its reliance on quantitative methodologies; but more significantly they stem from treating SF as functionally analogous to other futurological activities and valuing it accordingly. Specifically, difficulties arise when, in regard to the structure and function of models, the logical models (i.e., propositions), which futurologists employ in the present to "think about" change and organize "knowledge" for predicting future events, are not differentiated (as they must be) from the dramatic models (i.e., presentations) of SF which give form to the future and create attitudes for readers to use in organizing "action" in the present.

Futurology claims to use the scientific method for structuring knowledge about present and future scenes in which men and women will act. The futurist, insofar as he adopts the means and ends of science, formulates theories about the future which refer to and explain relationships known, in a currently existing world. The writer, insofar as he adopts the ends and means of art, neither formulates or explains. He creates. His dramatic, symbolic structures of SF (as of all fiction) are analogous not to statements hypothesizing and generalizing about phenomena, but to the phenomena themselves which the writer and audience experience. SF makes no propositions about the future in which its events are situated; it is a symbolic construct of a future. Furthermore, in terms of its social function, SF is capable not only of comprehending "future studies" but also of providing us with roles and scenes which integrate action in the present to embrace or escape a specific future.

[A response by Rafail Nudelman appears in SFS 18 (July 1979).]

Peter Fitting

The Modern Anglo-American SF Novel: Utopian Longing and Capitalist Cooptation

Abstract.--The aim of this article is to explore the interplay between ideology and utopian longing in the modern SF novel. Western SF is, on the one hand, a form of ideological production, one of the ways in which capitalism speaks itself and determines our ways of perceiving reality, one of the ways through which the real problems and conflicts present in society are tranSFormed into false problems and imaginary resolutions. On the other hand, SF is also an important contemporary manifestation of what Ernst Bloch, for instance, has referred to as "utopian longing," humanity's continued striving for an "adequate future"--a tradition which took on new force and direction in the bourgeois world following the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which were attended by the belief in the possibility of cognitive progress. Yet this blending of utopian hopes and fears with the popularizations of the social and natural sciences was followed, in the mid-19th century, by a sense of failure and gloom. Nonetheless, 20th-century SF is crucially determined by the combination of these anticipations of liberation with the possibilities of science and technology; SF can be seen as a contemporary focal point for the struggle between, on the one hand, the artistic manifestation of the desire for an alternative, emancipated world "in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" and, on the other, capitalism's ability to preempt and co-opt each new eruption of this emancipatory desire. This is the reason why science has been more and more frequently turned against the utopian impulse, and why the positivist tradition has become, in present-day capitalism, a major repressive force. SF authors discussed within this theoretical context include Asimov, Bradbury, Blish, Clarke, Miller, Simak, Wyndham, Sturgeon, Heinlein, Ballard, Ellison, Herbert, Brunner, Dick, Delany, and Le Guin.

Horst Heidtmann

A Survey of Science Fiction in the German Democratic Republic

Abstract.--Since 1945, approximately 350 new SF titles have been published in the German Democratic Republic, 160 of these by German authors. This essay provides an overview of the four distinct periods of SF in post-war East Germany: the GDR foundation period of 1945-50 (where SF was viewed as bourgeois escape literature, but some translated Soviet SF nevertheless existed); the Cold War period of 1950-61 (where Stalinism and bureaucracy were the rule, but there were beginnings of local SF production); the period of German consolidation, 1961-71 (where SF finally became an established genre and, after 1969, the first American SF works are available in translation); and the period of liberalization after 1971 (where there has been a significant increase in both the quantity and quality of SF). Many East German SF authors, works, and themes are discussed from these four historical periods.

David J. Lake

The White Sphinx and the Whitened Lemur: Images of Death in The Time Machine

Abstract.--This essay examines the symbolism of Wells's use of imagery in The Time Machine--in particular the author's systematic use of color schemes--as a means to elicit powerful reader reactions.

Patrick Parrinder

The Alien Encounter: Or, Ms. Brown and Mrs. Le Guin

Abstract.--This essay discusses the theme of "alien encounters" (and the textual strategies used to create such fictional "defamiliarization") across a broad range of SF narratives: Cyrano, Swift, Voltaire, Clarke's Childhood's End, Blish's A Case of Conscience, Asimov's "Victory Unintentional," Leinster's "First Contact," Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" and "Valley of Dreams," Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, Lem's Solaris, and Aldiss's The Dark Light Years, among others. The title refers to two critical essays on the importance of character-creation by Virginia Woolf ("Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown" [1924]) and more recently by Ursula K Le Guin ("Science Fiction and Mrs Brown" [1976]).

SF, above all when it is concerned with exploring alien modes of being, differs from other kinds of fiction in its basic premise, which is that of approaching "man" through his contacts with the new and unknown. Yet a consideration of alien encounters involves the modification, rather than the wholesale abandonment, of the idea of rounded characterization championed by Virginia Woolf and lately by Ursula Le Guin. What is limiting about their declarations of loyalty to Mrs Brown is not the stress on characterization as such, but their belief that what is characterized most fully must always be the autonomous human beings of liberal individualism. In contrast, the priority of the SF writer should be developing the character of the alien in the fiction, not the human protagonists therein.

Antoni Smuszkiewicz

Space and Time in Contemporary Polish Science Fiction

Abstract.--This article proposes several typological categories of how "space and time" are characterized in different types of SF narratives: closed near vs. closed far, open near vs. open far, present/near future/distant future either explicitly or not explicitly described, etc. There is an evident tendency among contemporary Polish SF authors to place fictitious events in remote, closed spaces rather than in nearby, open spaces as their predecessors had done. Further, in its temporal dimension, modern Polish SF tends to prefer distant futures not explicitly described as its preferred fictional time-frame rather than near futures explicitly described. These narratological attributes closely parallel the evolution of SF in Poland since 1945: the progressive replacement of the traditional Verne-like didactic and popularizing SF narrative recipe (combining known scientific fact with literary fiction) with one which predominantly features remote regions of the cosmos and equally remote futures (focusing more on issues of modern humanity's confrontation with the unknown).

Darko Suvin

The State of the Art in Science Fiction Theory: Determining and Delimiting the Genre

Abstract.--This essay presents an overview of 38 works of SF criticism (mostly from the 1960s and 70s) that focus, in full or in part, on the definition of SF as a literary genre. They are discussed in the context of the need to develop a more systematic and narratologically-based theory for defining and delimiting SF in order to differentiate it, for example, from works of fantasy, extraordinary voyages, pastorals, supernatural fiction, mythical allegory, etc. The theory of cognitive estrangement--the presence in the narrative of a novum--is offered as a theoretical alternative to critical approaches which often attempt to define and classify SF in terms of its general subject matter, its motifs, its fictional time-frame, or its supposed plausibility. The essay concludes by saying that much progress has been made (especially in the last 15 years) in elucidating the purposes, limits, and devices of the SF genre, but that considerable work remains to be done.

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