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Once upon a not so very long time ago, in conversation with a friend, the opinion was expressed that much of the SF written today was nowhere near as good as the SF of the so-called “golden age”, whenever that was. We had much fun with this topic. Names were mentioned. Larry Niven was scorned, James P. Hogan was castigated (you have to do them young, before they start spraying), Arthur C. Clarke’s latest novel was torn to shreds. Now this was enjoyable, and it passed an hour or two, but essentially it was a meaningless exercise because the basic premise was false. I don’t really think that the standard has dropped (which is a good thing). On the other hand, I don’t think it has risen either, and that most certainly is not a good thing. The only thing that has changed over the years is me. My built in shit detector (as Hemingway called it) has developed a much more sensitive nose. And the smell is everywhere. It always was. I just didn’t notice before.
Last time I told you how The Day of the Triffids hooked me on SF. I told you how my sense of wonder turned on and tingled under the spell of this wonderful book. And it did. It was all true. What I didn’t tell you, however, was that about six months ago, smitten with a surge of nostalgia, I reread the book for the first time in mumble mumble years. I found it dull and pedestrian. The magic was gone. My first thought was that someone had removed all the good bits while I wasn’t looking. I checked the page numbers and the binding. The pages were all there; no gaps in the numbering sequence. The binding showed no signs of disturbance. I was forced to conclude that the book was whole and entire. What had gone wrong?
The trouble, it seems to me, is that in the intervening period I have read too many SF books, and my sense of wonder has become overloaded. Like a heroin addict, I need stronger and stronger doses to produce the same effect. And so nowadays it takes something extra special to turn me on. Where once I would thrill to the tribulations of Gonad the Barbarian as he fought the evil demons, nowadays he only induces an urgent desire to take up book burning as a hobby. In short, I have grown older and (I hope) wiser; more discriminating, and less inclined to put up with trash. The trash was always there, just as it is today, and it still serves a useful purpose. It is a good introduction to the really mind-expanding possibilities that SF can (and sometimes does) offer. The nursery slopes, if you like. SF always was mostly rubbish, and it still is.
Eventually, however, we all have to come out of the nursery and face up to the real world. Unfortunately, far too few SF fans ever make it that far. Most of them are still in there, sucking their dummies, and grooving on mind boggling banalities, predigested pap. It’s safe and warm and familiar in there, and they don’t have to put too much strain on whatever it is that they use for minds. (The last time I said this, I got what I think was a vituperative letter from a Blake’s 7 fan, but I can’t be sure because he hadn’t sharpened his crayon and it was quite impossible to read.)
But to return to my original point—almost the only difference I can see between the SF now and the SF of (say) twenty years ago is that now there is a whole lot more of it. These days, it seems, the demand is such that almost anything of an SF or fantasy orientation can get itself published. Obviously the demand is there, and equally obviously it is growing. But it is still written with one eye closed and one hand tied behind the back. Twenty years ago it was Volsted Gridban and Vargo Statten, and today it is E. C. Tubb. All he’s done is use his proper name this time. (Remind me one day to tell you the story of Badger Books and R. L. Fanthorpe, the man with ten million pseudonyms.) Other changes are equally cosmetic and unimportant (there’s a lot more sex nowadays). The aim has not changed at all. The stories are still pointed firmly at the lowest common denominator, the mass mind, and I don’t think that will ever change. It’s a commercial world, after all, and as long as success is measured in terms of money, popular art will continue to be mediocre.
And because of all that, in twenty years time, I expect to read an article in Warp bemoaning the fact that the contemporary SF scene is nowhere near as exciting and interesting as it was back in the good old days of the 1980s. This article will be written by one of you trekkies out there (but you’ll be embarrassed that you used to be a trekkie, and you won’t admit it). There is too much rubbish being published, you will say. And you will be right, but for all the wrong reasons. After all, it was the rubbish that first got you interested, wasn’t it? What a shame that you had to grow up.
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