Writing Beyond the Sky

by Kevin Ahearn and Don Webb

Kevin Ahearn has kindly given us permission to share a letter he wrote to Science Fiction Weekly.

(A letter I wrote to SFW some time ago.)

When science fiction wins the Nobel Prize, in the spirit of William Faulkner, I'd like to think the author would make this speech ...

"I decline to accept the end of science fiction. It is easy enough to say that science fiction is immortal simply because it will endure; that when the last Star Wars book had been churned out and the final Star Trek novel printed and every one of the endless sci-fi series have at long last run their course, that even then there will be one more Hollywood novelization to publish, one last TV series to spin off into print.

"I refuse to accept this. I believe that science fiction will not merely endure, it will prevail. Science fiction is immortal not because it cashes in on trends or exploits the characters and concepts of television and the movies, but because it has a purpose and a power capable of taking us not just 'far, far away' or 'where no one has gone before,' but deeper and further to divine the unique adventure that is the human experience.

"It is the science fiction writer's duty to tell us who we are and where and how far we can go and whom we can become. It is the science fiction writer's privilege to open our minds and ignite our imagination, to lead, at the forefront of literature, to show us a future filled with courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice or to warn us of the horror and pain and waste and terror and upheaval awaiting should we dare to ignore it.

"Science fiction need not merely be the record or the screenplay or the novelization of humanity. It can be the brightest light probing the impenetrable mysteries ahead, an undimmable beacon burning into the darkest depths of the unknown, the bravest vision of ourselves in the universe, the strongest pillar of all to help us endure and prevail."

Kevin Ahearn

Thank you for your letter, Kevin, it’s quite inspirational. If I may parallel your thoughts on literature, I would add that the very name “science fiction” implies both a danger and an opportunity.

The danger is a kind of split personality. That is, the term “science fiction” sometimes implies that the genre is ambiguous in nature and that its purpose is confused. Whence the ambiguity? It’s the old dualism: the external versus the internal, logic versus emotion, matter versus spirit.

Grammar itself embodies that ambiguity: in the term “science fiction” is “science” a noun complement modifying “fiction”? Or does the term imply “science and fiction”?

That’s not hair-splitting; it’s a hot topic: the debate constantly recurs on the Analog forum. Indeed, the very name of the magazine — Analog Science Fiction and Fact (emphases mine) — enshrines the genre’s “split personality.” What does it lead to?

Fiction writer: “I think this time-travel story has something important to say...”
Science reader: “But it doesn’t explain how time travel works, and it doesn’t even show us a time machine.”
Fiction writer: “Time travel is a literary device, not a mechanical one.”
Science reader: “Oh. Well, I’m disappointed. I don’t consider that science fiction.”

That conversation is as pointless a factional squabble as can be. Why so? The argument is over things of two different orders. We have what amounts to an argument between a chef and a kitchen-appliance salesman.

Back to basics, the grammar, again: if “science” modifies — and is therefore subordinate to — “fiction,” then the ambiguity vanishes. And that opens up opportunities: the chef (the fiction writer) can cook up the dishes he wants using the kitchen appliances available (science).

And that’s where Kevin comes in. Kevin insists that lofty goals are the preserve of science fiction as well as “mainstream” literature. Agreed: science fiction is, like all the rest, either trivial or ultimately serious. And by “all the rest” I do mean “all.” Here’s an example intended to shock you: one of the most influential and serious publications of the last half-century has been a comic book, Mad Magazine. Influential? It brought a kind of surrealism to popular culture. Serious? The magazine is a study in morality; someone once compared the editors to “a bunch of rabbis.” Now that’s serious.

At worst, the term “science fiction” pits the external against the internal. At best, it combines them. Ray Bradbury never lost sight of the fact. Where is the Mars of his Martian Chronicles? On Mars? He never thought so. On Earth? No, it’s in the mind. The Martian Chronicles are extended parables set on an imaginary world. And we can thank Ray Bradbury’s vision for helping bring science fiction into the “mainstream” in the time span of the last generation.

At its best, culture tends to incorporate the margins. As recently as 250 years ago, anyone who wrote with utmost seriousness and wished to reach the widest audience wrote in Latin. It was practical: the Quartier Latin owes its name to the international language of students who came to the Sorbonne from all over Europe. And, at the time, the most serious genre was verse, because it had great models in Roman literature...

Then prose gradually came into style. And, some 300 years ago, French became the first vernacular international language. Now it’s English. What will be the language of the Solar System 200 years from now? English? Maybe, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. Chinese? Japanese? German? Maybe even French? Who knows? Let’s not forget that the Russians were there first.

The point is that you can fly or think “beyond the sky” in any language, any genre and any style provided — as Kevin says very forcefully — you keep your priorities straight. The Tower of Babel shows the peril in separating science from human feelings and purpose. The “confusion of tongues” at Babel brings us back to basics: the Tower reaches Heaven not by physical height but by spiritual breadth, by including all humanity; that’s the lesson of Pentecost. And the lesson for today’s writers? Science is part of the container; the story is the contents.