New Wave SF

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« on: May 14, 2013, 10:00:55 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
Along with writers like Bakker and Miéville, I'm a huge fan of New Wave SF; so I thought I'd make a place where other people can suggest titles/authors, ask for recommendations, and just share their love of this awesome turn in science fiction literature.

My current obsession is M. John Harrison.  I read some of his Viriconium works a while back and remember enjoying them but not being ecstatic about them (although I've been told by some I should revisit them).  However, Harrison's "Kefahuchi Tract" novels are absolutely stellar.  I've read Light and Nova Swing, and I just got Empty Space in the mail the other day.  Can't wait to start it.

I typically trace "New Wave SF" back to Philip K. Dick, who is probably my favorite science fiction writer.  I see his work as the trigger point at which SF turned in a more radical direction, becoming more aware of itself and its place in the literary community, and how it comments on culture.  In addition to Dick, I figure writers like Samuel Delany and Harlan Ellison into the mix as progenitors of the movement.  I also continue to track the New Wave's influence though the '70s and '80s, where I think it picked up femininst SF and cyberpunk.  Intriguingly, I don't perceive it as very active in the '90s, which I view as more heavily dominated by writers like Orson Scott Card and Dan Simmons, whom I don't consider New Wave (if anyone has any recommendations for good '90s New Wave texts, I'm all ears).

I think it picks up again in the '00s, albeit in a new form (I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that 9/11 played a major role in this resurgence, at least in the Western world).  I would posit that writers like Charles Stross, M. John Harrison, and  Peter Watts are all doing something unique and worthwhile and are operating primarily under the influence of the New Wave (Stross blends New Wave with space opera romanticism, Harrison lends something of a Beat tone to the SF mode, and Watts delivers a brutal dose of anti-humanism).  As far as SF novels of the last ten years or so, Watts's Blindsight sits very high on my list.  Meanwhile, writers from the past several decades are still contributing as well, notably William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

Anyone else a fan of New Wave SF, and does anyone have other recommendations?  I'll start off by recommending Peter Watts to anyone unfamiliar with him.  His works are available for free on his website (http://www.rifters.com/), and they're some of the most provocative and intelligent works of hard SF to have come around in a long time, in my opinion.

Cheers!

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« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:01 pm »
Quote from: Madness
That you've left out... Heinlein, maybe?

I enjoyed the joint foray in James S.A. Corey.

Also, TSA is Epic Fantasy - no doubt about it. If he bridges F/SF, Bakker has yet to commit to it in a meaningful way. I'd love to see him do some straight SF. Buy Dune from that hack Herbert the Son and write them again ;).

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« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:05 pm »
Quote from: Meyna
I enjoy Gene Wolfe's writing and I definitely think he qualifies, though it's true the fantasy elements of his works may outshine the science fiction, if only because the perspectives offered in the story lack the understanding necessary to treat the concepts in question as technology rather than magic (think Heron Spear in The Second Apocalypse). I have only read the first chunk of his Solar Cycle, The Book of the New Sun, though I hope to finish off the series some day.

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« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:10 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
Gene Wolfe is a great call!  I've read The Book of the New Sun, and that's definitely something worth considering.  Significantly different from most New Wave material though.  The difficult part is that it borders very close to some form of dark fantasy, almost similar to Miéville at times.

Quote from: Madness
That you've left out... Heinlein, maybe?

I enjoyed the joint foray in James S.A. Corey.

Also, TSA is Epic Fantasy - no doubt about it. If he bridges F/SF, Bakker has yet to commit to it in a meaningful way. I'd love to see him do some straight SF. Buy Dune from that hack Herbert the Son and write them again ;).

Oh, I don't consider The Second Apocalypse to be SF.  I realize now that was poorly written on my part; I just meant that Bakker and Miéville are two of my favorite "speculative fiction" writers, but I don't consider either of them to be "New Wave SF."  You're right, Bakker is definitely epic fantasy, and I'd consider Miéville some brand of dark fantasy: or, even more intriguingly, something akin to slipstream or magical realism provided that the mix is allowed to tend more toward the "fantasy" side of things (which it obviously does in Miéville's works).

Miéville does have one true SF installment actually: his novel Embassytown.  I would classify that as a strong contender for a modern New Wave SF work.

Not sure about Heinlein; he strikes me as more traditionally "Golden Age" SF, even though he continued writing well into the '70s and '80s.  Dick writes about Heinlein in his nonfiction collection, admitting that while he admires Heinlein as a writer, he despises his politics.  I think the antagonism between Golden Age SF and New Wave emerges in large part from political/ideological differences.  Golden Age is generally more influenced by more traditional value systems and anthropocentrism (even where humans are dispalced, as in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End).  Heinlein, to my mind, seems largely trapped in the traditional tone of the Golden Age movement.

Thanks for the comments!

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« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:19 pm »
Quote from: Madness
A pleasure to comment, Soterion.

Perhaps, you can enlighten me on these distinctions. I'd very much classify myself as a Golden Age reader by your depictions here but I'm not sure what to even offer the two categories.

Does CJ Cherryh count as New Wave? Faded Sun Trilogy and Foreigner are two favorite SF for me as well and I can think of more in this vein.

EDIT: Also, big +1 on Horselover Fat... I'm surprised there's no thread for him specifically yet.

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« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:24 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
I don't claim to be an authority on SF, but I usually distinguish between what I perceive as a strong(er) anthropocentrism in Golden Age SF and a reinforcement of the power, or importance, of the human.  There are certainly exceptions to this rule, but generally I find this to be the case, along with a heightened espousal of typical value systems.  Also, Golden Age SF narratives tend to tackle much larger, sprawling operatic, cosmic subject matter; characters are major political figures, ultra-intelligent scientists, or other figures of prime importance.  New Wave SF moves away from this to grittier, "commoner" tales; so Philip K. Dick writes about bounty hunters and drug dealers, M. John Harrison writes about "entradistas" and serial killers, and William Gibson writes about hackers and exploited cool-hunters.

These are merely a few distinctions, but I think the tone of New Wave tends to be more radically critical, often entirely anti-humanist (or far less anthropocentric), and challenging toward traditional values.

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« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:28 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Thanks Soterion.

Do you think that NWSF doesn't offer the same narrative of galactic import and resolution despite the choice character vehicles? I mean, obviously, there are plenty of examples of stories that focus on events that aren't important in the grand scheme of things but is that the distinction you wanted to make between the two?

Don't you think that NWSF (as per your loose distinctions) also reinforces that it wasn't always "rulers or the super-gifted" that made the decisions of history? That is, that history often turns on the small and irrational, the common and average?

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« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:33 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
Those are good points.  I'd offer the following in response:

I think that NWSF often carries the implicit suggestion that "history" doesn't even exist.  That is, that any history that purports to turn on human involvement, regardless of its quantity, is an ideological representation and ultimately an illusion.  Any actual temporal development in/through/of reality is a radically nonhuman process.  Much of what I would classify as New Wave challenges the conception of history itself, often through complex narrative temporalities.

For Golden Age SF, history remains of profound importance, as well as human involvement in that history.  GASF can feature time travel, but it's time travel according to rather linear criteria (if that makes sense).  NWSF, in contrast, involves a (sometimes) conscious turn away from linearity and narrative regularity.  History, for NWSF, becomes "future history"; or, more specifically, a history that is consciously assessed as filtered, normalized, or idealized through ideological representation.  It is a history that is aware of itself as history, and thus becomes self-reflexive and self-critical.

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« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:37 pm »
Quote from: Madness
NWSF is automatically vested in anachronistic discourse whereas GASF is not?

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« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:42 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
Well, Gothic literature is invested in anachronism, so that's not something that's even limited to science fiction.  I think that GASF handles anachronism simplistically, or linearly.  Take William Penn's "The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway," where a time traveler goes back in time to meet his favorite artist, only to discover that the man is a completely apathetic drunk (or something along those lines).  Fearing that the artist will never create his masterpieces and greatest works, the time traveler (who knows every detail of them) takes to doing it himself, thus fulfilling that they will be made and instantiating himself as the actual creator of the works.

This short story deals implicitly with many intriguing and complex themes such as authorial identity and time itself, but it handles the paradox rather linearly (or circularly, which still follows a progressive track).  The time traveler has regressed far enough in time that he doesn't interfere with his own birth, but encases himself in a feedback loop where he will always travel back in time and create these great works of art.  This same narrative idea is at play in Back to the Future, albeit to a far less intellectual degree; but both are rife with paradoxes that aren't forcefully broached.

Flash forward to a film like Looper, in which the protagonist must become aware of his own participation in such a paradoxical time loop that continually repeats, or circulates.  Looper is, in fact, the more "New Wave" version of this story in that it is about a temporal loop becoming aware of itself, so to speak, and dealing with its paradoxes in the only way a human subject could ever comprehend (I'll say no more in case some people still want to see the film).  Coincidentally, Shane Carruth worked on the time travel sequences in Looper, and Carruth's film Primer is the best narrative engagement with time travel that I've ever seen.

In short, where GASF anachronism resolves itself, so to speak, NWSF allows anachronism to implode or unravel.  Time travel is, of course, only one image we typically encounter in science fiction.  But in GASF, the overwhelming ideological power of traditional science often trumps the logical paradoxes; in NWSF, ideology-critique and postmodernism (two movements that I find essential for the New Wave to have taken place) allow for more speculative criticism of science itself.

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« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:47 pm »
Quote from: Madness
+1. Lol, brilliant and I appreciate the dialogue. I'm simply trying to tease and narrow our distinctions between the two genres.

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« Reply #11 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:52 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
Thanks for the questions!  It forces me to think more critically about the distinction.  There are certainly people who would challenge my argument, but I think there's a lot of evidence for it.  I recently started a doctoral program in English at Boston University, and I'm hoping to pursue more on my interest in SF in the future, so working out these points of argumentation will definitely be beneficial for me.

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« Reply #12 on: May 14, 2013, 10:01:59 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Continuing to sharpen then. So far, I'd sum up your last couple posts as this:

NWSF - Narrative history is ideological projection and changes in coherence are nonhuman processes.

GASF - Narrative history is objectively true across its proportions and changes in coherence are human processes.

NWSF - Explores our ideological narratives and discourses through a fictive lens.

On this one, I'd like to add that perhaps you've also highlighted that despite its discursions nature, NWSF ultimately is anachronistically referential - that is, NWSF is always saying something about contemporary human affairs, as I'd suggested above?

I can give you your direct quotations that inspire those attempts at linguistic sums, if you like. I just thought to sketch for the sake of sharpening.

Moving on to the second post (and very much writing from within SF perspective still):

Quote from: Soterion
In short, where GASF anachronism resolves itself, so to speak, NWSF allows anachronism to implode or unravel. Time travel is, of course, only one image we typically encounter in science fiction. But in GASF, the overwhelming ideological power of traditional science often trumps the logical paradoxes; in NWSF, ideology-critique and postmodernism (two movements that I find essential for the New Wave to have taken place) allow for more speculative criticism of science itself.

I think that GASF is the narrative standard, neh? Every novel fiction of a certain Wittgenstein familial resemblance becomes a movement away or towards GASF. Linearly resolution of Time-Travel is the only dogma GASF resemblance can digest, thus far.

To be honest, this hits again on thoughts of mine that writer's shouldn't just write to write but ultimately to interact with these conceptual structures we perpetuate, to add something new to the discourse.

For sake of discussion, are there other aspects of NWSF resemblance other than ideology-critique and postmodernism (will there never be another tagline :( )?

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« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2013, 10:02:04 pm »
Quote from: Soterion
I empathize with your dislike of "postmodernism."  Fortunately, I personally feel that we're in a new movement now, although we don't necessarily have a name for it.  I do, however, feel that it's influenced by the Speculative Realist movement taking place in Europe (which, as I'm sure you know, Bakker has commented frequently on, usually critically).

As far as more specifics for New Wave go, here's a quote from Adam Roberts's book on science fiction:

"'New Wave' is usually taken to be an attempt to raise the literary quality of SF, which to a certain extent it was; but what [J.G.] Ballard's remarks make plain is the extent to which it was also a reaction to the sedimentary weight of the genre's backlist, which new writers were beginning to feel as oppressive.  By the 1960s the SF 'megatext' was so large that bringing novelty to the SF novel was becoming harder.  What the New Wave did was to take a genre that had been, in its popular mode, more concerned with content and 'ideas' than form, style or aesthetics and pay much greater attention to the latter three terms."

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« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2013, 10:02:09 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Lol, my feelings reflect a distaste for distaste and presumption; both which reek from the various usages and wieldings of postmodernism ;).

Interesting quote. And +1 the Intraweb: I'm going to grab that book from the campus libs and do some extracurriculars.