The value of Speculative Opinion

This spring, an exciting new series of short science fiction was launched in an improbable publication: The New York Times.

John Karborn has illustrated most
of the articles in the series with
evocative conceptual art.
(Image via New York Times)

Op-Eds From The Future is a feature in America’s paper of record that appears every second week, in which an academic or science fiction author tackles a political issue from the perspective of an editorialist writing in the not-too-distant future.

Given that the series has so far included submissions written by luminaries such as Cory Doctorow, Malka Older, Ted Chiang, and Brooke Bolander, it is unsurprising that the results of this experiment have been compelling.

Masterminded by the paper’s op-ed technology editor Susan Fowler, this project shows the integral connection between science fiction and politics, demonstrating the relevance of the genre to a wider (mundane) audience. Speculative opinion is not standard fare for the New York Times, but it is a very welcome addition.

“Science fiction is so powerful and effective because it takes the problems and issues we face today and puts them into new situations and contexts, allowing us to see them more clearly,” Fowler explained on Twitter. Put another way, the series provides a type of public service.

Every second Monday, the Times publishes a new piece, tackling issues as varied as the intersection of income inequality and genetic engineering, the possible effects of anti-hate speech legislation on internet discourse, and the rights of persons displaced by climate change.

Using the traditional structure of an op-ed to explore a science fictional idea lays bare the political nature of the genre. The futurist nature of these works connects the changing role of technology with the practicalities of policies elected officials might enact as a result.

The format and venue also forces authors to hew closely to constraints of hard science fiction; there is a level of solemnity to the Grey Lady that inspires seriousness in its authors. We suspect that this lean towards hard science is also the product of Fowler’s editorial vision, which we appreciate.

Though several luminaries of science fiction have been featured thus far, those invited to submit articles to the series are not limited to genre professionals — University of Connecticut professor Susan Schneider penned one on the nature of consciousness. 

One of the joys of this series is quickly becoming the Monday-morning anticipation of discovering who has penned the latest installment. Although we have a long list of thinkers we would love to see play in this particular sandbox (i.e. Vernor Vinge, Madeline Ashby, Karl Schroeder …), we suspect that we will be surprised and delighted by the people Fowler has lined up for the coming weeks.

Susan Fowler masterminded the new
series appearing in the New York Times.
(Image via BizJournals)

We would love to see this series included in next year's Hugo shortlist. But there isn’t an obvious category at the Hugo Awards to recognize the importance of this contribution. Susan Fowler is not eligible for Best Editor, nor would it be fair to compare her work to that of editors working on publications dedicated to the genre. The individual Op-Eds might technically fit into the Short Story category, but to us, the value of the overall project is greater than the sum of its parts. We are likely to suggest including the overall Op-Eds From The Future project in the Best Related Work category (though even that is a slightly odd fit that Hugo administrators might find reason to reject).

This is a series that we look forward to reading every week, and hope that the New York Times continues it over the long-term. Even better, we hope to see competitor pieces in other established dailies make this a staple of tomorrow’s newspapers.

Hugos 2017 — Short Stories

This year’s shortlist of short stories is varied, offering a plethora of interesting and diverse work. Almost all of these stories are worthy of winning a Hugo — this was a difficult category in which to pick a favourite nominee.

The most perplexing nominee — A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa

We found Wong's work
more perplexing than
entertaining.
Image via Tor.com. 

Wong — is a frenetic time-hopping story about a girl and her sister who have magical (electrical?) powers. The story may be about suicide, or it may be about the end of the world. There’s very little overall narrative thread to hold onto.

In portions of the text, it feels like Wong is stringing words together into paragraphs without the traditional intermediary step of sentences. We can appreciate the artfulness of this style of writing, but it is not to our tastes.

Brooke Bolander’s Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies is a short story about an incorporeal being that takes human form, is murdered, and then returns for revenge. There was some debate amongst members of the book club about whether the protagonist is an alien energy being, a spirit, or an angel. Although the language is entertaining, the story is extremely thin. There just isn’t enough substance to the story to vote for it.

An Unimaginable Light is probably the best John C. Wright story that we’ve read — in no small part because it’s based around a couple of interesting notions about the ability of robots to interpret Asimov’s Three Laws in ways that their creators never intended. Although the ‘twist’ ending seems to come out of nowhere, that ending is at least built around an interesting idea concerning what it means to be human.

Perennial Hugo nominee
John C. Wright's story is
built around an interesting
idea, but his prose is too
didactic for our tastes. 

That being said, Wright’s slightly didactic prose and aggressive thesaurus use isn’t to our taste, nor is the way he seems to delight in the sexual degradation of one of the characters. This won’t be at the top of our ballot, but we can understand why some fans chose to nominate it.

For us, there were three very different works vying for the top of our Hugo ballots: Seasons of Glass and Iron, That Game We Played During the War and The City Born Great.

The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin is an interesting urban fantasy that is partway between Jane Jacobs and Jim Butcher. The theme of potential and the metaphor of birth speak to a hopefulness that was uplifting.

But for some of our book club members, The City Born Great wasn’t didactic enough. N.K. Jemisin’s story of a youth becoming the magical avatar of a city seemed to be working toward a grand statement about the death and life of great American cities (or something similar), but never really committed itself to an idea about urbanism. There’s no indication in the story about the forces that the youth is struggling against and the ending left some of us wanting a bit more meaning to the work.

In Seasons of Glass and Iron, Amal El-Mohtar weaves together two Norwegian folk tales into a story of empowerment and problem solving. An Ottawa-based poet, El-Mohtar’s dexterously uses

El-Mohtar deconstructs
Norwegian Folk Tales
in interesting ways.
Image via Blue Fairy Book
illustrated by H.J.Ford
& G.P.Jacomb Hood, 1889

language to draw readers into a rustic mythology and to interrogate the assumptions of the folk tales she’s playing with. Her two protagonists are given motivations and personalities, and instead of needing some prince to save them, the two women save each other from their curses.

This is a very likable short story with some depth, offers a satisfying conclusion, and might bear re-reading.

Out of all of the nominees, That Game We Played During The War by Carrie Vaughn is the one that we found the most enjoyable to read. It’s a clear, straightforward story about former prisoners of war from two very different factions finding common ground after a long-running conflict. Vaughn’s tale feels like something out of the golden age of SF — concise, spare, and precise in its language. The relationship between the two central characters is touching and thoughtful.

She leavens the story with observations about cultural understandings and misunderstandings, as well as some interesting notions about how telepathy might influence a society.

The medium of the short story is a particularly difficult one to master; balancing brevity with profundity and balancing artfulness with clarity are not easy tasks. Three nominees this year achieved a level of excellence that is worth celebrating.