Old Man's Boss Baby

(Image via Goodreads)

There’s a saying in the labour movement: make someone a boss and they’re going to act like a boss.

It’s an observation based on a familiar pattern of workers becoming managers and then acting in ways that put them at odds with the needs of the proletariat. The system incentives people to make decisions that serve the few instead of the many.

This is, fundamentally, the problem with John Scalzi’s latest novel. Starter Villain is narrated in the first person by Charlie, an underemployed and financially precarious teacher who inherits a megacorporation after the death of his estranged uncle Jake. Charlie quickly learns that Uncle Jake’s business empire involved global extortion, illicit genetic experiments, and orbital laser platforms; the protagonist inherits the role of corporate supervilain.

It’s an amusing and intriguing premise … one that could have been used to interrogate capitalist systems of power. Instead, Charlie is presented with a series of facile moral quandaries that are resolved when his ‘common-sense’ and ‘hometown values’ lead him to simplistic solutions for complex situations.

He’s a boss … but he avoids acting like a boss because the book skirts around the perverse incentives that (in the real world) drive many in the management class to act like psychopaths. The novel suggests that the evils of capitalism are not based on structural problems, but on the fact that the wrong people are in charge.

Possibly the most egregious example of this is in how Charlie deals with workers’ rights at his secret volcano lair. Early in the novel, he’s introduced to a pod of genetically enhanced intelligent dolphins, and he learns that they have formed a labour union in order to demand better compensation and working conditions. Although the complaints of the dolphins are depicted as being valid, their negotiating tactics are portrayed as obstreperous and confrontational. That is, the reason they have been unable to resolve their contract negotiation is because of worker intransigence. This dispute is resolved when Charlie takes the time to listen to the workers without getting angry at their antics.

The problem with this understanding of labour relations is that it diminishes the agency of the workers and portrays the skills of managers as superior instead of specialized.

Now, it should be noted that this type of labour union depiction is a significant improvement over the anti-worker rhetoric that was common in science fiction of the 1940s-1970s. But it is still based on ideas of management-class paternalism; this is a story in which the liberation of the cetacean proletariat derives not from the emancipation of the worker but from the benevolence of management. However, in reality, anything that can be offered by a good boss can be denied by a bad one.

Maybe it's a bad idea to put people into positions
of authority based on who their uncle was.
(Image via NPR.com)

Ignoring worker perspectives has a long tradition in science fiction stories. Scalzi’s work fits neatly alongside Asimov’s, Dick’s and Pohl’s; evidently well-intentioned towards workers, but ultimately reinforcing management supremacy and failing to platform worker agency.

One highlight of Starter Villain, however, is a denouement which relies on worker-led interspecies solidarity. Not only is this a philosophically coherent plot mechanism, but it showcases percussive action that few authors writing today are capable of.

Scalzi is an author whose work we’ve often admired. His brand of quippy, accessible prose is often entertaining and fun. The Collapsing Empire novels were engaging and well-thought out parables about the dangers of science denial. Old Man’s War is a modern classic for a reason. But Starter Villain hews to some of Scalzi’s more irritating writerly quirks; a protagonist who’s a bit too smug propped up by smart-alec sidekicks. This is admittedly a comedic novel … and nothing is more subjective than comedy. So this farce might be more to some peoples’ tastes than ours.

Not all labour unions are created equal, and nor are depictions of labour unions in science fiction. The past few years have seen some of the best SFF about labour unions ever published (among others, we’d highlight Babel by R.F. Kuang, 

We Built This City by Marie Vibbert, & Hunger Makes The Wolf by Alex Wells). Simply put, Starter Villain falls short.

Best Dramatic Presentation Boldly Goes Forward (1967)

This blog post is the tenth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.  

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems only natural that Star Trek should win a Hugo Award in its first season.

The Hugo shortlist in 1967 included Fantastic Voyage,
Fahrenheit 451, The Menagerie, The Naked Time, &
The Corbomite Maneuver. (Image via IMDB)

At the time, however, this decision was not without controversy.

The Worldcon chair for 1967, Ted White, published a screed against the show calling its writers patronizing and ill-informed. Hugo-winning fan writer Alexei Panshin opined that Star Trek was filled with cliches and facile plots.

But for every voice criticizing the new show, there were several voicing their support. Big-name authors like Harlan Ellison and A.E. Van Vogt campaigned for the television series to win a Hugo, hoping that the recognition might buy it a second season. Writing in the fanzine Yandro, Juanita Coulson offered the definitive counterpoint: “The scorners of Star Trek do not seem to have an alternate dramatic piece of science fiction to offer; they usually do not like anything TV calls science fiction or fantasy.” 

It was by far the most talked about Best Dramatic Presentation ballot up to that point, with various pundits at turns praising Fahrenheit 451’s elegant direction, complaining about plot points in Fantastic Voyage, and analysing the merits of “The Corbomite Maneuver.” The quality of this debate, the resulting shortlist, and the final vote all look exceptional from the perspective of 2021; this was the year that the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation came into its own. 

In 1967, Gene Roddenberry was
one of the few Best Dramatic
Presentation winners to accept
the award in person.
(Photo by Jay Kay Klein) 

Considering the eligible works for this Hugo shortlist, one member of our cinema club (Paul) watched no fewer than 43 science fiction and fantasy movies that had hit cinemas in 1966, and concluded that Hugo voters could hardly have done better.

As we started watching movies and television shows from 1966, many of us had expected Fahrenheit 451, directed by François Truffaut to be the shortlist standout. However, we were surprised to find the movie had aged far more poorly than other works. Most readers will be familiar with the source material, which criticizes anti-intellectualism and post-literate culture, but this is an adaptation that does not live up to the provocative premise. The first half of the film moves at a pace that makes the Mendenhall Glacier look like quicksilver; and although the second half provides some good moments, it’s undermined by questionable choices around gender representation. That being said, Truffaut is a master of building individual shots, and some of the imagery continues to hit hard. Scenes which center the action on the television in Guy Montag’s apartment are visually arresting and prescient. The set design — both the use of existing architecture and the film’s own props — is iconic and lush. There are moments of brilliance in the movie; particularly a speech in which Captain Beatty cynically dismisses the value of books. In several other years, this might have been at the top of our ballots, but in 1967 it was outshone.

The most expensive science fiction movie to have been made up to that point, Fantastic Voyage, holds up somewhat better. Sparingly and effectively directed by Richard Fleischer, the movie follows a five-person submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into a scientist in order to perform life-saving brain surgery. Although far too many movies of the era over-explained their premise, Fleischer’s dialogue-free opening sequence is a masterclass in visual storytelling, showing the events that kick off the movie’s action.

A pleasure to burn perhaps, but not a pleasure to watch.
(Image via Pintrest)

It’s worth noting the quality of the visuals in Fantastic Voyage, which earned the movie two Academy Awards. Art Cruickshank’s visual effects pushed the limits of compositing technology at the time, while Jack Martin Smith and Dale Hennessy’s clean and functional design work made the secret military base setting seem real. The movie may have had a leg up on some of its competitors that year, since Isaac Asimov’s novelization of the movie had received mostly positive reviews. This might have been a very worthy Hugo winner, if it hadn’t been for the genre-defining presence of Star Trek.

From the day that Gene Roddenberry first showed “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” at the 1966 Worldcon in Cleveland, Star Trek had dominated discussions of science fiction. One unsigned complaint in the fanzine Algol notes “somewhat more than half of every fanzine I have seen this year was concerned with one subject and one subject alone: Star Trek.” Three episodes made the ballot in that first year: “The Menagerie,” “The Corbomite Maneuver,” and “The Naked Time.” 

“The Naked Time,” which aired first of the shortlisted episodes, is without a doubt one of the most well-remembered episodes of the original series, if for no other reason than the image of a shirtless Sulu wielding a fencing sword. The episode — which depicts a touch-transmitted disease that causes the protagonists to become disinhibited and act drunk — features some of the earliest moments of the series that show the range and depth of the characters. While “space makes people go mad” storylines were already a tired trope by the 1960s, the panache of the direction and the strong performances elevate the material. For at least one member of our viewing club, this would have been the top pick from the year.

In a slightly less-well-remembered episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver,”  the Enterprise crew is

We’d suggest that of the eligible episodes
(those that aired in 1966) both "The Conscience
of the King," and "Balance of Terror" might
also have made very solid inclusions on the ballot.
(Image via Youtube)  

confronted by an immense and implacable alien ship that seems intent on destroying them. At the risk of offering a heterodox opinion, the primary plot of the episode is less clever than its authors seemed to think, with Captain Kirk’s bluff reading as ham-handed. But despite this criticism, there’s enough in the episode to make it a worthy inclusion on the ballot. The theme of resolving conflict and building bridges between cultures is well handled. And this is one of the first opportunities to observe Kirk as a trusting and supportive captain.

“The Menagerie” is the only two-part episode of the original series of Star Trek. Making use of the original unaired pilot, it brings back the original captain Christopher Pike on a quest to return to the planet of Talos IV. Though it would be difficult to argue that it’s one of the best Trek episodes, it’s fine and provides backstories and insights about the show’s intentions. But fans had other reasons to support “The Menagerie” for the Hugo Award.

“We're agreed that we vote for “The Menagerie” and get the Hugo for Roddenberry personally, even though that wasn’t really the best episode,” Hugo-winning fanzine editor Buck Coulson wrote. “It's the only way to honor the man who made all the Star Trek episodes possible.”

Given how significant Roddenberry’s contributions to the genre would prove to be, it’s difficult to argue that Hugo voters got it wrong.

The Potterization of Science Fiction

One of the more annoying trends in mass-media science fiction and fantasy is the move away from

The absurdity of the notion that
some people are born special
cannot be overstated, whether
we're talking about a monarch
or the Half-Blood Prince.
(Image via Wall Street Journal)

achievement-based protagonists, and towards those whose ‘specialness’ derives from something they were born with.

It’s clear that the entertainment-consuming public is often interested in people who get defined as special, regardless of what arbitrary circumstances have bestowed that specialness on them. We feel that when engagement with a protagonist is predicated on birthright rather than achievement, readers and viewers are essentially being treated as Royal Watchers.

Being expected to care about the narrative because it depicts an unattainable and presumably better position in life is classist and demeaning.

Whether the privilege is acquired through right of birth, through being born ‘special,’ or through being the subject of a prophecy, this trope is fundamentally tied to a classist and undemocratic worldview. The prevalence of such narratives, and why they persist, needs to be examined and challenged.

Certainly, under the right circumstances, this technique can produce characters that are central to memorable and enduring cultural myths, such as Paul Muad'dib or Prince Corwin. Those circumstances, however, are contingent on the overall narrative working coherently with the premise.

Say what you will about Dune,
it doesn't pretend to be anything
less than classist and cryptofascist.
(Image via Screenrant) 

Between the superhero craze and the shoe-horning of high-born people into existing franchises, this choice seems to have become the default for too much mainstream (corporate) science fiction and fantasy — whether or not it strengthens the larger story.

One of the fundamentally troubling assumptions behind the born-great protagonist is the anti-democratic idea that the lives of some people simply matter more than the lives of other people. If we accept that Harry Potter is destined to be the only one who can do the thing that’s important, then why should we care about the life of Ritchie Coote? Likewise, if Aragorn is destined for the throne then we have to accept that all other Men of Gondor would be incapable of managing the kingdom (let alone Women of Gonder). There is a direct link between the idea that one person can be born great, with the ideas that underpin racism, classism, and sexism. See also: the equally flawed “great man” theory.

Just as troubling an assumption is the idea that greatness is unearned; those who are great have not thought about it, have not put in effort to attain greatness, have not practiced whatever inherent part of their nature makes for greatness. It wouldn’t matter if Húrin the Tall graduated at the top of his class in urban planning at the University of Dúnedain, he’d still be incapable of managing Minas Tirith, and

Yes, even your favourite kids'
cartoon Visionaries features
a prince who was born special.
(Image via YouTube)

would be doomed to repeat Denethor’s mistakes. This is an idea that breeds complacency as we are taught by the stories we consume that greatness is achievable only through parentage. That is, one’s efforts to improve their lot in life are largely irrelevant, as is the society that supports the achievement of greatness at all.

We are not suggesting that readers should avoid these books, movies, and short dramatic works. Rather, we are suggesting that readers should cast a critical eye to what they read; particularly concerning issues of race, class and gender. The fact that problematic authors such as (kinda classist) J.R.R. Tolkien and (transphobic) J.K. Rowling would produce problematic works is unsurprising. What is more surprising is that this “born great” trope continues to appear in a plethora of modern, popular, award-shortlisted novels by authors who harbor otherwise progressive and thoughtful worldviews. Our intent is not to cast aspersions on authors who use this trope, but rather to encourage readers to interrogate the ideas at the heart of it. Why is it so appealing to you?

This narrative crutch has long been a central part of epic fantasies (Everything from Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time, to Dragonlance and Masters Of The Universe), but the trend of prophesied protagonists who were born to lead has seeped into wider genre stories.

Salvor Hardin, who in the novel Foundation had been nothing more than a competent mayor who

Although some have tried
to cast the great math
prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan
as someone who was
simply born with abilities,
an examination of his
biography reveals that they
were the result of significant
study and hard work.

happened to get caught up in historical forces, is recast in the television adaptation as someone who was born special; someone with a psychic ability to understand history. In the very same adaptation, Gaal Dornick has been recast from a young professor from a mid-tier university, to a child prodigy whose great mathematical abilities are simply in her blood. To our eyes, the way the series relies on the ‘specialness’ of these characters is condescending to the audience. 

Even Star Trek — once mocked for depicting an occasionally dull and technocratic meritocracy — has come to embrace the protagonist born great. Starting with the 2009 reboot of the classic series, J.J. Abrams reimagined James T. Kirk as a maverick who was born with a destiny, instead of the Original Series depiction of a studious “stack of books with legs” who had earned a captaincy through hard work in postings on the USS Republic and the USS Faragut. The distinction is not insignificant; in one version of the story greatness is something that is earned through hard work, in the other version greatness is something bestowed upon a person seemingly arbitrarily.

This is almost a direct rebuttal to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Tapestry," which tries to give viewers a perspective into why Picard is who he is. It is revealed in that episode, that Picard could easily have ended up as a junior lieutenant, but that circumstances had motivated him to do better. In essence, he earned his command through hard work and diligence.

One could also note that when a protagonist is “born great,” it tends to undermine the role in societal supports leading to greatness. Harry Potter isn’t great because he lives in a society whose social services, schools, and hospitals enable him to achieve, he’s great because he was just born that way. One might parallel this to the view held by those arch-Randians who would proclaim that Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth is entirely self-generated, owing nothing to the school system that educated him or the public investment in developing internet technology.

Works that directly grapple with the implications of “born great” protagonists are worth examining. One of the best, Sarah Gailey’s Magic For Liars, engaged with the classism and elitism that is baked into the very notion of a person born with a great destiny. By taking the point-of-view of someone left behind by the destined greatness of another, the book serves as a sharp rebuttal to the elitism of

This will be the only time ever
that this blog says anything good
about Buffy Season 7.
(Image via Pintrest)

“chosen one” narratives. The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman takes a completely different tack in criticizing this trope by showing how infantilizing it might be for a character to be born into power; his protagonist Quentin Coldwater grows into a listless, emotionally stunted young man precisely because of his privileged magical destiny.

And despite a ham-handed delivery, smug self-congratulatory tone, and a toxic showrunner, we’d probably also have to give credit to the final season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer for at least suggesting that the specialness of the show’s “chosen one” should be democratized.

At its core, the philosophy that some people are just inherently great (and therefore most others just aren’t) is nihilistic. This is a narrative framework in which few people have free will, or whose decisions can have an impact on the world.

If all of our enduring cultural myths are about people whose greatness and purpose are thrust upon them by right of birth, it implies that everyone else is saddled with a purposeless life. That’s a proposition that we urge readers to reject.

American Cleon

There has long been a lapsarian strain in the American imagination, and that’s why Foundation is so

Hari Seldon never suggests making something
better than an Empire. He wants to make Trantor
Great Again. (Image via CNET) 

appealing — and so dangerous — right now. But unlike the fate of the Galactic Empire, the outcomes of the issues facing us today are not certain.

Books and articles about the decline of the United States and of what is called “Western Civilization” have populated bookstore shelves and magazine pages for more than a century, with such notables as Niall Ferguson, Chris Hedges, Emmanuel Todd, and David D. Schein contributing tomes to the pastime of prognosticating American eschatology.

But in the past decade, these types of predictions have reached a fever pitch. And it’s not difficult to see why. Factors such as political polarization, global warming, the decline of democracy, increasing resource scarcity and disparities between rich and poor, all seem to have clear and exacerbating trend lines. If there were one of Hari Seldon’s prime radiants, one could imagine these trends being plotted through the equations of psychohistory and seeing a definitive predictive answer that an unpleasant end awaits us all.

These are historical trends that seem inexorable; they seem as inescapable as “the known probability of imperial assassination, viceregal revolt, the contemporary recurrence of periods of economic depression, the declining rate of planetary explorations…” all of which afflicted the Galactic Empire during the reign of Cleon II.

It must be understood that Foundation reflects the argument made by Edward Gibbons in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; that decline was only in part caused by forces external to the empire itself, that a determinant of collapse was a gradual loss of civic virtue among its Roman citizens (Though by ‘civic virtue,’ some have suggested Gibbons meant ‘members of lower classes knowing their place’). Asimov had just finished reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire when he began writing Foundation, but he was also writing in the immediate wake of the Great Depression, and a period of upheaval and uncertainty about his country’s future.

Some pundits have gone further back,
and compared present-day politics to
Asimov’s source material.

The idea of the United States as a “new Rome” has existed since shortly after the American revolution. It is communicated through the myth of manifest destiny and is encapsulated in the architecture of Washington, D.C. At various points through its history, American preachers have attempted to create historical narratives that cast the rise and fall of the country as divine prophecy (Just as one high-profile example, Latter-Day Saints founder Joseph Smith told his followers that the U.S. Constitution was a divine document, and that Jesus’ second coming would occur in Missouri).

Foundation as a narrative has to be understood in this context; Isaac Asimov’s understanding of history was informed by American exceptionalism, the influence of America’s third ‘Great Awakening’ of apocalyptic religiosity, the wake of the Great Depression, and of a period of upheaval and uncertainty about the country’s future. It might be asked why, after 80 years, the books are finally being adapted to the screen; is it perhaps because we are again in a period of upheaval and uncertainty?

While we should be aware that the original novel is a product of the ideas and concerns of the time it was written, the television show is a product of today and makes arguments about the world of 2021. We would suggest that the television series version of Foundation contains hints of Gibbons’ classism, echoes of Asimov’s concerns about America on the eve of the Second World War, but also reflects our own 21st Century concerns about decline.

Margaret Atwood has said that “Prophecies are really about now. In science fiction it's always about now.” And it’s really more about how people perceive the present, as today’s perceptions determine the actions of tomorrow. Apple TV’s Foundation series resonates because people perceive these trends to be inescapable, and determinative. This is underscored by science fiction’s ideas shaping powerful political forces.

If we accept that this new iteration of Foundation is indeed about the United States, those who take its core messages seriously may help ensure that decline is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The problems facing the world are not insurmountable. There are policies and technologies that will mitigate climate change. Pressure on politicians can force them to behave in our best interest. These things are not easy but they are necessary if we want to avoid Seldon’s predicted outcome.

Inescapable doom can sometimes be more comfortable than faint hope; if the Empire’s going to collapse one way or another, then enjoy it while you can and let Raven Seldon worry about what comes next. If we, as citizens of the world, accept the metaphor presented by Foundation, it can inculcate fatalism about the very real problems we’re facing. As Florida International University professor of English Charles Elkins argued in his Marxist reading of Foundation, “Reading these novels, the reader experiences this fatalism which, in a Marxist analysis, flows from his own alienation in society and his sense of impotence in facing problems he can no longer understand, the solutions of which he puts in the hands of a techno-bureaucratic elite.”

Decline is a powerful idea, and one that rightly should worry us. Foundation suggests that individuals have little agency to affect real change. In doing so, it absolves us for doing nothing.

Sleeping Next To An Elephant

It’s often said in Canada that living next to the United States is like sleeping with an elephant: you are

A Memory Called Empire
does not seem like a
first novel.
(Image via Amazon)

affected by every twitch and grunt. It’s a phrase that came to mind when reading Arkady Martine’s debut A Memory Called Empire, a sprawling and richly imagined novel about hegemony and loss of culture.

Set in the capital city of the vast Teixcalaanli interstellar empire, A Memory Called Empire follows Mahit Dzmare the new ambassador from the much smaller Lsel Stationer Republic as she investigates the murder of her predecessor and navigates a political crisis that could spell disaster for both nations.

Martine has delivered one of the most Asimovian science fiction novels we’ve read in recent memory, while making the narrative uniquely her own. There are clear parallels to Asimov’s Caves of Steel, as an outsider partners with a local to investigate a killing in a sprawling steel megacity. Much like in that classic robot novel, this provides the reader a powerful cultural vantage point. But the ways in which American exceptionalism is subverted in each novel is different, and reflects the time periods in which they were written; Asimov was concerned with what he saw as a growing rift within American society between the educated and the uneducated, while Martine seems to concern herself with the nature of how a culture exerts its dominance on another. While Martine’s staging of a dominant culture grappling with self-preservation in a wider social network pushes our use of the American metaphor, the use of a wider lense makes Memory more interesting.

Adding to the intellectual richness of this novel is the way in which the Teixcalaanli cultural and governance practices are emblematic of an empire in decline. Their obsession with rote memorization and a pedigreed form of high literature aligns with the obsessive conservative culture of, for example, the British Empire’s heyday. Their preoccupation with the preservation of their own culture at the expense of creative and technological innovation perhaps mirrors the Bakumatsu period in Japan (I.E. pre-Commodore Perry). The portrait of a civilization in which bureaucracy has bloomed past the point of usefulness is painfully relevant today. It’s a portrait that again evokes comparisons to Asimov, as one can find parallels to the crumbling Galactic Empire of Foundation.

Theodore Judson once observed that history is often the secret weapon of science fiction authors, and by that standard Arkady Martine is armed and dangerous.

Arkady Martine's academic background
in Byzantine history helps inform
her excellent debut novel.
(Image via MacMillan.com)

And this examination of hegemony is in fact one of the strongest elements of the novel; how the children on Lsel Station are exposed to so much Teixcalaanli poetry that they ignore their own cultural output, and how Mahit is at once both drawn to the dominant culture and uncomfortable with its allure. To be blunt about it, the Stationers are sleeping with an elephant.

Throughout the book, Martine makes these cultures feel distinct, and delves into their unique social mores. The writing is clear and engaging, and while the science fictional aspects of the book are never overwhelming in their detail, they are interesting and believable. Given the quality of the writing and plotting, it is hard to believe that this is a debut novel.

Despite the hype for A Memory Called Empire, none of us had read it prior to its inclusion on the Hugo Award ballot. We are very glad that it got nominated because it is very likely to end up at the top of some of our ballots.

Imagining the future of organized labour (part one of three)

List of unions.

This is the first of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction. The second post, was published in mid-February explores recent works that address this notable absence. A third blog post examines labour unions in science fiction TV and movies. These articles could not have been completed without the help of science fiction historian Alec Nevala-Lee and labour researchers Mark McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson. 

Science fictional narratives are filled with depictions of employment.

Whether it’s Gaal Dornick taking a job with the mathematics department at the University of Trantor, or Robinette Broadhead leaving his job in the protein mines to pursue an opportunity with the Gateway corporation, the genre is rife with examples of standard capitalist employment relationships.

Often given less focus, however, are the rights of those workers, and the means by which those rights are asserted. When it comes to employment, the majority of science fiction offers either utopian visions in which everyone has a share in societal prosperity, or dystopian nightmares in which the elites have all the power and workers are crushed underfoot.

For example, neither Star Trek nor Babylon 5 ever explore the reason why productivity gains of new

The character Robocop crosses a picket
line to appease the corporate masters
of a privatized police department.
In the labour movement, he would be
called a 'scab.'
(Image via DenOfGeek.com)

technologies have not been concentrated into the wealth of an ultra-elite. Conversely, neither Altered Carbon nor Neuromancer offer explanations for why the working class has failed to organize solidarity-driven or democratic responses to societal problems.

Few of us have memories of the might of the North American union movement in the 1940s and 1950s. It was this movement that accorded workers stability and living wages that increased on par with productivity gains. It is probably this era of increasing income equality that made expansive utopian imaginings without explanation seem plausible.

In 1951, famed science fiction editor John W. Campbell wrote to H. Beam Piper, one of his regular writers, asking the author to tone down anti-union language in the story Day Of The Moron. He did so not because he supported the labour movement, but because he was afraid of offending members of the printers’ union that his magazine, Astounding, relied upon.

At their peak in 1954, unions represented almost a third of workers in the United States, and it was easy to take their existence — and their action as a counterbalance to the power of capital — for granted. Even employees in non-union workplaces enjoyed gains because employers had to keep up with union shops to retain and recruit labour.

But despite their prevalence in society, labour unions were largely absent from science fictional narratives during the Golden Age, and their few portrayals in the genre are usually either comedic or antagonistic.

As labour activist and science fiction author Eric Flint pointed out at WorldCon76, the major

At Worldcon 76 in San Jose, Eric Flint,
Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Cory
Doctorow discussed the dearth of
labour unions in science fiction.
(Photo by Kateryna Barnes)

contributors to the development of science fiction — from the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction through this era of union organizing and stability — were largely drawn from academic circles or the upper middle class. Despite working for a living, these authors and editors did not see themselves as part of the proletariat, and thus based their narratives on assumptions that their privileged working relationships allowed them to hold.

Arthur C. Clarke’s scientist and astronaut heroes exist in a rarefied academic bubble that’s divorced from more typical job markets. Even when tackling a worker’s revolution in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein defined the conflict in terms of nationalism rather than solidarity. Ray Bradbury seems to be largely unaware of conflicts about labour conditions. And the Amalgamated Union in Alfred Bester’s classic The Demolished Man is largely a force for ill due to corrupt leadership.

Of all the big-name authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, special notice should be given to Isaac Asimov’s troubled relationship to organized labour. Despite the fact that Asimov came from a working-class background, his portrayals of workers is often problematic and condescending - In Caves of Steel (1954), workers who are displaced by robots are shown to be semi-literate at best, using pidgin like “‘Maybe it’s time the gov’min’ reelized robots ain’t the only things on Earth.”

If his portrayal of individual labourers is dismissive, his depiction of organized labour is actively hostile: In Robbie (1940), the labour movement forms an unholy alliance with religious fanatics to oppose progress in the form of robots; in the Foundation saga, nepotistic labour guilds are in part responsible for the collapse of the Empire; and to make his antipathy more obvious, he wrote the story Strikebreaker (1957), in which the heroic lead character forces a worker to accept employer demands.

A hero to many left-wing science
fiction fans, Isaac Asimov had feet
of clay on some subjects, including
workers' rights.
(Image by Rowena Morrill) 

It is disappointing to note that Asimov, member of the Futurians and an author often perceived as a progressive voice, might have had such a significant blind spot.

Even one of the most labour relations aware works of that era, Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth’s comedic novel The Space Merchants, is far from a paragon. The novel introduces us to the United Slime-Mold Protein Workers of Panamerica, a union that both exploits its membership through unfair fees, and is unable to stand up against the corporation’s might.

The progressive New Wave of science fiction of the late 1960s may have addressed the genre’s blind spots around race and gender, but when the subjects of class and labour were examined, it was usually with a sense of despair. This viewpoint is understandable in the context of the times: after declining for most of the previous four decades, American inequality was on the rise; trust in liberal democratic political institutions was being undermined; and the worst aspects of hierarchical business unions were on full display through such figures as Jimmy Hoffa and Carlo Gambino.

Those few representations of labour-rights organizations are presented with either antipathy or comedic disdain. When Douglas Adams introduces the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the union’s representatives Vroomfondel and Majikthise are actively fighting against knowledge and research. Arnie Kott, the antagonist in Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time-Slip, is a broad caricature of a union leader and is presented as bigoted, corrupt, egotistical, and thin-skinned.

One notable exception to this anti-union sentiment was found in Larry Niven's 1966 short story A Relic Of Empire, in which unions are described as a necessity

Depictions of workers rights and the struggle to defend those rights are few and far between by the

Has anyone from the Occupational
Health and Safety department
completed an ergonomic assessment
 of this power armor?
(Image via TheVerge) 

late 1970s and 1980s. Employees of the Weyland-Yutani corporation in Alien have little-to-no recourse when it comes to their right to refuse unsafe work. Neoliberal assumptions around employer-employee relations are reflected in more and more depictions of independent contractors in the genre. Johnny Mnemonic is a precarious worker, as are most denizens of the sprawl.

It could be argued that the cyberpunk subgenre is the apotheosis of despair over the state of workers’ rights. In The Diamond Age, the thete (lower-class) citizens have absolutely no rights, let alone employment rights, while workers like Molly in Neuromancer are even stripped of their right to remember the tasks they perform.

In these corporatist dystopias, workers are either unwilling or unable to organize in opposition to these measures, and what few escapes from serfdom exist are accomplished through heroic personal narratives. This view of the struggle for workers’ rights can be seen again in Neil Bloekamp’s 2013 box-office dud Elysium, in which a disenfranchised worker fights an unfair system, but does so on his own through violent action, rather than by organizing his workplace.

Interestingly, even in Ursula LeGuin’s exploration of anarcho-syndicalism The Dispossessed, workers rights are defended in neither the capitalist society of Anarres, nor on the anarchic world of Urras. On the latter world, the protagonist is forced into manual labour due to societal strictures, while on the former he’s part of a labour protest that’s violently put down. In neither world do we see an example of an effective labour movement.

As Mark A. McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson argue in their 2016 paper Resistance is Futile: On The

"THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!
YOU WILL BE PRIVATIZED!
PRI-VA-TIZE! PRI-VA-TIZE!"
(Image via BBC.com)

Under-Representation of Unions in Science Fiction, “The paucity of realistic representations of unions in SF thus has political implications: it reinforces the absence of alternatives to ... neoliberal capitalism.” This observation is mirrored by Margaret Thatcher’s famous slogan, “There Is No Alternative.”

The rigid adherence to one paradigm might be understandable in memetic (non-genre) fiction that strives to represent the world as it is, but in a genre like science fiction, which purports to be based on imagination, it is deeply disappointing. As Cory Doctorow noted this summer at a Worldcon76 panel on the working class in science fiction “There is no sentiment more antithetical to science fiction than ‘there is no alternative,’ … what we do as science fiction authors is exactly to imagine alternatives.”

Thankfully, a new generation was about to do exactly that.

Part two of this blog post, covering a renewed interest in organized labour in science fiction in the 1990s and 2000s, was posted on February 18, 2019. 

Best Related Work 2018

It strikes us that the shortlisted entries for the Best Related Work Hugo Award over the past decade could be roughly divided into two categories: works of community building essays and long-form works based on more academic interests.

It’s easy to find recent and meritorious examples of works from both of our categories: Kameron Hurley’s collection of essays, The Geek Feminist Revolution, is one of our favourites and Paul Kincaid’s Iain M. Banks biography is close to the platonic ideal of the second. 

High-profile exemplars from these two categories may go head-to-head on the 2019 Best Related

Robert Silverberg, Forrest J. Ackerman
and James White at the 1957 Hugo
Awards. Walton examines every
Hugo Award up to the year 2000.
(Image via Fanac.org) 

Work ballot, as we are likely to be faced with a choice between Alec Nevada-Lee’s biographical work Astounding, and Jo Walton’s Informal History of the Hugo Awards. 

Both books are deserving and both authors are well-familiar to Hugo voters. As frequent and approachable Worldcon attendees, they have reputations for being knowledgeable and supportive of the genre. 

Five Decades Of Hugos

Jo Walton, who has a long relationship with the Tor.com website, previously adapted a loose collection of blog posts into her tome What Makes This Book So Great, which was released in 2014. Her Informal History of The Hugos follows in much the same mold, collecting a series of Tor.com blog posts on every Hugo award shortlist up until the year 2000. 

An active fan, and celebrated author,
Jo Walton's knowledge of the genre
makes her Informal History of the
Hugos a joy to read.
(Image via inverse.com)

These posts are tied together with additional essays and commentary from the blog’s comments section. Luminaries of the field — such as the Nielsen-Haydens and the late, great Gardner Dozois — are in conversation with Walton as she explores what the Hugos have meant over the years. 

Walton is an unslakable bibliovore who has read deeply and widely in the genre, and her knowledge of these works is obvious. She shares a personal perspective and doesn’t shy away from value judgements. Regardless of whether or not you agree with her, her positions are presented fairly and well-argued. 

While this personal approach helps build community, it leads to curious blibliometrics. For example, the absence or presence of a book in her local library may help explain her relationship to it but does little to educate the reader about its impact outsider Walton’s home town. 

Who Goes There? 

In contrast, Harvard-educated science fiction historian and author Alec Nevala-Lee’s research offers a more academic approach to his subject matter. His comprehensive and revelatory volume Astounding seems to include references to every significant work of scholarship ever produced on the Golden Age of pulp magazines. 

The book builds a narrative about the dawn of mass-market science fiction by braiding together the

John W. Campbell at the 1968
World Science Fiction Convention
in Berkley, California.
(Image via calisphere.org)

stories of editor John W. Campbell and three of the authors he worked with: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. 

Following them through their collaborations, their periods of prolific output and their oversized legacies, Nevala-Lee grapples with their place in the science fiction canon. 

Did I say ‘grapples?’ I meant ‘mud wrestles.’ 

Because despite the weighty research, and the complicated four-piece narrative, Nevala-Lee does a pretty good Kitty Kelly impersonation. Surprisingly approachable and enjoyable, this is the ultimate work of retro celebrity gossip for the Worldcon crowd. 

Alec Nevala-Lee weaves a
symphony in four parts out
of the intertwined stories
of Campbell, Hubbard,
Asimov and Heinlein.
(Image nevalalee.wordpress.com)

Unsurprisingly, this tempo is difficult to maintain in a biography and, by the time that Hubbard begins founding Scientology, the narrative structure of the book breaks down. It becomes more difficult for the four stories to connect, since in the late '50s and '60s, Campbell’s relationships with these three protegees was on the wane. 

We anticipate that voting for Best Related Work will be difficult this year. Both Walton and Navala-Lee offer excellent choices — choices that are difficult to compare in both purpose and style. 

Walton may be better-known (and many fans are likely still smarting over her absence from the 2015 ballot in the same category), but we suspect that some voters will dismiss a collection that has already been published as a series of blog entries. 

Nevala-Lee’s work will have ardent supporters amongst fans who have waited a long time to see someone tackle Campbell as a subject, flaws and all. However the book may not connect with the younger generation of Hugo voters who may be less aware of his impact on the genre. 

Either one of these works would be a spectacularly deserving winner of the Hugo for Best Related Work. 

Retro Hugos 1943 — Short Stories

In terms of short fiction,
1942 was a great year.
And Astounding SF
led the way in publishing
issue after issue of brilliant
short stories. 

Science fiction has changed since 1942-43.

This is not only true of the content, but the format, the fandom, and the way it connects to the culture as a whole.

Nowhere is this more true than in short fiction.

Many of us will have read the stories of 1942 collected in anthologies, stitched together into novels, and bearing the weight of their publication history. Most of the works are now primarily available in author-centred best-of anthologies.

And this leads to a historicity-bias in the Retro Hugo awards where authors with long and storied careers like Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein have a leg up over lesser-known authors like Colin Keith, Eric Frank Russell or Robert S. Richardson. To some degree the award can end up as a ‘lifetime achievement award,’ rather than being based on the individual work.

As with all structural biases in voting systems, it is incumbent upon those of us participating to be aware of those biases and to challenge ourselves to question how these structures are influencing the nominations.

The context in which we appreciate older works of science fiction is inevitably a different one than those in which the works were first published. In some ways, this gives present day readers a deeper perspective on the enduring value of works published 75 years in the past.

But it also presents a barrier to understanding how these works were in dialogue with other narratives

A.E. Van Vogt's classic story
The Weapons Shop was
illustrated by William
Kollikar.
(Image via WordsEnvisioned)

including the political context of the day. One notable work that should be considered in context with its time is A.E. Van Vogt’s The Weapons Shop.

This was the only short story published in 1942 that was selected to be included in Silverberg’s well-known anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 1 (1929-1964). That tome – which honoured short stories published prior to the foundation of the Nebula Awards – included the “best” works as voted on by the members of the SFWA. We surmise then that the Retro Nebula for 1942 might have gone to The Weapons Shop.

The story – which sees a small-town merchant named Fara butting heads with an illegal weapons shop – is beloved by second-amendment advocates. Van Vogt (ironically from Canada, where weapons rights are far more restricted than in America) offers an idealized implacable force in the weapons shops, which exist in opposition to the tyranny of the state. Eventually, Fara comes around to the weapons’ seller’s point of view and takes up arms against the state.

The Weapons Shop is also as much about propaganda as it is weapons – Fara is a devoted defender of the Empire until he is shown the true face of the Empress. While those of us who do not believe in the unfettered right to bear arms should remember is when reading The Weapons Shop is that it was written and published in an era when there were despicable regimes marching in Europe that relied on this type of propaganda, and on the silencing of dissent.

But the ideology behind those who are selling the weapons is ill-defined and nebulous at best. These weapons shops, it is implied, sell freedom rather than weapons, but what that means is unclear. To further undermine the work, Fara’s only real choice is between allying himself with either one of two implacable and unyielding forces – and even that isn’t much of a choice.

In 1942, Asimov's story Foundation
was illustrated by M.Isip.
(Image via Gabriel Schenk)

The importance — and influence — of Isaac Asmiov’s short story The Encyclopedists cannot be overstated. When reading it today, most of us experience it as the second part of the novel Foundation, but in 1942 it was the introduction to Hari Seldon, to the Foundation and to psychohistory.

When it was in the May, 1942 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction under the title of Foundation, it was published alongside a bevy of other stories about prognostication including Alfred Bester’s excellent Push Of A Finger.

The May 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction is probably too pricy (and hard-to-find) an item for most fans and collectors to track down just to have the original experience. Thankfully, an Oxfordian science fiction fan named Gabriel Schenk scanned it and put the entire thing online. With a couple of excellent illustrations by M. Isip to liven up the story, it’s worth reading and trying to appreciate the story as a one-off on its own merits.

If there had never been another story published in the Foundation universe, The Encyclopedists would

When reading the original Foundation
stories and thinking about the context
in which Asimov wrote them, Trantor's
gleaming spires become tied to New
York's rapidly changing 1942 skyline.
(image via Wikipedia) 

have stood on its own – it encapsulates essentially all of the big ideas of the series: the mathematics of history, the decline and fall of an empire, and the ennobling positivist view of the ability of humanity to alter its destiny. While later stories built on this foundational story, everything that makes the Foundation series great was right there in this initial blueprint.

In this story, Asimov offers us the series’ most unforgettable – and quotable – protagonist Salvor Hardin, the mayor of Trantor. In the context of when this story was published, just five months after Pearl Harbor, his famous quote “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” might be seen as an surprising anti-war exhortation.

Re-reading The Encyclopedists on its own, and attempting to strip it of the weight of history, was a surprisingly revelatory exercise that increased our already high esteem for Asimov’s story.

Alfred Bester’s Push Of A Finger covers some similar themes to Foundation; scientists with a new way of seeing the future and working to prevent disaster. But unlike the more famous work, Bester writes with a touch of comedy. Although one suspects that Bester’s long-forgotten work will not receive an award, we would encourage you to consider it for your Retro Hugo nominations.

Eric Frank Russel's
Mechanistra is usually
found in the collection
Men, Martians and
Machines.
(Image via Abe.com)

Another lesser-known work that is likely to be on our Retro Hugo ballots is Eric Frank Russel’s Mechanistra, the second – and possibly best – of his Starship Marathon series of stories. This humourous story, involves the crew of the starship encountering mechanical termite-like aliens that are hostile to all organic life. Russell’s prose is lively with lurid descriptions of alien life and conflicts.

Of Heinlein’s prolific output of short works in 1942, Waldo is probably the most well-known. I would suggest, however that it is Goldfish Bowl from the March edition of Astounding that is a more interesting work to consider nominating. The story, whose human protagonists are trapped as exhibits in a human zoo is melancholic and nuanced in ways that much of Heinlein’s work is not. That being said, none of Heinlein’s stories are likely to make our ballots, and certainly not My Object All Sublime.

Hal Clement’s first published short story Proof is an excellent debut that presaged significant themes

Twenty-year-old Hal Clement
as he appeared in his 1943
Harvard yearbook.
(image via Mariners Museum)  

that he would explore throughout his career. Clement – just 20 when he wrote the story – imagines life that evolved from magnetic fields and gas in the sun exploring the solar system and being befuddled by the existence of the Earth.

When considering works for the Retro Hugos, it was interesting to consider how these works were distributed, their availability to readers, and the limitations of our collective cultural memory.

Because of these differing contexts, we suspect that there are often works that would have garnered more attention had the 1943 Hugos actually been voted on in 1943.

That being said, of the works we have managed to track down and read from 1942, the most well-remembered short story did in fact stand out as the most exemplary work.

The reputation of Asimov’s The Encyclopedists is well-earned as one of the finest works of Golden Age science fiction.

It is likely that it will – and should – win the 1943 Retro Hugo.

Pseudoscience, Belief and Science Fiction

Guest post by Michael Hoskin, Calgarian friend to the club

Authors are apt to develop certain peccadillos in their writing. You would not have to read many stories by Nelson S. Bond before realizing he loved telling tales of the ‘fourth dimension’; Isaac Asimov’s fondness for robots is well-documented; Ray Bradbury loved Mars so much he spoke often of his desire to be buried on the Red Planet.

Ray Bradbury loved Mars so much,
 he got the first martian drivers'
license. (Image Via File770.com)

For some authors, these recurring ideas are merely quirks. Unfortunately, for others their obsessions become quasi-religious themes for which they feel the need to evangelize. Particularly within science fiction and fantasy, this tendency has undermined the later works of many great authors. 

As we look over the ranks of authors in speculative fiction, we not only see those who had recurring themes but also a desire to see their fiction become reality. There is precedent for such transmogrification: Jules Verne lived long enough to see submarines such as his Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) become practical inventions; H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1898) became an infamous hoax and panic in the hands of radio maestro Orson Welles in 1938. Further, Wells wrote of tank-like vehicles in The Land Ironclads (1903) and then saw tanks appear in real life. Although Wells confessed he knew the idea of the tank was not original to him, he still said of the first tanks: “They were my grandchildren - I felt a little like King Lear when first I read about them.”

To some extent, fans of speculative fiction are prepared for epistemological musings from their authors,

Battlestar Galactica is basically just
the Book Of Mormon in space.
(Image via Space.ca)  

perhaps the more so when there is a shade of doubt as to whether the author’s belief or evidence is genuine. For instance, some of the bile directed to authors Orson Scott Card and Stephanie Meyer derives from their status as believing Mormons. Non-believers take offence when they perceive elements in those authors’ fiction that they view as an exhortation of the authors’ faith or exist to convert the audience.

As fans of speculative fiction, how far can you and I take the Death of the Author Theory? Based on the sales of Call of Cthulhu, H. P. Lovecraft remains fandom’s favourite virulently racist uncle. Is it icky to know Theodore Sturgeon and his wife were swingers? If you learned Fritz Leiber was a practicing pagan how would it affect your reading of his sword & sorcery tales?

I can speak plainly of one speculative fiction author whose beliefs interfered with my ability to enjoy his work. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remains best known for his Sherlock Holmes tales but for our purposes, we remember him for his five Professor Challenger stories (beginning with The Lost World, 1912). Although Doyle’s protagonists tended to be sound, rational men (Holmes, Challenger) Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
pictured here with a fake
ghost, hoped he would
be remembered for his
writings on spiritualism
more than his Sherlock
Holmes stories.
(Image via prairieghosts.com)

himself drifted into the less-than-rational realm of spiritualism. Doyle believed not only in the power of séances but (notoriously) fell for the Cottingley Fairies hoax. This influenced Doyle’s Challenger novel The Land of Mist (1926), told as work of spiritualism advocacy wherein Challenger and his friends were exposed to spiritualism and all went from skeptics to firm believers. As I do not believe in séances, I found this novel extremely difficult to appreciate. I enjoy ghost stories that send a chill down my spine, unnerve me enough to think ‘what if it’s true?’ I do not at all enjoy stories where the author repeatedly tries to convince me, ‘oh no, these ghosts truly exist – just wait, I will convince you.’ One of those whom Doyle did convince was J. B. Rhine, the man who coined the term ‘extrasensory perception’ (ESP).

Ayn Rand is one science fiction author whose personal philosophies have a large life outside of their fiction. Rand’s philosophy of objectivism was born in her fiction and developed a large following that remains closely aligned to libertarian-leaning politics of today. Further, her fiction influenced many in the science fiction fields. Her fans have included: Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J. Ackerman, author Ray Bradbury (who said of The Fountainhead (1943) “It gave me courage to just stand and say to people, 'Go away and leave me alone.'”), comic book artists Steve Ditko & Trevor Von Eeden, author Terry Goodkind, and performer Penn Jillette (renowned for his towering performance on TV’s Babylon 5). Although objectivism seemingly reached its peak in the 1970s and the recent film adaptations of Atlas Shrugged (2011-14) were subject to ridicule, Rand’s philosophy remains effervescent.

From a certain perspective, the most successful science fiction author of all time is L. Ron Hubbard. Although Hubbard never won a Hugo or a Nebula for his fiction, how many other authors in his field can claim to have developed a powerful international organization/religion? Perhaps it is hard (or painful) for science fiction fandom to recall it now, but when Hubbard introduced Dianetics in 1950

From a certain perspective, Hubbard
is one of the most successful authors
of all time.
(Image via Bridgepublications.com) 

he was met with glowing reviews from seemingly all corners. Boosters included such as authors James Blish (who is a Hugo winner and resides in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame) and Hubbard’s early ally A. E. Van Vogt (Science Fiction Hall of Fame). Excepting Lester Del Rey and Theodore Sturgeon (Hugo winner, Nebula winner and Science Fiction Hall of Fame; he recalled Hubbard saying to him: “If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start his own religion.”), virtually all of science fiction passively let Hubbard tell them how ‘clear’ they were. Hubbard’s Church of Scientology remains a powerful and influential body in spite of the motion picture flop Battlefield Earth (2000) and despite Hubbard’s nearest brush with prestige in the sci-fi community being his controversial 1987 Hugo nomination for Black Genesis.

Another proponent of Dianetics was one of science fiction’s most lauded names: John W. Campbell (Hugo winner, Science Fiction Hall of Fame). Campbell wrote only one well-remembered story (Who Goes There?, 1938) but his tenure as editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog; 1937-71) produced some of the most consistently great sci-fi literature in the medium’s history. Yet despite his accolades, he was a racist, a homophobe and a believer in pseudoscience. His pseudoscience beliefs frequently interrupted the pages of Astounding to champion the hokum of not only Dianetics but also ESP, the Dean Drive, the Bridey Murphy hoax and the Hieronymus Machine.

As it turns out, there is no
secret lost civilization living
beneath the Earth's surface.
(image Via Wikipedia.org)

Editor Raymond Palmer of Amazing Stories (1938-49) fell along similar lines to those of Campbell, but courted controversy in the 1940s when he presented various stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver as though his fanciful tales of an underground civilization were factual accounts. The ‘ShaverMystery’ ended in 1948 (due in part to complaints from Amazing Stories readers) but Palmer, embittered by the series’ end, leaned hard into similar ideas. His magazines (such as Fate) ventured outside the bounds of science fiction in order to serve as proponents for all the related pseudoscience, parapsychology, cryptozoology, UFOlogy and suchlike.

In the instance of television’s Star Trek (1966-69), the rabid fandom that sprang up around that program seemed to spur its creator Gene Roddenberry into fashioning a philosophy to support it. When the series returned with the feature film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Roddenberry opted to jettison much of the interpersonal sparring and

Star Trek sometimes seems
like a Utopian Cult.
It's adherents are caught
up in a holy war over
which captain is better.
(Image via Pintrest.com)

emotionalism of the television version, believing it antithetical to the ‘utopianism’ he retroactively believed Star Trek embodied. Regarding Roddenberry’s novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Darren Mooney felt it “almost reads like the sacred text of a utopian cult.” This sense of utopianism would permeate the remainder of Roddenberry’s contributions to the franchise (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987) but would be noticeably absent elsewhere in that franchise (i.e., Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982).

There are also those science fiction creators who have unintentionally caused a belief system to spring up without intending to. Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) helped inspire the creation of the Church of All Worlds, a religion that persists to this very day.

We of fandom have often encouraged the idea that our favourite creators are more than mere tellers of tales; they are ‘visionaries’ or perhaps ‘futurists.’ Doyle, Rand, Hubbard, Campbell, Palmer and Roddenberry each reached points in their careers where the applause of their fans was not enough; they felt the need to use their stage as a means to impart some philosophy or impart ‘secret knowledge.’ 

Many fans no longer worship the science fiction author as ardently as before – but perhaps only because the pantheon of science fiction gods is constantly wheeling out new deities to affirm.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made of (Free Press, 1998).

John R. Eller, Becoming Ray Bradbury (University of Illinois Press, 2011).

Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Dover, 1957).

L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon and Lester Del Rey, The Dianetics Question (Marvel Science Stories, May 1951).

Darren Mooney, Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry (Review) https://them0vieblog.com/2014/06/04/star-trek-the-motion-picture-by-gene-roddenberry-review/

Jonathan Rosen, Doubles: Wilkie Collins’s Shadow Selves (The New Yorker, July 25 2011).

H. G. Wells, War and the Future (Simon & Schuster, 1917).