Hot Take: The Abstraction of Science Fiction

Hot Take (noun): a deliberately provocative heterodox opinion

article that seems intended to attract detractors and invite debate.

In 1921 at Max Ernst’s first Dadaist exhibition, the poet André Breton proclaimed that photography had dealt a mortal blow to traditional modes of technology-enabled expression.

André Breton was often
referred to as the Pope
of Surrealism.
(Image via Wikipedia)

Breton theorized that since cameras could accurately capture the world as it is, they had transformed visual art. The artist’s role of striving for realistic expression was no longer as necessary. In order to remain relevant, painters and illustrators would need to explore abstraction and metaphor.

Over the subsequent decades, Breton’s prognostications have been borne out, as painters have been freed from the need to imitate reality. Painting evolved into a medium for personal expression and conceptual ideas rather than rote documentation.

There was — of course — a backlash against these more abstract and expressive forms of art, including from such conservative critics as Max Nordau and Paul Schultze-Naumburg. Nordeau’s book Degeneration (1892) in which he coined the term “Degenerate Art,” tied Impressionism and other less detail-oriented forms of visual expression to what he perceived as the moral decay of society. The pseudo-intellectual works of such critics were often used by fascist movements to justify their cultural conservatism.

While we are no poets, we would observe that, similarly, the advent of photorealistic special effects in the late 1990s and early 2000s has fundamentally changed speculative fiction literature in many of the same ways — and with many of the same consequences.

The comparison between the effect of photography on painting and the impact of special-effects laden movies on prose speculative fiction is an imprecise one. For example, the advent of photography was far more sudden than the evolution of special effects. Also, literary speculative fiction that is difficult for some readers to comprehend has existed throughout the genre’s history. But in our opinion, the similarities between the two technological shifts are worth discussing.

It should not be lost on
us that among the artists
who rejected abstraction
in the 1920s was a
painter in his 20s
named Adolph.
(Image via Wikipedia)

Photorealistic special effects in live action film transformed speculative fiction by visually realizing imaginative worlds once limited to prose. In the 1980s, if you wanted to experience a story about small, hairy-footed country folk befriending talking trees and fighting dragons the primary way to do so was to read a book and imagine much of the associated world-building.

If you’re looking for a cinematic turning point, you could name Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs in 1993 or the seamless use of digital compositing in 1997’s Titanic. But Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings should be seen as the watershed moment; the moment at which filmic reality became virtually indistinguishable from documentary footage for the viewer. Film and television are the primary access points for viewing and engaging with The Lord Of The Rings. Although approximately 40 million copies of the first volume of the trilogy have been sold across the globe with a readership of likely triple that number, somewhat in excess of 200 million documented viewers have seen Peter Jackson’s movie. The work has been flattened out in its filmic form, the poetry stripped from the page, and Tom Bombadil relegated to a footnote. While this might offend militaristic bibliophiles, there’s no question that the story found a wider audience through film.

It has often been observed that speculative fiction won the culture war, becoming the ascendant genre and providing most of the popular culture touchpoints in current society, but what’s left unsaid is that it is filmic speculative fiction and fantasy that was the victor, not works of prose. Speculative fiction film and television are the lingua franca of North American culture in the new millennium, but speculative fiction literature is not. As movies took over spectacle and futuristic imagery, written speculative fiction — which is still a relatively niche pursuit — was freed from the need to describe elaborate visuals.

Much of the heft of worldbuilding was suddenly provided to the consumer, in a more passive visual format. We would posit that this shift provided authors with the freedom to delve deeper into complex ideas, philosophical questions, and experimental narratives. Rather than focusing on detailed scene-setting, prose speculative fiction seems now to focus more on literary styling, metaphor, and ambiguity, perhaps redefining itself in response to cinema’s dominance over visual storytelling. It is also possible that there are writers who would have turned to prose in the past, who are now writing for the screen because the medium is in demand, supports the stories they want to tell, and arguably provides more reliable remuneration.

We wonder if speculative fiction authors have had to become more poetic to compete with the hard-edged realism of screen special effects and more demanding readers. The classic work There Will Come Soft Rains — praised in its day for Bradbury’s elegiac style — seems hard-nosed and unambiguous when compared to John Chu’s Hugo-winning magical realist fable The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere.

It should not be lost on anyone that there is an ongoing backlash against abstract (and dare we say more literary) work. Those who preferred the prose style that Heinlein and Asimov had popularized have taken aim at a style of writing that is more metaphorical. 

Anti-Nazi art critic Hermann Broch summed up the
fascist tendency of aesthetic conservatism: “The
maker of kitsch does not create inferior art, he is
not an incompetent or a bungler, he cannot be
evaluated by aesthetic standards; rather he
is ethically depraved, a criminal willing radical evil.”
(Image via Wikipedia)

It is also worth talking about similarities between the Sad Puppies and the turn-of-the-century fascist artists who saw surrealism and abstraction as overly chaotic and even degenerate. In the 1920s, reactionaries embraced classical forms as symbols of order, purity, and heritage — and became enraged by the conceptual work of artists like Marcel Duchamp. Fascist scholars such as Margherita Sarfatti called for art based on rigid cultural norms that elevated ‘high culture’ of the past as an ideal. Sarafatti excoriated Cubism, Dadaism, and expressionism and called such art disrespectful to the shared aesthetic values she saw as underpinning “Western Civilization” (it is not lost on us that many of Sarafatti’s arguments are today repurposed by TradFash Twitter accounts that use Greco-Roman statues as their profile pictures). In the eyes of those who hew to conservative interpretations of art, the move away from strictly representational forms threatened traditional values by undermining normative conceptions of beauty.

Today, there is also a cottage industry of those who lash out at the Hugo Awards and mainstream publishers, and argue that the genre should return to “old-school science fiction.” Public appeals for a return to traditional “pulp” aesthetics, and “Campbellian” science fiction could be understood as being essentially similar in nature to the calls from the 1930s-era German Reichskulturkammer for visual arts to return to easily understood forms with heroic themes in styles modeled on classical Greek and Roman works.

It is often presumed that the rejection of modernity by some figures in speculative fiction is a rejection of diversity, that what these figures are objecting to is the inclusion of authors who are non-white or non-male. That is, of course, part of the phenomenon. But we would suggest the “pulp revolution,” and “make science fiction fun again” mantras expressed by this conservative wing of fandom suggest that the aesthetics of fascism exert a significant pull on many. Within speculative fiction, the idea of “pulp” hearkens back to the so-called “Golden Age of Science Fiction,” a mythical era in which the genre was supposedly free of “mundane” influences — this is at its heart an aesthetic argument.

The increasing literary flair of speculative fiction has not entirely driven out the prosaic plot-forward storytelling that used to be the staple of the genre. Without casting aspersions, we can think of several progressive and forward thinking mainstream authors who have embraced a traditional “classic” speculative fiction style without being a part of the reactionary movement.

McLuhan predicted the Global Village, but
neglected to mention that the village in question
is Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.
(Portrait by Yousuf Karsh)

When discussing the 2015 Hugo Awards, the balkanization of fandom, and the emergence of an overtly right-wing movement within the genre, critics of the speculative fiction genre have often focused their analysis on polarization within broader society. The culture of speculative fiction has changed in the past 25 years, and as McLuhan once wrote, “a theory of cultural change is impossible without knowledge of the changing sense ratio affected by various externalizations of our senses.”

The impact of technological changes on the consumption of speculative fiction should not be understated. We think its impacts have brought a broader public under the wing of fandom, prompting inevitable and uncomfortable splits within the subculture. Much as technological advances in the early 20th Century inspired a reactionary movement among painters and labour writ large, similar technological advances in the past 30 years have been at play in the formation of a reactionary movement amongst some groups of speculative fiction creators.

Send Noodles

Automatic For The People.
(Image via Goodreads)

There’s a moment about a third of the way into Automatic Noodle — Annalee Newitz’ forthcoming novella — in which android protagonists complain about how the law prohibits robots from joining labour unions. It’s just a passing reference, but it’s an interesting implied criticism of contractualist approaches to labour relations. When unions are created by legal structures, the ability of labour to organize is constrained by adherence to government regulation. (By contrast, a solidarity-based union like the Industrial Workers of the World cannot be compelled to exclude anyone.)

The book — which hits store shelves on August 5 — is a small-scale story about four robots who open up a biangbiang noodle shop in San Francisco. It’s a quick, breezy read that details the trials of setting up a quasi-legal business while facing backlash from internet trolls.

Set in the aftermath of a Californian war of independence, Automatic Noodle is based in a new nation that has declared emancipation for artificial intelligences — including robots. Because this declaration was a controversial decision, the few rights granted to robots are always at risk.

Within this future California, robots have the right to earn a living, and the right to bodily autonomy … but are subject to restrictions around property ownership, where they can live, and what political activities they can engage in. They are not full citizens, and there are political forces (particularly the alt-right ideologues in charge of what’s left of the United States) seeking to undermine what rights the robots do have.

The four protagonist robots — octopus-like Cayenne, human-mimicking android Sweetie, former robot soldier Staybehind, and industrial kitchen robot Hands — find themselves abandoned by a low-rent employer and, thus, set about building a life for themselves.

This is all obviously a metaphor for the struggles of a wide variety of real-world equity-deserving groups. There’s a subplot about Cayenne and Hands having an ace-romance, and another about Sweetie having body dysmorphia, and yet another about Staybehind’s trauma from conflict. In the hands of another writer, this might have come across as heavy handed and confusing, but here it feels natural because the four protagonists are well developed and generally likeable. If anything, these plot lines might have deserved more time to play out in a larger work.

Annalee Newitz' novella is a love letter to a
version of San Francisco that has space for
working class people and is safe for people
of varying backgrounds.
(Image via SFTravel.com)

The titular noodle shop in the novella is a worker-owned collective both owned and managed by its employees. Far from the standard individualistic perspective on entrepreneurship, the employees embrace democratic decision-making and a system of shared rewards. This setup is an important driver impacting how workers are able to assert their rights.

One highlight of the book is the depiction of internet trolls who engage in conspiracy-fueled campaigns against the restaurant. Even though it is made clear in the text that those behind the review-bombing are bigoted and misinformed, it’s a portrayal that includes some empathy around how loneliness and a lack of community can drive people to feel connection in toxic online forums. 

Authentic Noodle has been described by its publisher as “cozy” science fiction and although it will appeal to fans of that subgenre, we’d suggest that its treatment of regressive bigots on the internet is decidedly ‘uncozy.’ There’s something timely about a novella in which the major plot line is a campaign of “coordinated inauthentic activity” against members of marginalized communities who have the temerity to eke out a modicum of success.

In a genre that often presents conflicts at a planetary (or galactic) scale, it’s sometimes a pleasure to read a work whose scope is very human-scale and relatable. Automatic Noodle is a gem of a novella that we highly endorse.

Worldcon In An Age Of American Truculence

The World Science Fiction Convention — as it has existed for the past seven decades — is a reflection of the “consensus” that has been post-war international relations.

That consensus is over. Fandom needs to be asking: “What’s next?”

The Peace Arch in British Columbia represents
how easy it has been for citizens of the USA
and Canada to cross the border.
(Image via Chilliwack Progress)

Although the first ‘World’-cons were held in the 1930s and early 1940s, the handful of pre-war events were set in the United States and the number of attendees from elsewhere minimal. When Worldcons resumed in 1946, they did so in an era governed by an uneasy consensus of US-centric international relations that fostered cooperation, stability, and collective security. This enabled international organizations built by the new world order to thrive. Increasing international mobility for travellers, greater trust between nations, and a relative sense of communal good made international conventions more common.

The scope and reach of the event grew massively from the first post-war Worldcon which reportedly had a “handful of Canadians” as the international contingent, to the last pre-pandemic Worldcon (2019 in Dublin) that boasted attendees from more than 60 countries. Worldcon thrived as it became increasingly globalized, but never lost its abiding connection to the country in which it was born. The World Science Fiction Convention remains a predominantly US event. With the sole exception of the 2023 Worldcon in China, US citizens have made up the largest single contingent at every single Worldcon.

The ties Worldcon has to the United States are deep; as a volunteer-run and volunteer-organized event, it takes an enormous amount of goodwill and institutional knowledge for a Worldcon to happen. There are pools of volunteers in the United Kingdom, Canada, and in China who would be able to put together a Worldcon every few years if called upon, but it seems unlikely that they could do so every single year. In the United States, there are communities of con-runners scattered across the nation; West Coast, Chicago, Midwest, New England, and more. Even with the greying of a core of US fandom, these communities account for the majority of Worldcon expertise and volunteer hours.

In light of recent political events, and the destabilization of the post-war consensus, it seems likely that the era of growth in its country of origin is over for Worldcon. Travel to and from the United States is declining rapidly. Countries such as France, Germany, and Ireland have updated their government websites advising a degree of caution in planning trips to the country. There are concerns about the low number of international fans registering for the upcoming two Worldcons (Seattle in 2025 and Los Angeles in 2026). Some non-US finalists for this year’s Hugo Awards have indicated they do not feel safe attending the ceremony in person.

Many of the disruptions that Worldcon currently faces are tied to decisions made by the current US administration. But even if there is a change in power in the next four years, international trust will remain precarious. Travel plans remain contingent on the whims of a mercurial electorate. Holding a Worldcon within the United States will consequently be challenging.

Worldcons in challenging locations are not a new phenomenon. The 1951 Worldcon in segregated New Orleans shouldn’t have happened. The Worldcon in Chengdu in 2023 received a significant amount of criticism. Bids to host Worldcons in Saudi Arabia, in Israel, and in Uganda have all been floated — and greeted with skepticism by many.

Of course, it will never be possible to host a Worldcon in a location where every science fiction fan can attend. Every Worldcon that is in a physical location will be exclusionary to some degree. As such, there is a great value in having Worldcon hosted in as many different and disparate locations as possible in order to ensure that as many different people as possible can attend. Travelling to China in 2023 may have been off the table for a lot of US fans, but those fans had US-based Worldcons for the two previous years. If Rwanda’s Worldcon bid succeeds, it would provide African fans — who often have troubles getting travel visas for North America — the chance to attend a Worldcon. There is an enormous value in giving a variety of local communities of fans their turns.

Not every passport will get you into every country
in fact, so every Worldcon location is a choice
about which fans are welcome to attend.
(Image via Boundless.com)

And this presents the dilemma at hand: On one hand Worldcon cannot be a ‘World’ event if it is limited to the United States, and on the other the majority of the volunteer base that makes Worldcons possible is in the United States. There is no Worldcon without the world, and Worldcon doesn’t work in the long term without the US and its fans.

In the past, the World Science Fiction Society (which governs Worldcon organizing) employed a rotation system. The convention was supposed to be held in three different zones on a rota. One year would be the West Coast of the US, the next would be the East Coast, and finally a Worldcon would happen in the central US. (Non-US bids could fit anywhere in that rotation.) Given the sparsity of Worldcon bids some years, the intention was difficult to realize. But it’s a premise that has merit.

Because of the voter base, institutional knowledge, and enormous fan base, US Worldcons will and should always occur. But perhaps there should be an increased willingness among fandom to support overseas conventions in locations that present logistical hurdles for North American travellers. If we may be so bold, perhaps we as fans should encourage the practice of having a Worldcon outside of North America every second year.

In an age of US truculence, Worldcon needs to embrace friends and allies around the globe without turning its back on the generations of fans and volunteers who have built it as an institution.

The Nerd Reich

Science fiction has long been the literature of nerds. The dudes in lab coats, the chess prodigies, the guys tinkering with computers. At a time when socially awkward science-obsessives were scorned by society, science fiction was sometimes a refuge … and became a haven for nerd-empowerment fables.

As such, the genre often portrays societies where eggheads and dweebs are central in the fate of society. Intellectual elites or highly skilled individuals dominate, reflecting a vision where scientific knowledge and technical prowess are the ultimate sources of power. It is not lost on us that these “nerds” are mostly depicted as male and white.

In his recent book Speculative Whiteness, Jordan S. Carroll tackles the problematic consequences of this legacy. The book traces a history of the ways in which the genre was and continues to be co-opted by the alt-right.

It’s an excellent work, and probably the most important book about science fiction written this year.

The term “speculative whiteness,” Carroll explains, is the racist notion that future orientation (i.e., the ability to imagine the long-term of the species) is an attribute unique to a specific pale-skinned subset of the species. He writes: “By laying bare [the] irresolvable inconsistencies in speculative whiteness, this book hopes to wrest speculative fiction from those who would limit it to the service of oppression.”

Over the course of a brief 100 pages, Carroll makes a strong case for not only the willful misreading of science fictional texts by far-right figures such as Richard Spencer and Giorgia Meloni but also how science fictional tropes and figures within fandom have occasionally been complicit in creating a field that is open to such interpretations.

Despite being an academic work, Speculative Whiteness is generally approachable. Carroll’s writing is occasionally urbane and witty; displaying the absurdity of racist worldviews through the irrationality of their assumptions. Carroll’s research is broad, touching on everything from Norman Spinrad’s satire of fascistic themes in the heroic fantasy The Iron Dream to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s most problematic book Lucifer’s Hammer.

Jordan S. Carroll won awards
for his previous book.
An excellent interview with
him can be found
at SFF Ruminations.
(Image via the author's BSKY)

Carroll is clearly familiar with both the literary history of science fiction, and its cultural history, as he cites discussions from conventions and fanzines. Although some revered figures in fandom are not depicted in flattering light, Carroll does not ignore the leftist and anti-fascist traditions within the community and notes the work of people like Judith Merrill, Ursula K. Le Guin and P. Djèlí Clark.

The book might have been stronger if it included more about deconstructing some of the negative subtexts in some mainstream modern science fiction. One can find current examples of nerd supremacist fables among best-sellers and works by highly paid mainstream authors. Even authors with relatively strong progressive bona fides have published tomes in which one can find troubling subtext that would fit neatly in the pages of Speculative Whiteness. In particular, we would note stories that emphasize the superiority of technological competence over more traditional sources of authority such as corporate power structures or government bureaucracy. Moreover, the subtext in these works reflect a positivist approach to human society, and sometimes reveals a level of contempt for social sciences and humanities.

We read a warning from Speculative Whiteness — in short, that nerd supremacist fables can always be co-opted by other forms of supremacism.

As a future-oriented genre, science fiction will always appeal to people who have political ideas about what the future should look like. As readers — and as critics — we should be conscious of the subtexts inherent within the imagined futures we celebrate. Speculative Whiteness is an important contribution to this discourse.

SFF Criticism Needs Iconoclasts Like Brian Collins

Brian Collins is among the most provocative bloggers writing about science fiction and fantasy today. They should be considered for a Hugo for best fanwriter.

Through their blog, the 28-year-old New Jersey native tackles topics that vary wildly between more staid fare such as the value of reading old science fiction, to more incendiary ideas such as the role that military science fiction has played in rationalizing genocide. Their work tends to be engaging, interesting, well-reasoned, and highly readable. 

In an insightful blog post,
Collins points out that
military SFF sometimes
wears its pro-genocide
politics on its sleeve. 
(Image via goodreads)

Over the past four years, Collins has amassed an enviable set of bylines. They began their blogging at Young People Read Old SFF in 2021, contributing to collaborative discussions in the project that Hugo finalist James Davis Nichol curates. Subsequently, they started their own blog at SFF Remembrance, reviewing stories in their original context, as they were first published in magazines. They’ve also contributed to Galactic Journey, Journey Planet, and to Tor.com.

Examining older works in context is one of Collins’ ongoing projects. Each of these reviews — which they publish almost every week — discuss the author’s background, where the work fits into the author’s career, what the publishing magazine was like at the time, etc. Opting for a more conversational style, Collins peppers their writing with asides and interesting digressions. Some highlights include Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse (short story), Damon Knight’s Earth Quarter, and Wyman Guin’s Beyond Bedlam.

Collins wears their politics on their sleeve, and reads through an intersectional lens. Though they’re agnostic, there’s a subtext of liberation theology that runs through much of their analysis — which makes sense given that they took a minor in religious studies while pursuing film studies at Elon University. When discussing the work of Manly Wade Wellman, for example, Collin’s examination of the Angolan-born author’s character and contradictory career add richness to the interpretation of the story.

Brian Collins writes fearlessly, expressing opinions that seem heartfelt even when they go against the public consensus. Some of their iconoclasm can likely be chalked up to the hotheadedness of youth — but at the same time, this willingness to disregard tin gods can lead to interesting insight. This is most evident when they tackle more complex matters in their Observatory editorials. Their piece on Starship Troopers is one of our favourite critiques of Heinlein published in recent memory. To quote from the editorial: 

“Starship Troopers is one of the most famous and misremembered “canonical” SF novels; and unfortunately, no matter how you look at it, it also set a horrible precedent from which the genre still has not recovered. It’s totally possible the genre will never recover from such an impact so long as there are creative minds in the field (and by extension likeminded readers) who believe in Heinlein’s argument: that sometimes extermination is the only option.”

Although they’re a relatively new voice in the SFF community, Brian Collins deserves consideration for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. They’re a writer with a lot of talent, and we look forward to seeing what they do next.

The Path Of Peace

Image via Goodreads

Given the timelines involved in publishing a novel, there was no way to predict that The Siege of Burning Grass would hit bookshelves at a time when the tensions it explores are playing out on North American campuses.

But Premee Mohamed’s philosophical and nuanced new book, which explores ideas of pacifism and to what degree citizens are responsible for the actions of their governments, is a novel that fits the zeitgeist. It is the right novel to read while contemplating the courage it takes for those with no political authority to speak out against state-sanctioned violence.

“I've said in more than one of my books that if you claim you’re not picking a side, you’ve just picked one: the side of the oppressor,” Mohamed says. “Those students are acting more nobly than anyone I can think of right now.”

The novel follows conscientious objector Aelfret, who has been imprisoned for refusing to take part in a war between his country of Varkal and the Empire of Med’ariz. After years of brutal treatment at the hands of his captors, he’s dragooned into an underhanded scheme to bring an end to the conflict. Having lost a leg during his capture, he’s confined to crutches and accompanied by wasps that tend to his wounds.

Along with a captor-soldier named Qhudur, Aelfret embarks on a journey across battlefields and conquered provinces to reach enemy territory on a secret mission. Throughout, Aelfret’s avowed pacifism is challenged and Qhudur is forced to confront the limits of his war-mongering ideology.

“I think it’s inevitable that no philosophy of any kind has ever had a completely ‘pure’ implementation of its ideals,” Mohamed says. “People are complicated, history is complicated, the physical world complicates things.”

This is Mohamed’s best book on almost every level. Her prose is elevated by subtle rhetorical twists, the world is engaging and distinctive, and Aelfret is likely her most memorable protagonist. While the crippled pacifist’s doubts, epistemological angst, and constant questioning of his own motivations can be occasionally frustrating, it also makes him relatable, believable, and an interesting foil to Qhudur, whose narrow worldview and military training have produced in him an implacable certitude.

“I didn't start off wanting to write a story about pacifism per se,” Mohamed explains. “I wanted to show Alefret (the main character) as someone still learning, still at the start of his educational arc, about pacifism, nonviolence, militarism, and his own relationship to those things based on his personality and history. If he had not been who he was, he would have been a very different pacifist.”

A government policy specialist with degrees in molecular biology and environmental sciences, Mohamed has become well-known as the author of science fiction and fantasy able to weave themes based on ecological challenges into her stories. The Siege of Burning Grass has some of these themes, but the book also revels in weirdness. This is a world in which war is fought with assault Pteranodons, talking birds are used as spies, and in which nurse wasps rend flesh in service of medical experiments.

In some ways, the book could be read as the exact mirror image of Starship Troopers. While many authors have written thinly veiled rebuttals of the controversial classic, they’ve usually been playing in the sandbox that Heinlein built; The Forever War, Old Man’s War, Ender’s Game may all critique Starship Troopers … but they’re still playing with the same toys. Mohamed has rejected the entire paradigm, and consequently is able to tackle the same subjects without being bound by the assumptions that underlie most military SFF. It’s worth remembering that Starship Troopers arrived at a time when Americans were just beginning to grapple with their country’s increasing military involvement in Vietnam, and many of the novels engaging with Heinlein’s classic were informed by campus protests.

The Siege of Burning Grass is a novel that matches its moment, and should inspire discussion, debate, and reflection about the moral responsibilities of citizens. Very few novels this ambitious succeed as fully. This book deserves your consideration for every award for which it is eligible.

The Un-American wey that a Lee-Science Fan fae the Left wis haunelt (Translated Blog Post)

Chan Davis (1929-2022) wis weel kent tae fans o lee-science in the 1940s an 1950s. He wis a fanzine editor, an early filker, kent for his daffin at Worldcon, an a ongauin screivar wi Astounding Science Fiction.

But the publict in general is mair likely tae mind o him as a mathematician…an as a political presonar.

Gien his jotters fae the Versity o Michigan in 1954, an the jyle for a saxmonth in 1960, on chairges o contemption o the Congress brocht bi the Hoose Comatee anent Unamerican Haunling, Davis haes lang wantit for the kind o vizzie that screivar Dr Steve Batterson plenishes throu his new buik The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis.

“Almost all HUAC witnesses with Communist connections were avoiding the jeopardy of contempt prosecution either by naming the names of others or declining to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment.,” explains biographer Dr. Steve Batterson. “Finding both stay out of jail options to be intolerable, Chandler refused to cooperate asserting the Freedom of Speech protection of the First Amendment. He intended to use the standing gained by an expected conviction to obtain a hearing before the Supreme Court and hopefully end HUAC’s persecution of the left. During the height of McCarthyism, it was a course of enormous risk and courage.”

Awtho it sterts aff as a fairly evenforrit life story o Davis, The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis soon taks the lang swatch o jist hoo the American law system wirks…or daesna. The buik shaws us a douce American mathematician warslin wi a system that haed failt in hainin the ceevil richts o its ceetizens.

“Even though I’m a mathematician, I’m also sort of a Supreme Court groupie … so the legal aspects of this intrigued me,” Batterson says. “And 10 years earlier, the Hollywood 10 had gone to jail when they based their defense on the First Amendment. So why did Chandler try something that hadn’t worked. It took me a while to understand.”

The buik howks faur intae the law pleas o the Davis case – an in parteeclar the Barenblatt V United States case whaurby the Supreme Coort ruled that the Communist Pairty wis that kenspeckle a threit tae the beild o Americae that it owergaed the kintra’s commitment tae free speech. A raivelt hesp tae be shair, but Batterson expoonds thir maiters clear an pyntitly.

“It always surprised me that I would talk to mathematicians and they wouldn’t know about Chandler Davis’ story,” Batterson recawed. “It was a long time ago, and the story was just … getting lost.”

 An emeritus professor o mathematics at the Emory Versity in Georgia, Batterson haed been aquaint wi Davis for mair nor 20 year. He haed read Schrecker’s history o McCarthyism No Ivory Tower, that comprehendit a chepter on Chandler Davis, sae he kent muckle anent the case.

“Chandler and I happened to be at the same conference in Banff [Canada] in 2010, and were on a hike together in the mountains. When I asked Chandler about the case he was very forthright with me. He wasn’t reluctant to talk about it because he knew he’d done what was right,” Batterson recawed. “The story fascinated me. He was a mathematician who went to jail … I mean that's a pretty unusual thing to happen!” said Batterson.

Lee-science an the warld o fans haes jist a neuk in this buik, tho it shuid be unnerstood that thir cheils becam less important tae Davis the mair he wis in hauns wi his cawing ower the years. Awtho Chan Davis kythes in fanzines aw throu the 1940s, he fell awa fae the warld o fans aboot the time that he wis up agin the Hoose Comatee anent Unamerican Haunling. Awtho John W. Campbell haed been a freen o Davis, thay haed fell oot wi ane anither in the late 1940s over the heid o Campbell’s takkin agin Eebrew culture.

“After he had been fired in 1954, he wrote what he later called some of his best science fiction stories,” Batterson notit (The stories in question comprehendit The Star System an Adrift on the Policy Level). “He thought that possibly he could make a living as a science fiction writer under an assumed name. But that’s not what he wanted. He was a mathematician, and he didn’t want to be forced into a career change by the government.”

The buik sterts oot wi the fairly evenforrit story o Davis’s early life. His bairnheid as the son o academics fae the Left that wis memmers o the Communist Pairty, his education at Harvard an his haun in the warld o lee-science fans, his airmy service, an his mairrage tae Natalie Zemon-Davis. Aw o this serrs tae bring us tae the hert o the wark: Davis’s bittie time spent at the Versity o Michigan, gettin his jotters, an the sax-year lang lawplea that landit him in the jyle.

“It was incredibly courageous what Chandler did,” Batterson said. “He was 27 or 28 years old when this all started. He had a wife and one child at the time – with another on the way. His wife was a graduate student, and it wasn’t clear at the time that she would go on to become one of the greatest historians of her generation.” Batterson expoonds.

In the time efter he tint his job, the Davis faimly gaed haun tae mooth. Whan freens an colleagues got up siller for them, the FBI endit up wi a leet o aw thaim that haed gien; but dowily it seems that no mony in the lee-science community stood by thair sometime billie.

“There’s not a lot of mention of science fiction or fandom in the FBI documents,” Batterson notit. “The FBI didn’t consider that to be disreputable.” Batterson said.

Efter he wis lowsed o his saxmonth sentence in the jyle in 1960, the faimly flittit tae Canadae whaur Davis an his wife becam professors at the Versity o Toronto. Aince mair he wis in aboot the warld o fans, an set furth a puckle stories syne. In 1989, he wis ane o the guests at the 47th Worldcon held in Boston. Baith he an his wife wis weel-quotit in regaird o thair academic cawings.

Chan Davis an Natalie Zemon-Davis
wis kenspeckle academics steidit in Toronto
(Eemage bi gait o University of Toronto )

In the seeven decades fae Davis compeared afore the Hoose Comatee, his poseetion haes been for the maist pairt exonert.

“These kinds of stories are always relevant. At the time, there was the censorship of left-wing political views under McCarthyism. But you find even now (in Florida for example) an attempt at censorship of left-wing political views,” Batterson notit. “Most people think that they’d take a principled stand, but when push comes to shove ... they bend just a little. Chandler Davis didn’t bend, and I find that interesting.” Batterson said.

Awtho the three foregauin life stories that Batterson haed wrutten wis set furth bi academic presses that haed parteeclar intress in warks o mathematics, The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis wis set furth bi the forrit-thinking publisher Monthly Review Press, makkin hit faur mair easy tae get a haud o.

Over the bygane decade, the warld o lee-science fans haes stertit tae warsle wi the histories o its kittle icons. Braw life histories o Asimov, o Heinlein, o Campbell (amang ithers) haes shawn hoo muckle thay haed feet o cley. It maks a chenge tae be pit in mind o aw thaim athin the lee-science community that wis willin tae staun agin the blatters o the day, an rare tae hae this braw volume anent Dr Chandler Davis’s life.

Set ower in Scots bi Dr Dauvit Horsbroch, 2024

Put This Fish In Your Ear

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy makes light
of universal translation, providing the protagonist
with a fish that lives in his ear and translates.
(Image via BBC)

In the fourth season of the British science fiction comedy Red Dwarf, starship captain Arnold Rimmer orders that greetings be broadcast in all known languages — “including Welsh.”

The joke highlights the sometimes ambivalent relationship that science fiction has with the reality of linguistic diversity. More than 3,000 languages on the planet have fewer than 1,000 living speakers and are at risk of disappearing forever. It’s worth speculating about the future of minority languages, and science fiction seems like as good a place as any to do that.

Linguistic diversity is important for a variety of reasons. Language is central to culture, and both shape our worldviews and influence our decisions and experiences. Because language encodes culturally specific knowledge systems, it stands to reason that having people who can think in different languages provides humanity different intellectual toolsets, the better with which to solve societal problems. In short, the whole of humanity is strengthened and enriched by linguistic diversity.

In space opera, matters of intercultural communication are often hand waved away through universal translators, the existence of a galactic standard language, or somesuch. As convenient as these plot devices are, their widespread use in genre fiction reveals assumptions about culture and minority rights that have often been unchallenged in science fiction.

For example, universal translators rely on the premise that there is a common meaning between words; that translation is nothing more than identifying a corresponding word in another language. Well known franchises portray a platonic ideal of unambiguous meaning behind words, something that can be losslessly conveyed from one sapient being to another. It’s obvious that the multivalent and chaotic nature of language belies such attempts. In extremely simplistic terms, how could a universal translator handle all the connotations of a word like “pontificate” without indicating that it is a reference to both religious leaders and bridges? Required context can only be built, not assumed. Signifiers evolve alongside cultural practices and are endowed with the meanings intended by their users.

Despite being born in Aberdeen, Montgomery
Scott does not seem to speak Scots (though
he’s fluent enough in Welsh to sing
Yr Hufen Melyn). It’s unclear if the Scots
language has survived into the 24th Century. 
(Image via Memory Beta)

Famously, The Next Generation attempted to grapple with this criticism in its fifth-season episode Darmok. In the episode, Captain Jean-Luc Picard struggles to communicate with the captain of an alien race — the Tamarians — who communicate only in metaphor and allegory. While it’s a superb hour of television about empathy and attempting to bridge communication gaps, it doesn’t tackle the loaded meanings of individual words. The universal translator is seamlessly able to translate metaphor in Tamarian sentences like “When his mind was fogged” or “Kimarnt, her head cloudy” despite the fact that weather patterns do not necessarily connote the addled perceptions or cognition for Tamarians that these sentences might imply for humans whose languages developed on Earth.

Within the universe of Star Trek, language and culture are mostly treated as separable concepts, and the latter seems to be predetermined by genetic destiny. Klingon society is shaped by inherent properties of the species biology rather than the weights of meaning embedded in their words. To be clear: language is continuously reshaped by evolving cultural practices and socially reproduced, bending most to those with cultural dominance.

While the goal of universal translators might be to bring people together, albeit with dubious technical premises, the idea of a ‘galactic standard’ implies an attempt at control that can be stifling at best (e.g., blind academic adherence to a style guide or your friendly neighbourhood “grammar cop”) and morally reprehensible at worst. The idea of a standard in its worst incarnation conveys that minority languages and consequently minority cultures have been — or are in the process of being — wiped out. Star Wars, which is one of the more famous examples of a fictional universe with a galactic standard language, depicts a setting where fascism has run rampant on several occasions (which may help explain the lack of linguistic diversity). The imposition of majoritarian language has often been used by an oppressor (the global dominance of English and Spanish is in large part the legacy of genocides).

Star Trek’s Vulcans provide another example. They are known for celebrating “Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations,” but the species seems to have only one language. Why is this? There are references to multiple ethnicities of Vulcan, which one must assume means that at one point there were disparate populations scattered across the desert planet’s surface, each of which likely had its own language. But by the time of first contact with humans, only the language Vuhlkansu remains as a common tongue (with Old High Vulcan used for some ceremonial purposes). By the textual evidence in Star Trek’s various incarnations, it seems clear that at some point in the past, many indigenous languages on Vulcan were eliminated. How many mass graves do the planet’s deserts hide?

Now, it should be noted that there have been sporadic attempts to broach the subject of language in SFF with a bit more nuance. In his Culture novels, Iain M. Banks describes a galactic standard language Marain, which he suggests is a “a means of expression which would be culturally inclusive and as encompassingly comprehensive in its technical and representational possibilities as practically achievable.” But even Banks’ descriptions of Marain betray a positivist approach to language based on ideas that some languages are ‘lesser’ than others. This is the sort of thinking (and expression) that leads to residential schools and the suppression of minority cultures.

Another interesting example of minority language representation in space opera is the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Deep Wheel Orcadia — a love story told in the form of an epic poem written in an Orkney dialect, with parallel text providing the English translation.

The horror movie Pontypool gets its name
from the Welsh town of Pont-y-pŵl. The movie
is more relevant today than it was
when it was first released.
(Image via IMDB)

And in 2009 Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool provided one of the genre’s most incisive critiques of linguistic monoculture. The movie depicts a world in which the English language in Southern Ontario has become the vector for an infectious set of ideas, and only those who speak a minority language can survive. This could be read as a metaphor for the type of destructive rhetoric that has spread like wildfire through much of the English-speaking world over the past few years.

As of early 2023, there were 7,164 spoken languages on Earth, according to Ethnologue. Of these, just over 3,000 had fewer than 1,000 people who spoke them — that’s about 42 per cent of world languages that are on the verge of disappearing. This is a rapid movement towards the monoculturalization of our lignuistic landscape, but it's one that has gotten short shrift in genre work.

Science fiction often concerns itself with the ways in which the world and society are changing; particularly when it is changing rapidly. The rise of car-oriented culture led to individualist space opera. The rapid expansion of computing power led to cyberpunk. The rapidly changing climate led to cli-fi. But to date, the rapid destruction of language diversity does not have a corresponding movement in SFF.

Big Brother's Big Shoes

There’s a graveyard in the publishing world that’s full of authorized sequels and companion novels to famous works. Neither Scarlett nor Rhett Butler’s People are talked about decades following their release or in as fond terms as Gone With The Wind. Return to Wuthering Heights seems to have existed just to cash in on Emily Brontë’s original. The less said about the sequel to Catcher In The Rye, the better.

(Image via Goodreads)

In that context, it seems foolhardy for an author to try and tackle a novel like George Orwell’s 1984, a book that is often ranked among the most important works of fiction in the 20th Century. Few novels have altered the dictionary as often and as profoundly; from doublethink and the memory hole, to Big Brother and the unperson. Moreover, every dystopian novel published in the past 75 years has been compared — often unfavourably — to this Orwellian classic.

Foolhardy or not, Sandra Newman was authorized by the Orwell estate to craft a novel set in the world of 1984.

You have to respect Sandra Newman’s ambition and, in our opinion, accomplishment. For the most part the resulting novel Julia meets the lofty standard to which it aspires.

This success can probably be attributed not to a slavish lockstep with the original, but rather to the fact that Newman’s evident affection for 1984 is tempered with a clear-eyed critical analysis of it.

This is more than an adaptation or retelling — it’s a companion piece that has something worthwhile to say.

As progressive as he was on matters pertaining to class and culture, and as observant as he was in the ways in which freedom could be subverted, Orwell neglected issues of gender equity. Notably in 1984, there are only two female characters, neither of whom is depicted as having agency or given any sort of interior development.

Multiple hit reality TV shows 
have been inspired by 1984,
the BBC has adapted it to radio
on six occasions, it's even been
made into a musical twice.
(Image via Guardian.co.uk)

Retelling the same narrative as Orwell did, but presenting it from the perspective of Julia, Newman recasts 1984’s protagonist Winston Smith as a self-absorbed brocialist who is willfully ignorant of much that goes on in the lives of those around him.

Newman imbues her protagonist with sly wit and an understated charm; her descriptions of working at the Ministry of Truth reveal how humour can be used as a coping mechanism for those living in totalitarian regimes. Julia is a warmer, happier person than the melancholic Winston Smith (whose nickname readers learn was ‘Old Misery’), despite having endured worse hardships.

Although it follows most of the same narrative beats, Julia is almost twice as long as Orwell’s original. This can leave the story dragging at places, but for the most part the extra length is used well, taking readers on a tour of proletarian districts, inner-party sanctums, and the wider world.

Julia is a more courageous character than Winston, and leans into the little rebellions that can make life more tolerable in a totalitarian state. Consequently, the story loses some of the bleakness that makes 1984 such a powerful novel. Perhaps this is the cost of storytelling that needs to present readers with a reflective mirror, and one that must recognize the jagged path of social progress that’s unfolded in the decades between 1984 and Julia.

In addition to being true to Orwell’s most famous work, Julia has a 21st-century perspective that might appeal more to readers under the age of 50. Those reading 1984 today may not have a visceral sense of the brooding and malign shadow the Soviet Union under Stalin cast across the globe when the book was published. As such, Newman’s take on totalitarianism — replete with subtle references to modern-day political issues — are likely to make the original more accessible to current generations.

The Orwell estate rejected Bowie's
request to make a musical based
on 1984. What other works have
been lost due to long copyright?
(Image via Rolling Stone)

In most jurisdictions (such as Canada and the United Kingdom), 1984 is already in the public domain, so anyone could have penned their own retelling in those countries — though not in the United States. But Julia came about at the express request of the Orwell estate, who invited Sandra Newman to write this book. We wonder what Newman might have done differently with Orwell’s vision if she had not been operating under the auspices of the rights holders. Likewise, what other versions might be out there ready to be created once Orwell’s book enters the public domain in the United States?

One can see why the heirs to Orwell’s intellectual property selected Newman, who is no stranger to genre fiction, having written about time travel and various apocalypses. But her work has been the type of science fiction that mysteriously ends up in the “fiction and literature” shelves of most bookstores, rather than being placed next to books with rocket ships and aliens on their covers.

This sheen of literary credibility may help Julia find readership in the wider world, but that unfortunately may also dissuade some Hugo Award voters from picking it up. Julia may only be the little sister to 1984’s big brother, but amazingly it’s not lesser.

The Un-American Treatment of a Leftist Science Fiction Fan

Professor Chandler Davis: author, mathematician,
activist, and science fiction fan.

Chan Davis (1929 - 2022) was well known to science fiction fans of the 1940s and 1950s. He was a fanzine editor, an early filker, a Worldcon troublemaker, and a regular contributor to Astounding Science Fiction.

But to the broader public, he’s more likely to be remembered as a mathematician … and as a political prisoner.

Fired from the University of Michigan in 1954, and imprisoned for six months in 1960 on charges of contempt of Congress brought by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), Davis has long warranted the sort of examination that biographer Dr. Steve Batterson provides in his new book The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis.

“Almost all HUAC witnesses with Communist connections were avoiding the jeopardy of contempt prosecution either by naming the names of others or declining to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment.,” explains biographer Dr. Steve Batterson. “Finding both stay out of jail options to be intolerable, Chandler refused to cooperate asserting the Freedom of Speech protection of the First Amendment. He intended to use the standing gained by an expected conviction to obtain a hearing before the Supreme Court and hopefully end HUAC’s persecution of the left. During the height of McCarthyism, it was a course of enormous risk and courage.” 

Although it starts out as a relatively straight biography of Davis, The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis quickly evolves into an in-depth examination of how the American legal system works … or doesn’t work. The book portrays a principled American mathematician at odds with a system that was failing to protect the civil liberties of citizens.

“Even though I’m a mathematician, I’m also sort of a Supreme Court groupie … so the legal aspects of this intrigued me,” Batterson says. “And 10 years earlier, the Hollywood 10 had gone to jail when they based their defense on the First Amendment. So why did Chandler try something that hadn’t worked. It took me a while to understand.”

The book delves deeply into the legal aspects of Davis’ case – particularly the Barenblatt V. United States case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Communist Party was such a significant threat to American Security that it overrode the country’s commitment to free speech. These are complicated issues, but Batterson explains them clearly and thoroughly.

“It always surprised me that I would talk to mathematicians and they wouldn’t know about Chandler Davis’ story,” Batterson recalls. “It was a long time ago, and the story was just … getting lost.”

An emeritus professor of mathematics at Emory University in Georgia, Batterson had been acquainted with Davis for more than 20 years. He’d read Ellen Schrecker’s history of McCarthyism No Ivory Tower, which included a chapter on Chandler Davis, so he knew the broad strokes of the case.

“Chandler and I happened to be at the same conference in Banff [Canada] in 2010, and were on a hike together in the mountains. When I asked Chandler about the case he was very forthright with me. He wasn’t reluctant to talk about it because he knew he’d done what was right,” Batterson recalls. “The story fascinated me. He was a mathematician who went to jail … I mean that's a pretty unusual thing to happen!”

Science fiction and fandom are relegated to a sideline in the book, though it should be understood that these became less important to Davis as his career progressed. Although Chan Davis appears throughout the fanzines of the 1940s, he fell out of fandom right around the time he was facing the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Although John W. Campbell had been a friend of Davis, they had a falling out in the late 1940s over Campbell’s antisemitism.

“After he had been fired in 1954, he wrote what he later called some of his best science fiction stories,” Batterson notes (The stories in question included The Star System and Adrift on the Policy Level). “He thought that possibly he could make a living as a science fiction writer under an assumed name. But that’s not what he wanted. He was a mathematician, and he didn’t want to be forced into a career change by the government.”

Chan Davis and Natalie Zemon-Davis were
prominent academics based in Toronto.
(Image via University of Toronto)

The book starts off with a fairly straightforward biography of Davis’ early life. His childhood as the son of leftist academics who were members of the Communist Party, his education at Harvard and involvement with science fiction fandom, his military service and his marriage to Natalie Zemon-Davis. All of this is in service of the focus of the book: Davis’ brief stint at the University of Michigan, his firing, and the six-year legal saga that led to his imprisonment.

“It was incredibly courageous what Chandler did,” Batterson explains. “He was 27 or 28 years old when this all started. He had a wife and one child at the time – with another on the way. His wife was a graduate student, and it wasn’t clear at the time that she would go on to become one of the greatest historians of her generation.”

During the period after his firing, the Davis family faced economic hard times. When friends and colleagues took up a donation for them, the FBI ended up with a list of who donated; sadly it appears few in the science fiction community stood by their former compatriot.

“There’s not a lot of mention of science fiction or fandom in the FBI documents,” Batterson notes. “The FBI didn’t consider that to be disreputable.”

After he was released from serving his six-month prison sentence in 1960, the family emigrated to Canada where both Davis and his wife became professors at the University of Toronto. He rejoined fandom there, and published a handful of later stories. In 1989, he was one of the guests at the 47th Worldcon held in Boston. Both he and his wife had distinguished academic careers.

In the seven decades since Davis appeared in front of the House Committee, his position has largely been vindicated.

“These kinds of stories are always relevant. At the time, there was the censorship of left-wing political views under McCarthyism. But you find even now (in Florida for example) an attempt at censorship of left-wing political views,” Batterson notes. “Most people think that they’d take a principled stand, but when push comes to shove ... they bend just a little. Chandler Davis didn’t bend, and I find that interesting.”

Although the three previous biographies that Batterson had written were published by academic presses that specialized in mathematical works, The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis was published by the progressive publisher Monthly Review Press, and will consequently be more widely available.

Over the past decade, science fiction fandom has begun to grapple with the histories of its problematic icons. Excellent biographies of Asimov, of Heinlein, of Campbell (among others) have highlighted that they had feet of clay. It is refreshing to be reminded that there were those within the science fiction community who were willing to stand against the prevailing winds of the day, and gratifying to have this excellent volume about Dr. Chandler Davis’ life.

太空纳粹死光光 (Space Nazis Must Die - Mandarin Translation)

希特勒的打手在科幻的世界里留下了巨大的阴影。

纳粹士兵的身影，浮现在《星战》的帝国军队、Doctor Who 中的“达立克” (Dalek), 《萤火虫》系列影视剧中的联盟，以及 Blake’s 7 剧集中的地球联邦突击队这些虚构产物中。

“我们会在（冲浪）
沙滩上与敌人战斗到底……”
（图片来自 IMDB.com )

展现纳粹外延的电影中往往有意选用特定的外在形式，包括雨果博斯式精工剪裁的军服，行军如条顿骑士般马靴叩地发出的脆响，以及阅兵场和耀眼的军旗等里芬施塔尔风格的电影视觉元素（指 Leni Riefenstahl, 执导德国纳粹宣传片《意志的胜利》）。这一类电影中还时常或明或暗地显示其虚构的兵士是受某种形式的种族主义意识形态驱使而作战，不过其具体细节往往让人如坠五里雾中。

不过我们要把话讲明：纳粹不是什么好东西。

纳粹分子不管出没何处，都应该人人喊打：无论是战场还是选票上、大街上，乃至幽暗深邃的星际空间。只有这样，在作品中为纳粹反派（及其纳粹思想）着墨才有其价值。

相反，如果仅仅是加以塑造，而不去揭示其心理动机的深层次来龙去脉，这样的作品是先天不足的。“纳粹”作为恶势力的外在符号，拿来随便一用再方便不过了，很容易用来逃避“恶的意义”这一课题。不错，帝国兵在《星战·帝国反击战》中害死了不少人，不过《釜山行》中的僵尸、《龙卷风》电影中的暴风，或者《异形》中的外星生物同样杀人如麻。《帝国反击战》中没有个体面孔的茫茫兵海，起到的作用无非是充当激光枪的靶子。在护目头盔和雪白亚克力防弹服之下，我们感受不到内在世界。

在作品中使用抽象化的纳粹，带给观众或读者的是一种用来建构世界背景和人物的速记符号。它传达的是一种让人麻痹的（伪）二元对立，让受众舒舒服服地理解纳粹 = 反派，从而其敌对方 = 好人。这就给文化消费者免去了自己思考善恶的负担。

科幻题材中，还是时不时出现若干对法西斯主义或法西斯分子更加尖锐、更有价值的塑造。保罗·范霍文执导的《星船伞兵》电影就变出了一台精彩的戏法。首先，片中借用政治宣传片技巧将地球联邦一步步塑造成一股正面的英雄力量，然后才渐渐让观众醒悟过来，发现自己已经被骗得为纳粹叫好。诺尔曼·斯宾拉德的《铁梦》所探索的，是英雄主义幻想叙事与法西斯主义的神话谱写为什么植根于相近的传说式历史观。此外，弗诺·文奇的《天渊》则探讨了人的自由如何被纳粹利用。

用纳粹作为代码的反派在科幻中数见不鲜，
从《星战》到伍迪·艾伦的无厘头电影 Sleeper
皆如是。然而，
这些电影是否做到了引发观众思考着类符号的真正含义呢？
（图片来自 Overture 杂志 )

不过，科幻中主流的纳粹意象，还仅仅停留在一袭戏服的层面。

考虑这样的事实：现实世界中有些摆明了身份、不以为耻反以为荣的纳粹主义者，同时也是《星战》铁粉。但我们要问的是，他们看不到自己和《星战》间的联系吗？《星战正传》三部曲试图激发的批判性思考如此有限，以至于我们完全可以想到这样的场景——有这么一种人，在选举当天荷枪实弹地游弋于投票站附近，专门恐吓来自少数族裔的选民；完事后回到家中，打开电视播放一部《星战正传》之《曙光乍现》，为银河抵抗军呐喊助威。同样，虽然“501部队”粉丝团乐于摇身一变打扮成邪恶政权的军人，但这些假扮的暴风兵绝大多数其实是良好公民，而非达斯·维德的忠实鹰犬或者帕尔帕廷大帝思想的好学生。我们无意将这两类人不恰当地等同起来，只是想指出，《星战》中对法西斯主义的刻画向来有多含糊、多贫乏，从而给观众留下的自由感悟空间只能局限于多么肤浅的层次。

这也就是为什么最近几部的《星战》作品令人耳目一新。Andor 剧集带领观众以多层次的视角深入帝国内部，探索专制制度对其参与者的诱惑。其中描绘的，有资产阶级从压迫中获利，享受虚妄的安全感；有中层干部膜拜秩序，抓紧机会向上爬；还有一些底层的劳动者，为了在屠夫刀俎下苟延残喘，不惜出卖同道中人。这么说可能会被当作是夸张了，但我们的感觉是，这部剧集所构建的，堪称是法西斯主义者的分类学——《奥杜邦学会常见纳粹观测入门》。

Andor 中出色地表现了将人视为工具的法西斯主义倾向，
以及监狱系统中的劳动剥削。
不过，还是有些粉丝不解其中意
（图片来自 [Polygon]）。

Andor 展示了《星战》宇宙中的法西斯主义者不只千人一面。因此，帝国在这样的描写下更能让人信服，其帝制政体也更加令人不寒而栗。科幻界需要更多这样的作品。虚构的故事可以发生在很远很远的星系……然而，法西斯主义其实一直没有滚到离我们足够远的地方。

(注：原标题 Space Nazis Must Die, 取自B级片 Surf Nazis Must Die, 见配图。）

本杂志编撰团队感谢雨果奖提名，并借此机会挑选了2022年度若干得意之作翻译成中文，以飨参加本年度世界科幻大会的中国友人。译者：Zoë C. Ma [https://zoe-translat.es/]

列王若尘 (The Tsars Like Dust - Mandarin Translation)

虽说科幻拥有其它题材难以企及的辽阔空间可以让艺术家挥毫描画新的世界体系，但我们读到的作品往往落入最陈旧、最粗糙、最愚蠢、乃至最落后的政府形式之窠臼：君主制。

正值伊丽莎白二世女王陛下践祚七十载溥天同庆之祺，
本博客编创团队谨祈愿天下人主
（包括虚君如温莎王室者）
皆喜获废位。（图片来自IMDB.com)

这方面的例子不胜枚举：阿尔达拉公主（出自Buck Rogers 系列），灰色王子 (Jack Vance), 帝查卡国王（出自 Wakanda 瓦干达系列），“星帝”格蕾兰女皇 (John Scalzi), 六方位皇 (Arkady Martine), 火星公主德嘉·索丽丝 (Edgar Burroughs), 拜冷·阿巴萨克斯皇帝（出自《木星上行》），伊茹兰公主（出自《沙丘》系列），金星女王伊拉娜（出自 Queen of Outer Space 电影，见图），阿思查公主 （出自 Doctor Who），大巴札尔帝王（来自 Voltron 大陆译《战神金刚》，美版称Emperor Zarkon），“星火”科莉安公主（DC美漫人物），以及银河大帝革律翁二世（出自阿西莫夫《基地》系列）等等等等……遗憾的是，这里列举的作品大多既做不到批判性地运用君主制度这一概念，也没有努力探究这一政治制度在社会层面造成的后果，更未能拷问它所代言的精英主义哲学这一思想基础。因此，阅读这些作品时，读者应带有怀疑的精神。

考虑到当下除了其残余形态，仍在君主统治下的国度已寥寥无几，或许我们可以理解为什么几乎没有多少作者有意用批判性的态度面对自己笔下帝制造成的影响。毕竟，但凡未满244岁的美国人，以及对彼得卢惨案（1819年）前的社会没有个体记忆的英国人，已经无法通过切身经历来感知“星帝”统治下的生活该有多糟糕。（即使偶有格蕾兰般的明主现世，她们在守旧制度的沉疴之下也无力回天。）

创作者若要更准确地描写太空帝国的面貌，那就该参考当今世界少有的几个绝对君主制政体，例如阿曼苏丹国、斯威士兰（斯瓦帝尼）王国，以及北朝鲜金家王朝。说得直白点，现实世界里“有君权”和“无人权”是直接关联的。但科幻作品中却很少这样描写。

作者之所以对描写帝王趋之若鹜，有一些原因是很清楚的。首先，如果要突出某个人物的重要性和能动性，“称王”是条捷径。比如说，一旦某个人物提到“莉亚公主”，观众很容易领会到这是个“主要角色”。

同样，从故事叙事角度而言，要想解释某个政治决定，将其归为个人意志相对容易，而刻画其它政治体制下必须经历的决策过程就比较麻烦。

我们要看到，很不幸，作为人间现存持续时间最长的制度，有着“万岁”历史的君主制看来还要在未来很长时间内存续下去。

然而科幻题材作品太容易陷入对这种落后压迫制度不假批判的运用。例如，在早期《基地》系列小说中，即便谈起弊政多端、危机四伏的帝国可能的继承者，阿西莫夫也未曾主张任何比帝制更复杂、更富于内涵的治理体系。

《星战》中将奥德朗星描写成桃花源、乌托邦式的君主国。
然而，现实世界里，人权和君权是水火不容的。
（图片来自 StarWars.com）

在戴维·韦伯的“奥诺尔宇宙” (Honorverse) 系列中，曼堤戈耳（Manticore, 意为西方神话中的刺尾狮人）星际帝国的女王和女皇伊丽莎白三世在任何问题上无一例外必然站在正确的一面，而她果敢的领袖气质则反衬出该系列作品中诸个民主政府的昏聩和低能。至于洛易丝·麦马斯特·比约德虽然承认历史上曾经出现过昏君，她塑造的格里高尔·弗巴拉却基本上“是个好人”。因为这一类作品未能冲击“开明君主”这一不经之谈，它们实质上深化了这一思想的影响。

也许，星际殖民征服只有在暴虐贪婪的帝制下才有更大可能。帝国一旦无力持续扩张，往往也就走向了尽头。因此，民主政体可能更安于（或更可能被要求）将资源集中在创造或者增加公民的福祉上，而非在群星间开疆拓土。就像资本主义下“拟帝制”的公司集权一样，传统的君权也许同样贪得无厌。既然这样，虚构世界中各种奥加纳世家（见《星战》）及其翻版，就应该描写成贪欲无艺的一夫民贼，而非普施仁政的明君。

《星战》系列作品基本上未曾流露出任何涉猎深层次文化批判的企图。即使如此，我们也应注意到其中对各种政体越来越全无章法、有头无尾的描写。我们简直无法读出其中任何一个政府如何运转：既有元老院，又有皇帝，还有选举产生的公主，甚至有掌握着某种政治权力的贸易联盟。不过，有一点表现得很清楚：帝制无过，暴君有辜。进而言之：过在贼人窃据大宝，不在国体自新之亟。

所有的君主制政体都依赖一个假设，即某些特定血统的继承人有着内秉的优越性。在这一点上，它和制度性种族主义所依赖的是同一个哲学。《星战》后传在这一点上变本加厉。蕾伊能够执掌原力，无非是因为她是帕尔帕廷大帝的直系血亲。她的价值和力量来自血统。这样看来，多数来自被歧视、被种族主义压迫群体的科幻创作者，相比于坎贝尔时期以白人为主的科幻作者群体，更倾向在作品中针对帝制表现出健康的质疑精神，这也就不足为奇了。

值得注意的是，坎贝尔时代的两位科幻巨子罗伯特·海因莱因和弗雷德里克·波尔虽然处于政治方向的对立两极，但在同辈中两人可并称为对帝制观念的最强怀疑者。波尔对帝制着墨不多的描写充满了大不敬的调侃，而海因莱因笔下的君主政体要么全然异类，要么面目可憎，但他却塑造了各式各样为民主而英勇斗争的主角。

虽然整体上有细致而高格调的叙事风格，
但 Leprechaun In space 电影还是未能免俗于星际君主的套路。
（图片来自 IMDB）

不过我们还要专门提及另一类作品，它们直接用君主制当作观念上的主要题材，旨在拷问政治制度对其参与者的意义何在。这一类的突出代表是查尔士·斯特罗斯的《商战王朝》(Merchant Princes) 系列，可以说多少直面了承天之命的特权血统造成的后果和对公共社会整体的影响。

君主制是残酷可怖的政治体制，繁荣而进步的国家大多已将其扬弃。屈指一数，当今世界现存只有7个绝对君主政体，此外尚有一小部分有虚君残存的国家。在这样的条件下，科幻这一向往未来的创作题材中，有相当一部分作品仍然将这种弊政制度奉为主要设定。

我们呼吁，在畅想人类社会的未来时，科幻粉丝同人界能够对帝制抱有健康的怀疑。

（注：原标题 The Tsars Like Dust, 得名自阿西莫夫作品 The Stars, Like Dust)

本杂志编撰团队感谢雨果奖提名，并借此机会挑选了2022年度若干得意之作翻译成中文，以飨参加本年度世界科幻大会的中国友人。译者：Zoë C. Ma [https://zoe-translat.es/]