VERSION 0.5 DTD 032600


SCIENCE FICTION AND
LITERARY TRADITION

by Thomas D. Clareson

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER,
WOOSTER, OHIO

Although Edwin B. Burgum makes only incidental men-
tion of science fiction in his 1965 article, "Freud and
Fantasy in Contemporary Fiction," he does underscore
what may well be the primary cause for the ever-growing
interest in the genre. "The rise of the novel of fantasy,"
he writes, "is the most noteworthy innovation in present-
day fiction throughout the Western world.." 1 Until re-
cently, he continues, novelists accepted "the objective
existence of society as a common point of reference with
their readers, differing only in the technique for the use
of valid detail in its presentation." In short, what he calls
the "predominant tradition" in modern fiction has sought
to achieve a close verisimilitude to everyday life.
From its beginnings in the eighteenth century, modem
fiction has remained socially conscious. It has confronted
society in an effort to dramatize the problems of its times.
To do this, whether emphasizing the external world, as
did Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and DOS Passes, or the in-
ternal  world" -inner  space"-as  did  Joyce,  Virginia
Woolf, and Faulkner, its writers have attempted to re-
produce in minute detail the quality of experience of the-
man-down-the-street in every-town, the world. The result
has been to increase concentration upon the analysis of
character, creating the convention of psychological realism
and producing those critics who would define the novel
solely in terms of character analysis.
(1) Edwin B. Burgum, "Freud and Fantasy in Contemporary Fic-
tion," Science and Society, 29 (Spring 1965), p. 224.
Until recently, writes Burgum. For two patterns have
emerged in contemporary fiction. On the one band, citing
both Heller's Catch 22 and Kafka's The Trial as suc-
cessful examples, Burgum points to .those writers who
have used "the preposterous" to convey more clearly "a
tenable interpretation of the social reality external to the
subjectivity of the individual." The word interpretation is
the key, for it both denies that an objective, external
"reality" has been captured, and implies that the novelist
has intentionally created a symbolic construct having
value only as it reveals something of .the human condi-
tion. On the other hand, as in Kafka's Metamorphosis,
some writers have abandoned all "social referent" and
.thus have blurred "<he distinction between the real and
the plausible and the distorted and implausible, to leave
the reader in a troubled state of ambiguity about fact and
fancy whatever his conception of reality may be." He
refers, in part 'at least, to what .other critics have called the
"grotesque" or "black humor."
What Burgum is saying may be said in another way.
Whatever its devotion to verisimilitude, at its best modern
fiction has transcended the literal and striven for sym-
bolic  statement.  Increasingly  writers  have  consciously
abandoned "our ordinary world of reality" and intention-
ally created a spectrum of worlds that make easier sym-
bolic statement. For example, in The Inheritors William
Golding pictures a prehistoric world in which Neander-
thal man encounters the "New People"; in Giles Goat-Boy
John Barth blends together traditional myth and a vision
of a computerized future to come up with the world of
WESCAC; in a very different manner Ira Levin explores
another computerized world in This Perfect Day; and
Anthony Burgess summons up a nightmarish Britain of the
near-future in both A Clock-work Orange and The Want-
ing Seed. (Because of their materials and manner, if these
novels are not fantasies, what are they? 'If they are not
science fiction, what are they?)
One cannot question Burgum's general assertion; how-
ever, his lack of perspective is disturbing. In Yesterday
and  After,  Professor Lionel Stevenson includes the
chapter, "Purveyors of Myth and Magic," in which he
writes, "It is frequently forgotten that the predominance
of realism in both the theory and practice of novelists
during the early years of the twentieth century did not
preclude the active survival of fantasy."(2) He focuses upon
such writers as Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood,
M. P. Shiel, and E. R. Eddison, to name only those writers
most familiar to enthusiasts of science fiction. After dis-
cussing their works, Stevenson explains that he has wanted
to "demonstrate the vitality with which symbolism and
the supernatural survived during the decades while realism
was nominally in the ascendant." By mid-century, he
concludes, the two modes-fantasy and realism-had be-
come "thoroughly reconciled."
What Burgum names as a current phenomenon, Stev-
enson identifies as a continuing tradition. Together, then,
they provide a context and a perspective within which to
examine the increasing interest, both academic and pop-
ular, in science fiction.
Futurologists have seized upon the genre as a vehicle
with which to build and analyze alternative futures. The
above-named titles provide but a few of the many ex-
amples of novels in which so-called "mainstream" writers
have made use of sf materials. Jack Williamson has com-
piled a list of seventy college and university courses deal-
ing in some fashion with science fiction during the aca-
demic year 1970-71,3 but suggests that that number very
probably represents less than half the courses actually
offered. During the 1960s the volume of scholarly and
critical works devoted to some aspect of sf has steadily
increased. The Modern Language Association has de-
voted a special forum to "Science Fiction: The New My-
thology," and since 1958 has held an annual seminar
devoted to the field. Some critics call for the creation of
a new aesthetic with which to evaluate the field because
of its uniqueness; others, like Samuel R. Delany, Alexei
Panshin, and James Blish, have called for the "re-assimi-
lation" of sf into the mainstream, where, as Blish points
2 Lionel Stevenson, "Purveyors of Myth and Magic," Yesterday
and After: The History of the English Novel (New York: Barnes
& Noble, 1967), p. III.
8 Jack Williamson, "Science Fiction Comes to College," Ex-
trapolation, 12 (May 1971), pp. 67-68.
out, "it started out, with such figures as Wells and Conan
Doyle."*
Perhaps the most significant indication of the interest
in, and vitality of, science fiction at the present time may
be found among the editors and writers themselves. Many
of them are producing experimental stories, and, seem-
ingly, at one time or another all of them have either
celebrated or denounced the "New Wave" of the 1960s,
although sometimes one cannot be certain which wave
they refer to. As Theodore Sturgeon has said, the field
is "yeasting" as never before. 3
Why? No one answer will satisfy everyone. Certainly
the rapprochment made possible between the essentially
anti-scientific stance of the twentieth-century literary es-
tablishment and science fiction because of the genre's
increasingly dystopian tone since World War II is partly
responsible. One should not forget that the same science
which evoked some of the early forms of sf in the nine-
teenth century also deprived the literary imagination of
the security of its traditional, ordered universe in which
the laws of nature paralleled the moral laws of a benevo-
lent deity who had special regard for man. The vision of
a mechanized, "alien" universe sent writers 'and critics
soumying to find a new center which would give authority
to their art. Nor should one forget that much of the
theory behind literary realism and naturalism sought to
find a 'scientific basis for the art of fiction, 'as evidenced,
for example, by Zola's Le Roman Experimental (1882).
But the most telling suggestions lie with Burgum and
Stevenson. For whatever reasons, writers have increas-
ingly turned from a "realistic" portrayal of everyday cir-
cumstances to the creation of imaginary worlds which
can be more easily manipulated. One recalls at once
achievements ranging from the constructs of Donald Bar-
theime and Jorge Luis Borges to J. R. R. Tolkien's "Mid-
dle Earth" and the "strange country" of Anthony Burgess's
latest novel M/F>
In addition, whether one insists, parochially, that sd-
* James Blish, "Science Fiction as a Movement," More Issues at
Hand (Chicago: Advent, 1970), p. 14.
8 Theodore Sturgeon, "I List in Numbers," National Review, 10
March 1970, pp. 266-267.
ence fiction "began" with Gernsback, Wells, Verne, Poe,
or elsewhere, he must acknowledge that by now at least
several generations of authors have written it. If one
defines the genre as that type of fiction which results
from and reflects, often topically, the impact of scientific
theory and speculation upon the literary imagination
and, therefore, the effect of science upon peoplehe must
recognize that each of those generations will write in its
own idiom and manner of the visions and nightmares
which beset it. Literary form and content never remain
static.
For example, much has been written of science fiction
as a literature of prophecy. Arthur C. Clarke is one of
those who has called its tone essentially optimistic. De-
spite the skepticism with which such men as Wells re-
garded the concept of progress, science fiction assumed
its identity as a separate genre among those writers who
had a clear vision of the millennium that sciencetech-
nologywould lead man to. They celebrated the inven-
tions of the late nineteenth century and extrapolated new
developments from them; they sought the "ultimate
metal," the "ultimate energy," and, ironically, the "ulti-
mate weapon" which would be so terrible as to make all
war impossible. Seventy, eighty years later such a central
vision is largely untenable. If one doubts this, let him see
the film shown at the New York World's Fair in 1939
predicting what the city of 1960 would be like. If he is
young enough, he may laugh at such mistaken visions; if
he is older . . . Other examples, such as the evolution of
the motive power and destination of space flight in the
stories, could be cited.
The result has been an ever-increasing diversity within
the genre. What past writers have done is never lost or
forgotten;  it is re-combined,  given different emphasis,
fused with new materials as current writers shape it to
express their own visions and nightmares. Instead of la-
menting the appearance of "different" stories or bemoan-
ing the demise of science fiction because one's favorite
kind(s) of story no longer dominate the genre, one should
realize that the "yeasting" now going on gives science
fiction a fresh complexity, a fresh vitality.
Perfiaps nowhere is the present diversity more vividly
shown than in the fiction nominated for the 1970 'Nebula
Awards. It shows how variously long-established motifs
can 'be handled, and it shows how differently individual
authors can use the same materials.
The nominations for the best novel are as follows:
Compton, D. G. The Steel Crocodile (Ace Special).
Lafferty, R. A. Fourth Mansions (Ace Special).
Niven, Larry. Ringworld (Ballantine Books).
Russ, Joanna. And Chaos Died (Ace Special).
Silverberg, Robert.  Tower of Glass  (Galaxy, Scrib-
ners).
Tucker, Wilson. Year of the Quiet Sun (Ace Special).
Of the six Larry Niven's Ringworld best represents the
"classic" science fiction story in that it is structured around
a space flight and the exploration of a hitherto unknown
world. While the motifs of impending catastrophe and
association with alien races inform the narrative, once the
protagonist and his companions crash upon the "planet,"
the novel focuses upon their efforts to explore and to
escape from it. Niven has created one of the most unique
worlds within the genre. An unknown race has engineered
an "aitifact": a solid ribbon of matter ninety million miles
in radius, some six hundred million miles in length, a
million miles wide, circling its own sun. (One speculates
that he has extrapolated from the concept of a space plat-
form.) Its civilization has fallen into barbarism. Ring-
world is, finally, an adventure story, potentially epic in
scope. Surely he cannot abandon it after a single novel; it
begs for sequels that portray its creation and the rise and
fall of its civilization.
Wilson Tucker's Year of the Quiet Sun exemplifies the
dyatopian motif, gaining its terror from a projection of
today's headlines. Its protagonist, a black demographer
though his race is not clarified until near the end of the
bookis recruited by a government agency to be one of
three using a Time Displacement Vessel to enter the near
future in order to gain needed data. The project is di-
rectly responsible to the president; politics misuses science
when he insists the three learn if he is to be re-elected
in 1980. Thus begins a series of time-hops, finally placing
the protagonist on the other side of the millennial year
2000, which reveal an America torn by racial confliot and
atomic holocaust, reduced to barbarism in part because
twenty million men were "lost or abandoned" on diverse
battlefields throughout the world. The story is told against
the backdrop of a book written by the protagonist: From
the Qumran Caves: Past, Present, and Future, in which
he has given apocalyptic interpretation to a 'scroll which
he calls Eschatos, "The End of Things."
D. G. Compton's The Steel Crocodile also centers upon
a government agency, the Institute, a computer center
analyzing and synithesizing data from, seemingly, all walks
of life. But if one had not identified him with sf from
previous titles, one would compare The Steel Crocodile
to the novels of such men as C. P. Snow and Nigel
Balchin, for it is much like their works in tone and man-
ner.  In its concentration upon character and familiar
setting, it approaches the tradition of verisimilitude more
closely than does any of the other nominees. It is time-
less: it could occur in the futureor tomorrow. For it
explores the theme of the responsibility of the scientist.
Although mystery, murder, and conspiracy are present,
they are played down. Only gradually does one learn the
extent to which the Institute indulges in social engineer-
ing, always implying that it keeps before it such ideals
as stability and peace. The climactic action occurs after
the Dileotar reveals Ubait his special project seeks to "de-
termine the precise quality of spiritual teaching that
would satisfy our present day ethos" so that the com-
puters can create a "relevant Messiah" (p. 171). This
leads Compton to a final irony which is a commentary
perhaps applicable to both revolution and order.
What he gains by portraying a familiar society and set-
ting closely resembling "our ordinary world of reality,"
Joanna Russ gains by emphasizing the subjectivity of her
protagonist, though he is far from an everyman. Telep-
athy and teleportation have long been standard devices
in science fiction, but in And Chaos Died, Miss Russ con-
centrates upon the quality of her character's feelings as
he learns and masters those arts. She uses his experience
as a means of criticizing society. He gains these abilities
while marooned on a seemingly idyllic planet, and then
returns to wander an over-populated, chaotic earth made
more meaningless because he can enter the brutal, moronic
miadlessness of its iahabitants.
More fully and more obviously than any of these four
titles Robert Silverberg's The Glass Tower illustrates how
well traditional science fiction materials can be adapted to
symbolic statement. To frame the central action, he relies
upon the theme of communication with aliens; in this
case monitored radio signals cause the protagonist to
begin construction of aglass tower in the Arctic, from
which he can more easily reply to the far-distant aliens.
He is also the sciemtist-mdusitrialist who mastered the
synthesis of DNA, thereby creating a race of androids to
provide the world's labor force. His son is the lover of an
android woman, an affair to be regarded as an obscenity,
a lowering of standards, if known about. Here it provides
the narrative device to penetrate the public image as-
signed to the androids. On the one hand, the Android
Equality Party strives to gain seats in the World Con-
gress, thereby obtaining at least a token of equal rights.
Thus does he dramatize the racial struggle of contem-
porary America, as he did in his fine short story. Sun-
dance (F&SF, June). On .the other hand, itfae son learns
that the androids have farmed a religion in which his
father is god. They pray and wait for the day when he
will redeem them so that the "Children of the Vat" are
equal to the "Children of the Womb." Politics and re-
ligion oppose one another, but the dream of the androids
is shattered when one of their leaders learnsthrough a
brief exchange of mindsthat the protagonist refuses the
role of God, refuses his responsibility as creator. To him,
the androids are things to be used. Revolution follows.
When the protagonist surrenders his powers to his son
and flees by spaceship toward the distant galaxy in order
to fulfill his obsessive desire to communicate with the
aliens,  another symbolic level is completed. One must
read it as the statement that god is dead, that god has
fled from his oreatures, leaving them to thear own devices
and those of their masters.
Like Russ and Silverberg, R. A. Lafferty employs the
idea of penetrating another's mind in Fourth Mansions.
In this instance a group indulges in "mind-weaving"
the amplifying and projecting of psychic power. They
wish to induce a new human evolution, to cause their own
mutation into supermen, so that man can attain a higher
spiritual level.  The  old  motif of  alternate,  co-existent
worlds is also introduced. But these merely give Lafferty a
point of departure as he weaves a tapestry of symbolism
that draws finally more upon myth than upon science to
dramatize the eternal struggle between good and evil.
The core of the story retells the Parsifal legend, that
of the foolthe innocent onewho resists temptation,
gains wisdom through suffering, and thus may assume
guardianship of the Grail. Lafferty creates four groups:
the mind-weavers misuse their science (their leader is a
biologist); a group, long-lived if not immortal, evokes
the sense of demons who intrude evilly into the affairs of
men; a nascent dictator, protesting that he works for the
good of man, would reduce them to automata if suc-
cessful; and a preternatural Christian brotherhood plays
the part of the Knights of the Grail. Lafferty employs an
elaborate system of animal 'imagery to identify the groups
and evokes a general feeling for medieval myth in par-
ticular. Withdraw any part of his tapestry and the work
collapses. He has acheived a richly textured fantasy.
Such, then, are the nominees for best novel. From the
quiet realism of Compton through the potentially epic
adventure of Niven to the symbolic statement of Silver-
berg and 'the fantasy of Laffertythey serve as an index
to the diversity of the field and show how deliberately
writers are now experimenting with traditional sf. ma-
terials. They are trying to escape the literal story.
The same diversity and experimentation may be seen
in the other nominations for the Nebula Award. These
are as follows:
Novella:
Anderson, Poul. "The Fatal Fulfillment" (F&SF,
March).
Blish, James. "A Style in Treason" (Anywhen).
Ellison, Harlan.  "The Region Between"  (Galaxy,
March).
Leiber, Fritz. "Ill Met in Lankfamar" (F&SF, April).
Simak, Clifford. "The Thing in Stone" (If, March).
Wilhelm, Kate. "April Fool's Day Forever" (Orbit 7,
edited by Damon Knight).
Novelette:
Disch, Thomas. "The Asian Shore" (Orbit 6, edited
by Knight).
Ekiund, Gordon. "Dear Aunt Annie" (Fantastic,
April).
Jones, Gerald. "The Shaker Revival" (Galaxy, Feb.).
Lafferty, R. A. "Continued on Next Rock" (Orbit 7).
Russ, Joanna. "The Second Inquisition" (Orbit 6).
Sturgeon,  Theodore.  "Slow  Sculpture"  (Galaxy,
Feb.).
Short Story:
Dozois, Gardner R. "A Dream at Noonday" (Orbit
7).
Hamson, Harry. "By .the Falls" (Galaxy, Jan.).
Lafferty,  R.  A.  "Entire  and  Perfect  Chrysolite"
(Orbit 6).
Laumer, Keith. "In the Queue" (Orbit 7).
Sallis, James. "The Creation of Bennie Good" (Or-
bit 6).
Wilhelm, Kate. "A Cold Dark Night with Snow"
(Orbit 6).
Wolfe, Gene. "Island of Doctor Death and Other
Stories" (Orbit 6).
As with the novels, so the shorter pieces run the gamut
of tone and narrative technique. Gardner Dozois's "A
Dream at Noonday" is basically "realistic" in tone as it
presents the memories of a young man at the moment of
(or after?) his death in Vietnam. James Blish's "A Style
in Treason" has all the trappings of a "classical" tale of
interplanetary "intrigue but becomes a character study.
Kate Wilhelm's "A Cold Dark Night with Snow" distorts
chronological order to gain its effect. James Sallis's "The
Creation of Bennie Good" makes use of interior mono-
logue to provide a glimpse of madness. Several of the
writers employ an unexpected point of view in dealing
With very familiar materials. For example, although Kate
Wilhelm splits the narrative focus between a husband
and wife, the entire inovement of the story is controlled
by the woman who is obsessed with the loss of her two
babies. Without her it could become just another story
dealing with .the struggle for the means to attain im-
mortality; with her it moves from seeming madness and
hallucination to the discovery of the doctor's plot. Such
movement adds to the horror of the "reality" because it
keeps before the reader the murder of the babiesthat is,
the degree to which the plotters will go to gain their ends.
Joanna Russ's "The Second Inquisition" also succeeds
primarily because of its point of view. The narrator, using
the first person to gain immediacy and authority, recalls
"our visitor"a boarderwhom she knew as a child, and
leads the reader from 'the familiar to the moment when,
from the future, 'the Morlocks who are rebels against the
Trans-Temporal Military Authority confront that visitor.
But the reader has learned that the young girl does "get
mixed up, yes?"and that she is an avid reader of fantasy.
Did the events truly occur, or are they the product of
her imaginaitlion? Miss Russ assures the uncertainty with
her last 'line: "No more stories." In addition, the story is
rich in literary associations, from the mirror as doorway
(recalling Lewis CarroU's Alice) to the employment of
Well's Eloi and Morlocks. Those names take on new di-
mensions, however, for the Eloi seem to refer to the pres-
ent-day world, while the Morlocks are very unlike Wells's
creatures of a demonic underworld, at least in appearance.
In "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories,"
Gene Wolfe also centers upon a child who reads fantasy.
But whereas Miss Russ chooses to end "The Second In-
quisition" on a note of ambiguity, calling into question
the reliability of the narrator, Wolfe moves in an opposite
direction. Stressing the here-and-now to gain a sense of
the immediate, he blends together three elements: the
text of the fantasy that the boy is reading (there was,
incidentally, a pulp magazine called Dr. Death), the boy's
easy identification of the characters in that story with
people around him, and the events in the "real" world
which the boy sees but does not comprehend. Wolfe's
early emphasis upon the isolated setting and the private
world of the boy blurs the distinction between fantasy
and reality, but the movement of the story underscores
how mannered and innocent the horror of the fantasy is
in comparison with the horror in the real world.
Lafferty, too, distorts time and space in "Continued on
Next Rock," as he does even more noticeably in "Entire
and Perfect Chrysolite." The two stories, however, which
free themselves most completely from any chance of a
literal reading are Keith Laumer's "In the Queue" and
Harry Harrison's "By the Falls." Indeterminate time and
indeterminate place, as Rudolph Schmeri has pointed
out, B are two essential ingredients of fantasy. Both Lau-
mer and Harrison achieve a timelessness and, despite Har-
rison's attention to mood-creating physical detail, a place-
lessness. Freed from the need to construct or duplicate a
world, both stories may concentrate upon the action
upon what happens. So grotesque is the situation in "In
the Queue" that one realizes at once it must be read as
a symbolic statement. In contrast, though the situation is
unfamiliar, not until the characters jn "By the Falls"
cannot read the message does one realize fully that the
story exists only as symbolic statement. Both, then, find
their significance as metaphors of 'the human predicament.
When such diversity of subject matter and treatment
is compressed into the small number of stories nominated
for the Nebula Awards, one realizes what a state of flux
the genre is in. It is not the first time, nor will it be the
last. Taken in the larger context of Burgum and Steven-
son, .the variety suggests that writers are deliberately ex-
ploring the parameters of science fiction perhaps in an
attemptsuch as James Blish called forto rejoin sf to
the main literary tradition. In the United States in this
century a number of problems have beset science fiction,
among them the academic and critical attitude toward
popular literature, the mode of publication at least during
the 1930s and 1940s, and, unlike Europe, the critical re-
fusal to accept fantasy as a literary tradition equal to that
of realism. As a result of such problems as these, often
forced upon the genre by external circumstances such as
the anti-scientific stance of the literary establishment early
in the century in particular, science fiction has fiercely
 Rudolph B. Schmeri, "Fantasy as Technique," Virginia Quar-
terly Review, 43 (Autumn 1967). pp. 644-656.
asserted its own identity. Many of its popular critics
have concentrated upon those characteristics which would
make it distinct and separate from other forms of fiction.
For example, plausibility and extrapolation along prob-
able lines of development have been set up as gov-
erning principles in an effort to keep it apart from tradi-
tional fantasy with its reliance upon the supernatural.
Something of these problems may be reflected in the se-
lection of the Nebula winners. Those winners are as fol-
lows:
NOVEL: Larry Niven, Ringworld.
NOVBLLA: Fritz Leiber, III Met in Lankhmar.
NOVELETTE: Theodore Sturgeon, Slow Sculpture.
SHORT STORY: No award.
At first glance these selections might seem an attempt
to reassert and recognize "classic" parameters for science
fiction. If this were so, it could be interpreted as a con-
servative  reaction  against  the  experimentation  taking
place in the genre. But a closer examination of the winners
should show anyone with this idea in mind that it is
simply not true. Niven's Ringworld incorporates familiar
themes and holds the potential of adventure on an epic
scale, yet what makes it noteworthy is his creation of one
of the most unique worlds portrayed within the genre.
The Ringworld, that ribbon of transmuted matter, whether
accomplished by engineers or medieval magicians, is not
plausible, nor is it probable that in searching the galaxies
man will encounter such an artifact. Thus it may be
judged one of the most fantastic worlds ever imagined.
Theodore Sturgeon's "Slow Sculpture" deals with the
familiar  image  of  the  scientist-m-advance-of-his-times,
but with a difference, for Sturgeon's protagonist is dis-
illusioned with, self-exiled from, a world that will dis-
regard or misuse what science can do for. it. Into this
revelation he weaves the image of the bonsai tree, whose
slow sculpture may be read in reference both to the char-
acter and the world which he loathes. Fritz Leiber's "III
Met in Lankhmar" provides a crucial episode in a long-
continuing series dealing with the potentially mythic world
of Nehwon. It reminds one of Dumas pire or fils; it is
fantasy.
Even among the newly growing community of aca-
demic critics, there will be .those who will object strenu-
ously to this emphasis upon the close relationship of
fantasy and science fiction. Some do so upon ideological
grounds; others call for some new aesthetic with which to
evaluate a literary form which they insist is uniquely con-
temporary. If these attitudes prevail, then science fiction
will remain fragmented from 'the literary tradition, and
many of the same problems which have dogged it for so
long will continue to do so. What is needed is the per-
spective to recognize it simultaneously as a distinctly
separate genre having a literary history at least a century
old 'and as a peculiarly modern form of 'that broad, vari-
ous tradition of fantasy which is as old as humanity. With
non-specialist writers turning increasingly to the novel of
fantasy, with science fiction writers expanding the limits
of the genre, and with the new academic concern for
popular literature, conditions seem ripe for the end of an
unnecessary exile. Science fiction may well possess the
manner and idiomperhaps one should speak of these in
the pluralto give the most telling symbolic illumination
to 'the complexities and absurdities of the present-day,
technologically oriented  society,  as Verne  and Wells,
Huxley and Orwell, Zamiatin and Capek did, for example,
when they gave literary form to their visions of the effects
of science upon humanity. What else besides visions and
nightmares is literature about?
THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER
APRIL 1971