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Function of Science Fiction" first appeared in 1970 (. . .) The essay repeats the now-familiar litany of mainstream writers who have attempted SF, argues that SF can be a form of thought-experiment and a kind of modern mythology, and drags in some heavy artillery from the likes of Susanne Langer, Simon O. Lesser, and Michael Polanyi to show how the concerns of SF reflect the concerns of the best minds of our age. None of this seems at all fresh anymore, but the clarity of Blish's reasoning and his insightful side comments on the success of novels such as Rosemary's Baby make the piece worth reading. Two complementary essays follow, on the science in SF and the arts in SF; and here Blish's insights seem to gain value over time. "The Science in Science Fiction" rightly observes that most of what passes for "hard" SF is more technology fiction than SF, and concludes that "the most important scientific content in modern science fiction are the impossibilities.'' "The Arts in Science Fiction" covers territory that is still too rarely explored, and seems to derive from the difficulties Blish had in assembling stories for an anthology on this theme (New Dreams This Morning, 1966). Blish focusses not only on the portrayal of art and artists in SF (in the process identifying a disturbing strain of philistinism), but on the impact of various arts, including the literary, on SF narrative itself. (. . .) |
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The third section of the book concerns Blish himself. The longest piece in Tale, "A Science Fiction Coming of Age," is a moving but unsentimental autobiographical essay which will be of great value to any student of Blishalthough his tone throughout is decidedly uncomfortable. The final selection is a 1973 conversation with Brian Aldiss in which Aldiss draws out some very useful comments about the "Cities in Flight" and "After Such Knowledge" series. It provides a nice coda; each author seems genuinely fond of the other, and neither quite knows what to make of the fact that, as Aldiss says, "we're household wordsin a limited number of households!" (. . .) |
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In retrospect, The Tale That Wags the God may be of more interest to more students of SFand particularly of Blishthan the Issues at Hand volumes. While it lacks the documentary excitement of those earlier essays, which chronicled SF's ongoing struggle towards coherence during a critical period, it provides us with a much clearer overview of Blish the writer and the criticand gives us further reason (as if we needed it) to lament the things that never got said. |
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Gary K. Wolfe, "Writers as Critics," Science-Fiction Studies 17, No. 3 (November 1990): 39395 |
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