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toward ''The Mere," as Ste. Daisy Ashford put it. There have been many exceptions to this, of course; and there will be many exceptions to the rest of my analysis; but I am discussing the average. |
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It's true that you will occasionally find fragments of good sense in science-fiction, but at best they are only parts of a whole which is not understoodtags and tatters of learning like the Latin aphorisms that every schoolboy remembers with ease but translates with difficulty. One result is that science-fiction makes no attempt to use the disciplines as tools. It cannot. It does not know how to handle them professionally. It peers through the microscope and dreams. Another result is distortion of idea development leading to false conclusions. The most serious result is a childish tendency to generalize. Lacking detailed knowledge and understanding of its subjects, failing to realize that speculation is not for amateurs, science-fiction takes refuge in simplification. (. . .) |
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The morality play simplification of science-fiction is <. .> revealed in its plots, and I wonder how many people have noticed that most science-fiction stories end at exactly the point where they should begin. This is a deadly sin in the arts and one of the standards by which you separate the men from the boys. What the stories amount to, as a rule, is an artificially masked exposition of a situation. When the situation is finally revealed, the story ends. The great classics of science-fiction have been the exceptions to this rulestories which have courageously and imaginatively tackled problems, no matter how difficult. But in general, sciencefiction is afraid to come to grips with its situations. It is afraid of complexities. |
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This reflects the childish yearning for a simple world. It reflects the immature desire to find simple yes-no solutions for complicated problems. Let me cite one more example of this over-simplification. The story in which the protagonist solves a complex problem which has been baffling experts by turning up one simple factor which has been overlooked or ignored. In part this is merely the Dreams of Glory of our youth, but more importantly, it is a childish refusal to accept the complexity of reality and the complex response demanded by reality. And out of this refusal arises the emotional immaturity of science-fiction. |
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Alfred Bester, "The Trematode: A Critique of Modern Science-Fiction," The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1953, ed. Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty (New York: Frederick Fell, 1953), pp. 1214 |
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