The Mundane SF Manifesto
http://www.nemorathwald.com/SFandF.htm
Now that the website of the Mundane SF Manifesto is no longer down I have finally read the real thing instead of a representation from its critics. I've been looking forward to getting to the bottom of it ever since the storm came down from Ian MacDonald, Charlie Stross, Lou Anders, Patrick Neilsen Hayden and Gabe Chouinard (whose mostly empty post started with listless ennui and morphed into an embarassing tantrum), and others.
Ian McDonald writes, "If we confine ourselves only to the most likely near-future, does MSF run the risk of becoming almost a shared-world anthology, a future history?" No, given how much people disagree over the parameters of what's real; but yes, with freak luck we might finally have one of those. Fat chance, but be still my heart! I'd drool to get my hands on a copy of that. Don't worry though! In that unlikely event there would still be other fiction written!
Sorry, but the plain fact is the Mundanes are pointing out something of value. It doesn't have to be of value to you-- genre fiction is a big Venn diagram. They are identifying a demographic. PNH says, "SF isn’t futurology, although futurology is one of its several methods." Mundane SF could be interpreted as saying, "where is that method being used, why isn't there more of it, and have you noticed why it's great?"
Notice how the movement's critics generally don't address this. Complaints range from the immaterial: "manifestos are pretentious" or "it forbids flaws X and Y but not flaw Z" or "bad choice of name," to the incorrect: "they think it's not OK to have fun," "they're trying to control what we produce like fascists." Not really. At the bottom of it, they're really telling you what they, and a lot of us, want to read, and why. As I frequently repeat on this blog, they are figuring out the headspace of why certain people go to the bookshelf. I don't like not being able to find the books I like, and sometimes as we search through Fictionwise.com or another source, we find the existing labels are not a useful guide, so we wish for a new one. Literary movements are like recommendation lists; they are publishing's rough equivalent to web tagging, or "folksonomy." Infernokrusher is not just a gag SF movement, it's a perfectly viable tag, if anybody writes something to apply it to.
A humorous comparison is that all of the above criticisms remind me very much of what I experience whenever I'm involved in new secularist manifestos and movements like Universism. Those who pay enough attention to take up arms against it are rarely in disagreement with the actual content. Many have noticed that they often committed Mundane SF in their own work. In fact, if I had read the manifesto before the detractors, I would have thought back on the science fiction I read and concluded that a signifigant segment of SF authors and publishers (at least serious ones who don't just write TV tie-ins and movie novelizations) already unconsciously held and practiced the basic principles as an unspoken understanding.
OK, we've all taken the shots at Mundane SF that every movement should be subjected to. Now let's also recognize its worth.
Now that the website of the Mundane SF Manifesto is no longer down I have finally read the real thing instead of a representation from its critics. I've been looking forward to getting to the bottom of it ever since the storm came down from Ian MacDonald, Charlie Stross, Lou Anders, Patrick Neilsen Hayden and Gabe Chouinard (whose mostly empty post started with listless ennui and morphed into an embarassing tantrum), and others.
Ian McDonald writes, "If we confine ourselves only to the most likely near-future, does MSF run the risk of becoming almost a shared-world anthology, a future history?" No, given how much people disagree over the parameters of what's real; but yes, with freak luck we might finally have one of those. Fat chance, but be still my heart! I'd drool to get my hands on a copy of that. Don't worry though! In that unlikely event there would still be other fiction written!
Sorry, but the plain fact is the Mundanes are pointing out something of value. It doesn't have to be of value to you-- genre fiction is a big Venn diagram. They are identifying a demographic. PNH says, "SF isn’t futurology, although futurology is one of its several methods." Mundane SF could be interpreted as saying, "where is that method being used, why isn't there more of it, and have you noticed why it's great?"
Notice how the movement's critics generally don't address this. Complaints range from the immaterial: "manifestos are pretentious" or "it forbids flaws X and Y but not flaw Z" or "bad choice of name," to the incorrect: "they think it's not OK to have fun," "they're trying to control what we produce like fascists." Not really. At the bottom of it, they're really telling you what they, and a lot of us, want to read, and why. As I frequently repeat on this blog, they are figuring out the headspace of why certain people go to the bookshelf. I don't like not being able to find the books I like, and sometimes as we search through Fictionwise.com or another source, we find the existing labels are not a useful guide, so we wish for a new one. Literary movements are like recommendation lists; they are publishing's rough equivalent to web tagging, or "folksonomy." Infernokrusher is not just a gag SF movement, it's a perfectly viable tag, if anybody writes something to apply it to.
A humorous comparison is that all of the above criticisms remind me very much of what I experience whenever I'm involved in new secularist manifestos and movements like Universism. Those who pay enough attention to take up arms against it are rarely in disagreement with the actual content. Many have noticed that they often committed Mundane SF in their own work. In fact, if I had read the manifesto before the detractors, I would have thought back on the science fiction I read and concluded that a signifigant segment of SF authors and publishers (at least serious ones who don't just write TV tie-ins and movie novelizations) already unconsciously held and practiced the basic principles as an unspoken understanding.
OK, we've all taken the shots at Mundane SF that every movement should be subjected to. Now let's also recognize its worth.