Spec Fic & Science Fiction
So a couple of weeks ago I picked up the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, at the local Dillon's no less. A bit of solidarity for my siblings of the pen (er, wordprocessor), support for a market that I have wished to be published in some day, a quest to read something science-y and fiction-y.
And now I have to say it, I have to jump on a platform I have refrained from jumping on because I wanted to be nice and pro-literary (gak), and also because Gordon Van Gelder is kinda cute.
Dude, where is the fucking science?
I am reading all these pleasant, entertaining stories with a 1/8 teaspoon of fantasy here and the merest dash--nay, a soupçon of science here there. A soupçon? Hell, a mention. Perhaps the manuscript is walked past a TV turned to the Discovery Channel.
I'm not one of those folks who you've seen howling for the good old days of Heinlein, let alone the Cro-Magnons lately visible on some of the boards concerning Fantasy, lamenting the loss of the good old days of emperiled maidens and Villains of Color.
I just want some goddamn science in my science fiction. To the people who bleat that science fiction isn't relevant anymore because we're living in the middle of it, I say bollocks. Push that goddamn envelope. That's what science is about; that's what science fiction should be about. We have more access to information and knowledge than ever before; science should be a happily accessed and understood tool in our box of goodies to write about, to play with.
When it comes to science and the human imagination, there is no limit. No finity. The more we know, the more we can dream. (No, really.)
So what's up with the biggest magazine of them all? Where's the science? Are folks really not submitting that much science fiction? Is it all gonna be twee stories about Grandma's ghost from now on?
Then maybe hottie Van Gelder needs to change the title of the magazine, from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to The Hoboken Literary Journal of Speculative Fiction
At least we'd know what we were getting when we picked it up from the newsstand.
And now I have to say it, I have to jump on a platform I have refrained from jumping on because I wanted to be nice and pro-literary (gak), and also because Gordon Van Gelder is kinda cute.
Dude, where is the fucking science?
I am reading all these pleasant, entertaining stories with a 1/8 teaspoon of fantasy here and the merest dash--nay, a soupçon of science here there. A soupçon? Hell, a mention. Perhaps the manuscript is walked past a TV turned to the Discovery Channel.
I'm not one of those folks who you've seen howling for the good old days of Heinlein, let alone the Cro-Magnons lately visible on some of the boards concerning Fantasy, lamenting the loss of the good old days of emperiled maidens and Villains of Color.
I just want some goddamn science in my science fiction. To the people who bleat that science fiction isn't relevant anymore because we're living in the middle of it, I say bollocks. Push that goddamn envelope. That's what science is about; that's what science fiction should be about. We have more access to information and knowledge than ever before; science should be a happily accessed and understood tool in our box of goodies to write about, to play with.
When it comes to science and the human imagination, there is no limit. No finity. The more we know, the more we can dream. (No, really.)
So what's up with the biggest magazine of them all? Where's the science? Are folks really not submitting that much science fiction? Is it all gonna be twee stories about Grandma's ghost from now on?
Then maybe hottie Van Gelder needs to change the title of the magazine, from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to The Hoboken Literary Journal of Speculative Fiction
At least we'd know what we were getting when we picked it up from the newsstand.