Subgenres, Wikipedia and Finding My Geek Niche

I had some free time so I was browsing Wikipedia and ended up reading the articles on Sword and Planet and Planetary Romance. They clearly haven’t been written by the same people as they differ on a number of points. The Sword and Planet article, which I think is a better constructed piece than the other, argues that it is a distinct genre from Planetary Romance, whereas the latter article has a non-committal discussion on ‘sword and planet’.

Once the article on Space Opera is added to the mix things get even more confusing as it had a section arguing its definition in opposition to Planetary Romance – since one happens in space and comes from Westerns and Seafaring epics whereas Planetary Romance happens on a planet and is tied to lost world and lost civilisation tales. Who knows what happens when stories go from outer space to a planet and back again?

Now, I know opponents of Wikipedia will jump on this opportunity to say it’s more proof of its inaccuracy and inconsistency, but that’s not fair. Genres are notoriously difficult to nail down and subgenres like these are even worse and will be described differently by scholars regardless.

As always, genres and subgenres are just broad boxes which inevitably overlap in any given story. But looking at them and some of the authors involved in these and others (Weird, Sword and Sorcery etc) I realise I have a huge interest in the developments of Speculative Fiction (the overarching super-genre) through the first half of last century and the end of the one before it. Particularly in the pulp era when genres were being mashed together all over the place and new territories uncovered.

I think that’s where I’d like to focus my studies and my geekiness. So expect to see more posts on this era and the stories it generated.

Keep dreaming.

September Reading Round-up

This month was mainly marked by two books, Kevin J Anderson’s Hopscotch and Frank Herbert’s High-Opp. I did also read issue 62 of Aurealis.

Let’s start with Hopscotch. The concept behind this is really intriguing; basically at some point in human evolution we gain the ability to swap bodies with each other, which makes the old adage of ‘live a day in another person’s shoes’ seem rather quaint – shoes? Bah, I was in their feet. The possibilities with this are huge and unfortunately the book tries to cover a lot of them.

It follows four orphans as they leave the orphanage and enter this brave new world. They each have their own paths and the stories wind their own ways, overlapping only in characters for the most part. At first it was like reading a series of interrelated short stories and I was enjoying that, but as the stories began to spin out I kept waiting for more to happen. So while I did enjoy it, Hopscotch could have been much better I feel. It explored too many ideas, the main characters were always too angelic and not enough actually happened. Which I didn’t expect from Anderson, although I admit the only other things of his I’ve read so far are his Star Wars works and the Crystal Door trilogy he co-wrote with Rebecca Moesta.

Herbert’s High-Opp was an early work, previously unpublished. It seems he wrote a number of works before Dune which no-one picked up and now the Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert team are making them available. Whether this is a good thing or not I’m not prepared to say; High-Opp had an intriguing idea but felt rather under-cooked – especially the ending.

It’s essentially a dystopia where the world is now governed by ‘opinion polls’ – fancy that. The extreme version of what we’re dangerously close to in reality does make for a good dystopia in the classical sense, but here it becomes more a question of cloak and dagger revolution. It does feature an advanced form of social psychology similar to what Asimov uses in the Foundation series, where behaviour and historical events are predicted; again it’s not explored much and is more a way for Herbert to push a political line – as is the end of the book. It wasn’t a bad novel, but it certainly wasn’t great either.

The stories in Aurealis #62 were Remnants by Dan Rabarts and The Leaves of the Manuka Tree by Phillip W Simpson. The first was a fantasy story that reminded me a lot of C A Smith in many respects; there was a king who’d lost his kingdom seeking an ancient artefact in a desert and even a necromancer. But I don’t think Smith would have had the family connection this one had. So I really enjoyed that one, the second one I did enjoy but not as much. It was more science fiction as it was far in the future and had a super soldier but it was wrapped up in Maori tradition, which was interesting in itself. However, it was very cut and dried and I just didn’t really connect with it.

I also started some books including book three in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, it may be some time before I finish that though especially with NaNoWriMo looming large and the birth of my son not long after that. My ebook at the moment is Cory Doctorow’s Pirate Cinema which I’m having very mixed feelings about, more on that next month.

Keep dreaming!