"[Science
Fiction's] primary value lies not in its ability to train us for the future but
in its ability to engage a particular set of problems to which science itself
gives rise and which belongs, not to the future, but to the present"1
There is a popular misconception that
Science Fiction is about prediction. H. G. Wells foresaw changes in the nature
and technology of war. For example, The Land Ironclads (1903) featured
tanks, The Shape Of Things to Come (1933) featured strategic "terror"
bombing of cities, the 1969 moon landings were predicted in The First Men In
The Moon (1901) and genetic
engineering in his 1896 novel, The Island of Dr Moreau . Wells's novella
The Time Machine (1895) predated Einstein's conclusion in the 1916
general theory of relativity that time travel was theoretically possible. Jules
Verne's For The Flag (1896) features guided missiles, and 20,000
Leagues Under The Sea (1870) investigates the possibilities of submarine technology. Similarly, writer
Arthur C. Clarke is widely credited with predicting satellite communication and
space stations.
Nevertheless, the above mentioned stories
are exceptions to the norm. The fact that some predictions have proved accurate
is not unusual. SF writer Harry Harrison has remarked, "I hate to use the word
prediction. We do not predict, if anything, science fiction shot-guns the
future. A lot of our ideas go out. After it is all over, it is like astrology.
You always remember the one that worked."2 Of course, not all of Wells's ideas worked;
no-one has yet emulated the science of The Invisible Man (1897).
However, this does not detract from the quality of the story or the novelty of the idea. Ray
Bradbury wrote about Martian canals in The Silver Locusts (1951). The
canals were a myth, caused by inadequate astronomical telescopes. However,
Bradbury's imaginary Martian landscapes are no less rich because the science
was wrong. Similarly, Brian Aldiss's aptly named Farewell Fantastic Venus: A
History of the Planet Venus in Fact and Fiction (1968), pays homage to SF
authors' flights of fancy about the planet where, according to Edgar Rice
Burroughs, "Mile high trees grow in the
tropics."3
SF is not simply about predicting the
future. Rather, it can be a useful tool for commenting on the present state of
society and important and relevant issues such as mankind's place in an
increasingly technological world, the political and social problems which
accompany advances in technology, questions of religion and the soul, the environment,
war, overpopulation etc. Author Kingsley Amis noted, as far back as 1960, that
SF is, chiefly, an American phenomenon.4 English SF writer Brian
Aldiss states, "Wherever SF came from, it is now, on the whole, an American
pursuit."5 Certainly, some of SF's most successful writers are
American--Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip
K. Dick to name but a few--but also the great technological event of the
century, i.e., sending a man to the Moon, was an American achievement. It
follows, therefore, that the study of SF can offer an insight to the American
mind and culture. For example, during the Cold War, as writer and academic Tom
Shippey points out, "the fantastic elements of
[SF] stories were a cover, or a frame, for discussions and many real
issues which were hardly open to serious consideration in any other popular
medium: issues such as...the conflict of business and government, [and] the
limits of loyalty."6
SF's real value, one might argue, is not
prediction but social commentary. As critic Brian Ash states: "science fiction
is not, and never has been, primarily concerned with prophecy."7
However, the logical extrapolation of today's social issues, such as Harrison's
treatment of the overpopulation problem in Make Room! Make Room! (1966),
can offer valuable insights to mankind's collective future.
To
provide a focus for this argument, and for this dissertation in general, I have
decided to concentrate on the work of one particular author whose work
incorporates all of the themes mentioned above--American SF writer Harry Harrison. It would not be an exaggeration to
say that the author is a living legend in the SF genre. His work spans five
decades and includes over sixty novels and short story collections. He has
edited countless anthologies and received a Nebula Award for his novel about
over-population Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green (1973)
with Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston).
Harrison, with characteristic humour, describes himself as a,
"moderately" best-seller. Nevertheless, most of his novels remain in print
which is a sign of, at least, financial success in the cut-throat field of SF
publishing. Artistic success in the form of awards has mostly eluded him
however. SF legend Brian Aldiss asks, "How come Harry hasn't got a whole shelf
full of Hugos and Nebulas?" His caustic answer is that Harrison doesn't
ingratiate himself with the SF community nor tour conventions, "buttering up
readers to vote for soap books." His
conclusion, "throws no rosy light on those who vote for such trophies."8
Harrison began his career as a writer,
illustrator and editor in the comic industry in the post-war years. Although
the author feels that he learned his trade here, writing stories such as "I Cut
Off My Own Arm" and "I Went Down With My Ship," he
nevertheless states, "I stopped writing this sort of repetitive, unrewarding
hack just as soon as I could."9 Comics were one of the first "arts"
to become an "industry" in the U.S. Titles such as Weird Tales and Tales from the Crypt were
popular but gory. Parents, worried about juvenile delinquency, complained to
their politicians and the comics industry introduced a voluntary Comics Code
before regulations were forced upon the industry by Congress. For a time,
comics became bland and conformist, similar adjectives to those that are
sometimes used to describe the 1950s as a whole.
The SF scene in the 1940s and '50s in
particular was conservative and militaristic, attitudes heavily influenced by McCarthyism
and the Cold War. Harrison's early stories
were influenced by the controversial and legendary editor of Astounding
magazine, John W. Campbell. Harrison got his break here but eventually
distanced himself from the "right wing" Campbell stable and wrote from a much
more liberal perspective. Critic John Huntington writes, "At its core SF is a
powerfully conventional and deeply conservative-though not necessarily
right-wing-form of literature... this supposedly future-orientated fiction must
be conservative if it is going to remain true to its scientific premises."10
This is certainly the case with writers such as Robert Heinlein who wrote the
gung-ho, pro-military SF novel Starship Troopers (1959). It is dedicated
to "all sergeants anywhere who have labored to make men out of boys."11 However, Harrison's experience of the
U.S. Army led him to a different conclusion: "I loathed the army..[and] looked
with envy and applause upon anyone smart enough or sick enough to miss the
draft."12 His literary response to Heinlein's novel was to parody
it: Bill, the Galactic Hero
(1965) introduced a rare element of humour to SF and would later influence such
popular SF series as Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Terry Pratchet's Discworld.
Harrison left the USA for Mexico in 1956,
partly to find time to write, but also as a response to the direction America
was taking. At this time, the Cold War was in full swing and Senator Joseph
McCarthy was hunting out communists in the government, arts and media.
Conformity and centralisation were the norm, and it was in this era that modern
consumerism was born. In Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957),
the author examines the growth of consumerism, marketing surveys and
advertising, and asks the question, "What are the implications of all this
persuasion in terms of our existing morality? What does it mean for the
national morality to have so many powerfully influential people taking a
manipulative attitude toward our society?" He concludes, "Some of these
persuaders, in their energetic endeavors to sway our actions, seem to fall
unwittingly into the attitude that man exists to be manipulated."13
This dominant culture began to dictate
rather than be led by society's needs. A prime example of this is in the rise
of the McDonald's food chain. George Ritzer, Professor of
Sociology at the University of Maryland and author of the influential book The
McDonaldization of Society (1993),
states:
the fundamental problem
with McDonaldised systems is that it's other people in the system structuring
our lives for us, rather than us structuring our lives for ourselves. I mean,
that's really what McDonald's is all about. You don't want a creative person
clerk at the counter - that's why they are scripted. You don't want a creative
hamburger cook - you want somebody who simply follows routines or follows
scripts. So you take all creativity out of all activities and turn them into a
series of routinised kinds of procedures that are imposed by some external force.
So that's the reason why it is dehumanising...The idea is to turn humans into
human robots.14
Harrison's career spanned the growth period
of American consumerism and his work reflected this growth. The
rise of the American corporation runs through his work which covers the
pre-cyberpunk world (where corporations have become multi-national
conglomerates and replaced governments as the major decision makers in the
world) where the corporations are still rising to power and are not yet big
enough to take on governments, and
where the people have not yet really become suspicious of the increasing power
corporations are having over their lives, both as employers and providers of
"must have" products. It is this society that creates the overconsumption and
overpopulation problems of Make Room! Make Room! (1966). It is this
soft, consumerist society that The Stainless Steel Rat (1961) rebels
against, and it is this society that Bill, The Galactic Hero (1965)
finds himself unwittingly fighting for. The irony is that his fight is not for
any high moral purpose, rather it is for propaganda, for soundbites and TV news
items, and to maintain the dominance of the military-industrial complex.
Harrison pokes fun at the fast food
industry in The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born (1985), at the music
industry in The Stainless Steel Rat Sings The Blues (1994), and at the film
industry in Technicolor Time Machine
(1967). His "ecological"
stories--Deathworld and the West Of Eden trilogy-- are about man
trying to conquer or consume the world as a resource. His anti-war books are
about dehumanisation, about the individual being subsumed by the corporate
entity, the loss of the individual perspective in favour of a homogenised ideal
doctrine and about the loss of common sense in favour of corporate goals. Harrison
reflects upon this period and on SF writing in general:
There is a new awareness in science fiction. It is a
product of the same awakening that is producing student interest in ecology and
Presidential attention to pollution. It is a slippery feeling that all is not
quite so right with this perfect world, that the superpatriotic bumper sticker Love America or Leave It is too simplistic, in addition to being
downright stupid. It is a suspicion that the sticker Change America or Lose It, is much closer to the truth.15
Harrison is
concerned with his country's problems and his work reflects this. For example, Make
Room! Make Room!, Roommates (1970) and A Criminal Act (1966) deal with the over-population problem,
racism is discussed in Mute Milton (1965), Rebel in Time (1983) and
By the Falls (1968), In Our Hands, the Stars (1970) is the
author's statement on the Cold War, Vietnam is the subject of the short story The
Defensive Bomber (1973) and, although Harrison is one of the veterans who
started in the 1950s pulps writing action-adventure SF, even his first SF novel
Deathworld, published in1959, had an ecological theme, years before the
green issue became popular.
In the following pages I will show how the author has made a
valuable and entertaining contribution to the field of SF writing and how this
writing can reflect what is good and bad in American society. Because there are
few, if any, limits to what SF writers can discuss, it is especially useful as
a tool to analyse aspects of American society from the 1930s to the present.
Notes
1 John
Huntington, "Science Fiction and the
Future," Science Fiction: A
Collection Of Critical Essays,
ed. Mark Rose (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976) 157.
2
Harry Harrison, "Inventing New Worlds
I," Future Imperfect, ed.
Rex Malik (London: Pinter, 1980) 77.
3
Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree, (London:
Paladin Grafton, 1988) 199.
4
Kingsley Amis, New Maps of Hell:
A Survey of Science Fiction,
(London: The Science Fiction
Book Club, 1962) 17.
5
Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree, (London:
Paladin Grafton, 1988) 349.
6
Tom Shippey, "The Cold War in Science
Fiction, 1940-1960," Science Fiction: A Critical Guide, ed.
Patrick Parrinder (London: Longman,
1979) 107.
7 Brian
Ash, Faces of the Future--the lessons of science fiction, (London: Elek/Pemberton, 1975)
13.
8 Brian Aldiss, foreword, Harry
Harrison, by Leon Stover, Twayne's United States Author Ser. 560 (Boston:
Twayne, 1990) xi.
9
Harry Harrison, "The Beginning of the
Affair," Hells Cartographers, eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry
Harrison, (London: Futura,
1976) 82.
10 John
Huntington, "Science Fiction and the
Future," Science Fiction: A
Collection Of Critical Essays,
ed. Mark Rose, (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976) 157.
11
Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers, (London:
Hodder & Stoughton,
1959) 5.
12
Harry Harrison, "The Beginning of the
Affair," Hells Cartographers, eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry
Harrison, (London: Futura,
1976) 78.
13
Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, (London:
Longmans, Green & Co.,
1957) 255.
14
George Ritzer, interview, McSpotlight
http://www.enviroweb.org/mcspotlightna/people/interviews/ritzer_george.html
15
Harry Harrison, introduction, Nova 2, ed. Harry Harrison (New
York: Walker & Co., 1972)
ix.
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