I have strong memories of growing up with science fiction movies and TV series such as Star Trek and the Outer Limits, Dr Who and a whole legion of A and B grade films. But of all the genres I could have been attracted to SF seemed to be the most exciting of all. It took me to strange and exotic destinations and made me think beyond my dull middle-class existence. When travelling on the bus to school or during a break at sport, or while waiting to replace a team member, I would be reading avidly about lost civilisations, conquering robots or intrepid time travellers. Why would you want to read a 19th century author telling you about a polite dinner conversation in an English manor when you could go for a ride on a spaceship to the end of the galaxy?
Yet for all the wonder and excitement that SF inspired in me it was one genre that was a guilty pleasure and one that had to be hidden from view. When people did discover my secret they would invariable contort their face into disapproving exclamations and shriek, �you read THAT?!" I didn�t need or want such disapproval so I read in private. When I did take my books out into public I kept them well hidden in my bag or placed them face down on the desk when I wasn't reading.
Yet, I could never understand the reasons for people�s disapproval or their refusal to see SF as literature. Afterall, one of the greatest works of literature is Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and that masterpiece is usually classed as a science fiction novel. But not all people see the awe and wonder that I find in science fiction. For high brow critics, science fiction is regarded as one of a number of reviled, cheap, mass produced genres like westerns, detective stories and romance novels. These "lesser� genres are seen to have no merit and supposedly nothing profound or important to say, in comparison to the greats of literature like Shakespeare or Dostokovsky. This snobbish, high culture position attempts to preserve a narrow view of what constitutes good literature.
Yet when you read SF you can argue its in fact not only the best place to discover profound and important things to say about the human condition but that it actually contains a good dozen or so Shakespeares and Dostovsyskies. Take Clarke�s Childhood�s End, for example. This novel deals with the end of humanity as we know it. I can�t imagine anything much more profound than that.
While people who don't read science fiction are usually its worst critics, surprisingly, science fiction has discontents within its own field. One of the nastiest and most vociferous of these is the Russian author, Stanislaw Lem. In his article, Science Fiction, a Hopeless Case, he rips into the genre, wildly claiming that most science fiction is trash. It's rather curious that he doesn�t state that his own writings might also belong to that category.
Apart from such elitism, Lem attacks my favouritre science fiction author, Philip K Dick. Now Dick has written some of the most imaginative and unusual science fiction ever written. His works are full of plot twists and enough ideas to keep even the most jaded reader turning the page. But, according to Lem, Dick takes the whole "threadbare lot of telepaths, cosmic wars, parallel worlds, and time travel� to create his stories.
This 'criticism' is as sensible as attacking Shakespeare for using romance in some of his plays. Lem uses a familiar tactic here. He attempts to belittle science fiction by attacking some of the stage props of the genre. But one might as well attack any of the many books in the classical cannon that contain love themes. Robots and spaceships are the stock in trade of the SF universe and certainly nothing to be ashamed of (reading). What is shameful is to read the ranting and ravings of a notable (though I must admit I find him dull) SF writer who thinks he is superior to other SF writers. Lem is even more insulting towards another great writer, Van Vogt. But I don't wish to repeat his insults here.
By the end of his tirade its astonishing that Lem actually finds Dick �a visionary among the charlatans.� Among his many elitist pronouncements he rates Ubik a superior book to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep. Finally, Lem, grandly (and somewhat paranoicaly) claims that he is a Robinson Crusoe of the SF field because few essays on science fiction existed when he wrote this scathing piece in the 1970s.
Today, Lem�s anti-science fiction comments seem not only elitist but down-right megalomanical. Lem's Robinson Cursoe status has since vanished with the rise of a whole industry of science fiction criticism. And this new culture, rather than being elitist and paranoid, takes a more all-embracing approach to the science fiction field, recognising that science fiction does not belong to the few ivory towered academics but to all of us.
Popular culture has also responded to what what once an almost closet activity. Now, every third big Hollywood movie seems to be science fiction. Its nice to know that science fiction is no longer a guilty secret that I have to hide but an open pleasure I can enjoy with millions of others.
