Black Sun by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

We all want to be heroes. We all want to think we fight the good fight, that we stand by our moral principles, that we do what's right regardless of the odds. That's one of the main attractions of genre fiction in whatever medium – while life is full of compromise, defeat and cowardice, in our dreams we are always right and noble and our opponents are always wrong and insidious.

For a little while we can live vicariously as a hard boiled private eye or a brave soldier or a wise-cracking rogue with a heart of gold. That's one of it's chief attraction, and that's where the escape in escapism takes us.

In the pursuit of these fantasies, our own righteousness is guaranteed by the author, of course, who's always on our side, and we are freed to exercise our angry and violent impulses without concerning ourselves with their consequences. Heroic righteousness allows us to kill, main and brutalise our enemies without restraint. There's nothing we can't excuse ourselves if we know our cause is right.

Science fiction and fantasy give us a further out: in these genres our enemies can be literally non-human (rather than the literary inhumanity that more Earth-centred foes in other forms of adventure fiction, the Soviet spies, yellow peril and Middle Eastern extremists). Perhaps most famously, the Orcs in The Lord of the Rings set out a kind of enemy one can kill guiltlessly, as they have no admirable qualities whatsoever, and this has certainly set a pattern in heroic fantasy that's been formalised in the D&D generation of writer with their weird numerical categorisation of racial characteristics and the literal moral compass of alignment.

Norman Spinrad spotted the worrying aspects of all this in the 70s and highlighted it with brilliantly cold clarity in his wonderful novel, The Iron Dream. Spinrad saw beneath the harmless fantasies at the murky longing for power and violence that lay beneath.

Comedy and Crime

There's an interesting article on the decline of light crime novels by Colin Bateman over on the the Guardian books pages (you'd be forgiven for thinking that I don't read any other news website... that's cos I don't!)

It's a topic close to my heart, as I am working on a comedic SF crime novel, and Bateman ends with the heartening observation that "if you want to find something new and challenging, comic crime fiction is now the place to go." Perhaps I'll be able to catch a wave in twelve months or so, whenever I get it finished (about 12% through, at the mo, by my reckoning).

However, I don't think he quite answers the question in the standfirst, "when and why did it [crime fiction] lose its sense of humour?"

I blame critics.

Now, obviously, I am something of a critical bod myself (and although lately in abeyance I'm heading back into critic territory again shortly, God help me) and so I don't want to be mistaken for an anti-intellectual type. And I don't think it's just a matter of critics, individually, being humourless, but I think the act of criticism pushes us towards more serious works. I can't recall who said it now (frustatingly, as it's a point I'm forever bringing up) but some famous critic (yes, I know) said that the emergence of literary criticism had led to the development of the lit crit novel, that is novels written by writers raised on lit crit and written (unconsciously, perhaps) to feed critical debate rather than just be good books (I'll leave the question about the difference between those for another time) (I'll also try and lay off the parentheses for a bit).

I think that happened to a lot of genre fiction during the sixties and seventies. Left to itself, it was funny and scatological and wild and zany, and mixed up in the same way as the readership. When critics started paying more attention to pop culture, I think pop culture got all nervous and self conscious and got all serious.

Look at Philip K Dick novels: when he thought he was writing trash, he gave us Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? When he suddenly realised he was a great writer all along, we got Valis and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, fine books to be sure, but without the zany edge that characterises Dick at his best. Suddenly, we get more gnosticism and questions of identity and less arguing with the pay-as-you-go front door over whether the quarter you have to pay to leave your apartment is more in the nature of a charge or gratuity.

Back when I started my MA, and I introduced myslef as a sci fi writer, my tutor nodded sagely and said "Ah, speculative fiction"! I said no. I said that I'm a sci fi author, with all the whacky baggage that entails. Hopefully I can hang on to that and ride it to fame and fortune. And then I'll buy the bloody Guardian and the centre spread every day will be my fat, smug smiling face.

Lady Gaga - donchta haytah?

Here's a great article on Lady Gaga, deconstructing all the reasons why she is, in fact, not that interesting.

In my own beardy rockist opinion, it all comes down to the choons. If she was pumping out great pop or disco, I'd say the all the other stuff (which I'm inclined to like) is just cream. As it is, it's like getting a present that's beautifully wrapped, but there's nothing in the box.

In the meantime, Grace Jones's version of Nighclubbing is stuck in my head today.

Short Fiction Wednesday

This week, it's the latest from Futurismic and Strange Horizons (or at least, the latest when I made my selection last week, so not actually the latest at Strange Horizons any more - tempus fugit!) These sites are both great examples of how thoroughly fansites have occupied the ground once held by fanzines and the amateur press. I miss the old print zines for very non-scifi reasons of cultural conservatism, but these sites provide everything the old fanzines did and much, much more.

Out Walking the Streets By Eric Del Carlo is one of those low-context stories that makes few concessions to the reader, but gradually builds up the detail to communicate what's happening. I'm going to try and not give it away, because I think that knowing it before hand spoils the effect, but it does kind of limit the points I can make here. After all, I'm trying to encourage you, dear reader, to go read 'em (and dontcha hate people her refer to you as "dear reader"?) These types of story often reward a re-reading, to catch the hints you might have missed before, or to appreciate the author's subtlety, but you can only get the feeling of dawning realisation once!

The intriguing premise opens up a host of questions, and this story lets us take a peek at just one. It's a dynamic situation well portrayed by De Carlo, and the emotions of the protagonist and his wife are portrayed with great conviction. The resolution relies perhaps a little too much on co-incidence, and rather conveniently closes off the myriad other questions raise. There's a limit to how much one can do in a short space, of course, and Del Carlo's intriguing premise has a lot more drama inherent in it than he has room for here.

I was drawn to Middle Aged Weirdo in a Cadillac by George R Cruikshank by the laconic title, and the story doesn't disappoint. It's a funny and well-observed slice of life with a brimstoney whiff of suburban diabloism. Cruikshank keeps the character goals focused and low-level – both Bob and his hitchiker are looking for a way home, and maybe a little company as the night drags on into the Tom Waits hours of the morning. In fact, Tom Waits would make a pretty good Bob in the Twilight Zone version of this story.

These stories are great examples of the quality short fiction being published online at the moment. Securing great material doesn't seem to be a problem for short fiction publishers right now, the problem they really have is the same problem the old fan publications have always had – how do you make money from it?

A common tactic I've seen on these short fiction Wednesday is to treat the webzine as a loss-leader for print products, such as at Weird Tales or Apex Book Company, which featured in a previous Short Fiction Wednesday. Some others, I guess derive some income from advertising, and others have a link to paypal for donations. However, recently there's been a bit of news on this front, with Ether Books announcing an iPhone-based short story service and Orbit US hoping to sell shorts from their popular authors at £1.99 a time.

Two things occur to me. Firstly, as I've learned – and hopefully shared here – there's a great deal of excellent fiction available online for free, and I haven't even started with the websites of popular authors like Cory Doctorow or Charlie Stross, who have tons of stuff on offer, nor Tor.com, which has been putting out free stories from it's star authors for a couple of years now. Possibly it's different in mainstream, literary fiction, where Ether are hoping to make an impact, but Orbit have surely got an uphill battle. Tim Holman made the point in the comments on John Scalzi's blog that the existence of free stories doesn't necessarily mean people won't pay for other stories, and that's certainly true. However, it does bring me to my second concern: does the audience exist in sufficient numbers to make Orbit's and Ether's efforts turn a profit?

It'll be interesting to see! As the owner of neither an iPhone nor a Kindle, I guess I'll miss out on making my contribution for now!

How To Train Your Dragon

Believe it or not, I was once quite a cineaste. I studied film at uni for two years. When I lived in Wellington in New Zealand in my twenties, I was a member of the film society and a film festival regular, and in London I used spend a lot of time in the cinemas at the NFT, the ICA and those live soundtrack events at the Royal Festival Hall (John Cale doing The Hidden, Kronos Quartet on Dracula, Faust on obscure silent horror Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages). God, I had an opinion on everyone and everything, and if I'm drunk enough I can still dredge up some of the fragments, but everything I ever thought or knew about the great art of cinema has been kicked to death by a parade of children's movies.

People tell us that we're living in a golden age of kids movies – don't believe them! If this is the golden age, then I can only assume that previous generations of children's films were long lectures where kids were called idiots and instructed to go outside and murderously toxic fast food and deadening imagination-free toys.

Look what's happened to Disney! It's a crime what they've done to one of cinema's great pioneers. Say what you like about Walt, he was driven to create movies that stand the test of time. Snow White, Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty have become iconic representations of the tales with good reason – both are filled with dark and light, with all them menace and redemptive power of folklore. Things started coming unstuck with the insipid Cinderella, and the fifties ushered in a period of less interesting films occasionally saved – as in The Jungle Book – by a great soundtrack. Nowadays they shit out inexplicable horrors like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid with the instinctual robot cynicism of Skinner's pigeon.

But Walt wasn't in the movie business anymore. He'd set his sights on something else, and his ambitions took him away from film making down a path that led to a creepy ersatz multiculturalism and utopian futurism that was just a Hubbard away from being a mind-controlling puritanical religion. By the time of One hundred and One Dalmations and The Aristocats, they couldn't seem to create a movie that didn't seem cheap, lifeless and oddly creepy. I mean, while Phil Harris is great as Baloo, he sounds like a drunk in Robin Hood and a child molester in The Aristocats.

I didn't go to the movies a lot as a small kid, before I was ten or so, but I can remember stuff like Escape to Witch Mountain, Herbie, Charlotte's Web, Benji, Bugsy Malone, Pete's Dragon – yeah, okay, the seventies was pretty thin, but in those days movies were feeling the bite from TV. When I think of my early media education it's all Sesame Street, Vision On, Playaway, Dr Who, Bagpuss, The Clangers and shows of that kind of vintage. It was a great era for children's TV, but for movies, it was an uphill battle.

That changed in 1977, when Star Wars began the cross-marketed licensing juggernaut that forms the basis of the film industry strategy today, but the technology they were really waiting for was CGI. As soon as Toy Story showed it could be done, it opened the flood gates for a new generation of movie franchises that could hide their creative vacuity behind pin-sharp CGI and, now, 3D. As a parent, I have bravely sat through a steady run of witless crap like Monsters Vs Aliens, Kung Fu Panda, Ice Age (1,2 &3!), Antz (with Woody Allen!), The Bee Movie (Jerry Seinfeld!) and the Satanically repulsive Cars.

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, though. Toy Story 1 & 2 are both genuinely great films (I am dubious about a third outing), Monsters Inc is saved by terrific performances from John Goodman and Billy Crystal, and there's a lot of inoffensive stuff, no worse than Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, for example, a movie I still love while recognising it's limitations. I'm thinking movies like Desperaux, Spiderwick Chronicles, Madagascar (another one saved by great comic performances) and, the subject of today's non-review, How To Train Your Dragon.

I mean, I am thankful that there aren't shitty toys, McDonald's tie-ins and a trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 2, but this film didn't have much going for it outside the production design, which was extremely imaginative and evocative. The kids get a typical believe-in-yourself story, a lot of lines that have the size and shape of jokes without having any witty content and some really dreadful voice acting. In particular, I have no idea why they wanted to have the grwon-up Vikings have Scottish accents and the young kids be voiced by horrible American stand-up comedy voices. It was like the whole thing was cutting between Terry Jones's Erik the Viking and Bob Saget providing the voice over for America's Funniest Home Videos.

Oh well, the kids enjoyed it well enough and at least I got out of seeing Nanny Mc-shitting-Phee.

Let God sort them out!

The desire of the descendants of Jack Kirby and Siegel & Shuster to claw back rights to their antecedent's creations is in someways understandable (and in others looks like a pure money grab), but it highlights a number of oddities in the modern way of dealing with these types of story.

Whoever came up with Snow White maybe got a meal for their trouble, the attention of village for a half an hour and that was it. They got nothing thereafter from the legions who did very nicely from it over the ensuing centuries, including the zealous Mr Disney whose company has contributed so much to modern intellectual property law!

This way of doing business changed when the production of cultural artefacts became an industrial rather than a craft process. As soon as it became possible to easily manufacture creative properties (ie, around the time of the printing press, good old wikipedia tells us sometime around the 17th or 18th century) it became necessary to protect ones assets. Characters who might once have quickly passed into folk lore became something else entirelty, and as printing and distribution and literacy rates rose, the first pulp characters appeared - Sherlock Holmes, Fantomas, Carnacki the Ghost Detective (or whatever his name is). (NB- Like "pop", I think "pulp" is in many ways a description of the means of production and distribution rather than of a genre.)

Suddenly, exclusivity was important. The way these works were distributed was no longer a matter of tales around a fire, and there was more at stake for the creator than just a meal and bed for the night. But even then, the idea seemed to be that a creator should be granted the right to profit in their lifetime, but that after that (plus a seemly interval thereafter) there was no need to to protect these rights.

However, the humble business of telling tales became a huge industry and quickly things spun out of control, aided by the complicated nature of sheet music, films and music recordings. Fast forward, and here we are with children and grandchildren demanding the rights to things made before they were even born.

As a creator myself, I am of course concerned to monetise my own (modest) creative abilities as much as possible. After I'm dead though, well. I don't know. Do my kids really deserve to live high on the hog on Dad's toil? Are their hands any safer than anyone else's in regards to my legacy? Bearing in mind I'll be a defunct unit by then, should I even care?

More interestingly (or less interestingly, or just as tediously, depending on one's caffineated state) is the idea of competing franchises based on the same character. Comics fans famously have an obsession with continuity, but there's no reason why these characters should be treated any differently from any other folkloric character. They already have numerous competing franchises created by the current owners, aimed at different segments of the market (young children vs adults; casual vs committed readers; in-conitnuity vs out of continuity).

I'm genuinely torn in these cases, with sympathy for the families of Kirby and Siegel & Shuster, who were definitely shafted by today's standards but who did okay based on the situation that pertained at the time (less so Siegel & Shuster, IMO, who had their creation basically swiped; Stan had the good grace to rip Kirby off in a more legally defensible way). No one thought of Sipdey or Iron Man persevering that long, not even Stan and Jack, and who would have thought the rights they were signing away, adn seemed worthless at the time, might one day be worth millions and millions.

I guess that's at the heart of my ambivalence over this: are these people fired by a creative desire to serve the powerful and awesome (in the proper sense) creations or is it just a grab for the sudden seam riches that they've opened? The latter seems more likely to me. Old Jack wouldn't have spent his time in court, he'd have just sat down at the drawing board and created another mind bogglingly brilliant comics strip.