which they nonetheless have some relation.
On the contrary, the science-fiction writer is responsible both for the world in which he has placed his action and for the action as well, inasmuch as he, within certain limits, invents both one and the other.
Yet the invention of new worlds in science fiction is as rare as a pearl the size of a bread loaf. And so 99.9 percent of all science-fiction works follow, compositionally, a scheme, one of the thematic structures that constitute the whole science-fiction repertoire. For a world truly new in structural qualities is one in which the causal irreversibility of occurrences is denied, or one in which a person’s individuality conflicts with an individual scientifically produced by means of an “intellectronic evolution,” or one in which earthly culture is in communication with a non-earthly culture distinct from human culture not only nominally but qualitatively, and so forth. However, just as it is impossible to invent a steam engine, or an internal combustion engine, or any other already existing thing, it is also impossible to invent once more worlds with the sensational quality of “chronomotion” or of “a reasoning machine.” Just as the detective story unweariedly churns out the same plot stereotypes, so does science fiction when it tells us of countless peripeties merely to show that by interposing a time loop they have been successfully invalidated (e.g., Thomas Wilson’s “The Entrepreneur” [1952], which talks about the dreadful Communists having conquered the United States, and time travelers who start backward at the necessary point, invalidating such an invasion and dictatorship). In lieu of Communists, there may be Aliens or even the Same People Arriving from the Future (thanks to the time loop, anyone can battle with himself just as long as he pleases), etc.
If new concepts, those atomic kernels that initiate a whole flood of works, correspond to that gigantic device by which bioevolution was “invented” — i.e., to the constitutional principle of types of animals such as vertebrates and nonvertebrates, or fish, amphibians, mammals, and birds — then, in the “evolution of science fiction,” the equivalent of type-creating revolutions were the ideas of time travel, of constructing a robot, of cosmic contact, of cosmic invasion, and of ultimate catastrophe for the human species. And, as within the organization of biological types a natural evolution imperceptibly produces distinctive changes according to genera, families, races, and so forth, so, similarly, science fiction persistently operates within a framework of modest, simply variational craftsmanship.
This very craftsmanship, however, betrays a systematic, unidirectional bias; as we stated and demonstrated, great concepts that alter the structure of the fictional world are a manifestation of a pure play of the intellect. The results are assessed according to the type of play. The play can also be “relational,” involved with situations only loosely or not at all connected with the dominant principle. What connection is there, after all, between the existence of the cosmologist who created the world and the fact that he has a beautiful secretary whom he beds? Or, by what if not by a retardation device will the cosmologist be snatched away before he fires the “chronogun”? In this manner an idea lending itself to articulation in a couple of sentences (as we have done here) becomes a pretext for writing a long novel (where a “cosmos-creating” shot comes only in the epilogue, after some deliverers sent by the author have finally saved the cosmologist from his sorry plight). The purely intellectual concept is stretched thoroughly out of proportion to its inherent possibilities. But this is just how science fiction proceeds — usually.
On the other hand, rarely is a departure made from “emptiness” or “pure play” in the direction of dealing with a set of important and involved problems. In the world of science fiction it is structurally as possible to set up an adventure plot as a psychological drama; it is as possible to deal in sensational happenings as it is to stimulate thought by an ontological implication created by the narrative as a whole. It is precisely this slide toward easy, sensational intrigue that is a symptom of the degeneration of this branch of literature. An idea is permitted in science fiction if it is packaged so that one can barely see it through the glitter of the wrapping. As against conventions only superficially associated to innovations in the world’s structure and which have worn completely threadbare from countless repetitions, science fiction should be stimulated and induced to deviate from this trend of development, namely, by involution away from the “sensational pole.” Science fiction should not operate by increasing the number of blasters or Martians who impede the cosmologist in his efforts to fire the “chronogun”; such inflation is not appropriate. Rather, one should change direction radically and head for the opposite pole. After all, in principle the same bipolar opposition also prevails in ordinary literature, which also shuttles between cheap melodrama and stories with the highest aesthetic and cognitive aspirations.
It is difficult, however, to detect in science fiction any improvement or outright redemption of this sort. An odd fate seems to loom heavily over its domain, which prompts writers with the highest ambitions and considerable talent, such as Ray Bradbury or J. G. Ballard, to employ the conceptual and rational tools of science fiction at times in an admittedly superb way, yet not in order to ennoble the genre, but, instead, to bring it toward an “optimal” pole of literature. Aiming in that direction, they are simultaneously, in each successive step, giving up the programmatic rationalism of science fiction in favor of the irrational; their intellect fails to match their know-how and their artistic talent. In practice, what this amounts to is that they do not use the “signaling equipment” of science fiction, its available accessories, to express any truly, intellectually new problems or content. They try to bring about the conversion of science fiction to the “creed of normal literature” through articulating, by fantastic means, such nonfantastic content, already old-fashioned, in an ethical, axiological, philosophical sense. The revolt against the machine and against civilization, the praise of the “aesthetic” nature of catastrophe, the dead-end course of human civilization — these are their foremost problems, the intellectual content of their works. Such science fiction is, as it were, a priori vitiated by pessimism, in the sense that anything that may happen will be for the worse.
Such writers proceed as if they thought that, should mankind acknowledge the existence of even a one-in- a-million or one-in-a-billion chance — transcending the already known cyclical pulsation of history, which has oscillated between a state of relative stabilization and of complete material devastation — such an approach would not be proper. Only in mankind’s severe, resolute rejection of all chances of development, in complete negation, in a gesture of escapism or nihilism, do they find the proper mission of all science fiction that would not be cheap. Consequently they build on dead-end tragedy. This may be called into question not merely from the standpoint of optimism, of whatever hue and intensity. Rather, one should criticize their ideology by attempting to prove that they tear to shreds that which they themselves do not understand. With regard to the formidable movements that shake our world, they nourish the same fear of misunderstanding the mechanisms of change that every ordinary form of literature has. Isn’t it clear what proportions their defection assumes because of this? Cognitive optimism is, first of all, a thoroughly nonludic premise in the creation of science fiction. The result is often extremely cheap, artistically as well as intellectually, but its principle is good. According to this principle, there is only one remedy for imperfect knowledge: better knowledge, because more varied knowledge. Science fiction, to be sure, normally supplies numerous surrogates for such knowledge. But, according to its premises, that knowledge exists and is accessible: the irrationalism of Bradbury’s or Ballard’s fantasy negates both these premises. One is not allowed to entertain any cognitive hopes — that becomes the unwritten axiom of their work. Instead of introducing into traditional qualities of writing new conceptual equipment as well as new notional configurations relying on intellectual imagination, these authors, while ridding themselves of the stigma of cheap and defective science fiction, in one fell swoop give up all that constitutes its cognitive value. Obviously, they are unaware of the consequences of such desertion, but this only clears them morally: so much the worse for literature and for culture, seriously damaged by their mistake.
METAFANTASIA: THE POSSIBILITIES OF SCIENCE FICTION
Let us demonstrate three possible types of science fiction by way of three fictional examples. Our first example is a work about a system for preventing earthquakes. It has recently been discovered that spraying water under high pressure into geological strata that lie under immense tectonic stress induces a series of harmless, microseismic movements in the earth. As the water penetrates the fissures of the deep-lying strata, it acts like lubricating oil, and helps the soil layers to slide away from one another. This preventive spraying facilitates the gradual reduction of tectonic stress, so that the pent-up seismic energies need not be released in the tremendous, destructive earthquakes that accompany the fierce shifts of geological formations. On the basis of this hypothesis, already verified in reality, one might write a science-fiction novel about the successful elimination of the catastrophes that threaten people living in earthquake-prone regions. This is a variation on the theme of
