On the Need for European Science Fiction



By Péter MARTON

This essay argues that although there is a considerable body of European SF literature, there may be a need, with a view to contemporary world trends, for a more acute understanding of what it altogether represents in terms of implicit discourses and general character. And that to this end, it needs to be consciously and explicitly framed as "European," something that has not often been done in the past.

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In the popular understanding, science fiction often appears as a U.S.-based genre. No one necessarily thinks of it that way, yet that's how it appears according to key measures of impact. Ask fans of Science Fiction just about anywhere in comparatively open societies around the globe to list the names of the greatest SF writers in the world, and they will invariably drop mostly U.S. names. Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Samuel Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Cordwainer Smith, Harlan Ellison, Kim Stanley Robinson – to point out a few of the frequent nominees (off the top of my non-representative hat, so please don't see much into who is mentioned here).

English names may belong to non-Americans, too, of course, and so the better-known British writers will also show up. Some of them are even reckoned to be among the best of the best – the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, J.G. Ballard, China Miéville, Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Paul McAuley or Alastair Reynolds. Or think of Greg Egan and Sean McMullen, Aussies, the two of them.

Non-American respondents are likely to add a few names from their own respective national SF literatures, but not necessarily. Across different national audiences, these names will not typically be mutually known. Take the example of Hungary: did you know that Hungary has its own Hugo Awards? So named after Hugo Preyer, 20th century Hungarian sci-fi writer. I have no way of verifying this right now, but I would assume that even Hungarians these days are more likely to know about Arthur C. Clarke's fondness for diving than about Preyer's amazing life.

Besides the U.S./Anglo-Saxon SF universe, there will be multiple little islands of national literatures and individual legacies as a result of this, islands that are not connected to each other, and are only linked, largely by one-way interaction, to the centre (importing from it). They form a scale-free network where the U.S. will in the foreseeable future remain the central node or the key reference point – call it whatever you want.

I hear the more knowledgable fans protest: just as in the past there were authors like Karel Čapek, Stanisław Lem, or the Strugatsky brothers, now there are people like Cixin Liu (Liu Cixin) or Aliette de Bodard (born in the U.S. in fact). But these people have come to be known partly also through the English-speaking realm of the SF universe, and their success (not in the sense of writing well which they did, but in the sense of becoming imprinted on people's minds as brand names) is thereby not unrelated to the structural imbalance of the SF world in favour of the U.S.

The same may be said of writers who otherwise clearly bring more diversity in SF, who now live in the U.S., either having moved or immigrated there (like Ken Liu or Bogi Takács, for example), or having been born there, but coming not from an Anglo-Saxon background: think, among others, of Nnedi Okorafor, Sofia Samatar, Yoon Ha Lee or Alice Sola Kim.

The trickle-down effect of U.S. structural power is also felt in the success of those to whom writing in English comes entirely (or more or less) naturally, as a legacy of British and U.S. empires (note that this is to say nothing about the very real talent of the people mentioned here). Think of the likes of Vandana Singh, Ashok K. Banker or Indrapramit Das (Das is dividing his time between the U.S. and his home), all three of them from India, Kristin Mandigma from the Philippines, Vina Jae-Min Prasad from Singapore, or Zen Cho from Malaysia (now living in England, reportedly).

Partly because of these authors, but partly also due to strategic considerations (for reasons ranging from the expectation of a "Pacific century" to the monetary value of emerging markets), there is a lot of interest in "Asian SF" at the present, and not so much in what Europe as such has to offer. This, combined with the availability, through diaspora groups, of natural translators as "bridge figures," makes it possible for Clarkesworld and other SF magazines to include more Chinese content lately. Hao Jingfang, one of the most talented Chinese SF writers, wouldn't be known around the world today, had her Hugo-winning novelette Folding Beijing not been translated to English in 2015 by Ken Liu. The same goes for Cixin Liu whose now world-famous novel, The Three-Body Problem, was also translated by Ken Liu (in 2014).

The consequence is that even non-U.S. and non-Anglo-Saxon content is selected mostly in the U.S. The agenda is set in the U.S. The "selectorate" (to import a concept from political science, namely from Bruce Bueno de Mesquita) includes both U.S. audiences and the major SF magazines' editors, as well as the major book publishers and the major "year's best" athnologies' editors. The mostly U.S.-based "pro markets," to which everyone ultimately looks for the next trends, and for benchmarks as to who counts and who doesn't, are thus the most important factors in the evolution of SF. (And then Hollywood adds to this by turning a selection of what is selected by them into film.)

Reasons for this are manifold. The role of the English language as lingua franca the Common Tongue, has already been noted, at the risk of stating the obvious. Economies of scale matter for an industry in search of large enough markets to reproduce, where relative market size is determined by the number of consumers weighed by purchasing power and consumption patterns. This applies, regardless of whether the quest for survival takes place in the form of selling to readers, advertisers or willing sponsors. And the home crowds often favour local matadors.

Social institutions may play an important role, too: it may be that talent is managed better (in comparative terms) in the U.S. and in Britain, than elsewhere. The level of competition may be different. Many European nation-states traditionally subsidise national literature (and other forms of art), putting established authors inside the national wire in the comfortable position of not having to strive to sell beyond national audiences.

Genre literature has a somewhat better general standing in the U.S. than elsewhere – not to say that there is no snobbery and elitism there, but even as these are present, there is perhaps a bit more pragmatism, too, in this respect.

And we haven't yet discussed the implications of the vague "structural power" of the U.S. where soft power (as cultural appeal) indeed contributes to economic power, but this relationship works very visibly in the reverse as well (in fact, in that direction the relationship is probably stronger).

This blogzine sets out to support what is thus an uphill struggle... Or a downhill struggle, actually, as in rearguard action – a play on words with some relevance as we are witnessing at the present the unfolding of Brexit, which will leave behind a considerably diminished "EU-SF" universe (inasmuch as there ever really was one to speak of).

European Science Fiction could go a long way towards strengthening European identities in an otherwise eternally fragmented continent. It could equip Europeans with the kind of strategic imagination that has often been lacking in their history. With more of an ability to think of Europe's future autonomously, and what it would, could or should be like.

A more or less free class of intellectuals, in SF writers, could strongly inspire this process. ("Free" here is meant first of all as opposed to the status of the likes of politicians and state-subsidised writers whose discourse will be structurally more constrained. And free perhaps, but not necessarily, also in a liberal philosophical sense – at a time when being "anti-PC" is becoming the norm for many, and a wave of populism is sweeping the West.)

Helping to make this happen is our mission. Having fun along the way is perfectly compatible with it.

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