| The following is a transcript of a live chat
held March 4th on Delphi Internet, in the SF Literature Forum. It has been
edited for clarity.
JAMES_GUNN>
Any questions?
.Gordie>
Well, I was at a con this past weekend, and Algis Budrys brought up
a point about about how today's reader had little background in how SF
got where it is today. I thought that echoed something you said in reply
to one of our questions.
JAMES_GUNN>
That's true. A. J. and I belong to the same generation, where everyone
knew everything that had been published. Today's readers can't read everything,and
they know just their little bit. But that's why I published THE ROAD
TO SF. In fact, I just finished putting together volume #6: AROUND
THE WORLD, to make some international SF available to readers who were
interested. International SF has a kind of fascination in that it changes,
country to country, although much reacts to American SF, which is the standard.
.Sue>
Jim, I know this is an almost impossible question, but if you wanted
to suggest perhaps 10 works that might give someone an overview..they'd
be?
JAMES_GUNN>
Yeah, that would be difficult to boil down--I published a basic SF
library in Library Journal a half-dozen years ago, and updated it for my
Center's website <falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~sfcenter/> if anyone is
interested.
There are a dozen good anthologies that people should read: ADVENTURES
IN TIME AND SPACE and THE BEST OF SF are two of them, and then
read authors such as Heinlein, Asimov, etc.
.hy>
James, what is the prospect of your latest published book becoming
a movie?
JAMES_GUNN>
My agent is working on it. People want a millennial novel, but my novel
may be too unique.
.hy>
After CLOCKWORK ORANGE, how unique is "unique"?
JAMES_GUNN>
Every novel that comes out of someone's character is unique--in different
ways. CLOCKWORK ORANGE certainly was different, but its difference
doesn't pre-empt the uniqueness category. CATASTROPHE was an attempt
to write a SF idea as a main stream novel.
.Sue>
Have the SF critics been discussing the stream of millennial novels
and come up with any ideas about what they think is appropriate? (Not sure
how to ask this). I guess I'm asking, are you already sick of the idea
that everyone wants to write one of these and do you think that there are
some appropriate themes?
JAMES_GUNN>
The SF critics haven't agreed on anything for a long time,and they
mainly respond after the fact. But a lot of us think that SF has special
problems.
.Sue>
Like?
JAMES_GUNN>
No one really knows what a millennial novel ought to be like. I had
my idea for own about 25 years ago, and it has taken me this long to put
it together. Special problems: too many books to be able to find the really
good ones; a confusion with media treatments and tie-ins; the aging SF
audience; the need to get teenagers started reading it the way we did...
.Sue>
So your newest book is along these lines? Tell us what you can about
it.
JAMES_GUNN>
My idea was that the millennium would bring a great deal of anxiety,
and I wanted to write about the anxiety and what it would do to us. The
1890s had its fin de siecle, but we knew how the world might really end.
So I wanted to show six people making their way through the world of the
year 20000, each with his or her own particular fear about the way the
world might end, until they meet, for the first time, on Dec.31, 2000.
To be more specific, I devoted three chapters each to each of six characters,
and then they met at the End of the World Ball, chapter 19.
.hy>
As a youngster I used to read Buck Rogers in the comics. That interested
me in SF. Perhaps we need to have someone start a SF strip to be published
daily in the comic pages of major newspapers.
JAMES_GUNN>
Ben Bova said he got interested in SF by reading Superman. Some people
graduate to reading, others don't. Most readers of movie tie-ins don't
go on to read more traditional SF. But John Ordover, a former student of
mine has the idea of publishing a Star Trek magazine that would publish
some SF stories and introduce media fans to the joy of reading.
.Gordie>
How would Paramount/Viacom feel about that? I could see them taking
the high road and embracing it, or being petty and stopping it at the outset.
JAMES_GUNN>
John edits the Star Trek line, and Paramount would like anything that
expands their promotion. I think it would work.
.hy>
My thought was that comic strips in newspapers are very easily read,
and a lot of youngsters read them. We might capture the interest of a new
group of readers.
JAMES_GUNN>
Good idea. If we could just find the way to interest an artist and
a creator and a bunch of publishers.
.EddieJ>
Do you see any grounds for *optimism* about the future of SF??
JAMES_GUNN>
About SF future, there'll be lots of it. Books are everywhere. It is
just that they have become so different, so categorized, that the audience
is segregated and doesn't cross over. Some read movie tie-ins, some combat
sf, some Dune, some Asimov, etc. When I started I read everything, and
I could read everything because there wasn't enough to satisfy my habit.
.Sue>
At what point did that become impossible?
JAMES_GUNN>
Sue, the big divide came about 1972 when there were about 275 books
published. Ten years later the total was closer 1500 and then 2000. No
one can read that many, and the publishers began singling out special audiences.
So the multiplicity of books, the plethora of books, is a problem as
well as an opportunity. You can't read them all, and if a young reader
starts with what Ted Sturgeon called the 90% crud, they may not go on.
.EddieJ>
Is today's crud as bad as the crud of the 60's, which is when I started
reading SF? I really don't know.
JAMES_GUNN>
The crud may not be worse and the 10% that isn't is really good, but
the 90% that is worthless (comparatively) represents a far larger group.
David Brin and Chris McKitterick have suggested a program to take good
SF to the high schools, talk about SF, show the books, leave them there
for students to find. SF has a great ability to capture good minds if they
can find it.
.Gordie>
So, SF has become a victim of its own success? A bitter irony if I
ever heard one.
JAMES_GUNN>
Adrift in a sea of plenty. Lots of books published and sold mean that
lots more writers can be full-time. but in order to be full-time they have
to write what the publishers want which is stuff for an identifiable audience.
Like my Star Trek novel, which I wrote because of Ted Sturgeon and his
outline. But I tried to make THE JOY MACHINE personal and to play
with the Star Trek universe.
.PDog Joe>
Do you see the lack of interest today as being tied to the change in
values (make a buck as opposed to learn, search, find) or is do you see
it as being more a product of the 'fast media' of television and the internet?
JAMES_GUNN>
I think it's a combination of things. I do think that young people
don't have as much time for reading as they once did, and maybe don't develop
the skills and responses, learn the joys.
.PDog Joe>
I've seen a bit of a change just in the past ten years or so from good
minds who would be interested in science/sf if only there was some
money in it. It's no longer as 'sexy' as being, say, an investment broker.
<wry grin>
JAMES_GUNN>
Another irony. I sometimes think that better SF was written when it
was a part-time activity done for love, and people read it for the same
reason. I always tell students to find something they want to spend their
lives doing, that they are willing to work hard at just because they love
it, and someone will give them money to do it. At least that's the way
it's worked for me.
.Gordie>
Have other SF authors picked up on the Brin/McKitterick idea of taking
SF into the schools? It'd seem to be an investment in the future.
JAMES_GUNN>
A lot of authors do it on an ad hoc basis, but it would help if it
were a movemet. David Brin hopes to do something like that at the World
Con in San Antonio, maybe talk about it, too. Lawrence, Kansas, at least,
has a high school SF class (one of my summer program students teaches it),
and the students are a lively bunch. There should be more such classes
elsewhere. But it would help to introduce SF to a regular English class,
and high school teachers welcome authors or enthusiastic readers.
.Gordie>
Is that teacher willing to share the lesson plans?
JAMES_GUNN>
I'm sure she would. Of course I teach a summer program in two weeks
(check the SF Center's website) of concentration on the short stories or
25 novels.
.Sue>
Do you see any connection between the decline in general literacy and
the reading of SF?
JAMES_GUNN>
My theory is that you can teach far more through the short stories
than through a dozen novels. Of course I use THE ROAD TO SCIENCE FICTION--all
four volumes.
.Sue>
I have a close friend who's taught English for 30 years and he says
that there's no comparison between 'then and now'.
JAMES_GUNN>
Sue, it is true that students aren't what they used to be, but a good
teacher can work wonders if they try. To answer your earlier question,
Sue, literacy may have declined, but I think the problem is that young
people don't turn to reading as a primary source of pleasure...
.Mike Resnick>
Sex and tv take less effort. I should have sold my body instead of
my words.
.Sue>
Hmm. I do now (turn to reading as a primary source of pleasure) but
I didn't as a kid. It wasn't a value in my home.
JAMES_GUNN>
I once speculated that a serious childhood illness was required, and
a number of SF writers my age had scarlet fever, as if writing (and maybe
reading) SF was a virus one caught at the age of 5 or 6. Even H. G. Wells
attributed his escape from the live of middle-class respectability his
mother had planned for him to two broken legs: his own at the age of 6
or 7, when his father brought him books to read. And his father's, which
ended his father's semi-pro cricket career and forced the sale of the crockery
shop and forced his mother to go back to Up Park, where she became housekeeper
and he had the run of the library.
When I wrote an autobiographical essay for Gale's AUTHOR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
SERIES, I asked myself what accidents had brought me to that place
and time--and there were many.
.Sue>
Like?
JAMES_GUNN>
People kept asking me to do things, and I'd say, "That sounds
interesting. I'll give it a try." The only thing I ended up doing
that I ever planned on was writing, and that sort of slipped in by accident...
I always intended to write, but I turned to SF when a radio show I had
dreamed up found nobody willing to put it on. So I wrote my first SF story
and sold it, and discovered that somebody would pay me to sit at my typewriter.
.Sue>
Jim, were these particularly perceptive people who knew your skills
or more serendipitious?
.Mike Resnick>
I think in Jim's generation it was a Sacred Calling. By mine, it was
Respectable. By my daughter's, it was Lucrative.
JAMES_GUNN>
Sue, mostly it was serendipity. I just happened to be around when I
was asked to teach a class, edit a magazine, direct University public relations--the
only decision I made was to leave PR for teaching in 1970.
.Sue>
That's neat. Sounds like a happy life.
JAMES_GUNN>
I wish I could bottle it. Everyone is unique. The secret is to recognize
your own uniqueness and find a way (socially acceptable one hopes) to express
it.
.Gordie>
We've been going for about an hour now. Which is about the standard
for a formal chat. Does anyone have any further questions for Jim? I will
remind everyone that questions that might need a bit more time for a response
can be posted to our message forum. I know I've got a couple like that.
If there aren't any further questions, we'll wrap this up for tonight.
.Sue>
Jim, thanks for coming. Is there anything else you'd like to say?
JAMES_GUNN>
I'll be glad to answer any questions you might come up with later.
Karen will monitor them for me in case I miss them. It's been fun being
with you. Thanks for inviting me. Have a good evening and good night!
JAMES_GUNN>
= signed off =
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