t3knomanser's Fustian Deposits

This has been irking me for a long time, but in light of Stross's anti-Star Trek rant and this rant about sexist/feminist influences in SF, I think it's time for me to put this idea down on page.

Joseph Campbell killed genre fiction. Mostly SF, but genre fiction in general. It wasn't his fault. Joseph Campbell did something fairly brilliant: he saw a way to take traditional stories and build them together into a single taxonomy. He found elements that crossed cultures (although it's definitely got a Western bias) and synthesized a sort of "grand unified theory" of mythology and literature.

I'm not here to debate the veracity of this idea. Campbell is right in enough ways that his ideas have explanatory power, even if there are cases that fall outside of his scope.

Sometime between when he had those ideas and today, people blew his findings out of proportion. Repeatedly, I've dealt with people that use Campbell to defend unoriginal literature, claiming he proved that all stories were the same anyway. Those not as well read might not name-drop Campbell, but they like to trot out the "finite number of stories" canard.

It's simply not true. While there are some commonly used story templates, there are as many unique stories as there are ways to arrange words into meaningful sentences.

And this gets us back to the death of genre fiction. Modern science fiction, especially in TV and movies, takes the stance that stories are the same, and are inherently about the characters, and that science fiction or fantasy is just another costume to dress the same story up in. Some might consider this the "literary" tradition. In this approach, all the trappings of the setting exist only to drive up the special effect's budget and provide trailer-fodder, while the story could be told equally well in any other setting. Star Wars is the most obvious example of this: sword and sorcery fare in spaceships. But pretty much every Star Trek episode from some point in the middle of the TNG era also fits the bill.

What you find is that the setting is just props and costumes. For some stories, that's fine, but genre fiction used to be about exploring ideas. Whether it's taking a modern idea and casting it in a different light by analogy or imagining a world drastically altered by some new technology or idea, in classical genre fiction, it was always the ideas that took center stage.

In some cases, notably the likes of Heinlein and Asimov, the result was cardboard characters that generally could be grouped into a handful of niches, few of which ever truly leapt off the page. At the same time, these books are rife with ideas. Different social codes, technologies that reshape society in strange ways.

I'm not trying to say that character driven drama is bad and idea driven drama is good. But the best genre fiction can do both. Sterling's Holy Fire builds a fascinating world, and then shows it to us through the eyes of a newly rejuvenated octogenarian learning about the gerontocracy from the ground up. Vonnegut, of course, was a master of mixing bizarre ideas with likable characters.

My main complaint is that the pendulum has swung away from "big ideas", at least in mainstream sci-fi. It's hardly dead, but sometimes, it feels like somebody slit genre fiction's throat.

With the recent spate of money-making, blockbuster films that are heaping piles of suck, people complain that it's unfair to call a movie bad- it's just opinion. There are no objective standards.

There are objective standards. When picking a hammer, many of the details may be a matter of the user's taste, if the hammer is unable to drive nails, we would all agree that it's a bad hammer. If your aunt knits you a sweater with no arms, while it was a sweet sentiment, we would all agree that it's a bad sweater. If someone were to take a great number of words, selected at random, put them onto page and call it a novel, I think we would all agree that it's a bad novel.

While there is a lot of room for opinion, in any creative endeavor, there are metrics for success and failure. There are, mostly qualitative, but some quantitative measures for whether a creative work is "good" or "bad".

My purpose here is not to write a treatise on critique, which I'm sure has been done better by someone else, who has devoted a great deal more time and effort to the subject. But as a critical dilettante, here's how I approach a critical examination of creative works- regardless of medium.
( Read more... )

What the hell, people? There's sixteen kinds of idiocy floating around my friends page, and it starts here. I haven't been following the Basic account drama, but seeing stuff floating around my friends page lead me to follow up on it.

The new owners of LJ no longer offer Basic accounts. You either have ads, or you pay money. There's no completely free ride anymore- unless you already have a Basic account. Wow, that sounds kinda reasonable really. I mean, Basic accounts don't make LJ any money unless the Basic users are enticed into subscribing or paying for add-ons. And many don't. So, after reviewing the business model of their new purchase, the new owners of LJ decide to stop allowing new Basic accounts. That's pretty reasonable, actually.

In fact, they're pretty nice about it- if you already have a Basic account, you get to keep it. No forced transition to a Plus or a paid account. They have no obligation to do that. They could just shove the entire Basic account legion into the Plus bracket, throw some ads up and make some money. They decided that would alienate their users.

So the people who have always gotten things for free continue to get things for free, but newbies have to pay or get hit with ads.

Seriously folks, this gets your panties in a knot? Grow up, get over it.

Oh, not everyone got in a twist about that. See, some pointy-hair gets interviewed, and, like me, thinks this boycott thing is a pile of stupid. And he has the temerity to say so out loud.

Heaven forfend!

Let's look at the Q&A shall we? When I read through it, I don't see him being particularly offensive to the users. He seems to think the boycott is stupid (it is), he thinks people are upset over nothing (they are), and he's pissed that a pack of whiners who aren't even effected by this change are trying to force him into running his business how they want (who wouldn't be, in his position?).

I've taken the liberty of summing up the interview in my own words:
( The harsh, 'Remy' version )

So, to sum up: all existing Basic accounts remain Basic, no new ones are allowed; only 10% of new signups are Basic, and most of them are for existing users; you can still have a free LJ, but you need to deal with ads; the big-boss of LJ thinks it's stupid and isn't afraid to say so.

Yeah, that's horrible. Seriously kids, this is idiotic. The Basic account change makes sense and doesn't affect existing users. The big-boss has every right to be short with idiot customers. The customer isn't always right, and the employees don't have to kiss their asses.

Dear LJ,
While many gripe at you for your censorship, I have a more pressing gripe. The goddamn RICH TEXT POSTING BOX. One shouldn't put that kind of power in the hands of users. It's like giving a knife to a two year old. Someone is going to get hurt, and it's usually my eyes and sanity.

In case you haven't noticed, people do horrible things like ( The Horrors are moved behind the cut... )