Parietal Games: Critical Writings by & on M. John Harrison

181 Pages·2005·166.268 MB·English

by  M John Harrison, Mark Bould, Michelle Reid

FLS
2015
177077
Critical Writings by and on
M. John Harrison
Edited by Mark Bould
and Michelle Reid
Foreword by Elizabeth Hand
Parietal Games:
Critical Writings by and on
M. John Harrison
edited by
Mark Bould and Michelle Reid
Foundation Studies in Science Fiction, 5
The Science Fiction Foundation 2005
Contents
Published by the Science Fiction Foundation, c/o 23 Ranelagh Road, London
N17 6XY, UK. The book was typeset by Edward James.
Foreword 9
Elizabeth Hand
The Science Fiction Foundation (Registered Charity no. 1041052) was created
in 1970. Its founder was the late George Hay and its patrons are Sir Arthur
Let’s Make a Little Noise, Colorado: An Introduction in Eight Parts 13
C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin. Since the beginning it has had the aims of
Mark Bould
promoting a discriminating understanding of the nature of science fiction; of
disseminating information about science fiction; of providing research facilities
for anyone wishing to study science fiction; and of investigating the usefulness
Part A: By M. John Harrison
of science fiction in education. Its journal Foundation was launched in 1972.
The Science Fiction Foundation Collection, its extensive library of books,
Speculation
magazines and manuscripts, is curated by the University of Liverpool.
1. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany. Speculation 18 (May 1968),
pp.19-21 32
2. Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad. Speculation 19 (September 1968), pp.
Foundation Studies in Science Fiction (series editor: Farah Mendlesohn)
840 34
3. Body Schema Fantasies: Restoree by Anne McCaffrey. Speculation 21
1. The Parliament of Dreams: Conferring on Babylon 5, ed. Farah Mendlesohn
(February 1969), pp.17-18 37
and Edward James (1998)
4. The Answer is Chicago. Speculation 24 (September/October 1969), p.31
2. Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature, ed. Andrew M. Butler, Edward James and
39
Farah Mendlesohn (2000) (2nd edition by Old Earth Books, Baltimore,
5. The Chalk Won’t Stay on the Biscuits: A Dialogue. Speculation 25 (January
2004)
1970), pp.27-29 39
3. The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod, ed. Andrew M. Butler and Farah
Mendlesohn (2003)
New Worlds
4. A Celebration of British Science Fiction, ed. Andy Sawyer, Andrew M. Butler
6. The Impotence of Being Stagg (with R.G. Meadley). New Worlds 184
and Farah Mendlesohn (2005)
(November 1968), pp.60-61 44
7. The Angle of Attack (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 185 (December
1968) , pp.58-60 46
8. A Devil of a Job. New Worlds 185 (December 1968), pp.60-62 49
9. The Anthology Bag (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 186 (January
1969) , pp.62-63 51
10. Trouble at t’White House. New Worlds 187 (February 1969), pp.59-60
54
© 2005 by the Science Fiction Foundation,
11. Mr Throd and the Wise Old Crocodile. New Worlds 188 (March 1969),
on behalf of the original contributors.
pp.59-60 57
12. The Cannon Kings (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 189 (April 1969),
pp.59, 61, 63 59
ISBN
13. Twilight Crucifixion of the Beastly Black Sheep. New Worlds 190 (May
0-903007-04-5 (hardback)
Library of Congress 1969), pp.58-59 62
0-903007-05-3 (paperback)
2015464208 14. The Boy from Vietnam. New Worlds 191 (June 1969), pp.60-61 65
464208
2015
2 3
15. Paperbag (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 192 (July 1969), pp.61-62 36. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 94 (30 November-
68 13 December 1979), p.18 129
16. Come Alive — You’re in the William Sansom Generation (as by “Joyce 37. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 95 (14 December
Churchill”). New Worlds 194 (September/October 1969), pp.30-31 70 1979-10 January 1980), p.18 131
17. The Tangreese Gimmick. New Worlds 195 (November 1969), pp.31-32
73 Foundation
18. Pot Pourri. New Worlds 196 (December 1969), p.27 75 38. Port of Saints by William S. Burroughs. Foundation 22 (June 1981), pp.104-
19. Big Brother is Twenty-One (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 197 105 133
(January 1970), p.23 77 39. Kiteworld by Keith Roberts. Foundation 35 (Winter 1985/1986), pp.74-76
20. The Wireless School. New Worlds 197 (January 1970), p.32 78 135
21. Broaden Your Horizons (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 199 (March 40. The Folk of the Air by Peter S. Beagle. Foundation 38 (Winter 1986/1987),
1970), pp.28-29 80 pp.79-81 138
22. Sawdust and Dead Reads (as by “Joyce Churchill”). New Worlds 200 (April 41. O-Zone by Paul Theroux. Foundation 40 (Summer 1987), pp.90-92 141
1970), pp.30-31 82 42. The Profession of Science Fiction, 40: The Profession of Fiction. Foundation
23. A Literature of Comfort. New Worlds 1, ed. Michael Moorcock (London: 46 (Autumn 1989), pp.5-13 144
Sphere Books, 1971), pp. 166-72 84 43. Escape from Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson. Foundation 47 (Winter
24. By Tennyson Out of Disney. New Worlds 2, ed. Michael Moorcock (London: 1989/1990), pp.94-96 154
Sphere Books, 1971), pp.181-85 89 44. The Paradise Motel by Eric McCormack. Foundation 48 (Spring 1990),
25. The Black Glak. New Worlds 3, ed. Michael Moorcock (London: Sphere pp.104-105 157
Books, 1972), pp.199-204 92 45. Heathern by Jack Womack. Foundation 50 (Autumn 1990), pp. 119-122
26. The Problem of Sympathy. New Worlds 4, ed. Michael Moorcock (London: 158
Sphere Books, 1972), pp.743 96 46. Halo by Tom Maddox. Foundation 57 (Spring 1993), pp. 101-103 161
27. To the Stars and Beyond on the Fabulous Anti-Syntax Drive. New Worlds
5, ed. Michael Moorcock (London: Sphere Books, 1973), pp.234-39 101 Times Literary Supplement
28. Filling Us Up. New Worlds 6, ed. Michael Moorcock and Charles Platt 47. Dream Cargoes: War Fever by J.G. Ballard. Times Literary Supplement, 23-29
(London: Sphere Books, 1973), pp.253-58 105 November 1990, p.1271 163
29. Absorbing the Miraculous. New Worlds 7, ed. Hilary Bailey and Charles 48. Speeding to Cradle from Grave: Times Arrow by Martin Amis. Times
Platt (London: Sphere Books, 1974), pp.203-07 109 Literary Supplement, 20 September 1991, p.21 165
30. Coming to Life. New Worlds 8, ed. Hilary Bailey (London: Sphere Books, 49. Adrift on a Sea of Stories: The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor by John
1975), pp.211-17 112 Barth. Times Literary Supplement, 15 November 1991, p.7 168
31. Sweet Analytics. New Worlds 9, ed. Hilary Bailey (London: Corgi Books, 50. Nerd into Shaman: Storming the Reality Studio ed. Larry McCaffery. Times
1975), pp.208-14 117 Literary Supplement, 13 March 1992, p.22 170
51. Going into the Void: The Water People by Joe Simpson. Times Literary
New Manchester Review Supplement, 29 May 1992, p.20 172
32. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 72 (12-25 January 52. Beating the Retreat: Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. Times Literary Supplement,
1979), p.13 122 19 June 1992, p.20 173
33. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 76 (9-22 March 53. Following the Embalmer’s Trade: The Picador Book of the New Gothic eds.
1979), p.8 123 Patrick McGrath and Bradford Morrow. Times Literary Supplement, 9 Octo­
34. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 83 (15-28 June ber 1992, p.23. 175
1979), p.17 125 54. Lifting the Coffin-Lid: Where Does Kissing End? by Kate Pullinger. Times
35. Science Fiction Book Reviews. New Manchester Review 90 (5-18 October Literary Supplement, 20 November 1992, p.23 177
1979), p.18 127 55. Cursors and Presursors: Hands On by Andrew Rosenheim. Times Literary
4 5
Supplement, 26 February 1993, p.2O 179 75. All Fired Up with Nowhere to Go: China by Alan Wall. The Guardian, 19
56. Love as Melodrama: Dr Haggard's Disease by Patrick McGrath. Times Liter­ April 2003: Saturday Review, p.27 227
ary Supplement, 14 May 1993, p.22 180 76. Meat vs. Machine: Natural History by Justina Robson. The Guardian, 7 June
57. Here Come the Style Pirates: Virtual Light by William Gibson. Times Liter­ 2003: Saturday Review, p.29 229
ary Supplement, 1 October 1993, p.21 182 77. Rubbing Salt in the Wounds: Thursbitch by Alan Garner. The Guardian, 18
58. A Southern Child: Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress. Times Literary October 2003: Saturday Review, p.26 231
Supplement, 29 October 1993, p.21 184 78. Be-Bop-A-Lula, and Lola: Her Name Was Lola by Russell Hoban. The
59. The Man Who Cut the Rope: Against the Wall by Simon Yates. Times Guardian, 15 November 2003: Saturday Review, p.27 233
Literary Supplement, 22 November 1996, p.13 185 79. Rocky the Rasta versus Creosote Man: Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe by
60. On Simian Street with Dr Self: Great Apes by Will Self. Times Literary Will Self. The Guardian, 3 January 2004: Saturday Review, p.18 234
Supplement, 9 May 1997, p. 19 187 80. A Memo from the Author to Herself: Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope.
61. Wars and Lies in Bars: The Story of My Disappearance by Paul Watkins The Guardian, 14 February 2004: Saturday Review, p.27 236
Times Literary Supplement, 29 August 1997, p.22 189 81. Wallander’s World: Firewall by Henning Mankell. The Guardian, 10 April
62. Second Time Around: Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. Times Literary 2004: Saturday Review, p.28 238
Supplement, 26 September 1997, p.22 191 82. Muddy Waters: Siren Song by Robert Edric. The Guardian, 12 June 2004:
63. Polluted Peak: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, Dark Shadows Falling by Joe Saturday Review, p.28 240
Simpson, and The Death Zone by Matt Dickinson. Times Literary Supplement, 83. This Boy’s Lives: The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen. The Guardian,
26 December 1997, p.6 194 26 June 2004: Saturday Review, p.26 241
64. Updike Man Faces the Infinite, Perhaps: Toward the End of Time by John
Updike. Times Literary Supplement, 6 February 1998, p.22 198 The Spectator
65. We’re Talking Larger’n Life Here: A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Times 84- Go Tell It Off the Mountain: Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. The
Literary Supplement, 27 November 1998, p.21 201 Spectator, 10 June 1989, pp.43-44 243
66. That Old Magus: Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard. Times Literary Supplement,
8 September 2000, p.22 205 Fantastic Metropolis
67. Conversations with a Museum: The Bat Tattoo by Russell Hoban. Times 85. What It Might Be Like to Live in Viriconium. Fantastic Metropolis, http://
Literary Supplement, 18 October 2002, pp.23-24 207 www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/viriconium, 15 October 2001
68. Cheerfully Creepy: Seven Tales of Sex and Death by Patricia Duncker. Times 245
Literary Supplement, 28 March 2003, p.22 212 The Third Alternative
69. All the Old Nostalgia: The North of England Home Service by Gordon Burn. 86. Guest Editorial: Tolkien is Not an Issue. The Third Alternative, 33 (Winter
Times Literary Supplement, 9 May 2003, p.23 214 2003), p.3 246
70. Waiting for the End: These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. Times
Literary Supplement, 6 February 2004, p.21 216
71. From Dream-Scene to Dream-Scene: The Coma by Alex Garland. Times
Part B: On M. John Harrison
Literary Supplement, 2 July 2004, p.19 219
72. Death and the Landscape: The Quarry by Damon Galgut. Times Literary
Supplement, 10 September 2004, p.21 222 1. A Young Man’s Journey to Ladbroke Grove: M. John Harrison and the
Evolution of the New Wave in Britain 249
The Guardian Rob Latham
73. Confessions of an Astrophysicist: Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. The
Guardian, 10 August 2002: Saturday Review, p.21 224 2. Form and Content in The Centauri Device 265
74. Worlds Apart: The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin. The Guardian, Rjurik Davidson
18 January 2003: Saturday Review, p.29 226
6 7
3. “All the Cities That There Have Ever Been”: In Viriconium 275
Foreword
Nick Freeman
Elizabeth Hand
4. Hard Very Severe: M. John Harrison’s Climbers 290
Graham Sleight
I discovered M. John Harrison’s fiction rather late in the game - in 1986, when
5. Loving the Loss of the World: T^sknota and the Metaphors of the Heart I was 29 and taking my very first writer’s workshop. The instructor, Richard
Graham Fraser 299 Grant, was a huge fan of Harrison and the author of a deeply Harrisonian first
novel. He loaned me his battered paperback copy of Viriconium Nights. I vividly
6. Imagine, As That Dolphin, Breathing Light 319 recall the chill I felt reading those stories, that strange aesthetic apprehension of
John Clute encountering something at once utterly unknown yet somehow deeply longed-
for; the sense I had at a much younger age when I first read Alan Garner’s
7. Light, by M. John Harrison 323 Elidor and Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan and Angela Carter’s The Infernal
Farah Mendlesohn Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. There was the same exhilarated rush of
recognition, the realisation that, at last, one had been given a glimpse of the
8. Old, Mean and Misanthropic: An Interview with M. John Harrison 326 real world behind the veil. The fact that these were ostensibly fantastic tales,
Mark Bould and that I was now something resembling an adult, made the experience that
much more disorienting.
About the Contributors 343 I immediately set about finding everything I could by Harrison. This was a
more difficult quest in those pre-internet days than it is now, a cross between
Bibliographies 345 a treasure hunt and researching a dissertation. For several years I trolled used
bookstores and mail-order speciality shops, tag sales and book sales; ransacked
Index 351 the libraries of friends and institutions. Eventually, I found almost everything
(except for Climbers and The Machine in Shaft Ten and Other Stories, which
took a while). By the time The Course of the Heart appeared I was nearly caught
up; whereupon it was time to go back to the beginning and read everything
over again.
In the years since then I’ve read bits of Harrison’s criticism - his masterly
“Professions” piece in Foundation; a reprinted essay here and there; recent
reviews in The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement — but it’s only
now, with the publication of the volume you’re reading, that I’ve been able
to get really caught up. Anyone familiar with Harrison’s fiction knows that
his standards are high: his prose style is crystalline, his dialogue beautifully
realistic (and often hilarious); his aesthetic arguments alive and flowing just
below the surface of his storytelling, the pulse of a genuine master’s heart and
mind.
So it’s no surprise to find these same things in his reviews and essays; but
there’s a different, rather voyeuristic pleasure to be derived from reading them
in chronological order and seeing how that masterful mind and technique
evolved; rather like turning the pages of one of those old-fashioned series of
transparent, overlayed illustrations of the human body: here is the skeleton,
here are the inner organs; this is where the nerves go, and the musculature (a
lot of that in Harrison), here the skin and hair (that too), and so on.
8
9
For the sake of those with delicate sensibilities, I will extend the metaphor it possesses.”
no further. “A book - its meaning - is not what the light discovers,” Harrison wrote
From the outset, Harrison’s critical voice was almost supernaturally confident in his “Professions” essay, perhaps my favourite piece in this volume. “What is
- he was only in his mid-20s when his first reviews appeared in Speculation and interesting in any book, or picture, or film, is the light itself.”
New Worlds - yet there’s nothing of the tyro critic’s fumbling or arrogance here; M. John Harrison’s essays are indeed luminous, and often moving; because
also nothing of the fanboy’s fawning. Harrison has always treated genre fiction only someone who passionately loves the genre, its readers and writers, would
as a grown-up creative enterprise: he’s the stern taskmaster who expects no less invest so much time and thought and energy into telling us to turn off the TV,
of his students than he does of himself, and while his disappointment with his put down our comfort reading, shut down the goddam computer and go outside
sometimes lazy, immature, repetitive, ill-prepared or just plain stupid pupils is and face the sun.
palpable, his enthusiasm never flags. This collection is a wake-up call. Get cracking.
Nor does his humour: “At times there can be sensed at the hub of the genre
something so repellent, so intolerably fixated and vacuous that you don’t know
quite whether to choke or laugh.” Fortunately for readers, Harrison doesn’t
choke; neither does he kowtow (or whatever it is one does - moo?) to sacred
cows:
What can you do with Philip K. Dick? His new novel has finally arrived in
paperback. Brain-cells, dope, California. Is the Real real? Has the world gone
mad? Does he believe all this stuff? Do you, in the end, care? If you do it’s
A Scanner Darkly (Panther). I always get very confused trying to follow him,
myself.
or:
Au fait in those days meant transcending the medium. Transcending the
medium meant doing something with science fiction. It meant technical
experiment. It meant being rude to old hats like John Brunner. Above all,
transcending the medium meant getting a book published without the letters
SF dangling off its spine like a leper’s bell.
Almost everybody managed this transition eventually, even some of
the Americans. Joanna Russ transcended the medium: with one bound she
was free! Ursula Le Guin and Norman Spinrad were free. (Harlan Ellison was
already free but he gave a great mad leap anyway, scattering publishers like
dandruff.) Samuel Delany was almost free when he tripped over his prose and
spilt his milk! With one bound, Robert Silverberg was ... What was he?”
or:
Kurt Vonnegut is old, and bored with the novel - do we have to be too?
M. John Harrison has never seemed to be particularly interested in
transcending the medium, or engaging in the sort of futile wish-fulfilment that
many genre writers (and readers and critics) indulge in - “If only we got more
serious respect/money/advertising/critical attention/etc., people would stop
making fun of us.”
Instead, he treats the medium as though it were a truculent but intelligent
young adult adjusting with difficulty to the harsh realities of the workaday
world. He insists that the genre sober up, get out of bed, stop daydreaming,
comb its hair, get to work on time; he wants it to develop the strength to leap
“the gap of understanding that prevents genre sf from realising any potentiality
10 11
Let’s Make A Little Noise,
Colorado: An Introduction
in Eight Parts
Mark Bould
I was insanely angry about everything, so he [Michael Moorcock] made me
one of the gunfighters at the Bar NW ranch. I was always the most hair-
triggered of them because I was the new comer and the Pistol Kid
M. John Harrison1
1. My title comes from Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo (1959) - it is John Wayne’s
command to Ricky Nelson to provide covering fire for Dean Martin. It is a
great line - only Duke could have delivered it so well - but it’s all wrong here.
John Wayne as Michael Moorcock? Ricky Nelson as M, John Harrison?2 And
the noise they made in Ladbroke Grove in the late sixties and early seventies
was the opposite of covering fire: it drew attention, exposed them and the
British New Wave/New Worlds project to enfilade and assault. (And let’s face
it, John Wayne was on the other side anyway, supporting the US invasion
and occupation of Vietnam, along with many of the sf old guard.) So perhaps
Moorcock and Harrison were more like Butch and Sundance - jumping off a
cliff, not worrying too much about being unable to swim because the fall would
probably kill them. (If only they could have got to the horses...)
But the real problem with Harrison’s description of himself is that the
Pistol Kid is a loudmouth whose sole function is to swagger about until he is
co-opted or killed. The older reluctant Gunslinger always puts him either in his
place or in the ground. In Harrison’s reviews, there is undoubtedly something
of the Pistol Kid - not a jot of Ricky Nelson but plenty of the Oedipal intensity
of Montgomery Clift’s Matthew Garth or Paul Newman’s Billy the Kid. And
there is something, too, of the genuine western blackhat: the absolute self-
assurance of Lee Marvin’s Liberty Valance or Jack Palance’s stonecold Wilson.
But Harrison is the Pistol Kid who didn’t get his comeuppance. He drew fast
and often, and his confidence turned out to be justified. The more fiction he
wrote, the more the authors he reviewed looked like cowpokes, trailhands,
rustlers, carpetbaggers, town drunks, comic relief. He became the Gunslinger.
Wise enough to not go looking for trouble, but if trouble came looking for
him... Like Glenn Ford in The Fastest Gun Alive (Rouse 1956), Gary Cooper
in Man of the West (Mann 1958) or James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven
(Sturges 1960).
13
So perhaps my title is not so much about Moorcock talking to Harrison and materialist fantasy - that the TolkiemLucas complex, with their comforts
but an injunction to the sf/fantasy community and admirers of Harrison. In and dreams and easy consummations of desire, would have us forget.
him, British sf and fantasy has produced arguably the finest short story writer
currently working in English. With In Viriconium (1982), Climbers (1989), The 3. There is little respect in Harrison’s reviews for sf’s old guard. Robert A.
Course of the Heart (1992), Signs of Life (1997) and Light (2002) a previously Heinlein is “a purveyor of shoddy goods” (p.39). Ray Bradbury and Theodore
always interesting novelist became a major contemporary novelist. For Sturgeon, that “insincere old bloater” (p.132), merely compile “sterile list[s] of
more than thirty years, he has been one of the very best reviewers of sf and sentimental adjectives” (p.33). Arthur C. Clarke is “the ultimate bore: a sort of
fantasy and, more recently, of the kinds of contemporary fiction to which the psychic radio ham who picked up signals from Sputnik One years before it was
broadsheets pay attention. launched and has been cashing in on it ever since” (p.125). Poul Anderson is
We are Colorado. It is us who should make a little noise. allowed to condemn himself out of his own homophobic mouth (p.80), before
being taken to task for using science to make the universe a comfortable,
2. If, as certain self congratulatory media channels have recently been comforting place where “people [are] easier to handle ... If you shout at them
claiming, the news is the first draft of history, then it might also be the case that a lot, their effeteness factor drops appreciably” (p.86). And even if Harrison
books reviews are the first draft of criticism, of the canon, of literary history does prefer H.R. Giger to Chris Foss (pp. 122-23), his criticism does not arise
and repute.3 One of sf’s peculiarities is that quite so many book reviews have from some a priori blanket rejection of “Establishment sf” (p.45) in favour of
remained available, collected in book form (sometimes significantly rewritten Young Turks and other outsiders. He genuinely admires Alfred Bester (both for
and expanded); given the frequent mutual disdain of sf fandom and sf academia, his fiction and his slapTn-theTace quitting of a genre that bored him). He has
it is unsurprising that most of this preserved first draft criticism is by sf authors occasional kind words for Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg and Jack Vance,
(who by their very nature are vital resources, although perhaps in different and there is something touching in his description of Gordon R. Dickson,
ways, to both fans and academics). It is easy to imagine a bookshelf holding the “military theologian of the Old Guard ... who has always been hampered
collections of reviews and other occasional criticism by Brian Aldiss, Isaac by a decent streak” (p.126). Moreover, his praise for Ballard, Delany, Disch,
Asimov, J.G. Ballard, James Blish, Damien Broderick, John Clute, Samuel R. Moorcock, Keith Roberts, Josephine Saxton, John Sladek, Norman Spinrad
Delany, Philip K. Dick, Thomas Disch, Tom Easton, Gwyneth Jones, Damon and Pamela Zoline is rarely unconditional and he harshly criticises lesser works:
Knight, David Langford, Ursula Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, H.P. Lovecraft, Barry because “Roberts succeeds every time he can be bothered to ... his laziness
Malzberg, Michael Moorcock, George Orwell, Joanna Russ, Brian Stableford, [is] less easy to forgive” (p.137), which probably applies to the later “Ballard’s
Michael Swanwick, H.G. Wells and Yevgeny Zamyatin, and to not know breathtaking laziness” (p.206), too. Meanwhile, Aldiss “is one of those writers
whether the shelf belongs to a fan or an academic. One could add volumes whose every sentence congratulates you on being a reader of his” (p.127).
of correspondence, memoirs, autobiography, interviews, reference books and Harrison’s criticism is not, then, predicated on generational affiliation but
histories as well as more academicallydnclined criticism by these and other sf on a set of literary and, ultimately, political principles which can be seen to
authors, and still not know whose shelf it was. One could add Parietal Games, emerge and refine themselves over the nearly-four decades covered by this
and be none the wiser - but only, of course, on questions of shelhownership. volume. While the notion of a politics underpinning literary judgements might
For alongside the fire and precision of the reviews collected here, alongside conjure the spectre of Stalinist socialist realism or (heaven help us) “Cultural
their elegant constructions and superbly bitchy putdowns, there is considerable Marxism”, the American Right’s latest antLsemitic moral panic claptrap, these
wisdom: about words and fictions; about fantasy and sf and fantasy in the other are mere bogeyman. All criticism is political, and no critical judgement is more
sense; about the stoniness of the stone and the worldness of world. political than the claims that “it’s just entertainment” and “it’s what the public
Harrison’s criticism is inseparable from his fiction. Both yearn for the wants” - as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer wrote about the culture
fantastic, and both castigate it - and us - for what is has become. While it is not industries sixty years ago, “The truth that they are just business is made into
yet clear whether Harrison’s criticism is the first draft of anything, particularly an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce”.4 And
as embedded in his fiction it has been profoundly influential on the recent if Harrison is as unforgiving of sf readers as he is of many sf writers, this is
British boom and New Weird writers (among others). His criticism, whether in because, in the words of Adorno and Horkheimer, “The attitude of the public,
fictional or nomfictional form, has thus written part of the fantastic’s ongoing which ostensibly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part
history, shaping the future, as well as recovering the past - particularly gnostic of the system and not an excuse for it”.5
14 15
Although Harrison’s criticisms of sf and fantasy sometimes seem close to dangerous or exotic as the lotus, but chewing instead on a form of mildly anaes­
those of “mainstream” critics, he cannot, like them, be accused of not knowing thetic British cabbage”.1’ Also in 1976, Thomas Disch advanced the controver­
the genres; indeed, what makes his critical intelligence so stringent and precise sial but not unreasonable proposition that the reason a number of sf “classics”
is that it is structured by these genres. Moreover, to dismiss his critique as had child-protagonists was “that such books were written for children”: “To
somehow “elitist” (as many have done with Adorno and Horkheimer) is to say that a book is written for children is not a condemnation, of course, but
mistake plebieanisation for democratisation, consumer choices for free choices, it is a limitation. It is limiting intellectually, emotionally, and morally”.12 More
constraint for liberation. The inadequacies of a society produce historically^ recently, he has argued that it is “a fact of publishing demographics” that “much
and culturally-specific needs that are nonetheless real needs.6 As Richard SF is written for the very young and/or the uninstructed”.13 While there is
Dyer argues, entertainment provides utopian solutions - a sense of abundance, nothing necessarily debilitating about American sf emerging as “a naive, un­
energy, intensity, transparency, community - to the inadequacies and gainly hybrid, full of inconsistencies and obvious absurdities, written to appeal
inequities produced by capitalism. However, not only does entertainment do to an audience of adolescent boys by writers only slightly older”,14 the genre has
nothing to rid us permanently of scarcity, exhaustion, dreariness, manipulation been undone by what biologists call “neoteny” - that is, “the retention of larval
and fragmentation, but it also only focuses on those “gaps or inadequacies or immature characteristics in adulthood”.15 For Disch, Bester’s “mistake”, the
in capitalism ... that capitalism proposes itself to deal with”.7 The sf and reason he got bored with sf, “was growing up”.16
fantasy Harrison excoriates is the kind that implicitly or otherwise tells us, Harrison is similarly, and repeatedly, appalled by the immaturity of most
“Forget scarcity - leave the prison of the flesh for exhilarating cyberspatial fantasy and sf: “the overall tone” of Lloyd Biggie Jr.’s The Still Small Voice of
disembodiment! Overcome exhaustion and dreariness with leather-clad wire- Trumpets (1968) “is one of charming naivete, but it would perhaps be dangerous
worked bullet-timed arse-kicking chop-socky! Don’t be manipulated: watch to put it into the hands of anyone bruised and battered by actual experience
Phantom Menace because you have a high Emotional Intelligence rating (and (such as a junior school child)” (p.44); a Terry Carr story is praised, “mainly
because deep down you really really want to)! Forget community — who needs it because he doesn’t explain everything as if he’s writing for an audience of
when there is the Shire and the Federation and the Scooby Gang and Hogwarts ? ” educationally subnormal children” (p.80); even Kurt Vonnegut’s best fiction
The needs which are met by capital are real needs; the solutions with which appeals “less to the human being in us than the adolescent” (p. 193); and one of
capital meets them are partial, local and short-term. Although Harrison tends the major limitations of these genres “is that the readership is often too young
not to recognise that the sf and fantasy he deplores does address these real to supply experiential confirmation of subject matter, and by its very reading
needs, however inadequately, this is not elitism. Rather, behind Harrison’s rage maintains that state of innocence” (p.148).17 In 1971, anticipating Moorcock,
at settling for so little is a desire for so much more, and a bafflement: how could he contended that “the type of fiction generally produced by sf writers” does not
anyone want the Coeur when there is the world? originate in “Wells the thinker and Verne the entertainer” but in A.A. Milne
(p.84), and argued that if “sf is to regain the direction given to it by its earliest
4. So what exactly is wrong with fantasy and sf? There appears to be a con­ practitioners and take on the maturity hinted at by Orwell and Huxley, it must
sensus among the New Wave/New Worlds authors still working in the fantastic lose ... Winnie-the-Pooh in the nearest enchanted wood” (p.88). For Harrison,
genres that the main problem with those genres is the way they have been most fantasy is not like a man in a stinking subterranean public lavatory beating
- and are - dominated by immaturity. While everyone else in 1977 was slaver­ against a grimy mirror-portal, trying to enter the world beyond. It can’t deal
ing over Star Wars's rather obvious charms (myself included, but I was only 8), with the plumbing - let alone the shit and piss - of the real world. How can it
Ballard wrote a piece for Time Out describing it in terms of pantomime, fairy address Viriconium when it can’t even cope with London?
tale, Supermarionation, The Muppets, and a “ten-year-old’s extravaganza” of Although Harrison has rarely written about sf and fantasy at any length
“stuffed toys, video games and plastic spaceships”.8 A year earlier, Moorcock greater than that of the book review, it would be mistaken to assume that
published his essay “Epic Pooh”, in which he argued that the “sort of prose his indictment of the fantastic genres’ immaturity is merely a reflex response
most often identified with ‘high fantasy’ is the prose of the nursery-room. It to the particular volume confronting him or, worse, some kind of critical
is a lullaby ... meant to soothe and console”: The Lord of the Rings (1954-5) is catchphrase, a turn - a novelty act - reviews editors wheel him out to perform.
“Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic”.9 Moorcock connects the childishness of Rather, his reviews demonstrate the (perhaps initially ad hoc) emergence of
much British fantasy - “written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits”10 - to a clear sense of the consequences for sf and fantasy, and their readerships,
the insecurities of a declining nation’s middle classes, afraid to eat anything “as of this neoteny.18 Embedded in this more sustained critique is a foreboding
16 17