The Clarion Workshop at UCSD

Liz Ng’ang’a, a university researcher based in Scotland, has a very interesting piece in today’s Business Daily out of Nairobi on African writers getting engaged in science fiction.  Ng’ang’a has previously written on the importance of science and technology teaching for Africa’s future; here it’s a take on the need for science fiction imaginings to help envision that future.

Ng’ang’a contrasts the emergence of African SF writers with Africa’s role in SF from earlier eras:

During the early part of the 20th century, Africa was a popular setting for foreign science fiction writers.  The continent has since lost its edge, as the unexplored home of exotic, strange and previously undiscovered creatures, to the outer space.  A few Africans have since endeavoured to create African-inspired science fiction.

Ng’ang’a focuses on two writers, Kenyan writer John Rugoiyo Gichuki and Ghanian-born British film director John Akomfrah.  Of the latter, for example, she notes:

… [his] work is inspired by Africa’s encounter with modernity. Akomfrah argues that since science-fiction narratives are usually about alienation, abduction and transportation, they provide a powerful understanding of the displacing of African people.

Ng’ang’a’s closing remarks are particularly appropriate in the aftermath of UC Riverside’s 2008 Eaton Conference, Chronicling Mars, which highlighted the symbiotic relationship between science fiction’s race to Mars and that of the 1960s U.S. space program.  Now, she says, maybe it’s Africa’s turn for visions of hope to drive Africans toward hopeful futures:

This view is encouragingly contrary to foreign science fiction works, which used Africa as a setting to show the bleak future that the world might come to… [I]t is time for brave African writers to take on science fiction, and explore other alternative possibilities the future might hold.

As Comic-Con rolls into town with tonight’s pre-event, I thought I’d get a few items out of the way before they get lost in the Comic-Con craziness.  I’ll be down at the Convention Center tomorrow and Friday, and already have one meeting scheduled with a Clarion alum, so I’ll have a few comments on the show.  In the meantime, though:

• The 2009 Eaton Conference has been announced, focusing on “Extraordinary Voyages: Jules Verne and Beyond” in collaboration with the North American Jules Verne Society.  “Long before the invention of aircraft, automobiles and submarines, 19th century author Jules Verne described those modes of transportation in dozens of novels and short stories. The author of those tales of extraordinary voyages will be the focus of the 2009 Eaton Science Fiction Conference, scheduled May 1-3 at the University of California, Riverside.”  Abstracts for proposed presentations can be submitted as described at the conference press release, and there will once again be a short story competition open to any undergraduate or graduate student in the UC system.  Keep an eye out for more detail at the conference’s very cool website.
• Just so you can get a little ahead of the Comic-Con crowds, check out this post from Patrick Neilsen Hayden on the free e-books available at Tor.com, the new website that Tor is launching at the Con.  (See the official press release.)  Patrick and his colleague Liz Gorinsky stopped by the Workshop today to talk to the Clarion students, something I’m pretty sure they also did last year.  Nice timing, having the Workshop halfway done when Comic-Con rolls in.  I should also note here, that just as they did last year, the Comic-Con folks comped a one-day pass to the Con for all the students; the ones who aren’t still feverishly writing will be wandering the halls on Saturday.
• In case you missed it, check out this killer story in the New York Times on Sunday about the reissue of one of Michael Moorcock’s first Elric novels.  It includes a wonderful summary of Moorcock’s “one-man stand” against reactionary politics in the genre.  In addition to the fact that any science fiction or fantasy review that calls the author ‘Nietzschean’ is definitely worth reading, it includes hilarious sentences like this one: “Through Elric’s incipient adventures, as he contends with villains whose names suggest the sounds H. P. Lovecraft made when he cleared his throat — the sorcerer Theleb K’aarna, Queen Yishana of Jharkor, a monster called Quaolnargn — the morality of these stories is rarely more sophisticated than your average heavy-metal album cover.”
• And last but not least for now, for those of you wondering about the insides of the Workshop, a current student’s blog indicates that its most important feature is sleep deprivation — perhaps someone should tell the military?  No, just kidding!  His latest post in the Clarion 2008 series discusses the “splendid theatrical performance” by UCSD alum David Brin.  I’m not sure if Damien is riffing on David’s own presentation style, but his description of “two pieces of advice” that David provided turn out to be three, which I for one find highly reminiscent of every performance by Dr. Brin that I’ve ever seen. 

I’ve been blocked in my Clarion postings the last couple of weeks, partially because of a week’s vacation and partially because of serious conflicted feelings about the Eaton Conference and its participants.  I’d promised a final Eaton posting, but just haven’t been able to bring myself to write it.

I have the impression that the sf and fantasy worlds are similar to academia in one key respect: the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low.  That’s not to say that there was anything vicious about Eaton; but I was so struck by the depths of the divide between the pro-Mars folks at this years conference and the rest of the SF and fantasy worlds, coinciding with another triumphant visit to Mars in the days afterwards, that I’ve been totally blocked in writing about it.

The final day of Eaton brought home to me the divide between what I came to think of as the Era of Optimism — from Clarke and Bradbury all the way up to Brin — and today, a time when there’s much less clarity than there was in the early days.  It’s not a real time-scale, since Brin and Bear clearly overlap with the Nowists, including Eaton Conference participant Kim Stanley Robinson.  But the conference was focused on a time and, even more, an idea that it was important to go to Mars, important to go into space, important to move forward — with a clear sense of what ‘moving forward’ might mean.  That’s simply not there any more, and the writings and beliefs of today’s SF and fantasy authors reflect that lack of clarity. 

Perhaps that’s why those from the Era of Optimism just don’t get fantasy, or mundane science fiction, or other genres, and even less so the drive that leads so many SF writers in those directions.  Many spoke openly of not getting those genres, and not seeing them as SF.  I found it terribly disconcerting, seeing heroes dissing the people I now read the most.  Hence my subsequent silence.

There’s lots more in this vein that I have to discuss in the coming weeks.  Not that it’s surprising to most of you, I’m sure; I’m not a con-goer, so I don’t get to see this as often as most fans.  And I won’t be commenting further on the Eaton Conference — and want to note here that it was a fabulous conference, bringing together titans who were able to focus on the single driving issue in their work, the physical manifestation and metaphysical concept that we call Mars.  It was a tremendously important moment, and one that was both well-designed and brought off with tremendous skill.  But this divide, between the then and the now, I will return to.   

P.S.  I was able to speak to Edward Laag, UCR graduate student and winner of the Eaton Conference short story contest, after he accepted his award.  I gave him a brochure for the Clarion Workshop and told him he should apply next year.  I couldn’t find the second-place winner, UC Irvine grad student Andrew Warren, but I’ll track him down too.  We’ll see if they follow up.

No, it’s not Mars — it’s Werner von Braun.

No, I’m serious.  On Friday, here at UC Riverside’s Eaton Conference, Fred Pohl told a story about Werner von Braun ending up on his lap in the back seat of a car, eight people crammed in to get somewhere.  Yesterday, Ray Bradbury told of the long night that he waited for the first photos to return from the Viking lander, finding himself standing next to Werner, waiting with him.  Random moments, made memorable by the importance of the man they found themselves next to; while Ray and Fred dominated in the imaginations of their readers, it was Werner’s rockets that made their visions believable.

If there is anything that’s the central focus of this event — at least among the writers who are here – it’s the rocket.  When they emerged as writers, we were putting people on the Moon and looking ahead to Mars; now we’re not.  The hope, the vision of expansion, the desire for exploration that’s imbued in the Mars-focused SF of those generations, all that is gone.  It was telling that Bradbury, in explaining what’s wrong with SF today, pointed to Greg Bear, Greg Benford and David Brin among the few SF writers of today still doing good work.  They’re rocket men, too.

As promised, I’m sitting in the 2008 Eaton Conference, waiting for Ray Bradbury to begin his presentation.  Bradbury insisted that his speech be open to the public, unlike the rest of the conference, and when they agreed, waived his standard speaking fee.  He’s over in the corner now, waiting for the setup to be completed, before rolling to his place on stage.

This academic science fiction conference is half-academic conference, half con.  The atmosphere is lively and more collegial than the standard academic conference, mostly because there are as many writers here as there are academics.  Folks like Larry Niven, Greg Benford, David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson lighten up the place.  Fred Pohl has been here throughout, although not in any of the conference sessions today; they’ve tired him out and he’s been sitting out in the lobby, working on his talking points for later on.  The academics and other hangers-on, meanwhile, carry about copies of their favorite novels for signature by their favorite authors.

It’s fascinating to watch great writers gather around great writers: a small group, including Greg Benford and Larry Niven, gathered in a semicircle around Fred Pohl , peppering him with questions.  Stan Robinson, here only today for his talk and Ray’s, stopping by Fred as he worked on his notes, catching up with him, chatting about old times and current interests.  Watching them, one feels the the recent death of Arthur C. Clarke hanging over the conference: time is catching up with our greatest Marsists and this may be one of that last times so many are together.

 Among some highlights:

• Greg Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin are eager to head back out to Mars; Kim Stanley Robinson’s the only one here willing to focus on solving Earth’s climate problems first and then, in a century or so, getting back to the Mars project.
• Greg Benford’s very excited by the budding competition between UC San Diego and UC Riverside in the area of science fiction and fantasy studies.  Greg, from his astrophysics faculty position at UC Irvine, has observed over many years the impact that competition among UC campuses on the sciences — astrophyics, biology, neurosciences — has had in driving science forward.  He sees the emergence of science fiction studies as a serious academic endeavor on two UC campuses — UC Riverside and UC San Diego — as a great success that can only be beneficial to the field.  UC Riverside’s three new slots in science fiction studies — one filled already, by Rob Latham from the University of Iowa — are lauded over and over as a great step forward for this campus, and for science fiction.  It’s a similar sentiment to what I’ve seen at UC San Diego with the arrival of Clarion.

More to follow.  Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, is just completing his introduction to Ray Bradbury.  Back soon. 

As I mentioned a month or so ago, UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Utopian Literature (which has a cool new web site, by the way) will host its periodic Eaton Science Fiction Conference, this year titled ‘Chronicling Mars,’ May 16-18.  Today’s San Bernardino-based Press-Enterprise has an story and interview with the conference’s keynote speaker, Ray Bradbury.

“What I’m going to talk about is going back to the moon,” said Bradbury by phone from his Los Angeles home. “We should not have left the moon 30 years ago. We should have stayed there and built a base. And in the next few years, we need to build a base.”

He sees that as a jumping-off point.

“Then we will go to Mars and colonize Mars and it’s going to take about 100 years, and then we will go out into the universe and other planets,” he said. “Space travel is going to make us one single race.”

The conference will be a little bit of Mars-mania, with speakers including Greg Benford, David Brin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Frederick Pohl, Greg Bear, Larry Niven, and more.  I’ll be there, in my Clarion t-shirts — look for me!

The Special Collections Library at UC Riverside, home to the Eaton Collection of science fiction literature and memorabilia, will hold “Chronicling Mars: the 2008 Eaton Conference” at UCR May 16-18.  They’re selling it as “a scholarly conference with a touch of fun,” and invitees [not all of whom have accepted yet] include the Killer Bee’s — David Brin and Gregs Benford & Bear — along with Kim Stanley Robinson and Ben Bova.  Should be a wild time; register here.

The conference includes a Short Story contest open to all UC registered students, undergraduate and graduate, with a $500 first prize and $250 second prize.  The story, of up to 6K words, “must engage directly with the topic of Mars and be recognizable as Science Fiction.”  Howard Hendrix will judge the contest, and also attend the conference.