Modern Pulp Adventure

Not the official mock-up cover,
but a man can dream...

It's been done before, but never quite like this. A G-plus discussion on the suitability of the pulp ethos for tales set in the modern world got completely out of hand over the weekend. Somebody threw down a gauntlet and Misha Burnett scooped it up with a call to keyboard arms:

We are looking for 21st Century Pulp Revival stories. Who’s we? Well, there’s me, Rawle Nyanzi, Kevyn Winkless, and Sky Hernstrom. There is also a good chance that, once complete, the anthology will be published by Superversive Press.

Take a read through the submission guidelines, and if you think you've got what it takes to show the word there's more to pulp than fast action and empty adventure, throw your hat in the ring.  I've already written a 4,500 word Karl Barber adventure, so you might just wind up having your work beta-read and amateur edited by me.  And the chance of that alone is worth taking a stab at Misha's project.

In all seriousness, this is an important project for the #PulpRevolution.  We talk a big game, stirring up hard v. soft pots, shouting "you're doing it wrong" at other pulp practicitoners, running serious analysis of why the old pulps worked, and so on.  What we don't have much of right now is proof that the concepts work.  We've got Rawle Nyanzi's under-priced Sword and Flower, my own Sudden Rescue, and the works of Brian Niemeier and Misha himself*, but churning out the works is a glacial process. 

Misha's elegant solution is to share the load.  If everybody throws in 2K to 10K words, we can pump out a collection much faster than anyone could an 80K book alone.  Not only does this give a unified title to point to show that the Pulp Revolution works, it also gives a single point of contact where readers can read a sampler of the different writers.  Not all will appeal to everyone, but everyone can find a few writers that they'll enjoy.  Even more, it's a way to showcase the depth and scope possible within the pulp revolution, even when it is constrained to a near-real modern world.

Misha's a treasure, and I have no shame in riding his coattails, because I know they are going more places than I could ever go on my own.  I'd like to ride your coat-tails, too, so be a pal and throw a work into the pile, won't you?

* The latter two really pre-date the birth of the revolution, but we're claiming them anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop us.

Idle Thoughts on the Hard Question

The Hard Buds of SF have those of us who find the technical plausibility of fictional tales a distraction at a distinct disadvantage.  Those of us who prefer not to waste our time analyzing works on the basis of their engineering accuracy are caught in a Catch-22.  If we do ignore the concept of “hardness”, then the default status-quo, and all of its built-in assumptions and value judgements, remain in effect.  If we don’t ignore the concept, then we tacitly admit that the concept is worthy of discussion.

 *    *    *

It’s not about the works – it’s about the critical framework!  There’s a lot of plain sci-fi that I really like.  Karl Gallagher’s Torchship comes to mind.  I liked it well enough to throw an ad for its sequel into the back of one of my books.  But I didn’t like it because the engineering behind it made sense.  The engineering behind my Ikea instructions makes sense – that doesn’t make it a good read.  I enjoyed Torchship because the people made sense.  The conflict made sense.  The politics made sense.  Had the Fives Full been powered by madeupium drives or sailed across the aether propelled by the sheer force of the will of its captain I would have enjoyed it no less.

 *       *       *

Of course the chosen terms themselves connote values.  “Hard” is difficult and strong and solid.  “Soft” is easy and weak and ephemeral.  Do you want to write strong works or weak ones?  To ask the question is to answer it.  Imagine if we decided to use different language to describe the two ends of the spectrum.  Would the Hard Buds object to referring to their preferred style of fiction as “Grey” and the other end “Colorful”?  This is how even the language is corrupted to influence readers towards thinking about literal nuts and bolts of engineering instead of the figurative nuts and bolts of heroism. 

Perhaps “Plain sci-fi” versus “Majestic sci-fi” would be a more apt spectrum.  Just for kicks, I’m only going to use the terms “plain” and “majestic” throughout the rest of this piece.  As you read, think about the difference that makes. 

*       *       *

A Princess of Mars is more real to me than The Martian.  They are both great books, but one is a pointless walk through an Ikea catalog, where the other is a moving journey through life that sticks to you and changes you forever.  In the plain sci-fi tale The Martian, Mark Watney burns rocks to make water is a neat little puzzle that makes me want to be a better scientist, but in the majestic sci-fi story A Princess of Mars, how John Carter reacts to a savage world where slavery is the norm is inspirational and makes me want to be a better man.  Dejah Thoris, fierce and loyal Princess of Mars, is more real to me than the foul mouthed woman who serves as NASA’s spokeshole in The Martian.  

*       *       *

The insidious nature of the Hard Buds of SF is as subtle as it is poisonous.  Questions like, "Did they get the science right?" are phrased with an implicit understanding that answering in the negative is a mark against the work's quality.  That's an example of the underlying assumptions built into the plain sci-fi framework that most people accept without thought.  It sounds like a legitimate question.  It's easy to answer.  But it's a distraction.  It's the magician's flourishing left hand drawing your attention away while his right hand makes the virtue and heroism disappear.

 *       *       *

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying Science Man Solves Engineering Problem, but the suggestion that it represents an elevated form of the genre is laughable.  It strikes out huge swathes of human experience and presents no higher goal than “study math” and “try not to get killed”.  That’s not a step up, it’s a step backwards.

 *       *       *

Plain sci-fi encourages readers to look down at the power of math, majestic sci-fi encourages readers to look up to the higher power responsible for math.  Plain sci-fi speaks to the brain.  Majestic sci-fi speaks to the heart and soul.  As a result, it is majestic sci-fi that is more in-line with the superversive mindset than plain sci-fi.

 

 *       *       *

These observations are disjointed. With more time and motivation, they could be worked into a cohesive whole, but I just don’t care.  I’ve wasted enough time on something that, within the context of my preferred critical framework for genre fiction, just doesn’t matter.

What the Heck Does 'Pulp' Even Mean?

Inspired by (yet another) killer G+ thread kicked off by Kevyn Winkless:

https://plus.google.com/+KevynWinkless/posts/cQ9KWcezw4Y

If you're new to the Pulp Revolution, you'd do yourself right to follow Kevyn's G+ feed.  He asks cutting questions that push everyone to start rubbing their brain cells together.  In the ugly link above, he once again raises the issue of the other (lesser) Pulp movements.

The heart of the issue is that "pulp" is a really, really broad term when used in the vernacular.  If you follow the Pulp Librarian (as I do) on Twitter, you'll see all kinds of wonky stuff like mod-scene Romance comics, 1960 international nudist mags, and women with great hair fleeing gothic houses. None of that really resonates as pulp to me, but it all does fall within the broadest context of the term.

So why do I consider the Pulp Revolution a separate and distinct thing?  Because I use the term 'pulp' in the literal sense.  That is to say, in the sense of stories as told in the '30s and '40s magazines printed on no-fooling pulp paper.  Others use the term 'pulp' to mean stories that are lurid, low rent, and rely on shocking content of the sexual or violent nature to sell copies.  The current narrative holds (falsely) that the genre fiction produced during the Golden Age of Science Fiction was also lurid, low rent, and relied on shocking content to sell copies.  This has the unfortunate result of stuffing authors like Moore or St. Clair or Haggard into the same pigeon hole as "Mod Romance".

As mentioned elsewhere, most of those trading on the term 'pulp', hold to the common false narrative about what pulp means.  They get the aesthetics right, but like a Hollywood backlot set, there's nothing backing it up - they completely miss the heart and soul of the pulps.  Or they use the term 'pulp' when perhaps 'grindhouse' or 'deliberately hacky because I'm too ironic and insecure to ever admit that the writers of yesterday might have been better than the writers of today'.

Remember that the Pulp Revolution isn't just interested in selling copy - it's interested in reclaiming what was lost to the liars and cheats that buried the works that built SF/F.  You're not going to do that unless and until the culture at large understands that not all pulp is created equal, and that many of the people who claim to be 'pulp' are little better than the Talcum X's and Fauxcahontases of the SF/F genre. 

That then raises the question of whether or not using the term 'pulp' is good marketing.  We risk being pigeonholed as just another cheap attempt to cash in on the term.  Especially given that the Pulp Revolution is so keep on knocking down walls erected in the post-pulp era. 

To that I say, it's too early to tell, but you can't argue with results.

The Pulp Revolution is in its infancy.  Regardless of numbers, at this point, we've only been at this as anything other than five guys nudging each other, passing around scans of old copies, and saying, "You gotta read this, this is incredible!" for a year or so.  It's possible that the Pulp Revolution never achieves any sort of wider literary market penetration.  If we truly are full of ourselves and our writing is terrible, then we'll sputter and limp along and eventually fade away like every other attempt to reclaim the term 'pulp'.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

The Pulp Revolution is different from every other movement I've seen (and I've seen a few), specifically because of those twin towers:

1. We don't use the term as a marketing buzzword, but in its historically accurate and descriptive sense.
2. We read the old pulps, learn from them, and emulate what they WERE, not what we've been told they were by those who didn't understand them and had a vested interest in writing them out of the history of sci-fi. 

Because I've read a lot of the Pulp Revolution, and it's fantastic!  Even those authors who don't blow your doors off show a tremendous amount of promise.

The more people read the old pulps, the more they love them.  The more people read the Pulp Revolution, the more they love it.  This movement is only going to grow and get bigger until it gets too big and creators working within the Pulp Revolution are going to run out of space.  Creators are going to need to take the Pulp Revolution in new directions that we can't even imagine at this early stage.  They will have to because the movement will be so big, they'll need to separate themselves by experimenting in new and different ways.

And that itself is in keeping with the pulp (in the specific sense) mindset!  The pulp era was wild and wooly and full of experimentation.  And that freedom to create, that knocking down of walls, isn't just a way to provide interesting stories to readers - it's a way to keep the Pulp Revolution fresh where most faux-pulp movements wither on the vine.  So long as creators are hewing to the heart and soul of pulps, they'll keep pushing the boundaries and bringing more people into the fold.

How can a movement like that fail?

Devious Brains, Honest Brawn

The Castalia House blog is on fire these days.  The new writers line-up, of which my Wargame Wednesday offerings are the least, is brilliant, and the comments section has been blowing up, too.  Not just in terms of quantity, but quality as well. My own contribution to a recent conversation requires a little more space than a comment section or 140 character tweet.  The conversation in question exists below Morgan's most recent offering, a brief digression into the mind of that old fraud, Isaac Asimov, which includes the following ill-conceived bon-mot:

This double standard is very evident in sword-and-sorcery, in which the sword-hero (brawn) is pitted against the sorcery-villain (brain), with brawn winning every time. The convention is, furthermore, that brawn is always on the side of goodness and niceness (a proposition which, in real life, is very dubious…

Asimov was the sort of guy who never let slip an opportunity to remind the world how much smarter he was than everyone on it.  He was also the sort of guy who mistook his own low cunning for actual analytical ability.

First of all, Asimov wrote that line in 1985, decades after the appearance of such wildly popular characters as Vance's Cugel the Clever, Lieber's Grey Mouser, and Moorcock's Elric.  The list of cunning fantasy heroes is endless.  Then look at how many villains or monsters are composed of nothing but brawn.  Massive and stupid trolls and ogres and thugs are a staple of sword and sorcery.  To suggest that brawn is always on the side of goodness and niceness betrays a degree of ignorance about the subject matter that would send less intelligent men running away from broad, sweeping generalizations.  Not Asimov, though - he was too smart to let his ignorance get in the way of his opining.

That beef is low hanging fruit, though.  Exposing Asimov's ignorance and pretentiousness is no real accomplishment.  Instead, let's take a few moments to actually analyze how and why the  sword-hero (brawn) is pitted against the sorcery-villain (brain), with brawn winning every time survived for so long as a staple of sword and sorcery.  Instead of playing the role of Secret King who knows what's good for everyone, and why what they like is bad for them, let's stop think about why that idea resonates with readers.

We'll start with an easy exercise:

You know who likes to get stabbed in the back by a friend?

No one.

You know who likes to know where they stand with people?

Every one.

Now take two heroes, one selfish and dishonest, the other loyal and trustworthy.  Guess which one most readers would rather spend time with?  If you guessed the loyal and trustworthy one, congratulations on being a decent human being.

(Don't sperg out on me here.  Yes, sometimes a venal hero who engages in trickery can make for a find change of pace...if done well, and if he pits his talents against foes even more vile than he.  We're talking rules, not exceptions.)

The bigger point here is that normal people like good guys.  They like to see the good guys win.  They like to see themselves in the place of the good guy.  They like to be reminded that good guys don't finish last.  That good guys do come out ahead in the end.

Normal people live in a very complicated world where that doesn't always happen.  It seems that the good guys, honest and forthright, constantly get shafted by the lying duplicitous bastards of the world.  They see that punk in the low-slung ratrod zipping in and out of traffic and almost causing six wrecks two minutes before they get dinged by a speeding ticket for going 37 in a 30MPH zone.  They watch that conniving bitch in Marketing get promoted over the diligent gal who stays late and pulls her own weight.  They stand by helpless as petty bureaucrats sell their nation out for a few "feel good" photo-ops with third world invaders and preach tolerance and love even as their daughters are assaulted in the street on the regular by said immigrants.

They chafe at such indignities.  They yearn for truth in a world of lies.  They burn for justice delivered immediately and without prejudice.

When people like that crack open a book, they don't want to read about that cunning wizard who finally gave that big bully with the sword what for.  They don't want to vicariously experience a bureaucrat saving the day by "forgetting" to file important paperwork.  While they might appreciate the brainy programmer stopping the alien invasion with a virus, but they love the redneck pilot who kamikazes his jet straight up the exhaust port of the city-sized mothership.

Liked and respected versus loved and admired.
Guess which one sells more books?

And that, my friends, is the critical point that Asimov misses.  He can't see past his own ego.  He thinks that readers burn for vengeance on the grade school bully, and that what readers really want is a smart hero who uses complicated plans built on layers of deceit and obfuscation to thwart the plans of simpler and more forthright villains.

Normal people don't think that way.  Normal people just want to grab the lady behind the counter at the DMV who smugly announces that they don't have the right safety check form and that they'll have to take the Form 88A-Pre-Owned back to the car dealership and get the Form 88A-Used and shake that helmet haired old prune until their registration falls out.  They want to grab their kid's vice-principal and explain to him WITH THEIR FISTS that biting a Pop-Tart into a pistol shape in no way violates a Zero Tolerance policy.  They want simple and honest solutions to the complex and inscrutable rules and regulations of modern life.

They want the simple virtue of a steel blade well wielded to triumph over decades of deceit and cunning.  They want a lifetime of hard training and sweat to vanquish decades of conniving chicanery.  They want simple solutions presented by the good guys - guys like them - to win out over petty and vainglorious plots.

They want justice.  They want honesty.  They want loyalty.  They want all the things that they don't get in the real world.

Most of what I've laid out here is obvious.  Normal people can go their whole lives without thinking about these things, because they don't have to - they feel them deep within their bones.  A longing for honesty and justice is part and parcel of the western civilization psyche.  It's so natural as to go without saying.

But a guy like Asimov - so desperate to be the smartest man in the room - has to announce that the vague longing people have for simplicity and virtue is actually a very bad thing, and if you'll just hear him out, he can explain why honesty is stupid.  That Asimov sees himself as allied with the schemers and deceivers tells you everything you need to know about him.  How much trust to put into the words of a man who sympathizes with the liars and connivers is up to you.

That's What I'm Talking About

Kevyn Winkless has been establishing himself as one of my favorite G+ denizens lately.  His blog deserves to be in any writer's feed as it is always though provoking and informative.  Even better, he drops idle thoughts in G+ that leave me feeling like Watson watching the whole mystery unravel before mine very eyes.  Here's one example:

He recently posted a link to Charles Akin's Dyvers Blog which was ostensibly about describing things in RPGs using terse language.  The rule of thumb for maintaining people's attention is about three sentences, and Charles touches upon that rule when he says:

One of my strengths as a GM has always been my ability to describe the locations that my players explore with a brevity that leaned heavy on mood and the big details.

Kevyn drags this back to narrative fiction:

Yet another brick in the Pulp edifice elucidated. This is critical I think, in getting the aesthetic heart of pulp style fiction right, and is something many authors aiming for "pulpiness" fail to grasp. Yes, the vocabulary may be rich, there may also be lovingly lingering description, but the skill with which the best pulp era authors paint scenes in a handful of sentences is amazing.

Anyone who has read my work knows that I favor that level of terseness in my descriptions.  But that's not why I'm telling you about Kevyn today.  We got to talking about pulp writing and - aside from feeling like one of those late-night dorm room speculative conversations - it really opened my eyes to a few trends.  In particular, Spence Hart chimed in with this idea bomb:

I don't think it's a coincidence that a fair amount of us starting up the Pulp Revolution come from a background in RPGs... specifically the OSR movement. We've already been through rejecting what the gatekeeper publishers were trying to force-feed us and went back to older-style games, then after a period of re-acquaintance building on the old games into new directions.

It gets better.  Click here and read the whole thing.

You see that thread?  That's what I call writing advice.  That's what I call literary criticism.  That's what I call, "The Good Stuff".