Year's Best Fantasy

[dagibbs]

Reading The Economist cover to cover on a weekly basis sure cuts into my other reading time.

I've just finished The Year's Best Fantasy 4, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. Before this series started, there was only one "best of" covering fantasy, well actually 1/2 a "best of", the fantasy half of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (Datlow & Windling), which I tried, but found had too much horror (yeah, about half...but it's a big book, and didn't seem worth paying that much for only half of what I wanted.) So, when Hartwell and Cramer started this series (a complement to their Year's Best SF series, though I'm pretty sure when I started reading, it was Hartwell's, not Hartwell and Cramer's), I thought I'd give one a try. Assuming this is, actually, a representative sample of the best fantasy from 2003, then I don't think I like a lot of what is happening in the fantasy short-fiction field now. This is not to say I didn't enjoy some of the stories in the book immensely -- e.g. King Dragon by Michael Swanwick -- but far too many just didn't work for me. As I was reading, I was trying to put my finger on what I didn't like, what I was missing. And, I found myself noticing that in the stories I didn't really like, that didn't work for me, the magical stuff wasn't well explained, or well realized, or, to me, understandable. I came to the conclusion that I think I like magic that is technological or scientific, magic that makes sense, magic that has rules, and where it is fairly clear there are rules, even if I (or the characters) don't clearly know or understand them. I also found there was a fair bit of horror, which I wasn't really looking for. Then as I moved onto and read the introduction to The Year's Best SF 9, I noticed a mention of it not including "slipstream". I wasn't sure what that way, but it sounded like what I didn't like from the fantasy collection. I found this definition:

So, thinking about it, I decided that to me slipstream stories feel a bit like magical realism. The key is -- they are unexplained. "Real" fantasy or SF has these elements embedded in the background so that they make sense -- in slipstream they are just there. In a sense, SF tries to make the strange familiar -- by showing SFnal elements in a context that helps us understand them. Slipstream tries to make the familiar strange -- by taking a familiar context and disturbing it with SFnal/fantastical intrusions."

Which clarified things nicely -- I don't much like slipstream, and too many of the stories in the collection were slipstream, or slipstream/horror.

Comments

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I've never heard the term "slipstream" before. Interesting. I think I might actually enjoy that subgenre, because I don't normally like getting too bogged down in physics. (Strangely, though, I enjoy Hogan, but find Baxter's books too much like a physics lecture for the most part.)

One could say that Star Trek is actually slipstream rather than SF, then, as when Roddenberry was starting to put it together, he decreed that nothing would be explained because, as he said, on a cop show you don't see the policeman stopping in the middle of the action to explain how his service revolver works - he just uses it. Hence you get things like the "Heisenberg Compensator" which allows the transporter to function. That might also go a long way toward explaining why you hate Trek so much. ;)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

No, Star Trek is, very definitely, science fiction. I just happen to feel that it's bad science fiction.

And, "not getting bogged down in physics" is not really the issue. Good SF (or fantasy) can easily provide a sfnal universe without having to explain how it works, without having to get into the physics.

Have you hit the term "Magic Realism" before? Because it is far more similar to what I have come to understand to be "slipstream" than Star Trek is.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

No, Star Trek is, very definitely, science fiction. I just happen to feel that it's bad science fiction.

Heh. Well, it's still better than a lot of televised SF out there... and it certainly resonates more. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many fans.

Have you hit the term "Magic Realism" before? Because it is far more similar to what I have come to understand to be "slipstream" than Star Trek is.

I've heard the term, but I'm not sure that I would have understood it to mean the same thing until I read your post.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

"Magic Realism" is an older term/form. More narrowly defined, I think, than "slipstream". (I'd guess slipstream is this century, definitely not older than a decade or so. I discussed Magic Realism in university, so the term was in use in the late 80s.) At that time, it was not a "our" genre style, but something recognised by the more mainstream side of things -- primarily real world story with just a hint, or flavour, of the fantastical to things. A small touch of magic.

And, they don't really mean the same thing. But, they have some similarities, and are not completely dissimilar in feel, I would say.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

If you've got some extra room, and don't want them anymore, and you'd care to bring your old issues of "The Economist" out to Michigan, I've love to take them off your hands next time you're here. :)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'll try to remember to not throw them out. And, we'll see how much cargo space I have -- I'll probably be on two wheels.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

I figured as much. I understand completely. If you don't have room, don't give it a second thought. :)