When Science Fiction Died

I rarely meet people I knew when I was a teenager, but when I do, they usually ask me, "Are you still reading science fiction?" When they knew me, I was usually engrossed in a novel by Asimov or van Vogt, or reading the latest issue of F&SF or Galaxy. I was also the kid who took off from school (with the principal's permission) to attend such events as a lecture by Rod Serling and a writing workshop with Ray Bradbury. I think they thought I was defined by what I read...and they were not far wrong.

Prior to the turn of the century, my answer was a forceful affirmative, which they found amazing. In their own lives, they had moved on from youthful pursuits, strayed from the paths that defined them. The musician became a dental assistant, the marine biologist a financial manager, and the math whiz a cashier at the local big-box store. Any hobbies they had as teens had also fallen by the wayside. And yet there I was, nearly four decades on, still reading science fiction, still being defined by cosmic literature.

Nowadays, however, my answer to the question is, "No, not much anymore." As the Twentieth Century began to unwind to the Year 2000, there came a sea change in my reading. The first rumblings of it took the form of a novel called Darwinia.

I read this book a year or two before the world moved into a new century. It came to me via the Science Fiction Book Club and was the last "new" science fiction book I read. In any fictional account, a "suspension of disbelief" is necessary, but it is absolutely vital in the science fiction genre. About three-quarters of the way through the book, during a particularly epic description of the galactic archive, I thought: This is just ridiculous. My disbelief in the book's universe was no longer suspended. In fact, it came crashing down.

I really can't entirely blame the book, and the writer not at all -- Robert Charles Wilson is a talented and imaginative author. No, the fault was, as Shakespeare might have said, not in the book but in myself. When I set aside the book (I did finish it) I thought about the SFBC bulletin from which I had ordered the book -- it had been the only book even remotely intriguing to me in amongst the graphic novels, fantasy trilogies, "message" books, and authors I'd never heard of. That set me to thinking about how all the science fiction writers I liked were either dead, had stopped writing, or were trying to write for a new, younger, more callow demographic. So, I stopped reading science fiction.

Not entirely, of course, for I do find novels in the sub-genres of Alternate History and Steampunk that interest me. But the names are unknown to me. Sometimes, I'll pick up a magazine from back then and compare it with a current issue of Asimov's or Analog (the market has gone from dozens of magazines to three) -- in the older magazine, I'll recognize 90+% of the names, maybe one name in the new magazine. Same with anthologies. When I go to a bookstore, a trip through the science fiction section is an exercise in frustration and confusion, and an urge for nostalgia.

Nowadays, my usual reading fare in fiction are mysteries. I especially like novels from the Golden Age, but there are many current novelists who entertain me -- Michael Connelly, Christopher Fowler, and Stephen Puleston. Occasionally, I revisit science fiction, but the author is usually long dead or forgotten by the brash young savages of today. Even science fiction fandom has outpaced me, becoming mired in activism, political agendas, revisionism and literary tyranny of all kinds.

The world changes and the people in it. Even the Pole Star changes every 26,000 years as the Earth orbits the Milky Way Galaxy. But not me, I think.

Learning to Read by the Colors

I attended Highland Elementary School in National City, Calif., through third grade before moving to Chula Vista and starting at Lauderbach Elementary. I've mentioned elsewhere that I was motivated to read mostly because Uncle Bob, well-intentioned though he was, was not very good at reading comic books aloud. Although those comics of the early Silver Age served as my primers, I also got a big reading boost in the classroom through the SRA Reading Lab, a series of color-coded "reading cards" which helped children improve vocabulary and comprehension as they were entertained with engaging stories or interesting articles. As I progressed from card to card within a particular color coding, I gathered more and more reading skills, and by the time I reached the last card in a color I was ready to start in on the next color, which required a larger vocabulary, higher levels of comprehension, and featured more complex subjects or plots. As I recall, most kids in my classes didn't like the SRA Lab exercises anymore than they liked anything else required in school. Personally, however, I enjoyed them so much I barely realized they were actual classwork, and might have worked straight through them to the exception of all else, had my teachers not exercised their dictatorial powers.

Donald H Parker
1910-2000

The SRA Program was the creation of Donald H Parker, who was a reading teacher in rural America and noticed that his students did not do well when taught from the same reading book all at the same time. Some lagged behind, becoming frustrated when they were pushed to keep up, while the better readers in class experienced frustration from being held back by underachievers and normal readers. In 1950, he invented a system of teaching reading skills on an individual basis while in a communal classroom environment. After receiving his PhD from Columbia University, he approached Chicago-based Science Research Laboratories and pitched them the idea for a program marketed to schools nationwide. If you want to read about his struggle to bring his idea to market a great article has been posted by SRA Reading Labs on its website.

I have to admit, when I was initially evaluated for SRA placement, I was pretty far down the ladder, not quite at the bottom, but uncomfortably (and embarrassingly) close. But tests are not always as revealing, or as accurate, as they are touted to gullible school administrators. To the amazement of all, except myself, I went through those early lessons like a blowtorch through butter. First, the teacher thought I was deluded, that I had convinced myself I was a good reader when I was not, then she was certain that I was somehow cheating, even if she did not know how. Silly teachers! It was not till third grade that I was assigned a teacher with a brain, a sensible lady named Mrs Decker, who not only let me proceed through the SRA Lab for my grade at my own speed (which was fast), but also encouraged me to write my own stories...so, anyone who has a beef with my writing can probably blame Mrs Decker.

Unfortunately, third grade does not last forever, but I was looking forward to fourth grade for a number of reasons--I would be back in the main building rather than in the original two-room schoolhouse (alas, now demolished), I could look down on third graders (metaphorically, since I was the shortest kid in class), my marble-shooting skills had really improved (yes, I will win all your marbles), and I would be moving on to the upper level SRA Reading Lab (yes!). I had big plans for fourth grade, but the best-laid plans of mice and schoolchildren oft go astray.

In the summer of that year, my parents moved us ten miles south to Chula Vista, back in the days when a veteran could qualify for a home with $1 down and a mortgage payment a bit less than 25% of one person's income. I was wary of the move. Yes, I would be glad to have my own room, but what about the school? I didn't know what a "Lauderbach" was, but it didn't sound good. Of course, my parents told me everything would be all right, but parents always make baseless statements like that, don't they? A school was a school, they said, and I probably wouldn't even know the difference. "Sigh." On the first day of school, I learned the horrible truth--the school building was of a "modern" design, I didn't know who to look down on since they were all strangers, no one at the new school played marbles, and, worse of all, this school didn't use the SRA Program. When I walked into class, I looked around and asked the teacher (nameless here to protect the guilty) where the SRA Reading Lab was. She didn't know what I was talking about. Silly teacher!

Unattended Children Will... Go On Adventures

Quick – I have a challenge for you: Go to your bookcase and pull out one of the children’s books. More than likely, the book you have chosen does not have parents in a strong and positive role.

Recently I was forwarded an email asking about children’s books that had parents as role models and I realized that, like in a Disney film, there aren’t many. This got me thinking as to why they are strangely absent from the pages when most people do, in fact, have parents. 

Three book series I love: Sisters Grimm - Parents are missing, 
Chronicles of Narnia - Adults are rarely seen,
Harry Potter - He's an orphan and his Aunt and Uncle are not great examples of humanity.

Parents don’t belong in this literary universe. If parents were there, the story would be very short and most of the adventures would not occur. Parents take on two functions to children: Protector and nonbeliever.

When I was a kid, I was kind of a scaredy-cat (still am, but I’m better at faking it now) due to an overactive imagination. Even the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland, did not escape my visions of danger: I wouldn’t go on the Matterhorn because I just knew the Abominable Snowman was going to unthaw and go on a rampage. 

Still manages to terrify me

A lot of adults don’t understand how things look to a kid. There are some important things to remember that adults seem to forget once they reach a certain age:

• Height – kids are short, everything seems bigger to them. Ever go back to your old jungle gym or stand next to relatives you used to think were tall? Notice how much shorter they are now? They didn’t shrink, you grew.

• Experience – you learned as you went how things worked. You were not imbued with this knowledge when you were born, neither are they. Children don’t always know what is possible and what isn’t because they have no frame of reference.

At Disneyland, I would often sit between my parents because I knew my parents would be able to protect me from anything. I knew they could take on the witch in “Snow White’s Scary Adventure” if she tried to stuff a poison apple in my mouth. On the submarine ride, if the octopus punched through the hull and tried to drag me away, I knew my parents would wrestle the octopus and we’d all have sushi. I kept my feet off the floor as a precaution but I knew, without a doubt, that they could handle him. And that’s the thing – parents are protectors. They can diffuse situations before they even happen; they practically have superpowers. Every kid knows this. If parents were in the story, there would be no reason for the kid to go on any adventures and the kid would not be in peril.

For the most part, parents are non-believers. When I was a kid I saw a ghost and I told my mom about it. She said: “I believe you believe you saw a ghost.” This I-believe-you-believe type sentence is the same as telling someone, “I’m going to humor you, but I think you’re crazy.” Parents are often poking holes in the reports of things that children see; and every kid knows that adults can’t see monsters under the bed or in the closet. They open the door to prove there’s no monster, but we know better. Every kid knows monsters are chameleon-like and can blend into their surroundings whenever an adult looks at them.

In a horror movie, there is an archetype of the seemingly crazy person who tries to warn everyone that there is danger ahead and no one believes them. And they end up being absolutely correct. Same thing, except parents have the power to actually make the danger not exist, making kids not “seemingly crazy” but just plain crazy.

Exactly how we end up feeling when parents insist there is no monster in our closet. We know better.

Parents don’t belong in the children’s literary world, but they do belong in our regular one. The best way to provide a good role model to your kids is to read with them and tell them stories. Trust me on this, it works. I would not have turned out as fantastically awesome (and modest) as I did if my parents hadn’t sat with me and read with me.

The Golden Age of Reading

The more I consider, the more strongly I tend to believe the Golden Age of Reading was 10. At that point in my life, I had all the mental tools needed to read any book, the inquisitiveness to search out the meaning of what I did not quite yet understand, and the quality of vision to be equally dazzled by the old and the new, for to me they were the same thing.

Of course, I write here of another time, another culture, when schools actually taught the reading skills needed to excel, when books and magazines of all sorts were easily available with even the most modest allowance (mine was very modest -- I haunted thrift stores where old comics were a nickel and pulps a dime), when parents could purchase a set of encyclopedias without having to sell the first-born (lucky for me, but selling the second-born would have been okay), and the youth of the time had so few other distractions -- just sports, trouble-making and that flickering silvery screen called television.

Now, don't get me wrong. Back when the dinosaurs ruled the earth (as my children and their children believe) was not an idyllic time for the prolific reader. No time has been -- hey, don't get your nose caught when you close that book; you have to forgive my son but he swallowed a dictionary when he was young; we have an odd number of people, so to make the teams even why don't you go read a book; you're book-smart, but dumb at everything else. As today, the reader has to persevere against all sorts of unkind remarks from friends, family and jackasses...some thing just don't change.

People do not change, and are just as good and evil as they have ever been, but society has changed around us. Some, like me, are not very good at adapting ("change is bad"), but most other people seem to the proof from which Darwin always searched. Nastiness, duplicity, mendacity, sloth, irresponsibility and brutality are now survival skills; so, also, are manual dexterity, multitasking, memorization of processes, and an ear for technical jargon. Me? I just read and write, and I'm not bad at arithmetic, problem solving, and connecting the dots -- not exactly the survival or advancement skills they used to be in business and civic life.

Not only has reading taken it on the chin due to social changes, but reading just for the sheer pleasure of reading has  been kicked in the jewels by all the distractions of the modern world -- television is now in color, hi-def, 3D and has 900 channels; computers and the internet can consume literally thousands of hours of your time and give very little in return; social networking can give you 5,000 BFF, all who want your attention; the death of faith and the rise of fear causes many people to engage in endless vapid social rituals; rather than read, people zone out with i-pods in their ears, like the ubiquitous shells in Fahrenheit 451; and  the would-be reader is not even safe from the government as Michelle Obama and other intrusive do-gooders urge you to get up and dance your fat away. 

As a kid and young person growing up when all the obstacles to having time enough at last to do all the reading I wanted, the ultimate wish-fulfillment episode of the original Twilight Zone was the one in which Burgess Meredith happened to be down in the bank vault (reading during lunch hour, of course) when The Bomb hit. No more boss, no more wife, no more co-workers, no one at all to keep bank clerk Henry Bemis from engaging in that one activity that made life bearable -- reading. Not even the death of civilization could stop the little man from rising to the top of the evolutionary heap; suddenly, when all else had been taken away, reading became the one activity which could keep Mr Bemis sane, keep him from putting a gun to his head. In a nuclear flash, Mr Bemis was transported to a golden age of reading and he had the enthusiasm and vigor of a ten year old. I was shocked speechless when he broke his glasses, and felt such pity for the abject little man such as I have for no other person, before or since. Now that I have big thick trifocals I think I identify with poor doomed Mr Bemis more than ever.

When I think about how the golden age of reading was 10, at least back in that age before others felt they knew best how to live my life, I wonder about the readings habits of the contemporary youngster. Is he reading? Possibly not, but if he is, it may be little more than required reading at school, the sort of didactic stories and essays chosen by committee, the "right" sort of reading designed to produce a more tolerant, more malleable child. Books are being yanked right and left from school libraries by officials who are as well-meaning as they are fearful of responsibility, and political action groups such as CAIR are seeking to remove books from private ownership. Take out A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, because it might offend Mormons; remove Little Black Sambo to keep from offending Jesse Jackson, never mind that tigers come from India, not Africa; destroy all the books by Joseph Conrad (colonialism), Edgar Poe (morbid!), and the writings of the Founding Fathers (dangerous). Instead, give that ten year old books like the execrable Skippyjon Jones series, the tolerant Bernstein Bears, and The King Who Wanted to be a Queen. Golden age? Not of reading or anything else it seems.

The Golden Age of Reading is no longer 10.

Today's youth do not read for pleasure, only by assignment, and only from approved books.

The encyclopedia has been supplanted by Wikipedia, dictionaries by Merriam-Webster.com, and big books by little screens.

By the way, folks, Kindle is evil.

And change is still bad.

(first posted on "The Hopeless Bookaholic")