ins_amap@jhunix.UUCP (Mark Aden Poling) (12/19/85)
Recently I've grown curious over something. Back when I was twelve I read all the science fiction I could get hold of, which consisted of about ten Asimov books, eight by Heinlein, and a couple of Bradbury collections. (I was the benefactor/victim of a rural upbringing.) Anyway, I was twelve when it was 1976, and the New Wave had already crested and passed by the time I was through with the Golden Age. The New Wave seems in respect to have been an attempt to bring human values and attitudes into what had previously been very Machine oriented fiction. This of course meant that surrealism was prevalent in much of the "serious" SF published then. Stories that spring to mind include "Dahlgren" by Delany and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Ellison. I was reading this stuff by the time I was fourteen (having spent thirteen in my jr. high's library catching up on old stuff I'd missed) and was mungo confused. However, I had also just discovered girls in a big way, so that in itself says little. Now once more I'm confused, but it's over something different this time. Girls still mystify me, but New Wavish SF doesn't any more. As a matter of fact, I find myself writing the stuff. (By the way, the story I sent to F&SF nine weeks ago, "Dream", is *still* in limbo! A rejection slip hurts, but this is something else.) What I'm wondering is this; do people, as in humans, change over time? If so, what is the nature of the change? Is it merely fashion? Or is it, as I implied in my story, a function of the evolution/devolution of man's collective unconscience? A friend of mine who writes space opera, (quite well I might add) is under the opinion that time changes nothing but the unit of currency. I could pass this off as nothing, but.... On reflection, Bradbury did a lot with perceptions and emotions, and not all of it would be called conventional. "Golden Apples of the Sun" comes to mind. Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" is an interesting case of a man driven, if not mad, then pissed off by his strange lineage. And the story "Scanners Live in Vain" by Cordwainer Smith (?) is *incredible*! These stories were the best of the field at the time, may still be, and they contain an empathy for the changed no less stunning than the New Wave stories of later years. Did it with less chest-beating, too. Now, the question from a weird point of view; since these stories were handled so well from the 'fifties, and the authors probably didn't give a damn if they were making some kind of statement, *is it proof that people don't change*? Are these altered states constant in our species, and our awareness of them fluctuating? These stories were by the masters, remember, and were probably not representative of the field. Maybe only they at that time could write about sometthing others couldn't see. I can think of arguments for both sides of the issue, but my head hurts and I may not take aspirin. If you have an interesting idea, post it wherever you like. All flames should be sent here, where I have the hot dogs ready. Mark! ---- "Nobody knows anything and they're all *wrong*!" -my girlfriend.