Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

  Hey, Shell and Bp_Amoco are the *white knights* among oil companies.
You want a nasty outfit, try Western Fuels Corp.

   Iraq doesn't need to torture political activists in order to please
oil companies.  Oil is black gold.  Everybody who's got it wants to
profit from it.  Chechnya doesn't have much oil but it's got oil
pipelines; that alone makes it worth levelling with artillery batallions.

   When Saddam took Kuwait, it wasn't the oil companies going in with
the aircraft carriers, cruise missiles and airstrikes.  "The Coalition"
was basically everybody with a boat.  The problem with oil is,
if you gotta have it you *gotta* have it.

   There will probably be Big Corporations selling Big Wind and Big Solar
sometime soon.  Shell and BP-Amoco probably in the foremost among them,
because they see themselves as energy companies, not oil companies.
If there are thousands of wind-derricks offshore in the the North Sea.
it'll be big business like other kinds of big business; sweetheart deals,
subsidies, dumping, white-collar crime, substandard materials, embezzlement,
stock-jobbing, whatever.  The advatange is that they won't be selling
poison.

   I'm off to Chattanooga for Chattacon for the weekend, but I'll
log in if I get the chance.

bruces
  

    
I see in a sf conference topic  "list your top ten favorite  Science
fiction novels", Bruce sterling's stuff pops up with some regularity,
along with other greats like Aldiss and good ol' Gibson. This is meet.
To me, Sterling's novels are a nearly seamless synthesis of all that's
good in science fiction as a genre; he's science minded but never loses
literary value, character; he's cyberpunk but actually anything the
humanists can claim for their own he's got too. He has a grasp of
gestalt as a literary form, if it's possible to grasp it; and I think
it will pan out that he writes more accurately about the future than
any other writer going. People borrow from him a lot--that's a sign.
Stephenson, certainly, has borrowed from him. Sterling's the
crystalization of the form. (If you haven't read my profile of
Sterling, originally written for the Readercon program book, and 
including even selections from his private correspondence to me...and
if you're interested...it's at www.darkecho.com/johnshirley under Two
Cyberpunks. The other cyberpunk piece there is about Rucker).
  

    
John, speaking of cyberpunk... since today is the final day of the
official interview and Bruce is outta pocket at the moment, could you
give us a bit of cypberpunk history? Specifically, your version of the
1985 NASFIC cyberpunk panel in Austin, during which you, Bruce, and Lew
Shiner renounced the panel and left the podium?
  

    

Now that sounds like an interesting story!  Do tell!
  

    
I don't remember much about that event. I have a vague sense that we
were following Chairman Bruce's lead and that he may have suggested
that such would be necessary in advance. I don't think *I* was loaded
there. Being loaded or not, on the part of some parties, may or may not
be relevant to the way things turned out. All I remember is a general
feeling of being ridiculed, even set up to be ridiculed, by some people
on the panel, who wanted to lampoon cyberpunk as claptrap or bullshit,
I don't remember who it was. Fannish types or old-guard writer types.
Or both. And I *think* that one of us overturned the table, or threw a
chair--it would have been like me to add that sort of touch, a la
Hendrix smashing his guitar--and maybe busting a water jug, and saying
fuck you, this is bullshit, we are unilaterally walking out, a very
political "unilateral action" feel. I think it was on some signal
(whether pre arranged or not) that Chairman Bruce gave us. You know,
sigh-fick cons are so tedious, repetitive, so boring so often, that it
doesn't take much to create a big buzz. I mean, I was from the punk
scene, I was used to having bottles smashed on my head onstage, and
fistfights backstage. (I shouldnt have put that garbage can over the
head of that singer that was pissing me off).
  

    
"Old guard" = Greg Bear, specifically.
Bear and Rudy were the Guys Who Stayed.
  

    

I wrote off cons in the early 70's.
  

    
The only con I ever attended was Armadillocon, and I continued going
for years. It was weird, having hard sf authors and fans in the same
room with the fantasy crowd. I never understood how the two worked
together.

That brings to mind a question for both John and Bruce... what is the
real character of science fiction as a genre, and what are its borders?
To what extent is it a business, a marketplace; and to what extent is
it an art form? Is it truly predictive of the future, or is its real
value as allegory reflecting on the present?
  

    
That's a good question for Bruce, Jon, he's so much more in it than I
am. He's made a success of it, for a variety of reasons, but also
because he's such a fine synthesis of good progressive-sf qualities
and, like Gibson, has a genius for the cultural timing of his work. But
most sf writers enter the field for awhile and then find that it's no
longer really rewarding to pulp type writers, unless they write Kevin
Anderson stuff (KA once tried to tell Tim Powers to write  crappy
novelizations like he does so Tim could make big money and be
successful like him!) about Trek or Star Wars or Dune or something; and
 the field can only sustain a few progressive, literary
writers...Won't sustain them, really, unless  they have that timing,
like Sterling and that cunning Snow Crash cat...who I'm sure is a very
talented guy...I havent read him but I've heard from reliable people
he's very good...Anyway it's ever more a marketplace, run by Big
Corporate Mentality and bean counters. Ive had books accepted by
editors but then rejected by the Marketing Dept who now make the final
decisions I'm told...I have a book called Mindclone that's a
collaboration with a young feller named Dedman that may well be
published, and it's pure cyberpunk with a lot of suspense-action feel,
which I hope to sell to the movies...but that'll be my last science
fiction effort and only happened by chance...I haven't written sf in
years. I consider the newly revised updated version Eclipse books my
definitive statement and am glad they're now available from Babbage
Press...but that's it for me and why? Because with a few exceptions the
field cannot sustain writers who don't write within the tropes of
triteness. Bruce is an exception, he's made his own niche. I never
belonged in the field anyway. Rudy barely hangs in there. Robinson
seems to do okay, and Aldiss - are those heliconia books selling? I
think the field destroyed some great writers, like Davidson and
Bester...and was not rewarding for Disch who's switched to 'dark
literary' stuff like me...You have to have just the right mentality (I
don't mean that as a put down, I mean it as a compliment) to thrive
there as a *good* writer--and only a few do. It can't sustain as many
good writers as detective/mystery for example ...SF predicts accurately
sometimes but I personally think of it as mostly allegory. But Bruce
is more classic science fiction and more a cellular-SF guy--being
prescient is in his DNA I think...I wasn't going to say much but as per
usual I go yapping on like an excited terrier...
  

    
Thanks for the fount of ideas and possibilites, Bruce. And everybody who
emailed or posted, including Jon Lebkowsky, Mister Back-to-the-topic. Good
stuff.   

Oh, and how is it again that folks can find the Mirrorshades conference or
join the Viridian list and design movement ??
 
  

    
I'm enjoying reading along on this.  Maybe we ought to have another topic
and let johnp-shirley stand on the soapbox for a bit.  I'm curious in
particular about how he got started in punk and ended up in sf.

As for jonl's comments on environmentalism, frankly, I'm a little surprised
you see it that way, Jon.  Or else maybe I missed some kind of ironic
distancing there.  The environmental movement has a lot of problems,
but the notion that it cares too much about people and not enough about
nature turns the usual criticism upside down.  There are wings of enviro
thought and followership that cling too much to the human/nature dichotomy
(both the "charismatic megafauna" crowd and a lot of the "deep ecology"
types), and much of environmental organizing is distancing itself too
much from its roots in ecology and biology, overall I think enviros do
a pretty good job balancing the various factors.

As for myself, going into my 22nd year of energy conservation and solar
energy propagandizing, I've long realized the essence of truth in
bruces' observation.  In fact, the wacky history of the wind industry
already has had an exceptional amount of thickheadedness, skulduggery,
back-stabbing, high finance and low laughs.  Just ask <rmt> or wait for
my friend Peter Asmus' new book which should be out soon detailing the
whole rollicking story.

Business as usual in energy is something I am not happy about; I think
energy is important enough to us to be worth doing as a public service,
but I'm not gonna win that one for the forseeable future.  But business
as usual in energy which poisons the air and water, leaves landscapes
in ruins, causes international tensions to rise and military budgets with
it, all the way up to and including nuclear threats s
and, capping it all off, quite possibly changing our climate irrevocably --
no, that's not acceptable.
  

    
(I guess I should admit that my little rant was an attempt to stir the
pot. People who know me, including our guest, probly spotted that a
mile away.)
  

    <scribbled by silly Mon 9 Jul 12 16:10>
  

    
In the mean time, we can enjoy Ben Fong-Torres!
  

    
Well I'd like it if bruce came and straightened me out on that
cyberpunk panel 'riot'--I'm probably not remembering it very well.
  

    

   I came back from Chattanooga, which I rather enjoyed.  I mean,
the convention was okay, but Chattanooga the town is really something.
Then my pet anklebiter hacker attacked my WELL account for the
third time.  Apparently he likes to show up, read my mail, and
then cruise onto IRC and brag boast and strut that he's hacked my account.
He never hurts anything, but it's getting tiresome.  Note that this
is not the WELL's fault.  It's my ISP.  Probably soon to be my
former ISP.

  I think John's account of the Armadillocon panel walkout was
decently obscured by the mists of time.  As I recall, we panelists were
sincerely trying to discuss our new approach to SF while our
panel moderator, who had never heard of us nor us of him,
wanted to cop a "punk" attitude and seemed to be a couple of
sheets to the wind.  He was about as severely out of his league
as a panel moderator could get, poor guy.  He'd been expecting
some ranbunctious dismissive fun and found himself amid the
heaviest and most passionate ideologues that the genre had
seen  in a generation.

    It wasn't like we broke a chair over the guy; we just got up and left.
I can't think of a cheaper and more effective gesture in the way of
garnering attention.  It was absolutely the right thing to do at the time.
We could have had a perfectly civil and informative panel, and
everyone would have forgotten everything we said ten minutes later.
But the walkout started a cause celebre, and the attention has never
quite died down since.

      I have to agree with John that the sheer crass humiliation of the SF
Baloney Factory kills a lot of people, but all art forms do that.
If we'd been rock stars instead of scribblers we'd have all had
new livers by now.  I'm proud that not a single contributor to
MIRRORSHADES is dead or even really sick, fourteen long years later. While
if you ask around in the genre, you'll find that pretty much everybody
has at least heard of every one of the contributors.  No worldly success
comes without some kind of downside and price tag, but on the whole,
we got away with it.  I'd do it again in a minute.  In fact, I am doing
it again.  It's just that I'm doing it in industrial design instead of
science fiction.
  

    
Bruce, industrial design aside: 

you were *born to write scifi*--
that should be 
a tattoo on your thigh.
  

    
Re. the exploding panel, I should add that while Bruce and John
totally quit the scene, Lew Shiner seemed conflicted about bailing, and
was in fact lured back to the podium, evidently feeling a sense of
duty to the form. Lew's another guy who doesn't write science fiction
anymore.

I was blissfully drunk and enjoying the show.

Gail has gamely signaled the end of the interview, knowing full well
that none of us is destined to shut up anytime soon. Feel free to carry
on. Meanwhile I'm gonna wander outside and look at the mountains.....
  

    

Shiner's new book, which uses a Citizen Kane structure to look at the
career of a female singer/songwriter, is a real treat. SAY GOODBYE.
Buy it now.
  

    

Before we wander too far afield, let me say thank you to Bruce and Jon and
everyone who participated in this interview - Bruce especially, I know how
busy you've been, and how inconveniently hacked, so I thank you for
beating your way through the underbrush and sharing your insights with us
in spite of the obstacles.

Jonl, too, I appreciate your questions, from the seamless way you
conducted the interview, I don't think anyone could tell that you were
actually many hundreds of miles away from home, househunting and preparing
to move.

Maybe we should make it an annual occurrence that the year can't start
officially without a bruces manifesto.
  

    
Thanks, Linda!
  

    

Speaking as another person who was in the room at the now-infamous
NASFiC panel, I have to say that

a) I don't recall any chairs or tables being thrown, overturned, etc.

b) I don't recall the reaction being against Greg Bear (who was as
blandly pleasant as his fiction is weird and mindbending) so much
as against the moderator.

JADP.
  

    
If I didn't knock some shit over...it's been too long, I can't
remember for sure, but...if I didn't, I shouldve! 

Yeah it was the moderator. Who was that?
  

    <scribbled by silly Fri 8 Dec 00 12:57>
  

    
Bruce Sterling's _Zeitgeist_ is in bookstores.  He'll be
interviewed by (jonl) in this conference starting 01/01/01.

Sterling is the guest editor of TIME Digital's special
"year 2026" issue.
<http://www.time.com/time/digital/reports/future/about.html>