This is not a manifesto
by PaulJessup on January 08, 2007
A manifesto is about being disgruntled. About being unhappy with the state of things as they are. Manifestos are about angst, about changing the status quo into some better thing through revolution. It is about replacement, about change.
This is not a manifesto.
A manifesto in F/SF (and oh! are we so full of them) usually proclaims x way of writing fantasy (or science fiction) superior to all other forms. It is about taking the current stagnation of form and replacing it. Overthrowing it. New Wave! New Weird! Cyber Punk! Ribo Funk! Mundane SF!
The list goes on and on. People trying to change things. To enforce their viewpoint onto others. Claiming legitimization and power over forms that they have felt have gone stale, stagnant or bored and boring.
This is not a manifesto.
What happens when a manifesto in F/SF loses steam? What happens when that great big market swallows it whole? It creates a subgenre. It takes all that fire, all that change and boils it down into bite sized chunks and makes it marketable. In the end it is submerged, the genre changes.
The manifesto gets its way. People read the fiction inspired by it. People argue, people are up in arms- and then, then, then...the work ages. Faster than fast, people move on. The genre absorbs it, becomes different because of it. In a way, the manifesto wins. The writers change the genre. But what happened?
It lost all its teeth. The writers have moved on. Now it’s a category, it’s marketable. Other people write in it, but the revolution is gone. The revolution has moved on. And all that fire, all that teeth- it doesn’t seem as important anymore. But the genre is changed. For ill or good, it moves on. Different than it was before.
This is not a manifesto.
Consider this, instead. What about cutting right to the chase? What about moving past all that fire and heat and just accept the end result? What about creating new subgenres instead of manifestos?
That’s what this is. It’s not about burning fire or teeth. It’s not about unwashed masses of F/SF readers struggling against the mass market banality that is being served to them daily. This is about what happens after that manifesto is eaten and swallowed whole. This is about an idea for a new subgenre.
And why the hell not? I don’t want to change the world. I just want to create. And this idea has been diggling and tickling the back of my brain for way too long.
Imagine, if you will, a subgenre of fantasy where occultism is studied like science for hard science fiction or mundane SF. Of course, I’m not talking about believing in that superstition- but rather there is so much untapped stories and ideas in that mythological soil it is a shame to leave it untapped.
Imagine a fantasy that is in a contemporary setting, with contemporary problems. But things are different, in ways we can’t understand. Lots of little and big things are immensely different. Magickal things seem commonplace. Normal every day things seem magickal.
Imagine a fantasy were mood and character and theme all take precedent over all else. Characters are the reason for the plot, the reason for the action. Plot is what happens when the characters react to one another.
Imagine a fantasy with teeth. Imagine a fantasy with fire. Imagine a fantasy with attitude. Imagine a fantasy with nihilism of cyberpunk strapped into an occult frame.
Imagine a fantasy with complex narrative structures that bend past the normal linear problem solution set up. That the whole structure itself is part of the story, that the narrative is as important as character, as theme.
Imagine a fantasy that stays in your brain, changing you after you read it.
Imagine a contemporary fantasy without faeries or stealing Native American mythology and spiritualism. Imagine a fantasy that uses surrealistic imagery* to taunt the reader and subvert the reader on a symbolic level.
Imagine a fantasy that is Lynchian in its dream like realism. Imagine a fantasy that is like a trance. Imagine a fantasy where the rythm of the prose is worth celebrating on its own.
Imagine a fantasy with hidden worlds, tucked into the corner of our contemporary reality. Imagine a fantasy where people in the rural areas and the urban streets go exploring in large ruins of industrial factories and broken down old warehouses and sanitariums.
All together, I see this as some new subgenre. One I can’t explain. It’s not the same as slipstream- it has different results. But they do share some similarities. For now I can’t really think of a name. Occult Punk sounds too hip and riffs too much on the whole cyberpunk/steampunk/sandlepunk crapola. Occult Nouveau sounds too pompous. I need something simple- preferably two words.
I’m sure I’m treading on ground that many others have tread on before. I’m sure this is nothing new. That is why this is not manifesto. That is why this is something else.
*By surrealistic imagery I mean how the surrealists used every day objects in startling combinations in order to shock the viewer, or horrify them.
-Quick definition for occult punk/occult nouveau:
+ Contemporary fantasy
+ Edgy. Nihilistic. Has attitude.
+ Urban Exploration a big part of it*
+ Occult magic based on real world magic research
+ Characters, prose, mood, and theme paramount
+ Non traditional narrative structures
+ Surreal/Dream Like/ Trance Like
*Note though, that this is just the current term. The rural small town I grew up in had tons of old buildings we used to explore.
This post has been viewed (on this page) 554 times .
PEN World Voices Festival at MetaxuCafé
Related Discussions
Comments
I think I understand what you’re getting at here, but I am not sure I completely agree with you.
I have been reading fantasy since I learned to read and, for a while, it seemed that too many boys were lost prices or wizards who had yet to discover their powers. Tha baddies all wore black and were bad because they had black hearts and wished for nothing but chaos and destruction.
In the darkness, though, there was light.
Neil Gaiman continued to write engaging and exciting fantasy set in a variety of worlds, both real and imagined; try American Gods. The prize winning Jonathan Stange and Mr Norris presented fantasy in a real, albeit 19th century world. Philip Pullman gave us fantasy in a steampunk kind of way with a (anti) religious twist.
Do these books create a subgenre? I’m not sure it matters. If you go into Waterstones or Borders, are the bookshelves divided into sub-genres? Most likely the SF is bundled together with the fantasy, David Eddings next to Alan Dean Foster, despite the gulf between them. If you’re unlucky, there’ll be horror mixed in too.
What is important, though, is that authors continue to explore the limits of the genre, whether that’s the royal scenario (brilliantly portrayed by Robin Hobb in Assassin’s Apprentice or deviously twisted in Lynn Fleweling’s Tamar Trilogy) or the world creators (read the excellent Thief’s Gamble by Juliet E McKenna or the dark tales of China Mieville).
Of course there is room for stories set in a hidden world, but this has always been the case. Read Gaiman’s Neverwhere or try Alan Garner’s Red Shift. Better still read Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, one of the classic’s of the sub-genre of magical realism.
Each of the authors bring something new to their world, whether it be real or imagined, and as long as they do the genre renews itself.
For me, this is what is important.
– Shev (03/13 at 13-Mar 03:49 -05:00)
Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
Paul: fine points. I used to read tons of fantasy and science fiction in my youth (I’m 61). Stopped in my twenties. Why? In general, most of what I saw stopped being edgy, provocative stuff designed to make you think. It was more as you’ve written, that the various genres were taken over, became “mainstream” in the not nicest sense of the word--"entertainments" with no other real purpose, rather than “literature” (which should be entertaining, but also should be provocative and provoking). There is no reason why any writing can’t be both, except laziness by the author & a fear of “not selling”.
I stopped reading fantasy & sf altogether when it mostly seemed to be about fantasy worlds and Kings and Queens. To me the ‘royal’ stuff is a throwback to those royal born knowing better than the rest of us. I find it undemocratic, even fascist. So I gave up.
Ironically, I’ve run the Video Room at a local science fiction convention since 1995, and seem to always find some movies to show that had an edge to them.
– Victor Schwartzman (01/10 at 10-Jan 22:43 -05:00)