But they keep pulling me back in...
I wanted to not write about SFnal stuff here for a while, as too much of any one topic gets boring (for me that is, you little bitches can sit there and lump it if you don't like what you read in this lj) but then the normally very good webzine Strange Horizons had to go and publish this bit of nonsensical drivel written by a fellow who semi-published a book with a micropress, at one point falsely claimed that said book had been nominated for the Tiptree award, and, of course, whose self-insertion protagonist appears on the cover looking like an idealized version of himself..

The essay is about "elitism", but only the particular sort of elitism that comes about from not being the stupidest motherfucker in the room. The first segment of Morris's essay complains that "Maybe these 'enlightened few' in the genre need to get that knot out of their spacesuits (you know the one I'm talking about, and where it is!) and face the truth: media SF/F/H is what continues to make this genre a popular one."

How has Morris determined this truth, or the mental states of these so-called elitists? Well, he hasn't. There isn't all that much impact, except in the broad strokes of pre and post Star Wars worlds, between the popularity of science fiction. fantasy, and horror films and sales figures of SF/F/H. While some people, like former Star Trek novel editor John Ordover have suggested that this is because SF/F is less accessible than media stuff, movie/book popularity is ultimately a comparison between apples and oranges. Pleasure reading is a minority activity, and there are many more SF/F/H books published each year than there are SF/F/H feature films released. So yes, pretty much any movie you can name will be more popular than any book. I doubt anyone, even the most dedicated beanie-wearer, thinks books are more popular than movies.

Incidentally, the matter isn't helped by the genre book channels being flooded with the semi-published babble that read like failed screenplays. But moving on...

The idea of elitism in SF would certainly make for an interesting article. One could interview midlist writers like Melissa Scott or Barry Longyear, who have written media tie-in books but who are known primarily for their original fiction. It would be cool to talk to the gang down at Borderlands Books, a genre bookstore that makes a point of not carrying any tv/movie/RPG books or other material, and compare their thoughts to the folks down at Dark Carnival eight miles away, who gladly sell the stuff.

Or you could just make up and a bunch of stupid shit about how writers at some backwater con didn't drop to their bellies and suck the hair off your toes solely because you think The Animatrix iz teh r0x0r. Which Morris does.

He makes shit up, you say ol' bean? Yes, he do. Behold: "Even The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, a Fantasy film that did the impossible in winning the 2004 Oscar for Best Motion Picture, has been rejected by elitists as sub-standard for the genre and its reputation."

Please to be name one elitist say LOTR is teh suck, no? No. I'm sure many SF/F fans disliked the LOTR movies (I liked 'em), but sans interviews, public statements, or telepathy helmets, the idea that people disliked the movie only due to elitism doesn't stand. There are at least two more good reasons to dislike ROTK: too much of the gay, and not enough of the gay.

Morris, having planted his lance into the media windmill, then changes topic completely. Now the problem is that some SF readers don't like fantasy. Morris complains: "One panelist I shared a discussion with on 'Originality in Fantasy' showed no hesitation in showing her disdain for the genre as she said, 'You don't need characters to drive a Fantasy. Create a good setting, add in a quest, and people will buy it.'" Yes? AND?!?!?! Morris may think something horrible is self-evident here but I don't get it. Let's see some sales figures, a comment from an editor who can assure us that quest fantasy doesn't equal instant audience. Maybe we can get into why the nominees for the World Fantasy Awards and the bestselling fantasy titles seem to have little overlap. Or we can...you guessed it...just make more shit up.

Morris does actually make two correct factual claims, by my count. He says " And for the price of one hardcover, you can buy three movie tickets and get the entire experience handed to you on a silver platter, complete with visual effects and soundtrack." True. But so what? It's not self-evident that CGI and pseudo-Mahler mush is a better experience than the ideo-linguistic experience of reading 100% of the time, or even any of the time.

His other true claim: "Just look at the top grossing films. More than just fans of the genre are attending these films, so I truly believe we reach a wider audience than just con attendees." You can actually draw a line through everything here but "we reach a wider audience than just con attendees." Yes. If SF/F/H books sold only to con attendees, no major publisher would bother with the expnse of publishing him, and SF publishing would look much more like poetry publishing than anything else. Perhaps Morris, who goes to cons frequently to shill his micropress title, doesn't get that some publishers can actually distribute and sell books to tens or hundreds of thousands of people as a matter of course, but it's true. Bookstores exist.

After this brief foray into the Realm of the Real, Morris is back to tilting at windmills. After going on about how hard SF doesn't relax him, he then says that he would never say that SF is too dry for consumption, despite the fact that he just, uh, did.

Then Morris Stands Up For Horror. "When an author says, 'My latest work is Dark Fantasy,' reply with, 'Oh, you mean Horror?' Make sure to wear a good pair of running shoes and scope out the best places to duck for cover. " Rather than running, I'd suggest just standing there and mumbling while the author says "No. Dark fantasy. ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT??!?!" Or smiling when he says, "Sure, horror, but the chains don't carry much horror these days and I don't feel the need to live in a barrel just because I like to say 'horror.' HORROR HORROR HORROR, I love that word!"

And of course, not all horror is fantastic. Not all dark fantasy is primarily interested in reader affect and the return of the repressed, the two hallmarks (in my view) of horror fiction. DF and H certainly have a wide overlap as does SF and H and contemporary American realism and horror, mainly because nearly every narrative has some elements of fear, dread, and unease within it. Not everyone who calls their work "dark fantasy" is automatically lying because of those Mean And Nasty Elitists in the con suite. If anything, DF became a popular term because category horror as a term hasn't sold in years. I imagine authors should starve for their art, unless of course, a media book deal comes along.

Morris isn't so much standing up for horror as he is standing up for his pal. "Horror author Tony Ruggiero, a good friend whom I tour with quite often, has caught the hammer blow of this elitism from other SF/F authors." No anecdotes are forthcoming, no names named, nothing. But I have a Ruggiero anecdote. I heard him read from his semi-published novel Team Of Darkness, about vampiric Special Operators, at Jersey Devil Con a couple of years ago. He read to us from the prologue, which takes place sometime after the events of Chapter Five. And yes, the "prologue" read exactly like a, you guessed it, failed screenplay. If folks are rolling their eyes at Tee and Tony, it's not necessarily because of snobbery, and may well be because trying to sell unreconstructed cliches with all the subtlety and honor of a midway barker grates on the nerves of people. Double when you whine and moan about elitism in response to the eye-rolling.

Finally, Morris reveals his real complaint. Because he is insane, he liked Van Helsing. Lots of normal people did not not. Thus, we are Wrong and Bad. He complains that Van Helsing was supposed to be kitschy fun, but that the rest of Planet Earth doesn't get it. "Not every film can be grand scale, have character development, or show spit-polished writing, nor should we expect them to do so. If every SF/F/H movie needs to be IMPORTANT, then we are facing a future of pretentious, self-righteous "speculative cinema" of intellectual ego-stroking."

Of course, nobody in the world has ever claimed that every SF/F/H movie has to be important. In fact, I'd be amazed if anyone had ever claimed that any SF/F/H film has to be important. Kitsch can be well-done and entertaining. Films Morris names, like Bubba Ho-Tep and Big Trouble In Little China do have decent character development and all that other good stuff, while retaining a fun atmosphere and manic energy. Van Helsing just blows. It fails on its own terms.

And here is when we come to The Awful Truth. Some people simply lack any critical facilities. Tee Morris seems to be one of them. If he likes books with pirates and princesses in 'em, then there is no such thing as a bad book with pirates and princesses. If someone dares say that they dislike something, the idea is inconceivable! But but...pirates! Princesses! These micropress titles are just as good as anything else out there, because they have pirates and princesses and vampires and spaceships that fire laser cannons that go pshew pshew pshew or would if not for the eerie silence of the vaccuum of space...just like anything else on the shelves! Well-written? Clever? Expertly paced? Raw but full of emotion? Insightful? Sensing these qualities within the reading experience takes a facility beyond that of noting the presence of tropes one has previously decided that one enjoys. In a world where Thomas Ligotti's My Work Is Not Yet Done is aesthetically identical to Freddy vs Jason because both have murders in 'em, of course anyone with half a brain sounds like an elitist. When one is the stupidest motherfucker in the room, the world is a hostile and inexplicable place.

Here's my question: how on Earth did this get published without some kind of editorial vetting? I'm actually loathe to post this polemic now, as it will just feed into the idea that the article was somehow "controversial" or was designed to "get people talking." Controversy exists when reasonable people disagree, but a reasonable person who knows how to read will find no footing in this piece. Designed to get people talking? Well that implies that the article was designed, rather than just shat out in one burst of retarded fury. Damn, there I go, being an elitist again...