Two Definitions of Science Fiction

Is science fiction flourishing, or is it dying? Some vehemently insist on the former, many insist with equal vehemence on the latter--and both in their ways right, but neither seeing it because, after all, they are parallel talking. The reason is that each is using a different definition of the genre, and accordingly a different standard for it.

The first, narrower definition of science fiction is that it is a genre which has scientific speculation--extrapolations, thought-experiments, call them what you will--as its raison d'etre, and its primary source of interest and appeal. Those who use the definition judge the quality of an individual work according to the originality and rigor with which it performs this task, and the health and fecundity of the genre by the extent to which its output is made up of stories working in this manner. Put another way, from their standpoint science fiction is above all idea fiction, and it is on the strength of its ideas that a story, and the genre, lives or dies. (One may speak of this as the standard implicitly adopted by John Campbell in his tenure as editor of Astounding.)

The second, broader definition is that it is literature which just so happens to utilize elements of the fantastic, perhaps with not much fuss made over whether those elements are extrapolations from science of even a superficial kind, or a utilization of elements out of ancient mythology or latter-day superstition. Setting far less store by originality and rigor, or even the use of science of any kind, this makes more conventionally literary assessments of the quality of science fiction the standard. (Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas explicitly adopted this standard as editors of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.)

One may consider Murray Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe" of work epitomizing the first, idea fiction-centered ideal, and William Gibson's Sprawl stories, particularly his novel Neuromancer, as epitomizing the second, more conventionally literary ideal, in their very different ways of treating the Internet.

"A Logic Named Joe," which was published in 1946, rigorously extrapolates from the idea of ubiquitous, massively networked computers, and the result is staggering in the originality, range and accuracy of its technological foresight about how the Internet would be structured, the ways in which people would use it, and the problems and complications this would raise--which is, of course, a testament to just how good a job Leinster did of developing his concept.1 By contrast Neuromancer, despite its much later, 'eighties-era authorship when the shape the Internet was likely to have was a far easier thing to guess at, is in its actual depiction of the Net (how it works, the ways it develops and actually impacts our lives), superficial, and unsurprisingly much further off as a prediction, but by postmodernist lights it is far more impressive as literature than the "old-fashioned," "unstylish" story in which he wrapped up his speculation--which is what adherents of this standard really care about.

Today Leinster's story has become relatively obscure, while it is Gibson who, despite "getting it wrong" (as he freely admits in interviews), is confusedly and confusingly celebrated as the prophet of cyberspace--a reflection of the fact that adherents of the second definition (from McComas, through Ballard and Moorcock and polemicists for postmodernist science fiction like David Pringle and Colin Greenland, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling to today) have prevailed as the fashionable taste-makers and opinion-leaders.2 Indeed, when critics and others tell us that science fiction has never been better, it is the more literary standard that they have in mind, not whether we are getting lots and lots of really original, impressive idea fiction. By contrast, fans of good old-fashioned idea fiction are apt to be less sanguine about the situation--less enthusiastic about all the literary stuff we are getting, and pointing to the comparative scarcity of what they wish we had more of.3

It is rare that this is flatly stated--but it seems to me that acknowledging this properly would clear up a good deal of confusion.

1. In Leinster's story a computer looks "like a vision-receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you want." The device integrates the functions of many earlier technologies and services into a single unit, at once "typewriter, radio, telephone, teletypewriter, newspaper," while also usable for "telecastin'," "a vision-phone connection" and a tool for general information searches on "everything you wanna know or see or hear," be it "the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration."

Leinster also considered the issues of dependence, privacy and censorship with which society has grappled since the Internet's invention, from the intolerability of even a temporary Internet shutdown ("If we shut off Logics, we go back to a kind of civilization we have forgotten how to run!"), to the risk that others will easily be able to find out one's most compromising secrets (people racing to dig up dirt on acquaintances when they realize the safeguards against it are down), to the worry that children will be exposed to inappropriate content and adults find helpful advice on committing criminal acts while "online" (like how to get away with murder).

2. Indeed, reading the essays of J.G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock in New Worlds, I have been struck by the lack of any positive reference in their pieces to anything that distinguishes science fiction as a genre--the exaltation saved entirely for more conventional literary ideas (and in Ballard's case, generally hardcore literary ideas). The pattern continues today, with the sort of extrapolation Leinster did so well in his story overlooked or, if acknowledged, slighted as unimportant.

3. In reply they are often unkindly characterized in the genre's more respectable quarters as nostalgic for fiction not really all that good, or unsophisticated in their literary tastes, or simply "haters" in the asinine sense in which the word has been tossed about this past decade--the cranky, cantankerous, curmudgeonly coots of the field.

Crystalis: A Review

It seems appropriate to spell out my viewpoint at the very start of this. I not only look at this game with a certain nostalgia, but as a player old enough for their formative gaming experiences to have been 8-bit, and that includes having played Crystalis when it first came out.

Still, in contrast with other old games to which I returned only to find memory overly kind (picking up the original Dragon Warrior again, I was annoyed to find that I had to select "STAIRS" from a menu when I wanted to go up or down a floor), Crystalis held up very well a long time afterward, on multiple levels.

One of these was its world-building and storyline--arguably, more appealingly and lavishly developed than in any other 8-bit game of the type. Not only did the graphics make the most of that era's capacities in presenting a colorful, varied world. The main thread of the game takes place within a bigger, more dynamic narrative--a larger struggle against the Draygonia Empire. This facilitates the presentation of an array of engaging NPCs (developed enough to be capable of different responses depending on the situation, and even to display a measure of humor), mini-quests well-integrated into the larger drama (like the rescue of the villagers from Leaf), and dramatic plot twists (our hero is not the only one on a quest here), while more broadly imbuing the adventure with the feel of an epic, accentuated by a memorable musical score. It also has an abundance of appealing features, not least in the battery of magic spells the hero acquires (which permit everything from telepathic connections, to the power to disguise himself with an enchantment--both of which are essential to his successfully completing his missions).

It helps, too, that the gameplay is relatively smooth. This is most obviously the case in the quality of the controls, particularly where the management of a large and diverse stock of weapons, items and spells are concerned, and also the navigation of that world the game provides. (Using a pair of cheap warp boots, or teleportation magic, one can easily zip about the world map rather than having to walk all the way.) However, this is also the case with the unfolding of the larger quest. On those few occasions when I found myself getting stuck in Crystalis, it was a matter of the more cerebral challenges--as with unmasking the identity of a certain monarch through the use of a certain magic spell.

Of course, some have said that the game goes too far in that respect. The need to switch between different swords to defeat particular enemies apart, one can get through the fighting on the strength of button-mashing. Perhaps a bigger issue is that it is not a particularly lengthy game, even by 8-bit standards. Even while playing at a leisurely pace, leveling up well past where I needed to be at any one point, and preferring to chat with every villager, try every possible way through every maze, and puzzle things out when I got stuck rather than rush to the guides, I played through in about fifteen hours (a fraction of what the original Final Fantasy promised). A player less committed to such an approach to the game (or simply more skillful) could easily shave some hours off of that.

Still, button-mashing can be just the thing when one is looking to relax, and if there are longer games, this one was certainly fun to play through again--and, while the game does not seem likely to get much better known any time soon, thoroughly earns the esteem in which it is held by most of those fortunate enough to have encountered it.

Remembering Crystalis

SNK's 1990 video game Crystalis has some standing as a cult game, very fondly remembered by some, but by others not really remembered at all.

Arguably one disadvantage the game faced was in the timing of its release. It came after the 16-bit era had not only dawned, but got well underway. By April 1990, not only were the NEC-Hudson Soft Turbo Grafx 16 and Sega Genesis out for quite some time, but that very same month Crystalis' own maker, SNK, was breaking into the console market with its own 16-bit entry, the Neo Geo--and the release of the Super Nintendo was mere months away.

This was not a market conducive to even the most advanced use of 8-bit technology making a splash.

Another was, apparently, the tendency to see Crystalis as a Zelda clone, apparently still alive and well, and perhaps reinforced by the development of gaming since then. After all, not only was the Zelda series one of the icons of the 8-bit era, so much so that it was easy for it to overshadow the rest of what was still a new and small action RPG market, but the series has gone from strength to strength to remain as current as ever. By contrast, there was little in the way of follow-ups or remakes to the original Crystalis, limited to a Game Boy Color port back in 2000, with no edition ever released even for the Virtual Console (apparently on account of the idiot wrangles specialized in by holders of law degrees).

And of course the massive increase in the sophistication of gaming, the action RPG genre in particular, makes it harder for someone whose standard is set by newer gaming to take a nuanced view of the differences among games of a much earlier generation, made within rather narrower technical limits than those with which today's designers work. It would seem that for many one 8-bit game of this type is pretty much the same as another--reinforcing the "clone" charge.

For my part, however, I would say that Crystalis was the best action RPG of the 8-bit era, deserving of much greater recognition than it has received.