Star Wars on Trial (39 page)

We, science fiction writers and fans, were used to being considered weird, but now we, as a genre, are being dismissed as shallow, sparkly and not, let's face it, particularly smart if Star Wars is the best we can do.

In 1980, a U.S. border guard waved five fans across the border by accepting a definition of science fiction as Star Wars and saying, "I loved that movie."

In 2005 one of those same fans went to her travel agent for plane tickets to the World Science Fiction Convention in Scotland, and her travel agent said dismissively, "I'm not into that Star Wars stuff...."

Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario, Canada, with her partner Fiona Patton, six and a half cats and an unintentional Chihuahua. Her latest book and the third of the Tony Foster novels, Smoke and Ashes, will be out in hardcover in June 2006.

THE COURTROOM

DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover?

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Yes. Thank you, Ms. Huff, for sharing your experiences with the Court. Tell the Court, if you will: in the days when science fiction was not "that Star Wars stuff" but was instead "that Flash Gordon stuff" or "that Buck Rogers stuff," do you seriously think that the reputation of the genre was substantially better in the popular imagination? What evidence do you have for this?

TANYA HUFF: Back in the days when science fiction was, as you call it, "that Flash Gordon stuff," its reputation was much as it is now. And that's the problem. I'd like to think that after all those years of good writing as well as social and scientific considerations that we, as a genre, might have progressed beyond "gee sparkly" and "gosh wow" or even "good Lord..." in the popular imagination. We were, in point of fact, garnering some serious attention in the years immediately pre-Star Wars-as you yourself said in your 2001 SF Site interview:

"That's what the New Wave did for SF: injected real literary quality-a concern with character, relevance and plain old-fashioned good writing-that helped rescue SF from the scrap heap of spacecraft, robots and ray-guns."

Then the bright lights and the witty repartee and the overwhelming weight of the Star Wars phenomenon knocked us back a few decades as marketing took over from content. Also, I would argue that in the days when science fiction was, as you call it, "that Buck Rogers stuff," the genre had no actual reputation in the popular imagination, if you define popular as "prevalent among the general public," as the general public spent no time thinking of science fiction at all. These days, post-Star Wars, the general pub lic has no choice but to notice us and form an opinion-it would be as difficult to ignore an elephant in the living room.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Have you ever taken the time to correspond with SF fans who have become SF fans precisely because of Star Wars? That for whom this "simple, sparkly, not exactly cohesive" saga was a "gateway drug" to a profound and serious lifelong commitment to the wider genre we all love (at least one of whom has become a spectacularly talented novelist who is a witness for the Defense in this very trial)? Do you have any idea how many of them are out there?

TANYA HUFF: As a matter of fact, I'm married to an SF fan who came into the genre with Star Wars. She's now working on her fifth novel for DAW Books. Star Wars was indeed her "gateway drug to a profound and serious lifelong commitment to the wider genre we all love," but she kicked the drug and moved on to become a talented novelist who writes books of brilliant complexity. I would argue that in order to become the writer my wife is or the writer the witness for the Defense is, you must move past simple, sparkly and not exactly cohesive-you must move on. And there's the sticking point.

I was the mass market buyer at Bakka Books in Toronto for eight years. Throughout the eighties and early nineties I worked the Bakka table at Toronto conventions. During that time, I watched the genre change from the front lines, and I spoke to hundreds of SF fans weekly. For every one of them looking for a book that could expand their universe, at book that could raise questions, a book that would make them think, there were easily a couple dozen looking for the same thing they read the week before. And the week before that. Yes, we have always had lazy readers-every genre has lazy readers-but I would argue that the weight of the Star Wars phenomenon expanded our cadre of lazy readers far beyond where it would have been otherwise. We're looking at a generation who have been told cradle to grave what to think. Media informs all of their choices-what cereal to buy, what car to drive, what music to listen to, what books to read. Star Wars has told them that this is what science fiction is, and given the amount of space media tie-ins take up in our bookstores-virtual and physi cal-a depressingly large number of them have never questioned that.

There are many people who came into the genre with Star Wars; there are many more people who define the genre by Star Wars.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Speaking as an author who was indeed barely making a living writing convention-breaking books, and who did indeed sign on to write a blockbuster novelization, are you entirely certain it's appropriate to describe me, personally, as lost? Are you willing to concede even the possibility that some writers might write as seriously for Mr. Lucas as they do for themselves, and then take their borrowed celebrity back to their own careers, to support their nasty habit of writing conventionbreaking books-and in the process, lead some not-inconsiderable numbers of Star Wars ex-geeks with them, giving them a taste for SF Beyond the GFFA-so in fact helping to support the rest of the genre?

TANYA HUFF: Am I willing to concede the possibility that some writers might write as seriously for Mr. Lucas as they do for themselves? Sure. But I'm a big believer in anything being possible. Actually, let's turn that around: Am I willing to concede the possibility that some writers might write as seriously for themselves as they do for Mr. Lucas? God, I hope not. Unless things have changed a great deal since I last looked at the work-for-hire market, the work has to be completed within a very curtailed time frame. Good books can be written in three months, sure, but under a deadline so tight there's little room to explore possibilities-significant wordage must be cranked out daily because falling behind isn't an option. This is not a situation where you can get an extension for the demands of either art or craft-these books are marketing driven and marketing doesn't work that way. Timing is everything. Again, unless things have changed in the last few years, writers produce work-for-hire work under very strict parameters-you may not, for example, cause the characters to act in ways that haven't already been predetermined by the source production. You may not allow the novel to develop organically under the demands of story. I'm not saying these are badly written books-although some of them undeniably are-nor am I saying that books written with out these constraints are all well-written books-because some of them undeniably aren't. What I am saying is that I sincerely hope that when writing for themselves, these authors take the opportunity of time and freedom of artistic expression a lot more seriously than they take a three-month deadline and characters they cannot change.

As for borrowed celebrity ... well, I've seen a lot of people buy media tie-ins over the years, and I can pretty much guarantee you that nine out ten of them don't care about the author. There is no borrowed celebrity because there is no celebrity. There's only three months of your life you got very well paid for-and hey, that's nothing to sneeze at, but career-wise, to the book-buying public, it means little.

Is there a chance that a Star Wars fan will see your name on a non-Star Wars book, recognize it and buy it, moving away from shallow and sparkly and into the genre as a whole? There's a chance. If nine out of ten fans don't care then there's obviously one who does, and for you, personally, that 10% may well lead to a significant sales bump of your other work. Unfortunately, though, for the genre as a whole, when we're talking Star Wars numbers, it's those nine who don't care who count, because when you're talking about 90% of Star Wars-sized numbers, you're talking about a lot of people. Enough people to skew the genre. To paraphrase from an earlier fandom: "Marketing to the many outweighs the needs of the one."

Do I think it's appropriate to describe you as lost? Ask me again in five years.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Thank you, Ms. Huff. I certainly hope to. If I live that long; there's a rumor that the Sith are out to get me. I'm not sure I believe it. Does this look like a Kaminoan sabre-dart to you?

DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover-

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Yes, yes. Call Richard Garfinkle.