io9
Some science fiction book lovers have a dark mythology in their heads about literary poaching: literary authors lift speculative ideas and themes, handle them clumsily, and then insult the genre they're pillaging. It's a paranoid fantasy, and mostly not true. But I have a feeling Jeanette Winterson's newest novel, The Stone Gods, will become something of a posterchild for that viewpoint. It's too bad, since once you get past Winterson's clumsiness around speculative themes, you find something stranger and more provocative than either SF or literature. Spoilers are in the offing.
The Stone Gods tells the story of two characters, three different times. The first time, Billie is a cynical human who gets roped into helping colonize a new planet, and Spike is the beautiful slutty android who falls in love with her. The second time, Billy is a cabin boy who gets marooned on Easter Island, and Spikker is the Dutch sailor, also marooned, who competes with natives to harvest a precious seagull egg. And then the third time around, Spike is a female android again, but she's under construction and is just a head so far. Billie is a software engineer helping to create Billie. And then there's a twist at the end of the book that brings the three narratives together. It's cute, even if you see it coming a long way off.
Winterson has dabbled in science fictional themes, so it's not surprising that her new novel The Stone Gods is full of androids, space colonization and post-apocalypses. Her second novel, Sexing The Cherry, had a sort of time-travel motif. But Stone Gods is probably Winterson's most scifi book so far.
Too bad she's so clueless about how to deal with speculative world-building. Chances are, most science fiction readers won't make it past the first 20 pages of Stone Gods before the urge to start tearing the pages gets too overwhelming. Winterson goes for the "massive info-dump" theory in establishing her future setting. And just in case you don't understand how brave and new her world is, she starts way too many paragraphs with a weird alphabet game. "F is for future." "R is for robot." Etc. etc. (No, I'm not kidding. She actually starts a paragraph "R is for robot.")
It's sad, because the dystopian futures she creates are actually extremely compelling — at the start of the book, we see a more dissolute version of our world, where everyone is genetically "fixed" to look young and beautiful, and pedophilia is becoming accepted. (Early on, we meet a woman who is trying to have herself genetically modified to become a 12-year-old "Lolita" for her husband, who visits a sex club featuring bestiality and pedophilia.) And then towards the end of the book, we encounter another future dystopia, where a nuclear war has left the world under the domination of the MORE corporation, which owns everything. (Humans can't own property, but they can rent things from MORE, in a weird sort of corporate communism.)
In all three of the linked stories, Winterson explores the idea that humans are destroying the planet through not just greed, but the pursuit of stupid status symbols. (Like the "stone gods" of the book's title, which are the Easter Island statues that the tribespeople ruin the island's ecosystem to create.) And just in case we miss the significance of her message, she includes some long rambling lectures towards the end.
I have a feeling Stone Gods could have been a great novel — and a great piece of speculative fiction — if Winterson had only been edited more heavily, or forced to do a total rewrite. It's full of great ideas, and every time I was about to give up on it completely, I hit on another fascinating scene, or another piece of beautiful lyrical writing. Winterson's major comfort zone is obviously writing "queer romance," so when the various permutations of Spike and Billie have a tender moment, the quality of the prose suddenly goes way up.
And Stone Gods has moments of genuine cleverness — like the sequence where the expedition to colonize a new human homeworld fucks up spectacularly. It reminded me of the wonderful turning point in The Sparrow where the humans mistakenly send their shuttle to pick up some of their crew — and then realize they don't have enough fuel to get off the planet any more. I like reading science fiction where people make disastrous mistakes, because this happens a lot in real life and not nearly as often in regular science fiction. It's interesting to me that both The Sparrow and The Stone Gods were sold as literature — I'm racking my brains to think of novels published as science fiction where human error by the good guys plays a major role.
But as it is, the Stone Gods doesn't just fail as science fiction. It fails as metafiction as well, and for much the same reason. Winterson uses a whole passel of postmodern tricks (most notably the three permutations of the same story, but also a host of stylistic tricks). But she's not engaged enough to use them all that well, and you can't escape the feeling that all of the cleverness (like the main character of the third segment finding a manuscript of the rest of the book) is a way of covering up a certain disengagement from the story and characters.
It's hard to care about these people, because you get the feeling Winterson doesn't quite care about them either. They're just a platform for Winterson's ideas. All three versions of Billie are sort of disaffected and unlikeable. And all three versions of Spike are sweet and naive, but a little superficial.
For another point of view on Winterson's novel, here's a thoughtful review by brilliant Ribofunk author Paul DiFilippo.
Comments
So the something "stranger and more provocative" than scifi and lit is failure?
@Tim Faulkner: Well, if you have to put it that way. It's stranger and more provocative, even if it doesn't quite succeed.
@Tim Faulkner: And something I meant to say in my review is that I have a soft spot for ambitious failures.
@Charlie Jane Anders: But it's NOT scifi or literature because it does fail?
I love how this works.
Hahahah. I get it. The MORE Corporation.
Like, "more!" Because corporations are greedy!
@Tim Faulkner: It fails as SF or literature, but it's still provocative and interesting, yeah.
@braak: Did I mention this is not a subtle book?
No offense intended to my non-heterosexual friends out there, but why is it that every piece of literary sci-fi involve alternative, even crazy sexuality?
Can't just have an astronaut. . . gotta be a *gay* astronaut. Can't just have an android. . . gotta be a *NAMBLA-supporting* android.
I just kinda find it obsessive. It's like every sci-fi author these days learned to write by reading Buffy slash-fan-fiction. . .
@Daveinva: Oh man, I wish that were true. But most scifi has very hetero-normal characters.
Also, if it's true that you don't want to offend queer people, you might try not comparing gayness with NAMBLA-supportingness. Just an FYI.
@Daveinva: NAMBLA, really? You're gonna go there?
@Daveinva:
I'd suspect that a shocking high percentage of current up and coming SciFi authors have, in fact, written Buffy slash fiction at some point. Not that they would ever admit it. Assuming they get archived I predict that the various fanfic sites will hold all sorts of embarrassing revelations about prominent authors in years to come.
Also, Heinlein kind of set the tone for much of what is considered acceptable in SciFi.
Besides, This is the genre where you can get away with almost anything so I think it is partially a case of authors who want to explore certain social ideas being drawn to play in the SciFi sandbox rather than SciFi inherently generating these types of stories.
@Daveinva: I remember thinking something similar when I read Iron Council, and I thought, "Why is this perspective character gay? What does that accomplish?"
Then, I re-evaluated my position--why should I assume he's straight? Why is straight the "standard" position for a person to be? Surely his sexuality doesn't necessarily have to have any greater statement behind it than his hair color or his shoe size, right?
In that particular case, I re-evaluated my position a third time, because the main character is actually defined essentially solely by his sexuality for no apparent reason, which I think wasn't a great choice (unlike the relationships in, say, Perdido Street Station).
That said, I think we're just seeing a reaction to centuries of oppression about writing non-hetero sexuality in genre fiction.
@Annalee Newitz:
You explicitly say that part of the setting is the acceptability of pedophilia. I don't think a NAMBLA comparison is too inappropriate.
Well, it is a fairly accurate representation of things. The internet explosion is as much the sex explosion as anything else.
I don't just mean the availability of porn, but the overwhelming weight of slash out there, the various subcultures that aren't so subcultural anymore, or at least don't look like they are.
Throw in things like the Casual Encounters sections of websites, actual dating websites, and cybersex in all its manifestations, which reverberates down back to actual sex as well, and I think it's safe to say that the most pervasive way the internet has changed what we do on a day-to-day basis has been how it's changed how we get off.
Science fiction being what it is, it only makes sense to extrapolate this theme.
Or, if you don't buy that, just chalk it up to that appeal to the prurient interest.
I see that whole sexuality thing in a lot more than sci-fi, and a lot of times, it's carried off poorly, in some sort of half-assed attempt to... I don't even know WHAT, really.
Like when a character goes through half a novel or film, and then it's suddenly revealed he/she is gay, and then never expanded on or mentioned again.
It's like, why the hell would you even bring it up? It doesn't hold any bearing on anything in the long run!
@Ryan H: You make a good point. If he would have stuck with sexual deviancy like bestiality and pedophilia, then it wouldn't be offensive. But the problem arises because he grouped gay people in with those things.
It seemed like a pretty fair review, although the book's editor might not agree on some points. Such is art. As for LGBT characters in sf books: not a lot, but more are showing up. Some ambi-sexual, such as in Charles Stross's Glass House play with gender identity, but only to a certain extent. Gay is not cool yet, at least not with most protags. My last manuscript has bi characters because I think it gives them more options. I was told by an editor that a manuscript of mine was rejected by ----publishing because the head man didn't like gay boy characters in sf. I just wish it hadn't taken them two years to decide that.
@Annalee Newitz: Apologies, no offense intended. As it was noted in the review, the book deals with pedophilia, which in my original comment I associate with "crazy" sexuality versus the far more vanilla "alternative" sexuality, i.e. homosexuality.
Still, my larger point stands. I have no trouble with my sci-fi involving sexuality of all stripes-- hell, Arthur C. Clarke was doing it long before it became fashionable-- I was just remarking that it seems to be an increasingly casual, and often IMHJO clumsy, way for an author to make their sci-fi stand out as "literary" and "edgy."
It's the "Ellen" effect-- just because she's gay didn't make her sitcom funny, but it sure got people talking about it.
@Tim Faulkner: It's possible for something to be innovative but still badly executed, or majorly flawed in some other aspect. It's important to make that distinction, I think: You don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but you don't have to keep the bathwater with the baby either. I've read a number of novels whose cultural importance or literary innovation I recognize, but are flawed in other aspects that make them unpleasant or a chore to read (Dhalgren, I'm looking at you!).
As for sexuality in SF, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine perceptions of sexuality, or sexuality itself, changing at some point in the future, and it can be both interesting and compelling when done right. The problem arises when (again) it's poorly executed, or shoehorned into the story to make a point or seem "different." And if it's the sole defining aspect of a character, that's just bad characterization. We are, as a society, only beginning to broadly accept homosexuality and alternative sexuality, so it's only to be expected that these issues should become more prevalent in our literature and fiction.
@Daveinva: I guess I just haven't read a lot of scifi that seemed to use queer/unusual sex as a way to proclaim its edginess. I have read a lot of scifi with characters who are gay, polyamorous, have sex with bug people, aliens, etc., but those things seemed no more outlandish than FTL, living for hundreds of years, teleportation, and perfect A.I. I mean, if you're going to have futuristic tech you might as well have futuristic sex. And apparently sex with bug people is more futuristic than heterosexual sex between humans.
I don't make the rules -- I just write about them.
@Ubik2501: Certainly (An example: Jim Thompson is a great and awful noir writer at the same time), but I didn't get that from this. Charlie got me to read the review because I was wondering what was "more provocative and stranger." I still don't know what that is. It certainly sounds completely devoid of innovation. And it sounds flawed in every regard.
The homeless guy on the corner is provocative and strange -- I wouldn't give him a book deal.
@Ryan H: NAMBLA = North American Man Boy Love Association. The pedophilia mentioned in the review and the vast majority of it in fact is heterosexual. NAMBLA is treated like the "lunatic fringe" even among these people.
I don't think that speculation on more liberal, "deviant" (note the quotes), or even unimaginable sexual practices is at all unrealistic. Scifi is about speculation. How boring is it to assume that there will still be a majority of heterosexual people and a minority of homosexuals, when you can imagine sex with robots, aliens, modded humans, transhumans, gods, colors, intelligent numbers, whatever. This book may suck, but it sounds like its not because of any futurist sexual guesses but because the author was inept in the handling of the harder concepts and failed to suspend the readers disbelief.
I cant help but think of the Pie O Pah character in Imagica, who was neither male nor female, and whose sexual organs were described as "capable of unfolding like a flower, to either hold or penetrate." Thats imagination, and gods bless the authors that still pray on the altar of originality.
This novel was in the running for this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award, but she lost out to a dead guy.
[news.bbc.co.uk]
@Daveinva:"gotta be a *NAMBLA-supporting* android."
I think in this case it would be IMBLA: Intergalactic Man Boy Love Association, or Intergalactic Man Bot Love Association.
@Ryan H: "Also, Heinlein kind of set the tone for much of what is considered acceptable in SciFi."
As our very self-appointed Heinlein expert, let me say that many of Heinlein's characters (especially from "Stranger" on) were often open to sexual experimentation, this did not define the characters, other than that they loved one another. I might also say, that it was often the women dragging the men kicking and screaming into unconventional relationships. Like teen age clones Laz and Lor taking advantage of a "defenseless" 2000 year old "father," Lazarus Long.
Wow, I'm really surprised that Jeannette Winterson would do anything crappily at all. I adored Sexing the Cherry. I'll be picking up The Stone Gods as soon as it comes out, and I hope to God the flaws you point out aren't as bad as they seem.
@Ubik2501: And I loved Dhalgren, too, it's pretty much my favorite book. Man, I just have really weird taste, huh?
@pheagan: If it's weird, it's weird like the editor of the book and the publisher that she sold the idea to. A book doesn't get purchased if someone doesn't like it a lot. It's all subjective.
Didn't i read somewhere that she had denied that it was Sf in the same way that Rowling denies thst HP is fantasy.
Plus there is the fact that nobody has mentioned yet that the author is herself gay so is more likely to write about gay characters than would a hetero author.
Its still crap in that way all Sf done by Literate authors tend to be I mean I can't be the only one who read The Road by CMC and preferred The Postman or The stand.
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