In her essay collection Moving Targets Atwood explains that she doesn't consider the books she writes, including The Handmaid's Tale, which imagines a future America taken over by a fascist government, and Oryx and Crake, which is set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with genetically engineered creatures, science fiction, a genre she defines as "fiction in which things happen that are not possible today." Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novels like The Left Hand of Darkness have gained critical acclaim under the science fiction and fantasy labels, suggests that Atwood is not making a viable literary distinction, but rather protecting her works from "literary bigots" who relegate genre fiction to a "literary ghetto."

Le Guin doesn't begrudge Atwood her genre hair-splitting ("Who can blame her?" she says), but she actually believes that Atwood's latest book, The Year of the Flood, itself a continuation of the post-apocalyptic Oryx and Crake is less successful as "realistic" fiction than as genre fiction. In other words, reviewing it as a strictly realist literary novel instead of a speculative work forces Le Guin to write a more negative review:

I feel obliged to respect her wish, although it forces me, too, into a false position. I could talk about her new book more freely, more truly, if I could talk about it as what it is, using the lively vocabulary of modern science-fiction criticism, giving it the praise it deserves as a work of unusual cautionary imagination and satirical invention. As it is, I must restrict myself to the vocabulary and expectations suitable to a realistic novel, even if forced by those limitations into a less favourable stance.

With its vague references to a plague that wipes out humanity and characters better suited to morality play than emotional depth, she suggests that Atwood's novel nicely elucidates science fiction's power to "extrapolate imaginatively from current trends and events to a near-future that's half prediction, half satire," but that it is somewhat less successful as non-genre literary work. Le Guin seems ultimately less concerned with what Atwood's self-segregation means to the genre than that Atwood's refusal to label her book as science fiction makes the novel's bleak future at once upsetting and absurd:

It is no comfort to find that some of the genetic experiments are humanoids designed to replace humanity. Who wants to be replaced by people who turn blue when they want sex, so that the men's enormous genitals are blue all the time? Who wants to believe that a story in which that happens isn't science fiction?

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood [The Guardian]

Matt Staggs, a literary publicist who specializes in speculative fiction, has put forth a "GreenPunk Manifesto," to define the concept and his hopes for a possible eco-friendly fiction movement:

GreenPunk: a technophilic spec-fic movement centered on characters using and being affected by the use of DIY renewable resources, recycling and repurposing. GreenPunk would emphasize the ability of the individual – and his or her responsibility – for positive ecological and social change.

Rejecting steampunk's romanticism while embracing its focus on approachable, "knowable" technology (as opposed to the "black box" nature of digital tech), GreenPunk envisions a world in which the detritus of consumer culture as propogated by the Elite is appropriated and repurposed by the masses toward the reconstruction of a devastated ecology and the address of social ills.

What Staggs misses, however, is the design component that has made steampunk so popular. Because it's rooted to a particular aesthetic, steampunk is easy to recognize and simple for enthusiasts to replicate. Staggs is trying to compile a list of novels and stories that fit within his definition of greenpunk, but he might do better to work with designers and solicit images as well.

A GreenPunk Manifesto [Enter the Octopus]

This week New Scientist comes out with its science fiction issue, and Chown, who consults for the magazine, launches the discussion on where science fiction is headed. His question, whether science fiction is a dying genre, comes from individuals who suspect that science will leave science fiction with nothing to explore, a belief Chown does not share:

Such claims seem reminiscent of the perennial claims that science is dead or dying, most famously expounded by the prominent physicist Lord Kelvin in 1900, when he declared: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." This, of course, was just before the atom came apart, the quantum genie burst free and all scientific hell broke loose. In the case of science fiction, the premise of the doomsayers' claims is that the genre is about predicting the future. In fact, very little of it is.

Chown ultimately concludes that science fiction as we know it may change, but it will be an evolution rather than a distinction. And cyberpunk author William Gibson seems inclined to agree, noting that science fiction’s value has less to do with accuracy than on speculation, which casts a reflection on our society even as it imagines another time:

If I could magically access one body of knowledge from the real future, I think I'd choose either their history of the ancient past or whatever they might have that most resembles science fiction. The products of two different speculative activities. They'll know a lot more about our past than we do, and trying to reverse-engineer history out of dreams, as I recall, was quite a uniquely exciting activity.

Ursula K. Le Guin also emphasizes speculation over prediction, suggesting that recent science fiction has more successful when it puts less emphasis on the “science”:

Science fiction that pretended to show us the future couldn't keep up with the present. It failed to foresee the electronic revolution, for example. Now that science and technology move ever faster, much science fiction is really fantasy in a space suit: wishful thinking about galactic empires and cybersex - often a bit reactionary. Things are livelier over on the social and political side, where human nature, which doesn't revise itself every few years, can be relied on to provide good solid novel stuff. Writers like Geoff Ryman and China Miéville are showing the way, or Michael Chabon, who foregoes the future to give us a marvellous alternate present in The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Kim Stanley Robinson suggests a wholly different approach, however. He suggests science fiction writers return to form by setting their stories in a more distant future:

One solution is to jump past the next century to the familiar comforts of space fiction. If we survive we'll get out there, and it's a great story zone. Without the next century included, though, the imagined historical connection between now and then will be broken, and space fiction will become a kind of fantasy. We need to imagine the whole thing.

So we have to do the impossible and imagine the next century. The default probability is bad - not just dystopia but catastrophe, a mass extinction event that we will have caused and then suffered ourselves. That's a story we should tell, repeatedly, but it's only half the probability zone. It is also within our powers to create a sustainable permaculture in a healthy biosphere.

The issue also features meta-science fictional predictions from Margaret Atwood, Stephen Baxter, and Nick Sagan.

The Science Fiction Issue [via New Scientist]

The earlier scifi romance novels tend to rely on the conventions of the genre, with a virginal heroine seduced by a roguish hero – but in space:

Sweet Starfire by Jayne Ann Krentz
Description: Often credited as being the first mainstream futuristic romance novel, Sweet Starfire follows Cidra, a girl from a people called the Wolves. Raised by the alien Harmonics, Cidra lives a sheltered life where she knows nothing but spirituality and peace. That is, until she embarks on a galactic quest with Teague Severance, a rugged Wolf adventurer used to getting any woman he wants.
Excerpt:

This was different, far different, from anything Cidra had ever experienced. She felt her lips urged apart with an aggressive sensuality. She found she couldn't help but respond. Something deep within her seemed suddenly bursting to get out. With a shock she realized that although she had never experienced this kind of thing before, she knew about it. Something that had always lain dormant within her knew everything about this. And the knowledge had nothing to do with what she had always been told about sex.

And, of course, Cidra had been told all about sex by her parents and teachers. They had explained it to her, just as the principles of poetic kinetics and programming theory had been explained. What no one had succeeded in conveying was the sense of anticipation and excitement. No one had told her how her body would grow warm and languid or that there would be a small, curling flame in the pit of her stomach. She shivered, and Severance was immediately aware of it.

Warrior’s Woman by Johanna Lindsey
Description: Somehow nothing quite beats the official description:

In the year 2139, fearless Tedra De Arr sets out to rescue her beleaguered planet Kystran from the savage rule of the evil Crad Ce Moerr. Experienced in combat but not in love, the beautiful, untouched Amazon flies with Martha, her wise-cracking, free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reigns supreme—and into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish: the bronzed barbarian Challen Ly-San-Ter. A magnificent creature of raw yet disciplined desires, the muscle-bound primitive succeeds where no puny Kystran male had before—igniting a raging fire within Tedra that must be extinguished before she can even think of saving her enslaved world…

Excerpt:

He was well positioned between her legs now, had risen up to do so, his full weight supported by his arms. The biceps bulged and glistened with moisture. There was so much of him to touch, and Tedra loved touching him, looking at him. But right now she wanted to feel him deep inside her.

“If you wait much longer, Challen, I’m going to—”

She gasped as his heat entered her. Stars, there was such tightness, such fullness. She knew her body would accommodate him, but she didn’t think she could wait long enough for it to do so. She didn’t think he could either. His great body trembled in restraint, his muscles quivered, sweat broke out all over him. Either he was in as much discomfort as she, or he was putting on another superhuman effort. The effort was wasted. Despite the discomfort of his entry, of knowing there would be greater pain to come, Tedra wanted all of him and she wanted it now.

“Are you waiting for my permission?”

He made a sound between a growl and a moan, and gritted out, “Permission is not needed of a challenge loser.”

More recently, some authors have tried to more cohesively blend the science fiction and romance elements, often ditching the trope of the sexually inexperienced female:

Moonstruck by Susan Grant
Description: Starship Admiral Brit Bandar and Drakken Warleader Finn Rorkken once fought on opposite sides of a bitter and bloody war. Now an intergalactic treaty has Finn serving as second-in-command to “Stone Heart” Bandar. But as political tensions mount, the one-time nemeses start getting cozy, and soon they’re sharing more than just a spaceship.
Excerpt:

With this stranger between her legs, she could cast her memories back and pretend he was Seff and she his young wife, innocent, full of hopes and dreams, all the things she wasn’t now. They were only teenagers, married less than two years when Hordish marauders came. With this pretty stranger and all the others before him she could lose herself in the sex, almost believing in those moments of blinding, no-strings-attached passion that she was still human. That she could still feel.

“Come here.” She took his head between her hands and kissed him roughly. He returned the kiss with equal intensity, crushing her to the pillow, but something wasn’t right. Something’s missing, she thought. Of course it is, you fool. His passion is staged—it’s what you bought him for. Yours is real.

And, while pairs in mainstream scifi romance do tend to be heterosexual with neatly aligned gonads, some authors have made an effort to incorporate science fictional elements in their actual sex scenes:

Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair
Description: After yet another interstellar alliance, Captain Sass Sebastian ends up serving under the cyborg Admiral Branden Kel-Paten. And, although it’s supposed to be impossible for cyborgs to experience emotion, he soon develops strong, sexy feelings for Sass.
Excerpt:

Her hands curled into his waistband and unsnapped his pants.

Oh, sweet holy gods! only undo his pants faster. He moved toward her instead, before those clever fingers went further and tested the already strained limits of his emo-inhibitors. He grabbed her arms, trying for another kiss, but she was pulling him with her. He caught her against him just as the back of her legs hit the edge of the bed. Her knees buckled, and suddenly she was on her back and he was on top of her, his bare chest against hers. Warmth flowed where they touched. He levered up quickly on one arm, but she’d already locked her hands around his neck. Her impish smile pleaded for a kiss.

He fought the impulse for all of 3.25 seconds, according to the readouts in the lower left corner of his vision. Kissing was good. It was something he was getting better at. It kept her from seeing the patterns of his surgeries. It kept her hands—wrapped around his neck—away from his pants.

One of the brilliant things about mindwipey plots, at least in a television show, is that they allow writers to transform a character without any of those messy "gradually changing over time" transitions. So there's an immediate lure for television creators who need to come up with new stuff every week, and for actors who want to step outside their usual characters.

Despite the fact that mindwipe stories mean lots of changes, there are really just three basic ways to construct them, all of which you've seen before and are about to see again (that is, if we don't force you to forget about them).

You've Been Reprogrammed
One of the most popular mindwipe plots involves some kind of deleting and reprogramming of our character's personality, whether that character is Eliza Dushku's Echo in Dollhouse or Summer Glau's Cameron in Sarah Connor Chronicles. When a character is reprogrammed, you might say she experiences a series of sequential personalities — she sheds an old identity and gains a new one. This is a quick way to turn an evil character good, and that's why the good guys in Sarah Connor have a Terminator on their side.

But it's also an easy way to symbolize the weirdness of all human identity, where we often put on different roles throughout the day and shed them as necessary. In one day, a person might be a parent, an underling at work, a nervous lover on a second date, and (in the case of a show like Dollhouse) a super-assassin and sex doll. You've seen the drama of the reprogrammed person before, of course: the movie Johnny Mnemonic was all about a guy who deletes his personality so he can have more room in his brain when he works as a data mule. And in the Matrix, people can reprogram their brains (though there's no hint that they have to delete old identities to do it).

Oddly, the one non-scifi place on TV where you can find a lot of "reprogrammed" characters is soap operas, where characters have to constantly change all the time or your daily audience gets bored. I don't mean to say that soap writers literally reprogram or brainwash their characters (thought that does happen sometimes). I just mean that the idea of sequential personalities is common on soaps, where people flip-flop between the extremes of good and bad all the time.

Missing Time
Perhaps the most often-used mindwipe plot involves people who forget chunks of their past. This is a central premise in Heroes, where the Haitian's special power is to make people forget things they've seen. It's also used to comedic effect in the movie Men in Black, where the agents all have devices that make people forget that they've seen aliens.

Often, a missing time mindwipe allows a character to reboot and become a new person, the way superspy Sydney did during the amnesia season of Alias. Or it can simply reduce our character to a terrified weirdo, desperately trying to remember what has happened to him by tattooing information all over his body like the main character does in Memento.

Missing time is also, for some reason, an incredibly popular plot twist in romantic comedies: Everything from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to 50 First Dates involve characters who fall in love despite (or because of) the fact that they can't remember each other clearly.

A Secret Sharer
Probably the darkest way to spin the mindwipe plot is to create a character who has two personalities, one of whom is working against the other. Usually the story is spun the way My Own Worst Enemy is, where a main character who seems fairly innocuous discovers that he has an alter-ego who secretly shares his body and is doing all kinds of dastardly and/or dangerous things. Usually the alter-ego knows all about the main character, while the main character has no memory of his darker half. This setup goes all the way back to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where the doctor can't remember what he does as Hyde, but Hyde knows all about the doctor and hates his guts — oh, and by the way, the two sharers in Worst Enemy are named Henry and Edward, after Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.

The classic "secret sharer" plot that My Own Worst Enemy is clearly referencing is Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, where a druggie realizes that the cop who has him under surveillance is actually the other half of his own personality.

This kind of "secret identity" story lends itself well to spy thrillers, which is why you see less mindwipey versions of it showing up in crappy 1990s flick True Lies (where Jamie Lee Curtis discovers her dorky husband Arnie Schwarzenegger is secretly a superspy) and inexplicable hit Mr. and Mrs. Smith, where a very domestic couple turn out to be mega-assassins at each other's throats. This is basically the drama of discovering a secret self: The plot goes all scifi when the secret self turns out to live in your own head.

Why Mindwipes Now?
Essentially, the mindwipe is a way of making a standard reality-based plot into something scifi. Soaps, romances, and spy thrillers can all be remolded into cool scifi stories if you just add a little brainwashing. Or reprogramming. Or weird drugs that give you a split personality. So it's possible the mindwipe craze is just an epiphenomenon in the more general scifi craze.

It's also likely that, as I mentioned earlier, the mindwipe is an easy way to talk about how our daily lives make us feel that our personalities have become fragmented. In a world where people switch jobs every few years, where families can be scattered across great distances, and the internet creates communities that have no geographical location at all, everyone starts to feel a little bit like they they are leading triple and quadruple lives.

And when you try to juggle multiple selves, it often leads to an uncanny sense of missing time. And who knows? Maybe you saved the world during that missing time. Or released a Big Bad from some other dimension. That's the really potent fantasy at the heart of all this. The idea that you didn't lose time to some dumb traffic jam or distracting blog, but instead were doing something more important than you ever realized.

While some of the essay is a bit of a stretch, author Tim Mitchell does raise a number of interesting points for genre hounds. He explains why it's significant that the Mimic movies are located in an urban environment (vs. the deserts of Tarantula and Them!), and he has a lot of terrific observations about how the Mimic movies express fears about transgenic animals and crops. And, of course, how they express fears about other things too:

In “Mimic 2,” Remi cannot find a boyfriend who understands her but nevertheless cannot shake the sexual designs of a male Judas Breed insect — a suitor that Remi understands better than her human suitors because of her background in entomology.

Check it out.

Pictures of Insect Men [via PopPolitics]