#73. Crítica de ciencia-ficción. Artículo de Jonathan McCalmont

Increíblemente, tengo esta entrada de McCalmont abierta y olvidada en una pestaña del navegador desde hace once meses. Ahí me la he encontrado hoy, y es como que te regalen una bolsa de caramelos.


Jonathan McCalmont (2012). Annoyed with the history of science fiction. Ruthless Culture, 28 de noviembre de 2012.


Lo bueno de este chico es que da igual si estás de acuerdo con él o no. Aunque solo te quedes con frases aisladas, tiene frases aisladas buenísimas.

Even more frustrating is the fact that Heinlein’s influence is not only taken for granted but assumed to be positive.

I would even go so far as to argue that Lem’s approach to info-dumping is so effective and idiosyncratic that it not only forms an integral part of his novels’ literary affect, it also makes his work substantially more complex and interesting than anything written under the purview of show-don’t-tell.

For example, to approach M. John Harrison’s Light armed only with show-don’t-tell is a recipe for disastrous mystification and the mindless parroting of received opinion.

Y sin aislar:

If we simply assume that show-don’t-tell was a linear improvement on the info-dump then it follows that writers like Stephenson and Lem are nothing more than unsophisticated writers who have yet to acquire the skills necessary for Heinleinian narrative immersion. However, if we assume that science fiction is a literary tradition rich enough to create its own literary techniques and that the info-dump might be a literary technique with its own affective payload then experimental info-dumpers such as Lem and Stephenson immediately appear more important and influential.

When William Gibson’s short story “The Gernsback Continuum” positioned cyberpunk in the history of science fiction, he presented cyberpunk as a direct response to golden age SF and not as a development of the techniques and perspectives pioneered by feminist SF. Had genre historians had a better grasp of the techniques that went into creating the cyberpunk aesthetic then chances are that feminist SF would never have been marginalised in the way it undoubtedly was.

The message contained in “About 5,175 Words” is doubtless revolutionary but the revolution never happened. In fact, one could almost say that the notoriety of Delany’s essay has allowed the field to effectively sweep it under the carpet and continue as if nothing happened. Everyone read the essay and heard its clarion call and then promptly went back to wafting hot air through the convention bar whilst congratulating themselves that Delany’s essay had changed everything.

Y, en un dos por uno nunca antes visto, el célebre ensayo de Delany. Es recomendable descargarlo y quedarse con una copia por si acaso, ya que lo he buscado muchas veces "en el gratis total" sin encontrarlo.


Samuel Delany (1978). About 5750 words. En: The jewel-hinged jaw, 1-15. Wesleyan Univ. Press (2009).


Al que no le dé un escalofrío en el momento "The red sun is high. The blue", que abandone este blog inmediatamente.

(Y entonces, que no se compre el libro y que no se lea To read The Dispossessed, crítica de 70 páginas donde Delany dedica cuatro solamente al primer párrafo de Los desposeídos de doña Ursula.)