Science Fiction or Fantasy in the Southern Reach

The following contains limited spoilers about Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy.  It does not discuss details or plot points, but does discuss basic approach and possible themes.

For about a decade, I read SF (aka science fiction aka speculative fiction) at high speed and nearly constantly.   This would have been before, during and after college, when I was productively employed at the RAND Corporation and had a future.  That is, before I destroyed my life by going into the bogus field of computer graphics / animation.   At some point, I decided it was time to move on to the related fields of historical linguistics, computational biology and so forth and so stopped reading much fiction at all.

But I was very fond of the field that SF came from and so recently, the last year or two, I have started reading selected works in the field of SF and came across Greg VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, a work I reviewed here) and which I think very highly of.   

So I recommended this work to a friend who currently does read nearly everything in SF and he read it and told me how much he hated it.   The reason was because he felt strongly that it was not SF but was fantasy.  I on the other hand had no doubt and have no doubt that it is SF and not fantasy.

The reader of this blog may or may not know that the distinction between SF and fantasy is a hotly debated topic in the field, by which I mean the authors, readers, editors, and publishers who deal with Fantasy and SF.   This discussion has been going on since before I started reading in this area, and it goes on today.

The fundamental distinction between the two fields is to what extent one violates the laws of physics and of what we know about reality and with what consistency one does so.   In classic SF one is allowed to make certain assumptions up front, for example faster-than-light travel or alien races with certain characteristics, but having made those assumptions then write a story that takes place in that world without taking additional liberties.   Fantasy, on the other hand, so someone from the world of SF would maintain, is permitted to not only take more liberties at the beginning, but is allowed to use magical belief systems at any time later in the work.    Thus, according to one school of thought, SF is a sub-genre of fantasy but with more constraints on what is and is not allowed.

A landscape in the Southern Reach 

The classic or canonical work of fantasy might be Tolkien's Lord of the Rings whereas the canonical work of SF might be Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Both are certainly works of fiction, and both are fantasy, but the latter has a more concise set of assumptions.

But another school of thought says that this distinction is perhaps not so clear as fantasy also has to abide by the rules and constraints of the assumptions that are made just as any good work of fiction must.   The difference between them may lie in the conventions of the specific topics that are chosen as assumptions.  In SF one may more properly assume technologies to go under water, but in fantasy one may assume the existence of a magical system available only to adepts, but in both cases one has constraints to live by in the execution of the story.

A metaphor-rich lighthouse lens plays a central role in the novels

But I think that the perception my friend had that the Southern Reach trilogy was fantasy did not come from that classic distinction between the two genres described above, but on another criteria sometimes discussed: what is the allowable amount of unexplained phenomena that is permitted?  If one exceeds this loosely defined limit would that make a piece of fiction fantasy and not SF?   

It is a premise of the Southern Reach trilogy that something very strange has happened to a part of the fictional, possibly parallel, world that the story is set in.   This region of the coast in a place very reminiscent of parts of Florida, is exhibiting a tremendous number of phenomena that are outside our normal understanding of how the world works.  It started to do so suddenly, with very little warning, and when it began, it put up a wall, or barrier, to separate the normal world from this very different place.   The plot and action of the story is for people from outside the area to try and figure out what is going on, what has happened, and what is the fate of the people who were in the area when the barrier came down, or who enter the area afterwards, or who remain outside the barrier in the normal world. 

Rampant ambiguity, or unexplained mysteries,  in the Southern Reach are part of the charm of the work. When the work is finished, many of these issues are still left unresolved although most of them, at least many of the important ones, are either somewhat resolved or we have a good working theory for what may be going on here.  But even at the end of the work there are still a lot of unexplained issues.  Some of this ambiguity is personal: what is the fate of this character or that one?  And some of the ambiguity is at a much larger level that involves the fate of many people, or the explanation for phenomena on a macro level.

The answer that is implied, but never conclusively pinned down in detail, is that we are seeing the work of an artifact or artifacts created by a very advanced and very different intelligence, one that is going about its work without much concern about us and may not even realize in some sense of the word that we are here.  But Arthur Clarke has famously pointed out that any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.   So when we are through with this book one does not have everything explained, and one can choose to believe that what one is seeing is magic and not technology if one wants to.   The author is by design not going to tell you for certain what is going on, it is up to you to make your own judgment.

So on top of all the other ambiguity inherent in the Southern Reach trilogy, we have the potential of a new one, whether or not the works are properly categorized as science fiction or fantasy.

At the end of the day, when you reach the light at the top of lighthouse, it is up to you to decide whether there is magic or unexplained and advanced technology that is behind some of what you have just read about.

Which leads us to another question.  Can readers of classical science fiction accept work that has a high degree of ambiguity?

Economist Essay on the Future of Books

The Economist is still one of my favorite magazines. It is literate, it is functional, it has good analysis, and it is not as stupidly right wing as the Wall Street Journal has become. It is what we might call, intelligent middle of the road. The magazine is not about business alone, it is also perhaps about the world at large, but as seen through the eyes of an economist, hence its title.

But I am mentioning it today because it has an entertaining essay on the past and future of the “book”. And it has done so in a way that is cute: retaining the stains and other weirdnesses of the classic book.

Read the essay yourself at:

http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21623373-which-something-old-and-powerful-encountered-vault

Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance, Ambiguity and Annoyance

Spoilers are in orange to make them difficult to read.    But if you are one of those who like to know NOTHING about a work, then stop here.

This is something of a review or a commentary on Jeff vanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy: Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance, whose third and final book has just been published.

I will know the hand of the sinner that brings forth the strangling fruit of inconclusive fiction. The wretched of the light will stomp mightily on the sinful authors of ambiguous trilogies and send them screaming into the eternal hell of publishing corruption while the worms giggle and chew energetically on the flesh of the accursed author....

VanderMeer has done two things that I enjoy very much in a work of fiction.  First, he has written what is plausibly described as a mystery story, but cleverly obscures what the real mysteries are. Second he has written something that feels like it could be a fantasy novel, or a novel of the supernatural, that is actually science fiction.  As all devoted readers of science fiction know, SF has rules of its own which are different from the genre of fantasy.

I started reading the Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) a year ago without realizing it had not all been published yet, something I swore to never do again after a bad experience in my youth involving Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber. (1)   But having started reading this series and finding it compelling, I ordered books two and three from Kindle and binge read them when they were released.   I was right to suspect that this was going to be a messy ending.   What does messy mean?  It means that many of the mysteries of Area X and the three books of the Southern Reach Trilogy are not resolved by the end of the third book.  In fact, new mysteries are added by the third book extending the cause of anxiety-producing lack of closure.

The worms will dance in the brain of the sinners who fail to resolve important plot points and bring forth the seeds of the annoyed who will jump up and down and never forgive ... 

These are not the real covers, these are alternate covers I found on the Internet, somewhere.

VanderMeer is perfectly happy to spin a narrative all the way up to page 295 of a 300 page book, then throw out some perfectly plausible world-shattering solution that wipes away the mirage of normalcy and in itself poses another dozen or more questions and then stop. Oh, I guess we are done. Some things in life are ambiguous, I can hear him thinking, thats just the way life is. That may be true in life, but in fiction there is more control and we can point the finger of responsibility if we care to, something that is much harder to do in real life.  

None of this would matter except that VanderMeer is very talented and has done an excellent job of creating a fascinating mystery or ten and characters that I care about.   Pretty much all of them are 'fucked with' hard by Area X which may or may not realize or care what it is doing to them.   And the author rather heartlessly leaves truly sympathetic characters as well as sympathetic readers hanging.

The seeds of the annoyed will emit glowing clouds of vengeance that will plotz on the author and cause him/her/it to rue the day....

After a moment of vocal displeasure for the son-of-a-bitch, a series of possible solutions presented themselves to me. Perhaps by carefully rereading the book(s), one can discover clues that resolve seemingly unresolved issues.  Perhaps there is a subtext or structure to what is answered and what is not.  Perhaps some of the questions are more important than others and that this will become clear upon reflection.  

So in other words, on top of the mysteries left apparently unresolved is the new mystery of why he did this. What was he thinking? Is he a sadist?  Is there a sequel planned? Has he been transformed by Area X?  Is he working for them?

Those who have read the trilogy or do not mind spoilers may read a partial list in the notes (2).

But as time has passed (we are in the third or fourth day since the final book was published) and as I reread the first and second books, I realize that there are some answers in descriptions and events previously described but whose significance was not apparent at the time.  I find that I am somehow going ahead with my life in spite of the ambiguity, that I have "accepted" the fact that we are all completely victimized by forces beyond our control and understanding.   

You can read the first few pages at the link below, annotated by the author.

http://lit.genius.com/Jeff-vandermeer-annihilation-chapter-1-annotated#note-3146601

And here is an annotated excerpt of the second novel.
http://lit.genius.com/Jeff-vandermeer-authority-excerpt-annotated#note-3187479

The unknown plant will bring forth the seeds of the dead who will stomp on the fingers of the readers who believed that there is meaning and rational causation in the universe that they can understand but that is not the case.

___________________________________________

Notes

1. When I first read Nine Princes in Amber I am pretty sure it was just a single book.  Then presumably something happened, it got popular, whatever, and a series of sequels started getting published perhaps one per year for a decade.  I was screwed and never did read the final books.

2. The following is an abbreviated list of just some of the issues either left very ambiguous or completely unanswered.

None of the questions or issues are about the specific technologies or “how things work”, although there is a huge amount of mystery there. I am completely willing to accept that somehow they do work.  Some of the questions below may have answers in some form in the book, but its subtle. Other questions could be added to this list.  

Should you care to read the spoilers, remember that most browsers will increase type size with control-+.  Hit that a few times and the following will be readable.

What is Area X trying to accomplish with that part of the Forgotten Coast? In other words, why is the Forgotten Coast there, and whatever replaced it here? What is the purpose of the topological anomaly? What is the crawler doing, what is its purpose, what do the words mean, why are they being written? (There are some clues to this in the third book, not altogether satisfying, but some clues). What is the thing in the sky and why is it so terrifying? What is the significance of the island and the other lighthouse. Is the owl the missing husband? It would seem that Area X can communicate with us if we take the situation in the tunnel/tower and Ghost Bird as communication, which I think it is. So why has it not communicated before? Why only now, possibly also with the cell phone? What is it trying to say? Does the border still exist? Has the entire world been incorporated into Area X? Why did Lowry not transform or did he? What happened to the first expedition that is different from what happened later? Did the S&SB help initiate Area X by somehow stimulating what was trapped and inert in the lens? What is the plan that the director thinks she has with the biologist in the context of the twelfth expedition, and why would the biologist be significant in her plan? Why did the director not transform or did she? What happened when John Rodriquez went through the door? Is he dead? Does anyone really die in this world or are they all available to be cloned later with or without certain memories? What changed when he went through the door? Is Area X now broken? Is Saul/the Crawler dead? When Area X is wherever it is, what is in its place behind the border where the Forgotten Coast used to be? If the entire world is Area X when the border expanded does that mean that it has also been transported to another place, with a mirage to make it think it is still where it was? Why (as in what is the purpose) of transforming everyone and everything? Is it a way of learning about them or interrogating them? Why did the director refuse to help the biologist when she was dying outside the lighthouse? What is it that caused the director to throw herself off the lighthouse to begin with? How do the journals get to the lighthouse, as it seems unlikely that many of the members of the expedition would be able to to put their journals there (given they were dead, or transformed or insane or running for the border).

Archive of Books on Cryptome Courtesy of Aaron Swartz

[January 22, 2013: Cryptome has added more books from the archive, and a discussion of the issues related to how they got the archive.   This is the link and it has the most comprehensive list of books that are available from this source on their site.    See http://cryptome.org/aaron-swartz-series.htm]

Cryptome is an internet site that acts as a reporitory of documents, usually government documents, that are related to freedom of speech, cryptography, spying and surveillance. In the aftermath of the Aaron Swartz suicide, they listed on their website approximately 40 different books in PDF form that were probably part of the cache of documents that Swartz had taken from MIT.

But these books are actually a selection from the larger group of books that Swartz 'liberated' and that Cryptome has supposedly archived.  For a  complete list, see below:
http://cryptome.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/swartz-dl-docs.txt

The first thing I noticed was one of my favorite books, about the Mitochondria by Nick Lane is on this extended list.

A few favorites out of the 40 or so that are posted include:

The MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences, by Wilson and Keil, a 1000+ page encyclopedia of topics in the field of Cognitive Science.

The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Heier, Jr,, CIA book on the psychology behind Intelligence analysis, addressing such issues as bias in intelligence analysis and reporting.

A Culture of Conspiracy by Barkun, which is a discussion and history of apocalyptic vision in contemporary America, including a review of how the radical right wing started picking up aspects of UFOlogy, as well as the relationship between apocalyptic prophecy and various right wing fringe groups.

Complexity and Cryptography: An Introduction, by Talbot and Welsh, which is a book derived from a course taught by Talbot and Welsh at Oxford as part of a MsC course in Mathematics and the Foundations of Computer Science. It introduces basic complexity theory and cryptography together.

Information Technology and Moral Philosophy by van der Hoven and Weckert, a collection of essays on information ethics, the epistemology of blogging, etc.

Principles of Cybercrime by Clough, which is a 500 page introduction to the history, theory, law and practice of international cybercrime.

And about 35 other books.  Go to http://cryptome.org and look for entries marked "Aaron Swartz:".

The Wikipedia page on Cryptome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptome

Velikovsky and The Catastrophists

[I think the title of this piece would make a fabulous name of a band of some sort].

When I worked at the Hayden Planetarium, there were a few words you did not use in the presence of an astrophysicist.  Two of those words were "Immanuel Velikovsky", and if you were ever stupid enough to use those words in front of an astrophysicist, you made damn sure that they were not holding a cup of hot coffee or a knife, because out of instinct they would probably throw them at you.

Velikovsky was a "catastrophist", one of my favorite types of people.   Scientists went apeshit when they were faced with Velikovsky's ideas.

A "catastrophist" is someone who believes that the history of this planet has at various times been subject to dramatic events, or catastrophes, that cause a complete collapse of civilization and a restart, usually with no memory of what happened before, or very little memory.   Someone who believed in the biblical flood, for example, as a real historical event would be a catastrophist.   They might theorize that the story of Noah's Flood and of the exile from the Garden of Eden were dim memories of an earlier time and civilization,  handed down through the ages, however imperfectly.   Those who believe that Atlantis existed, but was destroyed by some disaster, would presumably also be catastrophists.   There may be a flavor of catastrophist to some of Lovecraft's work, e.g. the notion of the Elder Races.   Catastrophists can be said to write entertaining stories, in my humble opinion.  As science, that is another matter.

But when Velikovsky discussed his ideas, more formal and respectable scientists lost their minds and went nuts attacking him (so I hear).  Very undignified.   This book tries to explain what happened.

Read this review of a book on the topic.  Trust me.
http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/steven-shapin/catastrophism

Fromkin on British Diplomatic History and its Role in Understanding Lawrence of Arabia

From time to time, this blog is going to recommend some book or books on a topic.   The goal is to help my readers be so much better informed on important issues that we face every day: from the Indo European language "problem", to deciphering Linear B, from the name of R.E. Lee's horse:  these are topics which we all need to know well in order to live in our modern world.

The recommended book is basically background for the Israel/Palestinian dispute.  It amazes me how many people I know who have strong opinions on this topic and yet do not know much, if anything, about the history of the region and its people.

So since this topic is considered to be one of the top threats to world peace, it seems to me that my well-informed readers would be better off to know a little more about the history, and one particular period is especially relevant, and that is the period right around WWI when the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and the League of Nations assigned Great Britain to partition that region between the different competing groups in a way that could be perceived as "fair".   This is the period when, among other things, the Balfour Declaration happened, when Allenby took Jerusalem, when Jordan was created, Syria was created, Lebanon was created, etc.   What you think is the "always been there" configuration of countries in that part of the middle east was created, out of whole cloth, by the British with a little "help", thats sarcasm by the way, of the French and a few other countries.

The book is David Fromkin's book "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East".

If nothing else, it will make Lawrence of Arabia all the more interesting when you see it again. And while we are on the subject of Lawrence of Arabia, check out the link below to a web site that goes over this movie in infinite detail.

Die!  Die!

The book:

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-20th-Anniversary/dp/0805088091

The analyis of the movie:

http://filmladd.com/?LawrenceOfArabia_05