Short Fiction Review #23: McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Thirty Two
McSweeney’s is a quirky quarterly that breaks conventional publishing boundaries with each issue devoted to a unique theme, both in terms of editorial content and physical packaging. For McSweeney’s 32, its last issue of 2009, ten contributors were tasked with writing tales specifically set somewhere in the world that take place fifteen years hence in 2024. According to the editors:
…we wanted to hear about where we’d be — to see what the world could look like when things had shifted just a bit , as it seems like they’re starting to, heading into the second decade of the third millennium…and a semitangible future at last seeming imminent.
For the most part, this is a future defined by natural disaster, frequently involving water. Serendipitously, I read this during a record snowfall in which I was homebound for four days before my driveway could be cleared out. While the state declared an emergency disaster, and unlike a lot of Virginians who lost power as well, it didn’t much matter to me that I couldn’t go anywhere since I was comfortable with reading material, heat, food and Internet access. Not Katrina, by any means, but “normal life” did shut down for a short time. In some of these stories, normal becomes not a return following a disaster, but is defined by the disaster.
There was a time when futurist stories were about how humanity overcame its limitations, both in terms of earthbound existence and its evolutionary defects (remember that what was supposed to be so “innovative” about the original Star Trek was that it depicted various races working together in harmony, forgetting that women of any race were stuck in miniskirts and mostly served as subserviant love interest for the captain). It would seem that from the perspective of the oughts of the 21st century, the future does not look particularly bright.
In the age of fat fantasy series, doorstop thrillers, and historical epics it’s often impossible to find a short, satisfying read. Gone are the days of the 60,000 word science fiction novel, or even the novella doubles series Ace once put out. Long a standard of genre fiction — both the worlds of SF and of fantasy having a host of renowned novellas and short novels considered classics in their respective fields — these short, sharp stories are increasingly ignored for multi-book works of massive length. But, sometimes, it’s nice to get a book done in a day or two, it’s nice to explore an idea, premise, or setting without committing to dozens or hundreds of hours with it.
I don’t think I’ve gone to see a children’s play since my youngest brother was in a community church production of Grease. I’ve certainly never attended one with an eye out for analysis.
Update: Alan Dean Foster has generously provided some comments of his own about the novelization. Please see the comments section.
Well, entering the year (both in terms of typing the title and having lived to see
it) was a little weird to write. The first chapter of The Martian Chronicles is January 1999, which from the vantage point of the middle of the 20th century, when the German V-rockets had landed not on another planet, but London, that seemed about right for when humanity might be “reaching for the stars” as it was called. The book ends in April 2026 which, with luck, proper diet and exercise, and health care reform I might actually still be alive to see. And which more than likely humankind, assuming it hasn’t blown itself up, will remain earthbound.
As some of you may know, I’ve been talking and thinking and blogging (not necessarily in that order) about reading more, and reading better over the course of the last year. Today being New Year’s Day, the day of resolutions and goal-setting, I thought I’d link to some of the posts I’ve written on the subject for those interested in focusing on ratcheting up their reading in the coming year.
As 2009 comes to an end I find the events of the last twelve months firing past my sub-conscious like the recap sequence before one of those lame “it was all a dream” mini-series endings.