Literary Gatekeepers and the Fabril Tradition

Abstract

All of us who work with science fiction, I am sure, have a store of insults to record from those in authority. Perhaps the award for the crassest example recorded at this conference should go to Sheila Finch’s senior colleague, who said to her after she had published her first science fiction work, ‘I hope your next book is a real novel’. But though that was remarkable both for its brevity and its dismissiveness, it also remains in a sense typical. I repeat that I am sure that all of us past a certain age have not only heard but have got used to hearing similar statements. In spite of their frequency, I would suggest that, if they were mere random and individual examples of thoughtlessness, or rudeness, the right tactic would be to tolerate and as far as possible ignore them. However, I do not think that is the case. It seems to me that the open hostility to science fiction so often seen within academic departments of literature has a common and even a compulsive root. By facing this, I think we put ourselves in a position to learn something about ‘contests for authority’, both within our field and over our field....