Kevin Ahearn writes about...

Jim Baen’s Universe

John W. Campbell, the most influential editor in the history of science fiction, defined the genre as “What science fiction editors buy.” Campbell was right and shaped the scope of science fiction for a generation, but the notion that his definition still holds is killing science fiction, especially the short story.

Is the solution “better short stories”? It’s not a question of “better,” as if you or I knew what a “better” short story might be. Checking my calendar and my keyboard, I find myself in a new millennium and in new medium. So why must the old rules still apply?

Of course, if science fiction short stories were in constant demand and millions of readers were waiting in eager anticipation... But that’s not the case.

So this dog can no longer hunt?

Not my point at all. In this tumultuous time, can science fiction still connect with readers? Can an online site ignite reader interest to read a short story? The Internet is flooded with short stories attracting as many wannabe writers as readers.

“90% of everything is still crap,” said Sturgeon’s Law and that one is still true. But the challenge remains: how to get people to read science fiction.

Does science fiction still possess the power to say things or is it just about aliens and spaceships, etc.? “What if..?” has been replaced by “So what?” and “Who cares?”

Instead of trying to “push the envelope” via content and time and space, why not address the needs of readers? What is it they might want to read? And how do they want to read it?

Making any sense here?

I feel no joy in criticizing the efforts of others. It is not about whether I “like” something or believe a certain work or strategy is “good” or not. It’s all about the numbers and nothing else. And whatever sense I might make, it certainly doesn’t make my efforts any better.

Eric Flint, a veteran science fiction and fantasy writer and editor-in-chief of Jim Baen’s Universe, used the Editor’s Page at Baen’s Universe to let readers know ‘The Prospects for Jim Baen’s Universe.’

From the start, Universe was a “dicey proposition,” boldly going where no science fiction and fantasy magazine had gone before, filled with potholes and pitfalls, expertly explained by Mr. Flint.

Jim Baen, whose untimely death in June shocked and saddened the science fiction community, was willing to lose money for only one year. The magazine’s break-even target of 3,000 one-year subscriptions ($30) has yet to be reached, but with 100 new subscribers signing up every month that may be achieved by early 2007.

This has led to understandable budget restraints. Rather than cut the pay rate for writers and artists, which would have defeated the magazine’s mission to bring the highest quality science fiction and fantasy to its readers, the quantity will be gradually pared down from 200,000 words to 120,000. Artwork will be cut back by 33%.

Nevertheless, concludes Mr. Flint, “Whatever else happens, Universe magazine will definitely be around for a while.”

Given that Mr. Flint knows his business much better than most of us, then most of us should accept his ‘Prospects’ as the way things must be done; but I found his editorial to be painful, pathetic, and ultimately, heartbreaking.

In his opening, Flint announces that “Jim [Baen] was replaced as publisher.” Really?

Jim Baen was an innovator, a pioneer, a maverick, a visionary and a leader who had lived his life constantly pushing the science fiction and fantasy envelope. The notion that Universe, his final legacy, will “be around” does little to reflect the soul and spirit of its creator.

Matter of fact, nowhere in ‘Prospects’ does Mr. Flint promise its readers that the science fiction to come will be on the cutting edge of the genre. But coming soon will be the short novel sequel to A. E. van Vogt’s 1940 classic Slan. Wow, a follow-up to a novel written before 90% of Universe’s market was even born — that’ll boost subscriptions!

I really don’t think Mr. Flint gets it. Not that he’s alone. Ellen Datlow, the much-honored science fiction editor, ran Sci-fiction for six years until it was shut down — and she never got it. This is a new medium in a new millennium, and Flint is concerned about competition from the few remaining science fiction print magazines? What we have here is the inconsequential versus the irrelevant. Moreover, the net is flooded with free science fiction, from Shelley and Wells to new writers, good and bad.

Science fiction, as the science community knows it, has gone from “What if?” to “So what?” Check the numbers. Nobody cares.

So, science fiction is obsolete? Not a chance. In these tumultuous times, we face issues of war and peace, life and death, humanity and technology, but the science fiction community remains brain-dead in the 20th century. It’s one thing to be looking for the future and not finding it anywhere, but Universe isn’t even bothering to look.

Science fiction became science fiction not by complying, conforming and compromising but by confronting and connecting. Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, Dick and others did not reimagine or remake, or milk their original ideas with diluting sequels. Science fiction must take chances, not only to be new, but young. Stale, old, dated science fiction comes off as gutless piffle.

Science fiction’s place in our ever-changing time is not “to be around,” but to be at the forefront, showing us, stimulating us, and warning of us of what may lie ahead.

Jim Baen would have it no other way.

Kevin Ahearn

Copyright © 2006 by Kevin Ahearn

A very forceful letter, Kevin, on behalf of a noble sentiment. Science fiction needs you, both to write and to cheer us on.

In the spirit of your letter — frank and open debate — I’m going to take issue with one point. You don’t want “old”? Ha! I’ll give you old. In fact, I already have. Sixty years? That ain’t nothin’. Bewildering Stories has a literary cornerstone, which appeared in Year 1: a novel more than three and a half centuries old.

The Other World makes your point for you, Kevin, in spades. And in hearts, diamonds and clubs. The title alone is an example: Cyrano did not like “Voyage to the Moon,” the title by which the book came to be known. Too science-fictiony and beside the point; he had something more important in mind. Isn’t that exactly what you’re saying?

Is the novel quaint, written as it was in the post-Renaissance era, when modern science was beginning to take shape? Irrelevant! The difference between the quaint and the vital is not in when or where people live or what they have or know but in the way they think. That’s what The Other World illustrates.

As you say, the quaint marches into the future with its gaze fixed firmly on the past. My notes in The Other World continually challenge authors of today to anticipate the science and technology of the 24th century as Cyrano did those of the 20th. And, as he did, to integrate them into the intellectual and social concerns of our own time.

The Other World is a model of science fiction, but great works are not to be imitated, as you say, with sequels. Like Cyrano, we must write anew. And, like him — and so many others before, with and after him — discover the “other world” that can be here, among us.

A bit like Bernard Gilboy, Bewildering Stories started by hoisting a mainsail. We have since raised topsails, foresails and mizzens. We’ve become a veritable Yankee Clipper. Now, everyone, tell us: which contributions do you think best propel us along the heading we took so long ago?

Don