"Agberg Ideology, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

_Worlds of Wonder_ itself. Silverberg refers to
"antediluvian SF magazines, such as _Science_ Wonder
Stories from 1929 and _Amazing Stories_ from 1932 . .
. The primitive technique of many of the authors
didn't include such frills as the ability to create
characters or write dialogue . . . [T]he editors of
the early science fiction magazines had found it
necessary to rely on hobbyists with humpty-dumpty
narrative skills; the true storytellers were off
writing for the other pulp magazines, knocking out
westerns or adventure tales with half the effort for
twice the pay."
A nicely dismissive turn of phrase. But notice
how we confront, even in very early genre history, two
distinct castes of writer. We have the "real
storytellers," pulling down heavy bread writing
westerns, and "humpty-dumpty hobbyists" writing this
weird-ass stuff that doesn't even have real dialogue
in it. A further impudent question suggests itself: if
these "storytellers" were so "real," how come they're
not still writing successfully today for _Argosy_ and
_Spicy Stories_ and _Aryan Atrocity Adventure_? How
come, among the former plethora of pulp fiction
magazines, the science fiction zines still survive?
Did the "storytellers" somehow ride in off the range
to rescue Humpty Dumpty? If so, why couldn't they
protect their own herd?
What does "science fiction" really owe to
"fiction

," anyway? This conceptual difficulty will
simply not go away, ladies and gentlemen. It is a
cognitive dissonance at the heart of our genre. Here
is John Kessel, suffering the ideological itch,
Eighties version, in _SF Eye_ #1:
"Plot, character and style are not mere icing .
. . Any fiction that conceives of itself as a vehicle
for something called `ideas' that can be inserted into
and taken out of the story like a passenger in a
Toyota is doomed, in my perhaps staid and outmoded
opinion, to a very low level of achievement."
A "low level of achievement." Not even Humpty
Dumpty really wants this. But what is the "passenger,"
and what are the "frills?" Is it the "storytelling,"
or is it the "something more?" Kessel hits a nerve
when he demands, "What do you mean by an `idea'
anyway?" What a difficult question this is!
The craft of storytelling has been explored for
many centuries, in many cultures. Blish called it "a
huge body of available technique," and angrily