The use of the fantastic, regardless of whether it is in science fiction or 'fantasy', is often a high-wire balancing act. Almost everything depends on style, in conveying the right attitude. So, for instance, in Driftglass by Delany, the overarching mood is one of solemnity, acceptance and resignation. It is not a 'traditional' science fiction story in the sense that a paradigm shift occurs by the end. Indeed, the paradigm shift has already occured in the very beginning of the story, and the consequences don't leave much in the way of a sense of wonder. However, the lurking image of a man with gills is a strong and vivid one, and it colours, inasmuch as you want it to, every other aspect of the story. It hovers in the background, leaving it completely upto the reader to lend it importance, or not, by lending the characters more importance than the science fiction conceit.
Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang feels like a story very much in the vein of Campbell, only it isn't able to make the stylistic jump necessary to lend the strong sense of pathos that runs throughout the story the gravity it deserves. The trope of the human who has the body of a ship has since been used in multiple instances, more recently in the multiple award winning novel by Ann Leckie called 'Ancillary Justice', as well as M John Harrison's rightly celebrated return to science fiction 'Light'. But McCaffrey's story is melodramatic, emotional in a way that is a little disappointing and interesting at the same time: interesting because, seen in one light, it reads very much like an old fashioned tale of knights and damsels. It is however memorable because of the lurking image of the woman who is also machine, who is also woman. Because the locus of our attention undergoes a rapid shift as and when the story dictates it, it leads to an intellectual hesitation that strengthens this particular science fiction convention. However, one wishes the overarching plot of the story to not have hinged on such a typical coming of age sequence, reliant solely on the emotional catharsis through death. It is an interesting exercise to read this story very soon after Delany's Driftglass, since both use what is essentially human transience as a pathetic trope, and use the more-than-human to balance it, at that. If only McCaffrey was more subtle, this would have been something exquisite, rather than merely very good.
Edit: I'd like to add that none of this takes away from the flow of the story. Taken in itself, as just a story, it is rewarding, offering the kind of old fashioned joy in a wistful rounding off of a tragedy that has been mastered by, among others, stalwarts such as Theodore Sturgeon. In fact, I wonder how Sturgeon would have approached such a tale. Are there any Sturgeon stories on cyborgs/machine-men/machine-women? Hmm.
Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang feels like a story very much in the vein of Campbell, only it isn't able to make the stylistic jump necessary to lend the strong sense of pathos that runs throughout the story the gravity it deserves. The trope of the human who has the body of a ship has since been used in multiple instances, more recently in the multiple award winning novel by Ann Leckie called 'Ancillary Justice', as well as M John Harrison's rightly celebrated return to science fiction 'Light'. But McCaffrey's story is melodramatic, emotional in a way that is a little disappointing and interesting at the same time: interesting because, seen in one light, it reads very much like an old fashioned tale of knights and damsels. It is however memorable because of the lurking image of the woman who is also machine, who is also woman. Because the locus of our attention undergoes a rapid shift as and when the story dictates it, it leads to an intellectual hesitation that strengthens this particular science fiction convention. However, one wishes the overarching plot of the story to not have hinged on such a typical coming of age sequence, reliant solely on the emotional catharsis through death. It is an interesting exercise to read this story very soon after Delany's Driftglass, since both use what is essentially human transience as a pathetic trope, and use the more-than-human to balance it, at that. If only McCaffrey was more subtle, this would have been something exquisite, rather than merely very good.
Edit: I'd like to add that none of this takes away from the flow of the story. Taken in itself, as just a story, it is rewarding, offering the kind of old fashioned joy in a wistful rounding off of a tragedy that has been mastered by, among others, stalwarts such as Theodore Sturgeon. In fact, I wonder how Sturgeon would have approached such a tale. Are there any Sturgeon stories on cyborgs/machine-men/machine-women? Hmm.
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