Hi-ho.

So. Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday, and 300,000 bloggers and journalists use "So it goes" in their remembrances of him. Clever. I was never what you'd call a Vonnegut fan, although I respect his writing and have read a number of his books. Those who know me will probably find no surprise in the fact that my favorite book of his is The Sirens of Titan. I first encountered his writing in high school, with the ubiquitous "Harrison Bergeron." I did not like it, and still don't. Maybe the ham-fisted satire worked at the time it was written, but I was bored with it by the second page. I also wrote a book report on Slapstick my senior year. Since they'd made a Jerry Lewis movie out of it, I figured it must have a workable plot. Profound mistake on my part. I did love the microscopic Chinese, however.

For the most part, though, I harbor a mild resentment against Vonnegut. He got his start writing science fiction (or perhaps "speculative fiction" is more apropos), and although his writing never really changed, once he became a critical darling, he shunned any SFnal categorization. He set the stage for the Margaret Atwoods of the world to continue disparaging a genre that had finally grown up. I understand the reasons for holding SF at arm's length--in a nutshell, mainstream sales. But I can't help but think that if Vonnegut had stood up and said, "Damn straight I write science fiction. I also write fantasy, satire, absurdist and mainstream. I refuse to be categorized, but will work in any genre I damn well please if its tools and conventions suit my purpose. I am no single kind of writer--I am whatever writer I choose to be. Deal with it."

If someone of his stature had stood up and said that, especially at the height of the New Wave when Ellison, Delany, Moorcock, Tiptree and the rest were really blowing the doors off stodgy notions of what SF was and could be, well, I like to think the perception of SF would be significantly better than the mind-numbing Sci-Fi drek popular media often holds up as an example of the whole of the genre.

Maybe that's Pollyannaish of me, but if so many authors have the courage to stand up for social causes they believe in, why not the genre that gave them their start? Hi-ho.

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