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Ursula K. Le Guin
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 Ursula K. Le Guin see science fiction as "a modern, intellectualized, extravagant form of fantasy" (in
her essay "Do-It-Yourself Cosmology"). The daughter of two scientists (anthropologists), she knows
rigorous methodology and respects it, and knows as well the forms of the science fiction story, which she bends to
her own literary goals. The science fiction story in the form of a scientific report is a venerable tradition in
the field. Arthur C. Clarke used it to ironic effect in his "History Lesson", in which aliens of the future attempt
to reconstruct human civilization from a Disney film, as did George P. Elliott in
Among the Dangs (1961), in which far future human archeologists excavate our world and try to figure it out, getting it hilariously wrong.
Michael Bishop's novella "Death and Designation Among the Asadi" (1973) is a classic of anthropological sf
in report form, as is Le Guin's own book, Always Coming
Home (1985). This one is in the form of an anthropologist's notes (although the scientist is an intelligent ant). But anthropology is not hard science,
not predictive as is physics, so many readers see all anthropological sf as "soft," no matter how scientific.
But that is a false opposition: the opposite of hard science is non-science-fantasy and the fantastic, even
when wearing the costume of sf.
Critic Larry McCaffery, in his entertaining book of interviews with sf writers,
Across the Wounded Galaxies (1990), has described Le Guin's science fiction as "a sophisticated blend of myth, fable,
political inquiry, and metaphysical parable. A wonderful spinner of adventure tales, she also makes us take note of
the codes and cultural assumptions with which we construct our present." Although it is rigorous in its method,
it is precisely the complex literary positioning of her work, among the genres of fable and short story and
parable, and the obvious literary ambition, together with her commitment to feminism, that have persistently made
some hard sf readers uncomfortable with much of her work that is clearly and centrally in the hard sf
tradition, as this story is. Her achievement in American sf is parallel to Ballard's in British sf, although she must be
considered as more traditional in style and technique. Ballard, in contrast, used the cold, scientific tone
and style of the medical report to powerful effect in many of his stories of the 1960s, though the clinical
detachment of that tone, ironically, marked those stories as "not hard" sf to many readers. Perhaps the art of
medicine and the science of anthropology have in common only that both deal intimately with the human and are
therefore each suited to nontraditional sf, and very low in the hierarchy of sciences established by Campbell.
Certainly Le Guin and Ballard are extremely different from each other. In the end, both are among the best
and most influential sf writers of the century.
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The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. |
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Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.