The Barriers of Inner and Outer Space

The most frequent SF hero is what Gregory Benford calls the Competent Man, whose abilities lie dormant until unforeseen circumstances allow them to emerge. Barry N. Malzbezg’s SF has no such figure. Instead, his protagonists attain limited personal victories—when, indeed, they attain any at all. More often they are imitation heroes or anti-heroes. Malzberg also breaks away from the SF tradition of the problem story. The reason that his SF diverges from other SF in character and plot is that he writes not in the Romance tradition but in the Satire tradition of SF. As Satire, his novels show fractured consciousness, and simple problems seem insoluable. For Malzberg, SF ought to explore intensely the emotional and metaphysical crises of life in the 20th century. To do this, he transforms typical SF tropes and devices into metaphors of self-exploration. Not only do his characters embark on self-exploration (their status as “heroes” being determined by their strength of endeavor), but through his SF Malzberg also explores himself. Thus, despite his criticism of SF’s “escapism,” he sees a potential for SF to provide pertinent tropes by which to begin to assess the difficulties of maintaining individuality against the vicissitudes of modern existence. (DAL)

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Linguistics · Space (punctuation) · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life