Once upon a time, the community of English-speaking science fiction readers and writers had an uncanny resemblance to the present community of people engaged in working with and on hypertext fiction. In both communities:
Damon Knight "was the first reviewer to subject science fiction to the standards of ambitious mainstream fiction; his collection of essays and reviews, In Search of Wonder (Knight 1956), is the founding document of modern SF criticism." (From Knight's obituary, written by editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden)
As Ken MacLeod recalls, in the 1960s:
I remember the wonderful reviews you used to get in New Worlds Quarterly by John Clute and M. John Harrison - often very scathing about traditional SF and often very wittily written too. They said very clearly: 'We're not going to take rubbish anymore, we're not part of a happy band of brothers who are going to stand shoulder to shoulder and praise each other to the skies.' That's what Clute, much later, called 'the protocol of excessive candour'. And that protocol has served SF very well in the last few decades. (MacLeod 1998)I agree with MacLeod about the importance of Clute and his determination to speak his critical truth without fear or fawning. Here's the key rant in which Clute sets out his protocol:
Reviewers who will not tell the truth are like cholesterol. They are lumps of fat. They starve the heart. I have myself certainly clogged a few arteries, have sometimes kept my mouth shut out of 'friendship' which is nothing in the end but self-interest. So perhaps it is time to call a halt. Perhaps we should establish a Protocol of Excessive Candour, a convention within the community that excesses of intramural harshness are less damaging than the hypocrisies of stroke therapy, that telling the truth is a way of expressing love; self-love; love of others; love for the genre, which claims to tell the truth about things that count; love for the inhabitants of the planet; love for the future. Because the truth is all we've got. And if we don't talk to ourselves, and if we don't use every tool at our command in our time on Earth to tell the truth, nobody else will. (Clute 1995)In the days since Clute's pronouncement, science fiction criticism has become much more effective. My current favorite organ of science fiction criticism is the New York Review of Science Fiction. Its writers' guidelines use the (invented) subgenre of samurai vampire fiction to explain how adding context makes a review better:
"The difference between a quickie review ('thumbs up!') and genuine criticism is often a sense of context. Take the latest samurai vampire novel, for instance. A good NYRSF review should do more than simply report the reviewer's gut reaction to this particular book. It should place it in the context of the author's other work, and of the work of others today, and in the past in this esteemed and popular category. Indeed it should place this individual novel within the larger context of vampire samurai fiction as a whole. Where does this book fit in the grand history of the samurai vampire novel? How does it compare against the great samurai vampire novels of the past. What are the essential virtues, expectations, and/or limitations of the entire samurai vampire genre? And does this novel imply whither goest the samurai vampire novel? This sort of context can make a good review all the more informative and illuminating." (NYRSF: Guidelines)
To sum up, the protocol of excessive candour transformed the field of science fiction [1], and it's likely that a similar protocol would invigorate hypertext criticism. I was cheered to hear Rob Wittig say (in at an ELO conference, April 2002) that he was no longer going to praise work that was merely 'promising'. I believe that if more of us spoke plainly about what 'promising' works need, in order to deliver on their promises, the field would undoubtedly benefit.
Hayden, P. N. (2002) "Damon Knight, 1922-2002". Science Fiction Writers of America Web site
Knight, D. (1956) "In Search Of Wonder". (Chicago: Advent) http://www.sfwa.org/news/knight.htm
MacLeod, K. (1998) Interview at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~houghtong/macleod.htm
New York Review of Science Fiction. Home
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[typos in original]