小说与文学2017slate.com
黑暗未来：当文学小说家尝试写科幻
Dark Futures: What happens when literary novelists experiment with Sci-Fi
导读
这篇文章讨论文学小说家跨界写科幻时会发生什么：作品常被归入文学而非科幻书区，作者也往往不愿被贴上"科幻作者"的标签。对写作者来说，它值得一读，因为涉及类型标签如何影响读者预期、创意该向谁借用，以及"文学"与"类型"在视角和代价处理上的差别。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
类型标签会决定读者在哪个"书架"上找到你的作品，动笔前要想清楚自己希望被怎样定位。
- 02
借用某个类型的创意（设定、概念、世界观）时，也要接受该类型的写作纪律，不能只取新意、不担难度。
- 03
视角决定故事的气质：同一处境，写"留下来的人"还是写"想逃出去的人"，是两种完全不同的作品。
- 04
要让读者感到危机，就得让代价真实发生——好人也可能死，否则张力会落空。
HN 评论精选
文学作家的科幻被归入文学而非科幻，他们取走科幻的创意却不愿承担这个标签的代价。
文学小说家跨界写科幻会怎样，其实很清楚：作品不会被归为科幻，而是摆在文学区。这正是大多数作者想要的——一旦被贴上"科幻作者"标签，就等于收入更低，还会被牵连着和垃圾作品相提并论。玛格丽特·阿特伍德拼命否认自己的作品是科幻，因为"科幻就是外太空里会说话的乌贼"。文学作家闯进科幻时最让人恼火的一点是：他们肆意取用科幻的创意宝库，再包装成体面的样子，卖给那些绝不会踏足科幻区的读者（我认为阿特伍德在这方面屡犯不改）。当然，这比起科幻/奇幻区的大部分作品还算没那么恼火，那里九成是流水线式的填色逃生文学，平均页数大概就是第一个线索："我们不是冲着创意来的"。谢天谢地还有"Masterworks"这类书系，让逃生文学之外的东西还能留在印刷中。
glangdale查看英文原文
I think it's pretty clear what happens when literary novelists experiment with SF, to wit, it is not defined as SF and is shelved with the literature. This is devoutly desired by most authors as being tarnished with the "SF Author" label is a ticket to lower pay and guilt-by-association-with-trash. Margaret Atwood furiously resists the idea that her stuff is Science Fiction because "SF is talking squids in outer space". What often feels irritating about literary adventures into SF is that they allow themselves to loot the treasury of SF ideas and present them under respectable covers to readers who would never venture into the SF section (I view Atwood as a repeat offender in this department). This is considerably less irritating than the bulk of the F/SF section, of course, which is 90% extruded paint-by-numbers escape literature. The average page count should be the first clue that 'we're not here for the ideas'. Thank goodness for the "Masterworks" series (and a few other lines) which do the admirable job of keeping something other than the Escape Lit du Jour in print.
福斯特的《机器停止》说明文学作家早就能写出经得起时间考验的科幻。
文学小说家写出的经典科幻是 E.M. 福斯特的《机器停止》。它已有一百多年历史，如今读来依然出色。
Animats查看英文原文
The classic SF by a literary novelist is E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops".[1] This is over a century old and still reads well. [1] http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
主流与科幻的差别在视角：写留下来的人，还是写想逃出去的人。
我永远忘不了小劳埃德·比格尔在一篇短篇小说前言里写的话，大意是：给一群人置身下水道，主流作家会深情地书写那些留下来的人，科幻作家则书写那些试图逃出去的人。
jejones3141查看英文原文
I'll never forget something Lloyd Biggle Jr. wrote in the intro to a short story. It went something like this: given a group of people in a sewer, the mainstream author will lovingly write about those who stay there. The SF author will write about those trying to get out.
要写出危机感就得让好角色也可能死；自由和画布尺寸是享受，但系列连续性会成为束缚。
这里适合引用伊恩·班克斯的一段话："嗯，如果你要写——我朋友的朋友曾称之为'编造的外太空垃圾'——那要想有点真实感，就意味着有时某些可怕的角色得活下来，而要有危机感，尤其在后来的小说里，好人就得死。有时候。"班克斯坦承他写科幻小说比写"文学"小说更享受，写 Culture 系列又比其他科幻更享受。这个享乐主义、无政府主义、后稀缺的系列是"一场狂欢。这是我的火车模型。我热爱那种自由和画布的尺寸"，尽管写它们"需要更高程度的专注。而且现在 Culture 背负了太多包袱，每写一部新作都得和之前的 Culture 历史对齐。跟刚开始相比，我没那么多随意编造的余地了。"
phaemon查看英文原文
This seems an appropriate place for an Iain Banks quote: " "Well," he says, "if you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes." Banks freely admits that he enjoys writing his SF novels more than his "literary" novels, and the Culture novels more than his other SF. The hedonistic, anarchistic, post-scarcity series is "a hoot. It's my train set. I adore the freedom and the size of the canvas," even though writing them "requires a greater degree of concentration. And there's so much baggage with the Culture now that I have to get each new novel aligned with earlier Culture history. I don't have the same leeway to make things up compared with when I started." " From his last(?) interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview
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