Heaven — or something — save us writers from the amateur reviewers, and some professionals, who pan a book with phrases similar to “trite plot” or “worn-out character type” or “overused plot device,” “all too typical young hero,” “standard PI,” etc., ad infinitum.

Far be it for me to be the one to say that all books all writers write are good. They aren’t. Nor will every book I write appeal to those who read my work. It won’t, and probably shouldn’t. But… those of you who are reviewers or who aspire to be reviewers, please, please, don’t display your ignorance by basing your judgments on “worn-out” character types or “overused plots.”

As Robert A. Heinlein noted in his “Channel Markers” speech to the U.S. Naval Academy more than 35 years ago, there are NO new plots. There are only a limited number of basic plots. As a result, there are no overused or trite plots. There are writers who handle plots badly, for a myriad of reasons, just as there are writers who handle them well. There are writers whose characters do not fit the plots, but the problems don’t lie in the “plot.” They lie in how the plot was or was not handled.

Almost every plot Shakespeare used in his plays was cribbed from somewhere else or someone else, but his work remains “fresh” and “original” after more than four centuries because of the way in which he handled those very common plot elements.

The same type of analysis applies to characters. Certain archetypes or types appear and reappear in novels, not because they’re tired or the authors are lazy, but because they’re necessary. If one writes a courtroom drama, there will be good attorneys and bad attorneys and brilliant attorneys. There may even be marginally competent attorneys and evil ones, but there won’t be moronic ones because they can’t pass the bar. Mercenaries will almost always be ex-military types, because that’s where one gets that kind of experience. Private investigators will almost always be ex-police or ex-military, or possibly disbarred attorneys, for the same reasons. In fantasy, knights should almost always be either wealthy or older retainers of the wealthy who have worked their way up from common armsmen, or professional military, because in any half-realistic society, those are the only way to gain the resources and experience. Pilots need to have a high degree of training and education and good reactions — and good judgment, because they’re in charge of rather expensive equipment and lives.

All too often both critics and social reformers tend to forget that stereotypes arise for a reason. They’re real. There are “good cops” and “bad cops.” And whether one likes it or not, if you see a large minority male in gang-like attire emerging from an alley and heading in your direction at night, discretion is indeed the better part of valor, stereotype or no stereotype. The same is true of the sharp-dressing WASP male who wants to sell you a large bridge for the smallest of sums. Obviously, stereotypes and archetypes can be and are overused, but slavish avoidance of such is as much a contrivance as overuse.

Likewise, try not to criticize a writer because he or she writes a particular kind of book. I don’t see reviewers trashing mystery writers, or “literary” writers, or romance writers because they write the same type of book time after time. One can note that the writer continues to write a particular type of book — but if you say that, make sure that’s all that writer writes. You can certainly point out that the writer didn’t handle it as well as in the past — or that the writer improved, but don’t trash it because you wanted the writer to write something different.

So… if you want to review… go ahead. Just try to do it with a touch of professionalism and understanding.

Recently, Steven King wrote an essay that appeared in The New York Times suggesting, at least as I read it, that one of the reasons for the decline of short fiction was that all too many short works of fiction were written for the editors and the critics, and not necessarily for the readers. Among the host of those who have commented, Scott Edelman, the editor of SciFi Weekly, has just written a response that points out that, while it wasn’t King’s intention, effectively King has said to readers that there are so few good short fiction stories that all of the good ones are in King’s anthology and that readers really didn’t have to look farther.

Both King and Edelman are correct in noting that the short fiction market is “broken.” After all, eighty years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald was paid as much for any number of his stories sold to popular magazines that just two story sales in a year earned him more than the average annual earnings of either doctors or U.S. Congressmen — and he sold far more than two stories a year. Even then it took money to live in Paris.

There are some gifted short fiction writers in F&SF, and so far as I know, not a one of them can make a living purely off short fiction. By some counts more than a thousand short speculative fiction stories are published annually. This sounds impressive, unless you know that around a thousand original speculative fiction novels are published every year, and novels pay quite a bit more. The sales of major F&SF print magazines have been declining for years, and until the advent of Jim Baen’s Universe last year, the rates paid for short fiction have been low, and essentially static.

It’s also a well-known, if seldom-stated, fact that the majority of F&SF magazines are edited as much to promulgate and further the editorial preferences of the editors as to appeal to the full range of potential readers.

Jim Baen was well aware of these facts, and so is Eric Flint. That, as I understand it, was the reason why they created Jim Baen’s Universe, the online magazine. In fact, Eric once told me that his goal was not to publish stories designed to win awards, but to publish outstanding stories that would entertain and challenge readers, and that he felt that too many editors had lost sight of that goal. So far as I’ve been able to determine, Universe has a higher rate scale for writers than any of its F&SF contributors, and Eric and Mike Resnick are obviously working hard to create a magazine that will boost the F&SF short fiction market and increase reader interest.

Yet, interestingly enough, neither King nor Edelman ever mentioned Universe, and how it came to be, and Edelman certainly ought to have been aware of it. Why didn’t he mention it? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s a part of the debate/issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

As I noted in passing in my earlier blog, various “authorities” have suggested for at least close to twenty years that one of the reasons why science fiction readership has dropped off, and it has, at least in relative terms as a percentage of the population, and even possibly in absolute terms, is because all the themes that were once the staple of science fiction are now scientifically possible and have often been done. We have put astronauts in orbit and sent them to the moon, and the reality is far less glamorous than the “Golden Age” SF writers made it seem. We have miniaturized computers of the kind that only Isaac Asimov forecast in work published around 1940. We have lasers — and so far they don’t work nearly so well as the particle beams in Clarke’s Earthlight or the lasers in 2001. We’ve created a supersonic passenger aircraft and mothballed it.

These reasons all sound very plausible, but I’m not so certain that they’re why SF readership has dropped off and why fantasy readership has soared. Earlier, I also explored this in terms of the “magic society,” but my personal feeling is that there is also another reason, one that has to do with people — both readers and the people and societies depicted in much current SF… and that includes mine, by the way.

Socially, human beings are incredibly conservative. We just don’t like to change our societies and domestic arrangements. Revolutions do occur, but just how many of them really end up in radically changing society? When MacArthur “restructured” Japanese society after WWII, the economic and political bases were changed dramatically, but the domestic and social roles remained virtually unchanged for another forty years. It really wasn’t until the 1990s when significant numbers of Japanese young women decided they didn’t want to follow the roles laid out by their mothers. Corrupt as he may have been, one of the largest factors leading to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran was that he was pressing to change social and religious structures at a rate faster than his people could accept.

While at least some of us in the United States like to think that we’re modern and progressive, has anyone noticed that “traditional” marriage is making a come-back? It’s making so much of a come-back that gays and lesbians want the benefits and legal structure as well. Despite the growth of the number of women in the workplace, women still do the majority of domestic chores, even when they’re working the same hours as their husbands, and the vast majority of CEOs and politicians are still male.

Now… what does this have to do with SF readership?

I’d submit that there’s a conflict between what’s likely technically and what’s likely socially, and social change will be far slower than predicted. In fact, that’s already occurred.

When my book Flash was published several years ago, one of the reviewers found it implausible that private schools would still exist some 200 years in the future in North America. I’d already thought about this, but the fact is that the traditional school structure goes back over 2,000 years. The structure works, if it’s properly employed, as many, many private schools and some charter schools can prove, and with 20 centuries of tradition, it’s not likely to vanish soon.

Yet more than a few books suggest the wide-spread growth of computerized learning, radical new forms of social engagement, and the like. Much of this will never happen. Look at such internet “innovations” as E-Harmony, Chemistry.com, etc. They aren’t changing the social dynamics, but using technology to reinforce them. Women still trade primarily on sex appeal and men on looks, power, and position. They just start the process electronically.

Most readers don’t really want change; they only want the illusion of change. They want the old tropes in new clothes or new technology, but most of them want old-style men in new garb, and brilliant women who are sexy, but still defer to men who sweep them off their feet.

Again… I’m not saying this is true of all readers, and it’s probably not true of the majority of SF readers. But, as a literature of ideas and exploration, the more that SF explores and challenges established social dynamics, the fewer new readers it will attract, particularly today, when it’s becoming harder and harder to create true intellectual challenge, because so few people want to leave their comfort zones. That’s an incredible irony, because our communications technologies have made it easier and easier for people to avoid having their preconceptions challenged.

Most fantasy, on the other hand, merely embellishes various existing social structures with magic of some sort, and it’s becoming increasingly popular every year. Perhaps that’s because, like it or not, technology has made one fundamental change in our economic and social structure, and that is the fact that physical strength is no longer an exclusively predominant currency in determining income levels. More and more women are making good incomes, often more than their husbands or other males with whom they interact. Sociological studies suggest that male-female relationships often reach a crisis at the point where the woman gains more income, power, or prestige than the man. It’s unsettling, and it’s happening more and more.

Enter traditional fantasy, with its comforting traditional structures. Now… isn’t that a relief?

When ANALOG published my first story, there really wasn’t that much of a fantasy genre. Oh, Tolkein had published the Lord of the Rings, and there were some Andre Norton witchworld novels, as I recall, and Jack Vance had published The Dying Earth, but fantasy books were vastly outnumbered by science fiction novels. Today, virtually every editor I know is looking for good science fiction. They can find plenty of decent, if not great, fantasy novels and trilogies to publish [good short fantasy stories are another matter].

What happened?

First, over the last forty years science got popular, and simultaneously more accessible and more complicated than ever. Second, technology complicated everyone’s life. Third, the computer made the physical process of writing easier than ever before in history. And fourth, the world became “magic.”

Science is no longer what it once was. Philo Farnsworth was a Utah farm boy, and effectively he invented television on his farm. RCA stole it from him, but that’s another story, and the important point is that one man, without a research laboratory, made the key breakthroughs. Likewise, Goddard did the same thing for the rocket. Earlier, of course, the Wright brothers made the airplane possible. Today, science breakthroughs that effectively change society require billions of dollars and teams of scientists and engineers. Writing about the individual in a meaningful sense in this context becomes difficult, and even if an author does it well, it’s usually not that entertaining to most readers. Add to that what science and technology have delivered to the average North American or European. We have near-instant world-wide communications, travel over thousands of miles in mere hours, pictures of distant galaxies and the moons orbiting distant planets in our own solar system, lights that can be turned on with a handclap, voice activated equipment… the list is seemingly endless. So much of what once was science fiction is now reality.

As I’ve noted in a previous blog, technology is no longer the wonder it once was. Too often technology becomes the source of strain and consternation, and for all that it delivers, most people want to escape from its stress and limitations. Admittedly, many of them use it for escape into forms of alternative reality, but more and more readers don’t want to read about technology.

Then there’s the impact of the computer, which makes the physical process of writing easier. It doesn’t, however, make the process of learning and understanding science and technology easier, and understanding science is generally useful for writing science fiction. So what do so many of those would-be speculative fiction writers concentrate on? Fantasy and its offshoots.

But the biggest factor, I believe, is that we now live in a “magic world.” A little more than a century ago, if one wanted light, it required making a candle or filling a lantern with expensive oil and threading a wick and using a striker or a new-fangled match to light the lantern or candle. Today… plug in a lamp and flip a switch. How does it work? Who knows? Most young people would have a hard time explaining the entire process behind that instant light. In a sense, it’s magic. Once transportation meant a long slow walk, or feeding, saddling, grooming a horse, taking care of the animals, breeding them, and still having to make or purchase bridles, saddles, and the like. Today, step into a car and turn the key. In more than 95% of all cars the transmission is automatic, and, again, how many people can even explain what a transmission or a differential does? It’s magic. You don’t have to understand it or explain it. I could go through example after example, but the process — and the results — would be the same.

As a society, we act as though almost all our physical needs are met by magic. Even the environmentalists believe in magic. How would many of them deal with the coal-fired power plants that fuel so much of our magic? By replacing them with solar and wind power, of course. But building solar cells creates much more pollution than using a coal-fired power plant for the same amount of power. And wind turbines, while helpful, cannot be counted on to provide a constant and continuing power source for our magic.

This mindset can’t help but carry over into what we do for entertainment. We act as though our society’s needs are met by magic, and we want to escape the incredible stress and complexity beneath the surface of our magic society. How many readers really want to deal with those factors, accelerated as they will be in the future? [And don’t tell me that technology will make things simpler. It never has. Physically easier, but not simpler. Allowing individuals to do more in the same amount of time, but only at the cost of more stress.]

To me, the “magic society” has far more to do with the comparative growth of the popularity of fantasy and the comparative decline of science fiction than the fact that we’ve reached the moon and surveyed planets and their satellites.

Have you noticed how “stressed” everyone is today? Professionals, white collar workers, tech workers, sales workers, even high school and college students all complain about being stressed or overstressed. Many older Americans dismiss such complaints as the whining of a younger generation, a group that just can’t take it… but are these complaints mere whining… or do they have a basis in fact?

One fact is fairly clear. Americans today, on average, have a better life than did Americans seventy-five or a hundred years ago. Very, very few in the work force today had to live through the Great Depression. Nor do they have to worry about children dying of polio and whooping cough. The statistics show that most people are living longer and doing so in better health. There is a greater range of choice in occupations, and more Americans are able to get [and do obtain] higher education. The size of the average house is larger, and most houses have conveniences hardly imaginable a century ago. Although the average American work week is now longer than that of all other industrialized western nations, it’s far less physically arduous than the work of a century ago.

So why the complaints about stress?

Technology — that’s why. It’s everywhere, and it’s stressing us out in more ways than one. Those scanners in supermarkets and every other store? They not only ring up the sales and feed into inventory calculations, but they also rate the checkers on how fast and efficiently they handle customers. I knew this in the back of my head, so to speak, but it was brought home to me when a single mother who was a checker at a local store told me she’d been demoted to the bakery because she didn’t meet speed standards.

Computers, especially those with color graphics and associated high speed printers are another source of stress. Why? Because they successfully invite revision after revision by overcareful supervisors and clients. Do it over… and over… and over.

Then, there are instant messaging, emails, and texting. IMs and texting, especially among the young, lead to carelessness in spelling and grammar, and that feeds back into the need for those endless document revisions, because, believe it or not, those grammar and spell-checkers just don’t catch everything. Then… emails… which encourage everyone to get in on everything, until at times, it seems as though everyone is watching and looking for ways to make completing anything difficult. On top of that, add bosses who feel slighted if one doesn’t answer emails quickly, and all that answering and justifying and explaining doesn’t get the projects done. It just takes up time that can’t be used to do real work, a problem that some supervisors just don’t get.

As for students, keeping in touch through the technology of cell-phones, emails, and texting seems to occupy their every waking, walking, and driving moment. Add to that the allure of the wonders of hundreds of cable or satellite channels, and the need to earn money for an ever-more expensive education — or vehicle payments — and they’re stressed out.

The impact of technology pervades everything. Computerized legal databases and software make litigation ever more complex — not to mention expensive and stressful.

Healthcare has even more problems. We have more than 47 million Americans without health insurance, and the number is growing faster than the population. Why? Because expenses are growing, thanks to a proliferation of medical technology and drugs that raises costs. When my grandfather was a doctor, diagnostic technology was essentially limited to a few blood tests, a stethoscope, and an X-ray machine. Today, the average doctor’s office is filled with equipment, and that equipment creates an expectation of perfect medicine. That expectation, combined with the opportunism of the technologized legal system, leads to far more litigation. That leads to higher malpractice insurance, and more stress on doctors and more and expensive tests and procedures to make sure that nothing gets missed — or to cover the doctor from legal challenges. It’s not uncommon for some medical specialties to have annual malpractice premiums in excess of $200,000 a year. Assume that a doctor actually sees patients 5 hours a day in the office some 50 weeks a year, the other time being spent in things like hospital rounds, reviewing charts, etc. Under those conditions, an annual malpractice premium requires a charge of more than an $80 an hour. If the doctor has a million dollars in medical and office equipment and that’s not unusual either, the amortization will be excess of $100 per patient hour seen. Needless to say this creates stress and pressure, and for all the complaints about the medical profession, doctors have one of the lower life expectancies of professionals.

In higher education, computerization has led to ubiquitous on-line evaluations and anonymous ratings of professors, and the subsequent inevitable grade inflation, because tenure often depends on pleasing the students. It’s also led to a proliferation of policies and procedures, so easily printed on those handy-dandy computerized systems. In my wife’s university, the policies and procedures for rank advancement and tenure have been rewritten and changed once or twice every year over the past decade, with scores of drafts being circulated electronically before each revision was finalized.

In effect, the expectations of technology have created more stress for modern society than the wind, rain, and inconsistent weather ever did for our agricultural forebears — largely because technology also makes people more and more accountable, even when they can’t do anything about it. The way technology is used today also creates what my father called “being eaten to death by army ants.” No one wants to kill you, but everyone wants a little something — reply to these emails, revise that set of documents, change that phrase to please the attorneys, change this one for the boss’s supervisor — and when it’s all said and done, who has time to do actual new work?

Yet, if you ignore the army ants, everyone thinks you’re difficult and uncooperative, and you lose your job. Is it any wonder that American professionals are working longer and longer hours?

But… ah, the blessings of technology.