A Box Full of Controversy

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Look what I found! I've been reorganizing (and, in many cases discarding) my papers and I came across a box containing the "A User's Guide to the Postmoderns" papers.

This requires a brief explanation.

Way back in 1986, I was feeling annoyed that the writers I felt were writing the absolute best SF at that time were--with the exception of William Gibson, who was a phenomenon--not getting a fraction of the attention they deserved. So I wrote a mock-manifesto, published in Asimov's, praising Gibson, Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson, Pat Cadigan, and many others in comically exaggerated rhetoric.

How exaggerated? Well, the subtitle of "A User's Guide to the Postmoderns" was Including the Battle for the Future, Unbridled Ambition, the Fate of the Children in the Starship, the Cyberpunk-Humanist Wars, Blood under the Banquet Tables, Metaphors Run Amok, and the Destruction of Atlantis! If Metaphors Run Amok didn't tell you that that the narration was tongue-in-cheek, then you were definitely humor-deaf.

It turned out that a lot of the Asimov's readership was definitely humor-deaf. (If you want to know the entire story it can be found in my introduction to Tachyon Publication's chapbook, The Postmodern Archipelago. Which can be bought here.)

Back to the box. Peeking out of the green folder is the original typescript of the essay. Beneath it are the published responses in various fanzines. (I remember that the Texas one--really pissed--was abruptly handed to me at the Worldcon by a fan who said, "Here!" and fled.) To its right and above are outraged letters to Asimov's, mostly objecting that they'd never heard of any of these writers and doubted they'd ever amount to anything. And one from Ed Bryant who not only liked my essay but understood that it was meant to be funny. Ed was a Mensch.

The very shabby sheet in the bottom right corner contains my notes for how the essay should be ordered. Feel free to enlarge it and marvel at my hideous handwriting and the incoherence of the notes. Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be writers who draft their prose like this. Under it are responses from various writers who felt unfairly excluded from the essay. One of them was from a write, to whom I wrote back, saying: You're right. I was wrong. Here's why it happened. You should have been included for these reasons. I apologize. Which caught him by surprise, but I meant every word of it. He should have been in the essay and I regret he wasn't to this very day. Also that I didn't include Nancy Kress, who did not complain about being excluded.

The others, not so much.

And, very best for last, inside the cardboard box itself are letters from almost everyone I profiled. I wrote them asking questions about their work and their ambitions and for permission to quote them. Their answers were all straightforward and honest. One of the humanists shared his correspondence with a major cyberpunk about what SF should and shouldn't be. When Pat Cadigan objected to what I planned to write about her, and I offered to quote whatever she might want said verbatim, she wrote back (in longhand) that it was physically impossible for her to praise herself. And James Patrick Kelly wrote a letter whose every sentence was not only quotable but worthy of putting at the heading of this post. Also Lucius Shepard's reaction after reading the essay--he lamented not being a gunslinger, "or at least a thug."

Ah, but we were all so young, and earnest, and hardworking, and ambitious!

And to answer your question: No. Almost everyone in the box is still alive. You can read its contents when we're dead.

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