Brian Aldiss: Most of today’s SF is based on assumptions (entrevista)

Continuando a sua série de entrevistas a alguns dos mais importantes autores de ficção científica vivos no blogue da Amazing Stories, R. K. Troughton publica esta semana uma carta de Brian Aldiss em resposta às suas questões. Aldiss, para todos os efeitos, uma das figuras de proa do género - para além de se ter distinguido com romances notáveis (a trilogia Heliconia, Non-Stop, Greybeard ou Hothouse) e contos perenes que acabaram adaptados ao cinema (Super Toys Last All Summer Long, que deu origem a A. I., de Steven Spielberg, é disso exemplo), escreveu um dos trabalhos mais completos e relevantes sobre a história da ficção científica enquanto género literário: Billion Year Spree - The History of Science Fiction, editado em 1973 (e revisto em 1986 com David Wingrove e republicado com o título Trillion Year Spree). Na entrevista/carta à Amazing Stories, Aldiss fala, com um humor muito próprio e que só por si justifica a leitura do artigo na íntegra, sobre o início da sua actividade de escrita, a sua descoberta da ficção científica, o seu apoio à revista New Worlds de Michael Moorcock e alguns dos seus trabalhos mais notáveis. Segue-se um excerto:

R. K Troughton / Amazing Stories: How did you first discover science fiction?

Brian Aldiss: Judged as art, the stories in several U.S. magazines did not amount to much, while the Brits were even worse when Vargo Statten SF Magazine appeared in 1954. Many of the stories there were written by John Fearn, also known as Volstead Gridban. ’New Worlds’, edited by John Carnell, showed improvements, and published stories by Mike Moorcock and me.

But I, at least, was aware that something closely resembling SF had been published and proved popular for centuries.

Better not go into what those Continentals were doing, but—to give a British instance—Bishop Francis Godwin published ‘Man in the Moone” in 1638. It remained popular for two centuries.

Of course, the novel was based on an assumption—the reasonable assumption that Earth and Moone shared an atmosphere. Most of today’s SF is based on assumptions. We tend to assume that we can travel in space. ‘Space’ is itself an assumption. The vacuities between planets are filled by teeming electrodes and alien bodies that could kill us the moment we tried for Mars.

So often, something from real life can fortify an imagining. Many a year ago, I took a little ferry across the River Hooghly in order to have a look at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. I found there a tree labeled as the biggest in the world. No, not a sequoia. This one grows outward and is carefully protected from marauding creatures. I thought, Assume it goes on growing like this, and covers the world?

Eventually “Hothouse” emerged in “F&SF” in parts.

A entrevista completa pode e deve ser lida na íntegra no blogue da Amazing Stories.

Fonte: Amazing Stories