20151122.0904

I finished reading my copy of the November/December 2015 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction last night. As I did, I looked for a piece useful for my work on the Tales after Tolkien Society blog; fantasy literature does tend to lend itself to medievalism such as the Society studies and interrogates, after all, but I was not fortunate enough to be able to pull a piece from the issue for that purpose. That does not mean I did not enjoy the reading greatly; I did, and I do, and so I continue to subscribe to the magazine these many years later. (I remember that the first issue I received, September 1999, featured prominently a story that revolved around shit. Scatological humor continues to amuse me, as should be evident.)

One piece in the issue continues to attract my attention: Carter Scholz's novella, "Gypsy." In it, a small group of people flees an increasingly unequal and self-destructive Earth for a nearby star system, hoping to be able to re-found civilization in a purer, more noble state. It is something of a hard sf piece, not relying on much technology that lies outside current envisioning; it relies on no currently-unknown physical principles to make it work, no imagined substance with a silly name. (Such phlebotinum as it deploys is something that exists even now.) It is also far from uplifting; the mission ultimately fails, with all those sent on the trip dying either from fungal infection, loss into space, or old age itself. Yet there is an image of hope embedded into the text; near the end, the eponymous outbound mission receives word that things have improved on Earth, but it serves only to heighten the sadness of the Gypsy's mission, that it fails after having never needed to have occurred.

Amid such sadness, though, is an interesting point, particularly so in the context of a science fiction story. The character who receives both first and last narrative focus, Sophie, is a poet-turned-librarian--an artist and humanistic scholar in a genre and amid a world that prizes the detached, hard scientist and engineer above all others. The emphasis accorded Sophie--who occupies the rhetorically-privileged positions of both beginning and ending--is therefore unusual and, for a humanistic scholar and long-time science fiction reader, welcome even if the implications of her character are somewhat...off. The name connotes wisdom, and the name belonging to a poet and librarian links wisdom to humanistic study--which I am happy to see, since it conduces to my own ends. Sophie's wisdom is borne out: she insists on handwritten mission logs as a backup, and the backup becomes necessary as systems fail on the Gypsy. But that wisdom itself is ultimately useless and directed towards a thwarted end; the mission fails, after all, even if undertaken for good cause and supplemented by excellent ideas. The humanities are therefore figured as being of no account against physical realities--and that does not bode well for me.

I have to wonder how the Earth from which the Gypsy flees resolves its problems. I have to hope that it is such wisdom as does not do well on the run that makes things better. I have to hope that I have hope in my field.