Movements and Reprehensibility
Posted on February 21, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 37 Comments
Two links related to me for you this evening:
* John C. Wright talks about Old Man’s War and the New Comprehensibility, but rather more importantly, he launches his own new science fiction movement: The New Space Princess Movement:
The literary movement will follow two basic principles: first, science fiction stories should have space-princesses in them who are absurdly good looking. Second, The space princesses must be half-clad (if you are a pessimist. The optimist sees the space princess as half-naked). Third, dinosaurs are also way cool, as are ninjas. Dinosaur ninjas are best of all.
I have nothing bad to say about this proposed new literary movement.
In discussing OMW, incidentally, Wright brings up a small objection about recreational sex in a co-ed military (i.e., that it’s shown not having any effect on unit cohesion and etc); this isn’t the first time the topic has been mentioned. It’s an interesting topic, although I would note that strictly speaking the issue of sex in the regular CDF ranks is not touched on at all; everybody screws around in the book in the interim period between getting their new bodies and starting basic training. Once they start training and fighting, sex exits the book. To be honest, I don’t know what the rules and regs about sex in the regular CDF are once the recruits are formally inducted; I didn’t think about it at the time. My assumption is that it’s “don’t screw around with your platoonmates.” The Special Forces, of course, would have an entirely different set of rules, as discussed in The Ghost Brigades.
* Here’s an interesting essay on Old Man’s War from author Gabriel McKee, which takes the book to task for its level of militarism, which McKee finds “morally reprehensible”:
Scalzi’s characters universally take glee in fighting. I hoped that someone, somewhere in this book would feel a pang of conscience about their army’s xenocidal imperialism. The narrator eventually does express some guilt in one scene about two thirds in. While slaughtering a species of aliens that literally can’t fight back (they’re under an inch tall), he begins to worry that military life has turned him into a soulless killing machine. His superior officers laugh off his concerns, and his guilt lasts all of nine pages, after which the character just gets over it and goes back to following orders. It’s a shame, too—if the book would have been far more enjoyable for me if it had brought some moral complexity to its wanton destruction.
Naturally, I don’t think the book is as morally reprehensible as McKee does; in particular I would dispute that the majority of the characters take glee in fighting (indeed, one of the characters who clearly does meets a sticky ending). But I think it’s an interesting take on the book, and I think a discussion regarding the morality of the OMW universe and characters is worth having, even if I don’t agree with the McKee’s characterization of the events in the book or the conclusions McKee comes to. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.
The New Reprehensibility? ;-)
Scalzi’s novel opts for a picture of war that is fun, action-packed, and dishonest.
I always felt that the first part of OMW is the “fun” part. It’s basic training–school, if you will–and contains scenes of people adapting to their new position in life, bonding, learning–which can be fun. But once out of Basic, the new recruits discover a universe that is increasingly Not Fun. Action-packed? Sure. Dishonest? Well, I guess that’s all in how you view stories anyway. This story has an unreliable narrator, but even so I think the discerning reader will pick up some implications about wars that the narrator did not intend. There’s a difference between a character and a situation in the book being dishonest and the book itself being dishonest. I felt OMW has shades of ambiguity–particularly near the end. In the beginning, it’s a lot easier to take it as read: We’re good, they’re bad, our killing them is justified. And I think that’s why reading the sequel is a good idea, since it tweaks with some of the underpinnings of the CDF morality.
Obviously the writer wants every war novel to be an antiwar novel. Isn’t it enough to enjoy a good shoot-em-up without thinking constantly about the moral implications of war? Not every combat veteran walks around with a question mark hanging over his head.
Nick Stump:
“Isn’t it enough to enjoy a good shoot-em-up without thinking constantly about the moral implications of war?”
Well, that is an interesting question.
Personally, I don’t think that OMW is neutral on the moral implications of war; I suspect it considers the implications in a direction that Mr. McKee is less interested in than others.
I hate that I can’t flesh out details here, as I don’t want to spoil things for people who have yet to read OMW.
However, there are so many things that John Perry does go through from the beginning of this book and continues to describe in Questions for a Soldier, that I would be interested to see if Mr. McKee is indeed looking at the bigger picture. With the comment John posted above, it seems to me that McKee is consumed with each individual event that takes place in the book and does not work to fill in any of his own imaginative details. What good is reading a book meant to entertain, if it leaves nothing to your own imagination.
Scalzi’s Old Man’s War risks doing the same thing for SF, painting an exciting, glorified picture of war while ignoring the actual experience of combat veterans like Haldeman. Literature about war has a responsibility to be honest in its portrayal of combat.
I think what every reader must remember first and foremost when you arrive at your neighborhood bookstore, is that science fiction, is ultimately fiction! Had Scalzi been writing about the Revolutionary or Civil War, I would have been pissed had I not received some more level of researched detail. Alas, stomping on aliens less than an inch tall, was sort of fun in a sick and twisted way no matter how much guilt the main character felt.
There may be a difference of writing styles based on personal or professional experience, but frankly, that is one thing that will always make each and every good writer; special.
> I don’t think the book is as morally
> reprehensible as McKee does…
I would agree with that. There’s never a scene where an Ender-like character knows the only way he is going to stop being bullied, is to finish the opponent when they are down on their hands and knees. A kick to the ribs, as it were.
Then again, I’m glad you let Harvey out of his cage at the end of TGB. It was wickedly satisfying in my humble opinion – like a secret bacon and cheese snack while the wife is out of the house doing errands.
// ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
// Is this not why you are here?
// Flings sword
I agree with Wright about the sex having potential bad effects, but I think you covered the possibilities fairly well. John Perry actually makes what I thought was a rather foolish decision (even though it ends up working out) when he rescues Sagan in OMW that he might not have made if he did not care for her so much and this was without them having sex. Soldiers will make potentially bad/selfish/jealous decisions when they are having sex with each other, but in fictional space armies at least this may be outweighed by the benefits to unit cohesion, especially on long lonely voyages through space. And future space armies do not have have to worry about the physical consequences to sex, only the emotional ones, which makes for interesting fiction.
Wright is wrong about “Dinosaur ninjas are best of all”. Dinosaur pirates are much better than dinosaur ninjas.
I don’t really understand McKee’s problem (well, I guess I do, I just don’t think he understands it). Any book is told from some point of view, which might ba a character, a narrator, or the author. Each of these might have different takes on what happens in the story.
Surely McKee wouldn’t insist that all characters must have morally acceptable attitudes (to him, at that) about the events in the story?
And I hope he’s not arguing that morally neutral or immoral characters can’t be realistic. Hell, I’ve met Harvey myself (in fact, he was a lot nastier than Scalzi wrote him).
I guess McKee got a little too hung up on Plato’s Republic, and wants writers to only write about “uplifting” themes. Didn’t work really well for Plato, not likely to work now.
Completely off-topic, but it has taken me about 6 months to make the connection that the lift (elevator) that I ride every day to my office is a “Johns Perry Lifts” brand.
Having finally realised this, every now and again I have the thought (wish?) that *this* time it won’t stop at the 16th floor, but instead continue on to Colonial Station…
John-
Personally, I don’t think that OMW is neutral on the moral implications of war; I suspect it considers the implications in a direction that Mr. McKee is less interested in than others.
I don’t think OMW is neutral either. I thought it was a terrific read and as I gobbled it up in one sitting, I might need to go back and look at it again.
At the same time, some writers wallow in this “morality” area to the point I don’t enjoy reading the book. “Going After Caccachio” would be an example. I’ve read it. It’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, Tim O’Brian’s a great writer, no doubt, yet I didn’t enjoy reading it and looking at it now, on a 2nd read, I find GAC a tad preachy for my taste.
Just a readers opinion. I’ve been known to be wrong.
You’ve mentioned before that even though OMW, TGB and TLC comprise a trilogy, they are meant to be able to each stand alone. That said, I think anyone does them a disservice reading their morality based on one book alone. I’ll withhold judgment on the morality until I’ve read the final installation. I’m waiting to find out what the Colonial Union is up to. I’m waiting to find out Perry and Sagan’s reactions.
And since, I’m now reading the Kris Longknife series, I’m obviously in favor of space princesses, especially half-clad ones.
If Gabriel wants to read something that explores the morality of war and violence, may I recommend ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ Having just completed OMW in one sitting, I found it far too entertaining and compelling to search for hidden themes.
John, if I might ask a quick question (and please excuse my ignorance): you seem to be able to track down what’s being written about your work all over the WWW. Are you using some type of tracking software that alerts you to these posts? Thanks.
Well…McKee rights from a religious/spiritual point of view. I’d be suprised if he liked any books which have war as the major theme that that weren’t also anti-war. He liked The Forever War for precisely that reason.
“Dinosaur ninjas are best of all.”
Dude, how about hawt dinosaur ninja princesses . . . with berets?
Then you’d have yourself a New Space Princess Movement.
The New Space Princess Movement sounds suspiciously like a subset of the Infernokrusher Movement. Mere explosions are nothing but enhanced if you add scantily-clad gorgeous women and ninja dinosaurs.
I think “Speaker to Managers” (Bruce) hit it right on the head.
That being said, and speaking specifically about one of Mr. McKee’s comments, does anyone else share my “oh, you have to be kidding” issues with the whole concept of the Covandu and their teeny-tiny ships? (It bugged me in the beta, and it bugs me now.)
Did anyone else note the similarity between him and Thaddeus Bender?
Irony.
I’ve always felt that it was the responsibility of fiction to be immoral at times. It shows us the other facets of our psyche–a warning, perhaps–without the mess to clean up afterwards. Better to write about a genocidal war than to carry one out.
Why do I hear an echo of the “dinosaurs and sodomy” thread from Making Light?
I actually just read OMW last week, and while I more or less loved it, I found that same section jarring. I didn’t have the strong moral objections to it the reviewer had — in my opinion, a story exists to tell a story and should have no built-in moral compass by which it should be measured — but it didn’t seem like that’s how the John Perry of the rest of the book would have handled it. I took it as an indication of Perry’s further transformation into something else than strictly human, or at the very least something else than what he was before, but afterwards he seems like the same guy with the same moral views that has somehow just, as the reviewer mentioned, managed to get over it.
I don’t mean to criticize the book at all. It’s a very telling thing that I was into the character enough for something that seemed out of character to jar me so. I guess it’s just that this moment seemed significant to the character at the time, but didn’t seem to ultimately change his worldview. A small quibble in an otherwise very satisfying read.
It seems to me that McKee came to the party sparring for a fight, so to speak. I don’t mean to imply that he’s being disingenuous…but I suspect he ignored some of the elements that didn’t fit his overall thesis.
To frame this, I haven’t picked up TSD or TLC…yet (backlog of reading material, mostly). However, the impression I came away from OMW was the following:
1) The Universe is NOT FUN. Every race in the galaxy (save one) is fighting horrible, UGLY wars to survive. Mankind is never more than two steps from peril and it’s soldiers life expectancy is very low. It’s why they choose people who were getting close to death in the first place.
2) Bender was never presented as sympathetic…in fact he’s presented as a self-aggrandizing paper-pusher who has delusions of grandeur. Sure, he’s a bit of a cartoon – but we’re getting a grunt’s eye view, here, not the diplomatic corps. Even if Bender was right, his method of going about it was just foolhardy.*
3) At several points, the CDF are shown to be NOT NICE PEOPLE. They do things that are either ethically or morally questionable (witness: the Ghost Brigades themselves). It is made clear throughout the book that the CDF is concerned with the fate of humanity and anything less than that goal is a relatively petty concern. And again, as a grunt’s-eye-view, we’re not even clear that John really fully groks how the world works beyond the CDF.
The author also seems to think that Haldeman’s Forever War is given more credence by the author’s service record. I understand the idea, but given that there are SF authors out there who have also had active service records and continue to write Military SF (say, David Drake, for example), it comes across as a little bit of a cheap shot or an attempt to undermine Scalzi by an appeal to credibility. That might make sense if the novel was trying to be a judgmental commentary on the military way of life….but not a ripping yarn like OMW.
All in all, OMW came across to me as a balanced book in those terms, to this reader at least.
* – While we’re on the subject, this particular event, Bender’s death, was probably the one event that didn’t click with me. It didn’t really ‘ring true’ in my head, FWIW.
Just picked up the paperback of OMW’s last night (reading out of order). But everybody brings their own perception to any work. If McKee has a problem with it, that’s his own little red wagon. The book obviously challenged his assumptions, and he’s responding they way most people do when their assumptions are challenged.
I don’t think soldiers in a volunteer status, on the whole, have moral issues with their jobs. Some might question individual orders, but most will enthusiastically do their jobs when asked. Wouldn’t we all for our own jobs.
Tim Walker, “Dude, how about hawt dinosaur ninja princesses . . . with berets?”
I was right there with you, until the berets. Now if they were only wearing the berets, you might have something there. Never thought I was much of an optimist until the question in the main post. I guess I am optimistic. :)
I disagree that a book should not have its morals or message looked at. People, for better or worse, do take moral cues form their art to one degree or another. The US military recently complained that its soldiers and interrogators are taking things they see in 24 — which is meant to be nothing more than popcorn — and applying them in Iraq, Gitmo and Afghanistan. Whether we want to admit it or not, our entertainment, our culture, matters. Choosing to have no one disturbed by the violence they participant in against the aliens is going to say something to some subset of the peolpe who read the book, whether the author intends it to or not. I don’t think it out of line to discuss the implications of the choices an author makes. In this specific case, having a character express doubts and the drop those doubts in very short period of time can be reasonably read to mean that the morals of the character are suspect. It’s an authorial choice, though, with implications for the moral/meaning/message that readers can be expected to take away. I am not sure why the fact that OMW is an adventure story means it cannot also be something else, which seems to me to be the implication of some of this discussion.
Having said that, though, there is an element of “Scalzi didn’t write the book I would have written” to the review. Having the main character abandon his doubts is, to me, just as interesting a choice as having those doubts come to dominate the last part of the story.
And, finally: how the heck could a dinosaur be a ninja? How is a triceratops going to sneak up on anyone? And is there even that much black cloth in the world? It’s just not believable. No, half-clad princess ninjas — that’s your literary movement.
Kevin:
“I don’t think it out of line to discuss the implications of the choices an author makes.”
I agree with this.
“In this specific case, having a character express doubts and the drop those doubts in very short period of time can be reasonably read to mean that the morals of the character are suspect.”
See, this is where I think the problem is — He doesn’t actually drop is doubts in a short period of time, I just write about it in the space of a single chapter, which is not necessarily the same thing. Also, I don’t think Perry “gets over” his moral issues; he finds a way to deal with them, which is again not exactly the same thing. Check the last paragraph of chapter eleven and you’ll see the distinction there.
I think the meat of the issue here from McKee’s point of view is that I didn’t chew on this issue to his satisfaction. That’s an issue of authorial choices; I decided I had the rest of my story to get to.
“Having said that, though, there is an element of ‘Scalzi didn’t write the book I would have written’ to the review.”
Basically, although I would rephrase it as “Scalzi didn’t write the book the way I wanted him to write it.” Not too much I can do about that, of course.
John
“I agree with this.”
I figured you did. I was reacting to some of the comments that I read as arguing that since OMW was an action/adventure piece, it’s morals/message/themes/etc shouldn’t be looked at too closely. I should have been clearer.
“See, this is where I think the problem is — He doesn’t actually drop is doubts in a short period of time, I just write about it in the space of a single chapter, which is not necessarily the same thing. Also, I don’t think Perry “gets over” his moral issues; he finds a way to deal with them, which is again not exactly the same thing. Check the last paragraph of chapter eleven and you’ll see the distinction there.”
I will take your word for that — I don’t have the book available. I think, oddly enough, that my mother-in-law has our copy. Another convert to the New Comprehensible ;)
Unfortunately, it’s been a while since I’ve read OMW, Starship Troopers, or the Forever War, so the details are a bit fuzzy to me, but it seemed to me that all three looked at intergalactic war in different ways, and none of them were necessarily more right or wrong than the other.
OMW and ST seemed to look at the actual fighting in a somewhat similar way, IIRC, but the big difference there seemed to be the politics. ST seemed to focus a lot on the politics early on in the book, where the politics of the CDF in OMW were shadowed by design.
TFW, which Mr. McKee seems to be more of a fan of, definitely takes a different look at war, but I think there were also some big differences in the universe it took place in that contributed to that different outlook. The main one that keeps coming to mind for me, and maybe I’m overstating the importance of it, is the time it takes to travel. When you can throw your best up against their best, that’s one thing. But when you arrive for the battle with equipment that’s been made obsolete by the time it took to get there and find yourself up against an enemy that has brand-spanking-new equipment, war definitely seems a little futile.
They’re all simply different outlooks on war, and they all provide good entertainment and give you some pause for thought on the repercussions of war, though I think TFW focuses a bit more on the latter, which is not to say it’s not still very entertaining.
As for the passage in question… I felt my own feelings mirroring those of John Perry throughout most of OMW, but we split there. I had a hard time not grinning at the thought of kicking around an army of inch-tall soldiers. Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. But I certainly find John Perry no more ‘morally reprehensible’ than Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket or Kurtz in Apocalpyse Now, which are both military fiction that entertain while also giving you something more to think about.
And I agree with WizarDru that, well, the universe, as it was portrayed in OMW especially, is not a very nice place. It never seemed to me to be an issue of ‘they have enough space to play, we have enough space to play, but we’re not content with that, so we’re going to take their side of the sandbox too’ as much as ‘there ain’t enough sandbox to go around, so we’re all gonna be butting heads before too long’. While it’s easy to talk about morals in the former case, when it comes down to survival or play nice and worry about morals, I think survival is the natural choice of humans. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have made it as far as we have.
But that’s just my 2¢.
Let’s face it. War is a bad place to be. Only a psyhcopath really wants to be there. Unfortunatly, it is a fact that war is often necessary. In order to conduct a war soldiers must adopt a mindset that avoids the moral wrangling that McKee wants. Initially they may be there to protect certain ideals. While they are in it, they are more focused on protecting their unit/buddies. The moral decisions were made when they signed up.
In a situation where men are fighting to avoid becoming someone’s lunch – I doubt most people would have any moral qualms with killing.
My vote is that McKee and his ilk go to the Pakistan/Afghanistan border or Baghdad and try to convince the murderous jackals that want to end civilization as we know it that war is bad and they shouldn’t want it. Oh Wait! Scalzi had a nice example of something like that in OMW, didn’t he?
It is a shame that the herd thinning through war doesn’t weed out the cowards in the gene pool too well. The ones who can make the tough moral choices all too often end up in the ground while the simpering cowards run for office – or become reviewers and critics.
I’m glad to see that my essay sparked some discussion, and some very intelligent discussion at that. Here are some thoughts to clarify my post:
First of all, I want to make it entirely clear to everyone: I liked OMW a lot. I have no problem separating my aesthetic appreciation of a work from my interpretation of its moral message. Heck, one of my favorite movies is Dirty Harry, which, from a moral-political standpoint, is a 90-minute argument in favor of police brutality and torture. (For that matter, I like Starship Troopers as well, even though I think its politics are downright scary; and as a Godzilla fan I even took some… well… glee in the Covandu scene in OMW). As a general rule, I don’t write about something that doesn’t engage me, which OMW very much did. Scalzi is an excellent writer, and I’m very much looking forward to reading The Android’s Dream (which is next on my ever-growing pile of unread books).
OMW certainly wasn’t trying to be a realistic depiction of war, and on that level I suppose there is a certain level of disingenuity in comparing it to TFW and Herakles. Still, I stand by my statement that stories about the military have a certain responsibility to be honest about the ugliness of war (and especially when a state of active war exists). Throughout OMW I was expecting a final-act change of attitude towards the enemy, as in TFW and Ender’s Game, and I was disappointed when it didn’t come. CaseyL pretty much hits the nail on the head with the comment that I want everything to be anti-war, because (to put it idealistically and simplistically) I think war is a Bad Thing that generally shouldn’t happen.
That said, my real criticism of OMW is that it suffers from a dearth of half-clad space princesses, ninja dinosaurs, and half-clad ninja dinosaur space princesses.
A Soldier, while I agree or at least accept many of your points, you may want to revisit your thoughts on the function of the gene pool and just whom may be a simpering coward. You’re confusing two issues, the mindsets of those in the heat of the music and those who are calling the tune.
Gabriel Mckee – “…(to put it idealistically and simplistically) I think war is a Bad Thing that generally shouldn’t happen.”
I think you’d have a hard time finding any level-headed human who wouldn’t agree completely with this statement. I would also guess that most of the same people would agree that there are greater wrongs out there than war, and sometimes war is necessary (I hesitate to use that word, but I can’t find a better one) to end a greater atrocity. Where we draw that line is an individual decision, though, due to our own morals, upbringing and experiences. That’s what makes us different from Haldeman’s Man, and it’s what makes it possible to have such interesting discussions such as this.
You certainly did spark a very interesting discussion. I look forward to seeing your take on flatulence after you read The Android’s Dream.
how the heck could a dinosaur be a ninja? How is a triceratops going to sneak up on anyone?
He takes off his shoes?
And if he’s sneaking across a pool table, he can wear a green hat.
If he’s hiding in a cherry tree, he can paint his toenails red.
Yep, all the hiding elephant jokes work for ninja triceratops!
The Rraey attacked our colony and ate everyone in it. Why exactly would Perry decide to have a change of heart? The CDF and the Colonial Union aren’t perfect (this becomes more apperent in later books) and war is hell. But it’s an ugly universe and there are bad guys out there (and everything’s not, a la, TFW and Ender’s Game going to–OOPS–turn out to be a giant misunderstanding).
I think one of the significant differences in these fictions is in how the wars get started. In both OMW and Ender’s Game it is the enemies who start the war. As Jacob points out above the Rraey think we are tasty and plan to eat us. In Ender’s Shadow the Formics are described as showing up over China one day and a few hours later 100 million people were dead. And while the hivequeen was sorry about that later, she was only sorry after humans had destroyed the rest of her species and she was dependent on a human to save her. In The Forever War it is humans who start the war against a peaceful species. War may suck, but I for one would rather be at war than have us be cattle for the Rraey or let the Formics decide to turn earth into a colony.
I think if Perry were a draftee forced to slaughter non-aggressive aliens (as happens in Halderman’s works) he would suffer through a lot more moral and psychological anguish. I thought a large part of Perry’s anguish in the scene with the Covandu was how radically his life had been altered, going from mild mannered retired ad guy to city destorying death machine stomping on tiny people in just a few months.
And while a ninja triceratops is hard to imagine working out well, a ninja oviraptor or a ninja pterodactyl could be quite deadly. A pirate triceratops on the other hand could be effective.
“The author also seems to think that Haldeman’s Forever War is given more credence by the author’s service record. I understand the idea, but given that there are SF authors out there who have also had active service records and continue to write Military SF (say, David Drake, for example), it comes across as a little bit of a cheap shot or an attempt to undermine Scalzi by an appeal to credibility.”
This is just a variation on the “chickenhawk” theme. Just as (apparently) only combat veterans can have legitimate opinions on national security, only combat veterans can write “credible” military SF.
If McKee wants a military SF book that is a tiresome, thinly-veiled allegory of the Iraq War, and a fig leaf for a denunciation of American Imperialism, he should write it himself. In my view, though, that would be just as “dishonest” (though for different reasons) as the “fun, action-packed” novels that McKee denounces.
PS Oh yeah, McKee would have to join the military and serve in Iraq in order to write that novel “authentically” and “honestly” by his own standards, and I doubt that will happen, heh heh.
John, if I might ask a quick question (and please excuse my ignorance): you seem to be able to track down what’s being written about your work all over the WWW. Are you using some type of tracking software that alerts you to these posts? Thanks.
I don’t know how Mr. Scalzi does it but no special software is needed.
Google is your friend. But actually searching on Google is work – sit back and let the computer work for you.
Google Blog search allows you to save a query as an RSS feed. Save this to your RSS reader. Your reader will now poll the RSS feed and deliver the goods to you. Look at it when convenient.
The ‘other’ good blog search engine is icerocket.com, btw.
Example for work one of my tasks is to answer questions about what we do. I have my companies name and our ‘product’ as RSS feeds and hey presto if you blog about it I _will_ see your entry in 12-24 hours, 48 on the outside.
If I see that someone has a question I can leap in their and answer it. Questions are answered, people are happy and dialog happens.
“Young Grasshopping Triceratops… when you can walk across this football stadium sized sheet of rice paper — and leave no trace of your passing — only then shall you become.” — The Old T-Rex Priest With Cataracts
I vote for ninja dinosaur pirate princesses with berets, myself.
Dr. Phil