In my day I was an economist and, if what everyone said about me was true, a darned good one at that. Economics has long held the moniker of 'The Dismal Science' and although I'll argue the science away in favour of art any day, dismal it is. Being the study of scarcity, allocation of finite resources amongst unlimited wants, and the reduction of everything imaginable into monetary terms it could hardly be called anything else. Given this and the ultimate piece of analysis from Keynes that "in the long run we are all dead" and well, all you have to do to kill any joy in life is to invite an economist, accountant, and lawyer to your next party and see what that does to your social circle. Hence why I always say I'm an author and put up with the 'hey, I've got a great idea for a book' and 'oh, scared of real life, are we?' comments. But I digress. As usual.
Economics may be a dismal science, but I've come to the nasty realisation that science fiction writing could very well be the dismal art. Why? Simple. Have a read and take note of those novels where conflict is not a central theme; where there are no deaths; where there is no pain; where, with the exception of the main character who (if current tastes dictate) survives to fight or live another day, there is no clear trail of destruction and carnage in either the backstory or plot. Conan the Barbarian's cry to "swim in my enemies' blood and listen to the wails of their women" sums up the gentler aspects, and I'd be surprised if you could come up with any listings. Take it into the theatre and it's worse, believe me. On the weekend I did a bit of a film binge, watching a few well-known and not so well-known flics for just this dismal view. Easy way to get back to being an alcoholic, I think, concentrate too hard and, well, erk.
So why (pardon me, Julius Sumner-Miller) is it so?
Conflict sells, and conflict is a core part of us as humans, a possibly immutable part. Put five of us together in heaven, leave us for a month and I guarantee three will be ganging up on the other two, probably trying to bludgeon them to death with their own harps. Just the way it is. Guess how many days there have been without war on this planet since 1700? And by war I mean a hot, shooting war between a state and another group. None, zero, zilch. Natural born killers? All of us, and history's the proof.
Any science fiction novel with zero conflict, even just zero external conflict, will sell exactly zero copies because, in the ultimate, conflict is who and what we are despite all of our high ambitions and words. We may not walk down the street knives drawn at each other's throats (Ok Pittsburgh, you might) but it's always conflict, competition and victory in everything we do, touch, see - and we want the same in what we read.
So if you feel great, uplifted, and absolutely happy at the end of your latest science fiction read, stop, think, step outside your human-conditioned mind. Deep down within you there should be a tinge of sadness, melancholy, questioning even underneath it all as the dismal art reaches into you.
If not, you haven’t understood it at all.
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