Read Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection Page 20

Part Two: On Science Fiction The Science Fiction Blowgun

  In science fiction, experience seems to show that long stories have an advantage over short ones. The longer the story, all things being equal, the more memorable.

  There is reason to this. The longer the story, the more the author can spread himself. If the story is long enough, he can indulge himself in plot and subplot with intricate interconnections. He can engage in leisurely description, in careful character delineation, in thoughtful homilies and philosophical discussions.

  He can play tricks on the reader, hiding important information, misleading and misdirecting, then bringing back forgotten themes and characters at the moment of greatest effect.

  But in every worthwhile story, however long, there is a point. The writer may not consciously put it there, but it will be there. The reader may not consciously search for it, but he'll miss it if it isn't there. If the point is obtuse, blunt, trivial or nonexistent, the story suffers and the reader will react with a deadly, "50 what?"

  Long, complicated stories can have the point well hidden under cloaking layers of material. Academic people, for whom the search for the point is particularly exciting, can whip their students to the hunt, and works of literature that are particularly deep and rich can elicit scholarly theses without number that will deal with the identification and explanations of points and subpoints.

  But now let's work toward the other extreme. As a story grows shorter and shorter, all the fancy embroidery that length makes possible must go. In the short story, there can be no subplots; there is no time for philosophy; what description and character delineation there is must be accomplished with concision.

  The point, however, must remain. Since it cannot be economized on, its weight looms more largely in the lesser overall bulk of the short story.

  Finally, in the short short story, everything is eliminated but the point. The short short story reduces itself to the point alone and presents that point to you like a bare needle fired from a blowgun; a needle that can tickle or sting and leave its effect buried within you for a long time.

  Here, then, are some points made against the background and with the technique of science fiction.

  A hundred of them, to be exact, each from the science fiction blowgun of a master (to be modest, there are also a couple of my own stories), and each with a one-line introductory blurb by myself.

  Now, since it would make no sense to have an introduction longer than the stories it introduces, and having made my point-I'll stop.