| Guest Editorial: B-Side Mentality
by Brian Bieniowski |
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As a kid growing up in the early eighties, I was forever raiding my parents’ record collection. It wasn’t large, but it was eclectic, for my mother and father had different tastes in music, so I was just as likely to end up with an Ennio Morricone film score as I was the Beatles. I played the hell out of some of those records, and I learned to love music because of them.
My mother also had a stack of 45s, which I didn’t play as frequently, but loved just the same. Getting the plastic piece into the center of the vinyl was a challenge for a six year old, and sometimes I looked at the creepy covers of the Rolling Stones singles instead. One I did play often was the Monkees’ #3 hit single “Valleri,” which I liked because of its earnest Beach Boys harmonies. On the flip-side was another track called “Tapioca Tundra,” a Mike Nesmith psych-folk experiment. This track was really weird; Mike sang strange metaphysical lyrics as if on distant Mars.
I soon grew tired of “Valleri” played over and over and found I preferred the b-side of the 45 (and many of the other 45s’ b-sides as well) to the a-side, and, in the process, grew to appreciate the side of rock and pop in the sixties that was somewhat further afield. This lead me to a lot of truly weird music years later.
While listening to “Tapioca Tundra” again this morning, (in retrospect, it sounds like the music Love were doing around the same time and not all that strange), I thought of the b-side, an outmoded artifact in a world of digital music sales and ever-more-disposable pop music, but once a valuable gateway for the listener to explore an artist’s work, and a critical venue for musicians to express themselves in a way that was impossible as a pop song. With time, artists felt comfortable putting these experiments on their LPs, and the album-length work was born, yielding many masterpieces.
I have long felt that the short story in science fiction functions in a similar way. It’s a difficult medium to excel in, but it allows the writer to express ideas and experiment in a fashion that is unavailable to them elsewhere. It is, as J.G. Ballard wrote, “coined from precious metal, a glint of gold that will glow for ever in the deep purse of your imagination.” You may not like every short story, in fact I can guarantee with certainty that you won’t. And you absolutely cannot expect the short story, no matter how well told, to deliver five hundred pages of exactly what you want in fiction. That is not what short stories, at their best—science fiction or otherwise—are for. They are the ships that leave the harbor and explore the liminal boundaries of storytelling in a microcosmic way that is impossible for novels, simply by their very nature. These short story ships may not return, they may founder in seas near and far, but it is our belief at Asimov’s that their journeys are crucial to the well-being and advancement of all SF literature, by virtue of their willingness to explore and experiment.
A similar role is held by short fiction venues and their editors. A good editor, whether of short story magazine or anthology, will provide stories that fall within your entertainment comfort zone, as well as stories intended to challenge and expand your interest and appreciation of science fiction. The pleasure of a magazine or anthology is in enjoying a new story. It’s easy to search out the stories by authors you love, but it’s also thrilling to discover a great work of fiction you wouldn’t have otherwise come across. This experience is good for everybody—writers, editors, and readers—and each month we strive to provide it for you in these pages.
A noted blogger and writer in the SF community once opined that nobody wants albums anymore in a world where one has the option to purchase (or fileshare) only the songs that he or she wants. According to the blogger, artists and record labels no longer possess a choke-hold on what music you consume; you can pick and choose at will according to your own tastes and piques. On the surface, doing away with albums sounds like a positive idea, and to some extent it is. Many of them contain filler, though that determination is arguable. It’s of value to have the option of taking only the songs you want, especially if you happen to just like one or two songs on a record. It’s a fair system, and it explains the popularity of the 45 up until the late-eighties—unless you enjoy underground music, where the seven-inch has never died. Still, I don’t believe it’s true that real fans of music, no matter what genre, aren’t interested in the album as artform. I can’t imagine the insane world where it is preferable to listen to only one song of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds or My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless instead of the entire album.
There are psychological considerations to make before we switch over to a wholly user-generated taste-set, whether we are speaking of music or SF stories. As a young man, I appreciated very much that Carter, Pohl, and Merril were there to point the way to fine short stories by authors I’d never before encountered, just as adventurous album explorers might discover more difficult visions alongside pop revelations on records like Low, Innervisions, and Remain in Light.
As readers and listeners, it’s a disservice to limit ourselves to already established tastes and comfort zones. It is better to take chances and try to understand why artists, writers, and editors made the decisions they made. The venue of recommendation doesn’t matter, whether it be website, magazine, or friend—it is the willingness to explore and push our personal boundaries that is important. I hope you’ll continue to support the SF short story and its many venues—and we believe there can never be enough outlets for the medium—and that you’ll share our b-side mentality at Asimov’s in years to come. |
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Copyright
"B-Side Mentality"
by Brian Bienioski
copyright © 2010
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