What follows is a very, very brief history of science fiction romance. Think of it as the proverbial quickie, because it’s also doing double duty as a precursor for my next post.
A good subtitle for this piece would be “The Jacqueline Lichtenberg Project” because her extensive experience and input made this overview possible. Most of what I’m presenting is based on either quotes from her online observations or paraphrased information that she provided me via email.
So we begin:
In The Hurt Locker, Indie Films, Financing TV – Part I, Jacqueline Lichtenberg states that:
Before 1966 and Star Trek, in the 1930's, science fiction magazines connected readers of science fiction and basically invented modern SF as well as SF fandom. In fact, the very people who invented modern SF and created that community (called First Fandom) actually invented the word "fandom" out of "fanatic" and "domain" or "Kingdom."”
In other words, science fiction is born. During that time, any romantic SF stories were known as “Neck up SF” since the romance element tended to offend the sensibilities of adolescent males.
Flash forward to the 1960s, during which time Marion Zimmer Bradley’s short story CENTAURUS CHANGELING (1954) “was widely credited with changing the direction of SF with its mix of a character and later relationship driven plot.”
Then, “The culture of the world changed through the 60's and 70's - anti-war, women's movement, civil rights.”
Genres began to diverge along gender lines. Romance was defined as for women, and action adventure was defined as for men. Science fiction, which should have been gender neutral, was merged with action adventure since it was assumed women wouldn’t like it and/or couldn’t understand it (they were too stoopid, you see).
Simultaneously, it was assumed men weren’t into exploring relationship dynamics or experiencing feelings and so they wouldn’t be interested in romance (they were too stoopid, you see).
“In the 1960's came STAR TREK - presenting a view of 1930's SF to the 1960's audience. But the women went into Spock Shock and generated fiction fanzines (an innovation).” (For more information from a fan fiction insider’s perspective, read An Interview With Joan Marie Verba (Part One)).
The earliest known SFR emerged in a Star Trek romance episodic novel by Barbara Sharon Emily (you can read it for free at Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s site). The significance of this type of fan fiction is thatThe women who wrote TV pastiche wanted SF-Romance, and wouldn't let the traditional publishers deny it to them. They wrote it themselves.
At that time, you could not sell (professionally) any original SF or Fantasy that had even ONE sex scene in it. Fanzine markets grew explosively after STAR TREK LIVES! was published by Bantam. Then you could have go-to-black sex scenes in prof SF/F novels….”
Culturally, “The 1960's were the years the boomers tried to break out of sexual mores and strictures. The 1970's were the years women of that generation pulled the veil off secret discrimination against women.”
Enter Jacqueline Lichtenberg: her first Sime~Gen story, Operation High Time, was published in 1969 (the link will take you to the story, available for free. For a complete list of her work, visit the author’s bibliography). This was followed by her books STAR TREK LIVES!, HOUSE OF ZEOR, and UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER.
(And fans of UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER have long memories. Check out a recent post by Rachel at LoveCats DownUnder. This blogger read the book as a teen, “obsessed” over it, and is now seeking other SFR/fantasy romance book recommendations!)
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s CENTAURUS CHANGELING, and the work of authors such as Jacqueline Lichtenberg (note that Ms. Lichtenberg was heavily involved in fan fiction groups) launched a trend of SF/F stories that are “powered by a RELATIONSHIP story dynamic.” Yet it wasn’t until after 1986 that “…you could have chaste, non-anatomical-language sex scenes in prof SF/F novels.” But nowadays, “SF without sex isn't selling so well.”
On a related note, in Could romance be the Captain Kirk of literature? Blogger Bev points out that like Kirk, romance readers don’t like to lose their happy endings:
So, when people tell us that stories with those unhappy endings are more “realistic” and we should appreciate and learn from them, we instead think “rewrite”.
A prime example is Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s DUSHAU, which won the first Romantic Times Award for an SF novel in 1985. Both the book, as well as the vast numbers of fan fiction stories before it, demonstrated that readers wanted science fiction romance.
Did they get what they asked for?
More on that next time.
Joyfully yours,
Heather
13 comments:
I've said before that IMHO, the original seeds of of sci-fi romance were strewn by Edgar Rice Burroughs and his "Barsoom" series (the first book dates from 1912). I'd love to see someone write a scholarly post on that topic someday:-).
There's a movie called "A Princess of Mars" I'm both terrified and tempted to watch in my Netflix queue...
The movie based on the Barsoom stories isn't coming out till 2012, so far as I know. I don't know what that one might be:-).
Great post! I really needed to see this. It's an odd feeling seeing the history of SFR and learning how it came to be. Wow-- I am impressed. Funny, I did a very light touch (no where near this calibar) about early SFR on a guest blog today, mostly it was a promo for FL, but many don't understand SFR to this day. (http://lindabanche.blogspot.com) I mentioned The Ship Who Sang. Gosh, my mom read books by Anne McCaffrey and thus introduced me to my very first SFR. I’ve always considered Anne the mother of SFR. I knew others came before her, though she was my first. I am checking out your links. I can't wait for the second part of this history. Duh-you'd think I'd know more as much as I love this stuff.
This is a very interesting post showing how romantic science fiction has developed and changed over the years. I'd have to stretch quite a bit to call it the history of science fiction romance, though.
In fact, I think most romance readers would see what's been said so far as a history of romantic science fiction, mainly because everything mentioned is from the science fiction side of things with romance added in to satisfy that craving. There's nothing wrong with that. It's great and fantastic. But... how does that make the stories part of the romance genre instead of the step-children of science fiction?
And that's where the problem comes in with promoting a crossover genre - there are two genres and sets of fans involved that have to be appealed to.
BevBB, now that you mention it, I should have linked to my futuristic romance retrospective, which covered SFR from the romance roots angle.
And yes, this isn't meant to be comprehensive. Might be a good idea in the future for me to merge all the info into a single post, if anyone's interested. If there's any background info from romance genre history about SFR pre 1980s, I'd be very much interested in learning about it.
Love Anne McCaffrey.
I have learned more about the writing craft from Jacqueline Lichtenberg than anyone. She's also connected me to more resources for learning the craft. Found her through Linnea Sinclair, whom I found through Susan Grant. Making connections is a funny thing.
Also love Marion Zimmer Bradley. ENDLESS UNIVERSE is one of my all-time favorites. Learned about her from Jacqueline.
I found SFR through a review linking me to Linnea and Susan Grant. So, very funny about connections. Also "met" Jacqueline on twitter (wonderful and helpful!).
In an odd synergy, I guest blogged today about I felt too stupid for SF when I was younger. It was only in the last few years that I realized it is okay to be non-geek fan of SFR. You can read my blog post here: http://outofthisworldromance.blogspot.com/
I grew up during the turbulent times mentioned in this blog and I see the impact of that in my fiction (both SFR and non) in that many of my books have a themes of identity and survival. Now that I think about it, my first serious piece of writing was a stage play called A Visible Difference about a mom who becomes invisible when her family doesn't appreciate her. LOL! Not technically SF, but edging that way and I didn't know it. And my non-SF books all have action-adventure elements to them.
Pre-1980s? G-d, I honestly don't know. The single title "bodice ripper" boom of the seventies was definitely for historicals and they pretty much flooded the romance market along with categories (the # series lines). As far as I know, there wasn't any particular line that even featured fantasy-leaning stories during those early decades. Other than Gothic romances, sometimes AKA romantic suspense. Some of those authors go all the way back into the sixties, maybe even fifties.
But true science fiction themes and elements in romances prior to 1980? That would be like a treasure hunt. And one would definitely be looking for individual books or authors. Possibly even the occasional odd book published by established authors like McCaffrey - but with a romance label not a science fiction one.
See, that's the real question. What the publishers are willing to label them and whether they will use the author's established name. Whether the author will use their name. A lot of people don't realize that Agatha Christie published six romances - otherwise known as romantic fiction to her hardcore fans ;-) - under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. The earliest one being from 1930. (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/agatha-christie/giants-bread.htm)
But they weren't labeled mysteries either.
So, could there be some romances out there with science fiction earlier than 1980?
Probably. Just depends on where one is willing to look.
Ellen et al: Princess of Mars was a direct to DVD piece of deliciousness: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1531911/
"But true science fiction themes and elements in romances prior to 1980? That would be like a treasure hunt. And one would definitely be looking for individual books or authors."
That would be a super fun project. What would qualify as SF elements? Would telepathy count? :ducks just in case:
I have very little experience with SF. Coincidentally, I was very fond of it in middle school and read a lot of the "juveniles," but when I moved on to adult fiction, I abandoned it in favor of Romantic Suspense which had character and relationship driven plots.
@Maryk IMHO, telepathy counts if it has a scientific basis.
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