On Science Fiction

From Kurt Vonnegut to Stanislaw Lem, science fiction authors often step back from their work and contemplate to genre as a whole and the people who work in it - staring into their professional abyss with the sometimes vain hope that it will stare back.

And then there was Yukio Mishima, the author who fell into the abyss after staring too intently for far too long.

If I remember the story correctly, Mishima set out to write the greatest science fiction novel of all time. Already a household name in Japan for his literary novels, short stories, and plays, he devoured over 100 science fiction novels to learn the genre's every facet. The fruit of his labor was 1962's Beautiful Star, a novel that unfortunately has never seen an English-language release. Part of the reason involves the fact that Beautiful Star received a lukewarm reception in Japan. The public's apathy to his 'masterpiece' devastated Mishima. Today, many believe that Mishima's path to self-destruction began with Beautiful Star.

So what stares back at me? Something that shouldn't exist...just one thing in an otherwise mundane, ordinary world. It may not make for a good television, but one small change observed by the right person at the right time can bring 'reality' crashing down faster than a horde of zombies or a fleet of intergalactic battleships appearing out of thin air. Let your unfortunate protagonist stumble across a well-read, dog-eared copy of The Collected Plays of Sophocles: Vol. VI and see what happens next.

Philip K. Dick shared this sentiment, too, I think. In The Man in the High Castle, something that shouldn't exist in his world, a piece of jewelry, causes Mr. Tagomi to briefly visit our reality. The trip rightly horrifies him and leads him to question the very nature of his existence.

What does all this mean? Well, if I were you, I'd be wary of used bookstores or places peddling antiques. There you may discover a modern military decoration from a country that collapsed a century ago, a biography praising the life of someone who never lived...

or English-language translation of Beautiful Star.

And then your existence will never be the same again.