My problem with science fiction that has not been Bradbury or Le Guin has been that most of what I've come across (no naming of names) doesn't achieve, as it promises, what I like to call "heightened reality" that all fiction that I'm willing to call "art" achieves. The story needs to tell the underbelly story, the story we never tell anyone and that all great stories deal with.
Here's an example of what I mean:
“Yet, watching Creole's face as they neared the end of the first set, I had the feeling that something had happened, something I hadn't heard. Then they finished, there was scattered applause, and then, without an instant's warning, Creole started into something else, it was almost sardonic, it was Am I Blue? And, as though he commanded, Sonny began to play. Something began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black man said something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn insisted, sweet and high, slightly detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old. Then they all came together again, and Sonny was part of the family again. I could tell this from his face. He seemed to have found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano. It seemed that he couldn't get over it. Then, for a while, just being happy with Sonny, they seemed to be agreeing with him that brand-new pianos certainly were a gas.” — “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin
My problem with science fiction that has not been Bradbury or Le Guin has been that most of what I've come across (no naming of names) doesn't achieve, as it promises, what I like to call "heightened reality" that all fiction that I'm willing to call "art" achieves. The story needs to tell the underbelly story, the story we never tell anyone and that all great stories deal with.
Here's an example of what I mean:
“Yet, watching Creole's face as they neared the end of the first set, I had the feeling that something had happened, something I hadn't heard. Then they finished, there was scattered applause, and then, without an instant's warning, Creole started into something else, it was almost sardonic, it was Am I Blue? And, as though he commanded, Sonny began to play. Something began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black man said something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn insisted, sweet and high, slightly detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old. Then they all came together again, and Sonny was part of the family again. I could tell this from his face. He seemed to have found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano. It seemed that he couldn't get over it. Then, for a while, just being happy with Sonny, they seemed to be agreeing with him that brand-new pianos certainly were a gas.” — “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin