ASFFQ : 1998
The
year of living dangerously! This expression might seem a bit
too alarmist for some, but 1988 it certainly not the year of
the quiet sun. What dangers? Shouldn't we be worried by the growing
influence of television and cinema aesthetics on novel writing,
especially in YA novels, as several reviewers lament in the following
pages? Isn't the novel losing its soul and its specificity when
it tries to compete with film on its own terms? It is one of
the negative consequences of the campaign of seduction mounted
against the young readership a dozen years ago, when publishing
houses opened their collections to SF and fantasy works. One
must wonder if they really contribute to attracting new readers
who will go on reading those two genres in books for adults.
Another danger, insidious as well, is threatening: the Americanization of the whole culture. This phenomenon may be seen as a corollary of the influence of TV, as it is in that mass media that the authors more often find their cultural references and their scientific "baggage." The effects of that Americanization are not always well evaluated because the globalization that also affects cultural products daily exposes Quebec production to the American steamroller. In this respect, the reprinting of Nocturnes pour Jessie (changed to Les Chemins de Mirlande), by Denis Côté, is an eloquent example of the way our cultural referents have become impoverished in only ten years. Sad to say, but this novel is for me the symbol of the production of 1998 - without denying the relevance of its subject and the effectiveness of its plot, and despite the fact that other works maintain their literary level. But still, the critical mass of these YA novels that are ready to do anything to please their reader is simply too great to be ignored.
We should also lament the loss of the magazine imagine... on the threshold of its twentieth year. The magazine indeed had problems with its publication for several years, its releases having become somewhat erratic. As a result, the only outlet for SF story authors now is the magazine Solaris. Since the output of SF stories has greatly decreased these last years, the future does not look very bright. Moreover, in 1998, SF lost ground again to fantasy. Of 135 texts, there are in fact 38 SF stories versus 97 fantasy stories, a 6% decrease in one year (34% in 1997 versus 28% in 1998, taking into account the stories catalogued in our Supplement for 1997). Never has the ratio (28/72) been so much in favour of fantasy. On the other hand, for novels and novellas, the two genres are nose to nose with 19 books each.
Although the output of novels has kept on growing significantly since the beginning of the 90s, the short story production itself seems relatively stable, as if a self-regulatory process instinctively at work. It is in the SF/fantasy ratio that the variations are the most significant, even though the predominance of fantasy is confirmed from one year to the next in publishing outlets where it is not necessarily expected (collections issued by mainstream publishing houses, Vents d'Ouest, XYZ éditeur, Trois-Pistoles, non-specialized magazines - Stop, XYZ, Les saisons littéraires). Thus, in 1998, of 76 stories in collections or anthologies, 57 belong to fantasy. Non-specialized publications accepted 18 texts, 15 fantasy stories versus only 3 SF stories. These numbers make us acknowledge the skill with which fantastic literature presents itself as a literary text first, and not as genre fiction, which SF cannot do even though its practitioners can also lay claim to a great literary tradition and have proven it through the quality of their work.
The output of original texts for 1998 was the work of 94 authors who published at least one original story. Among them, 35 were in their first foray into fantasy or SF, which confirms the continuing attraction of these genres for the imagination of would-be or established writers.
Beyond (a very appropriate word when talking about fantasy!) the threats mentioned above, one must rejoice in the great variety of fantasy stories (that include, for statistical purposes, a not negligible portion of fantastic works: 4 books and about 20 short stories). Magic realism, humour, literary fantasy (the newcomer Bertrand Gervais exploits its possibilities in his collection Tessons), traditional, or bordering on the supernatural... All kinds are represented. The delightful surprise is the return of traditional fantasy, which obviously benefits from the new infatuation for the oral tradition and the popularity of storytelling. An interesting momentum is at work there, at the convergence of initiatives that deserve to be underlined: a special issue of Stop (#154) dedicated to tales, a collection for children by Cécile Gagnon, Contes traditionnels du Québec, published by Milan, and a book by Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, Les Contes québécois du grand-père forgeron à son petit-fils Bouscotte in which VLB himself tells in his own words a few classics taken from the national repertoire, and a few tales of his own invention. A reappropriation of traditional fantasy, but also a modernization, as illustrated by Chasse-Galerie, the beautiful tale by Lise Gauvin, an academic.
This strong trend in the 1998 output is indeed confirmed on
the reprinting front. During the summer, Le Devoir published
a series of texts from the nineteenth century (including 3 fantasy
stories), further stimulating interest in Quebec's literary heritage.
During that same year, a fanzine, Le Résurrectionniste,
reissued 23 fantasy stories from the nineteenth century or the
first half of the twentieth, in monthly instalments. Mario Rendace
and Thierry Vincent must be credited with this patient archeological
labour. If we add that a collection of Faucher de Saint-Maurice's
stories, À la Brunante, was published by BQ, and
that Stanké collected Louis Fréchette's tales under
the title Le Diable de Jos Violon, we have an irrefutable
proof that traditional fantasy is still relevant for us as readers
and as Quebeckers.
Claude Janelle
| Original Production | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 19 | 19 | 38 |
| Short stories in... | 38 | 97 | 135 |
|
19 | 57 | 76 |
| b) specialized magazines | 16 | 25 | 41 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 3 | 15 | 18 |
| Reissues and/or translations | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Short stories in... | 27 | 61 | 88 |
|
21 | 34 | 55 |
| b) specialized magazines | 5 | 23 | 28 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Combined production | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 21 | 21 | 42 |
| Short stories in... | 65 | 158 | 223 |
|
40 | 91 | 131 |
| b) specialized magazines | 21 | 48 | 69 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 4 | 19 | 23 |
