ASFFQ : 1999
The
year of the olive tree! A gnarled tree, tormented and contorted,
tragic looking, the olive tree can also be generous for human
beings. Absent from the Quebecois landscape because it can't
tolerate cold climates, it nevertheless put its symbolic mark
on the year 1999. I will explain.
Esther Rochon won the Grand Prix de la science-fiction et du
fantastique québécois for her production of the
year. The novel that won her the award for the fourth time is
entitled Or, and it is the fifth book in the Chroniques
infernales, the series begun in 1995. It should be noted
that the novel's title is the same as the initials of the author's
son, Olivier Rochon, who was pushed into suicide by schizophrenia.
Borne by her pain, unwilling to yield to the cruelty of this
tragic death, Esther Rochon finished Or in homage to the
ones who inspire us.
The year 1999 will have thus, in its own way, confirmed the victory
of life over death. It is perhaps this message of hope, this
need to believe in something, that constitutes the predominant
theme in the annual output, for in several novels, especially
in YA literature, we find a quest for spirituality. Angels and
other benevolent beings are legion.
The future is, however, more sombre for SF, whose output has
kept on decreasing for several years. The numbers are devastating,
especially on the short story front. Only 24 SF stories were
published in 1999, whereas fantasy, with 93 stories, maintains
its position, with numbers on a par with the average of the last
ten years. However, there is some consolation in the novel output,
with 17 SF novels published, versus 30 fantasy novels.
Still dominated by children's and YA literature (32 novels of
47), this output offers some SF novels for adults that are distinguished
by a specific literary approach: let us mention L'Homme qui
pesait plus lourd nu qu'habillé, by Jérôme
Élie, Le Soleil, by Pierre Gélinas, Les
Enfants de Schubert, de Pierre K. Malouf, La Survie de
Vincent Van Gogh, by Jean Pelchat, and above all Du Virtuel
à la romance, by Pierre Yergeau. Those names certainly
ring no bells for Quebec SF fans, and I can already hear some
"people in the know" of the SFQ community calling those
writers "tourists." But without their contribution,
deliberate or not, where would the SF production be this year?
Besides Esther Rochon and Jean-Louis Trudel, who can pretend
to be the champion defending the colours of SFQ? No original
story by Joël Champetier, Alain Bergeron, René Beaulieu,
Yves Meynard or Élisabeth Vonarburg, two short shorts
by Daniel Sernine, a mini-novel for YA by Francine Pelletier...
The armada is looking quite decimated...
The decline of science fiction is evident on all fronts. In collections
and anthologies, we find only 10 SF stories. Only one SF story
collection came out in 1999 - from a general publisher too, Planète
rebelle. Ovation by Alix Renaud containes three texts,
none previously unpublished. Meanwhile, fantasy was going full
tilt in these collections with 78 texts. One small reservation,
however, has to be added regarding this last statistic: André
Croteau's collection, Légendes le long du Saint-Laurent,
alone accounts for 25 short texts. Specialized magazines, once
the stronghold of science fiction, published 12 stories, half
of the total output, while fantasy had 10 stories. The situation
is even more dismal in general literary magazines, with only
seven texts (two SF, five fantasy). Should we see this as a negative
effect of the extreme standardization of cultural products we
have seen in the past few years? Perhaps. But beyond commercial
constraints and the homogenization of artistic thought, we have
to accept the obvious: Quebec science fiction is going through
an existential crisis.
Several hypotheses could be suggested to explain this stagnation
of SF, which is not exclusive to Quebec, since the situation
is the same everywhere in the world. Is it the proximity of the
new century, which instead of stimulating authors' imaginations,
inhibits their creative faculties? Has the speed of scientific
developments, in biology for instance, caught up with their capacity
for anticipation? Does the ferocious individualism raging in
the rich and technologically advanced societies go against humanist
values such as the open-mindedness and the generosity that motivate
SF writers, thus giving them the impression of preaching in the
wilderness? There are many challenges to be met, challenges that
are evidently, for the time being at least, too much for them.
The assessment for the year 1999 is not wholly negative. We can rejoice in the fact that SF and above all fantasy keep on attracting new writers. Among the 88 authors who published at least one original story in 1999, 42 foray for the first time into either genre. How many will go on? That is the question, for a wide pool of authors is needed to insure a regular output. The revelation of the year is certainly Éric Gauthier, a young writer who's published two fantasy short stories that won three literary awards.
The diversity of output is still somewhat surprising, since
the number of authors who were published either for the first
time, reprinted or translated, is 110, which means that 22 of
them hadn't published any new fiction, but are present due to
a reprint or a translation. If 8 books (7 SF novels) have a second
life because of that, it means this corpus includes works that
successfully weathered the trial of time to become classics,
as far as Quebec literature is concerned, and are on a par with
mainstream works - or at least they've become reliable, accepted
standards.
Claude Janelle
| Original Production | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 17 | 30 | 47 |
| Short stories in... | 24 | 93 | 117 |
|
10 | 78 | 88 |
| b) specialized magazines | 12 | 10 | 22 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| Reissues and/or translations | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Short stories in... | 22 | 47 | 69 |
|
16 | 47 | 63 |
| b) specialized magazines | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Combined production | Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Total |
| Novels | 24 | 31 | 55 |
| Short stories in... | 46 | 140 | 186 |
|
26 | 125 | 151 |
| b) specialized magazines | 18 | 10 | 28 |
| c) non-specialized magazines | 2 | 5 | 7 |
