The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction

by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., István Csicsery-Rónay

A major critical work from one of the preeminent voices of science fiction scholarship

As the world undergoes daily transformations through the application of technoscience to every aspect of life, science fiction has become an essential mode of imagining the horizons of possibility. However much science fiction texts vary in artistic quality and intellectual sophistication, they share in a mass social energy and a desire to imagine a collective future for the human species and the world. At this moment, a strikingly high proportion of films, commercial art, popular music, video and computer games, and non-genre fiction have become what Csicsery-Ronay calls science fictional, stimulating science-fictional habits of mind. We no longer treat science fiction as merely a genre-engine producing formulaic effects, but as a mode of awareness, which frames experiences as if they were aspects of science fiction. The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction describes science fiction as a constellation of seven diverse cognitive attractions that are particularly formative of science-fictionality. These are the "seven beauties" of the fictive neology, fictive novums, future history, imaginary science, the science-fictional sublime, the science-fictional grotesque, and the Technologiade, or the epic of technsocience's development into a global regime.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Literature, Writing, Criticism, Theory, Philosophy

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Professor of English, DePauw University .

Co-Editor, Science Fiction Studies & Humanimalia: A Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies

Reviews

[Simona B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been studying a lot of SF criticism lately, and I find The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction one of the most profound, passionate, gripping, and intelligent books I have read on the subject. It was a huge help in my research for my Master's dissertation, and I'm sure I'll be returning to it time and again in the future. I owe to this work (and many others which I've been lucky enough to discover in this phase of my academic growth, but mostly, I think, this one) the realization/confirmation that non-mimetic literature is a field ripe for exploration, and that we need gifted academics to search for new ways of reading these underestimated genres more keenly, more fully, more deeply. Also, Csicsery-Ronay's writing is extremely engaging, which is why I recommend The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction to absolutely everyone, from the casual reader of SF to the veteran scholar.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book identifies seven ways science fiction can be pleasant to read and gives a detailed, thoughtful analysis of each one. (They are fictive neology, novums, future history, imaginary science, the science-fictional sublime, the science-fictional grotesque, and the "Technologiade" or basic cast of narrative roles that science fiction takes off from.) The author keeps justification and explanation to a minimum in order to make room for a rich density of ideas. Almost everything was relevant in some way to my experience as a science fiction reader in some way or other and gave me a lot of new vocabulary for literary concepts that make sense to me but that up to now I haven't been able to articulate. The exception was the chapter on the grotesque, which clearly springs from a taste very foreign to mine, but even that was an informative insight. The book isn't completely free from vagueness, overinterpretation, and elitism, my typical complaints about my limited previous experience of literary criticism, but most of the time they are an order of magnitude less severe.

[Karl Bunker · Rating 3 out of 5]

In chapter 5 of this book, author Csicsery-Ronay draws parallels between the "sense of wonder" in science fiction and the notion of "the sublime" in the philosophical writings of Emmanuel Kant and Edmund Burke. That one point of discussion is typical of the book, and I think it stands as a good way to encapsulate what the book is like and where it's coming from.

"Seven Beauties" is a piece of scholarly academic writing, and therefor is dense in style, laced with jargon, sometimes convoluted in sentence structure, and formidable in its vocabulary. While I wouldn't say that a graduate degree in philosophy or literary theory is a requirement to understanding this book, it sure would help. But on the other hand, with enough patience, enough willingness to read some sentences and paragraphs 2 or 3 times over, and perhaps with the help of a dictionary or two, any reasonably educated SF fan should be able to struggle through it.

Personally, I often didn't have the patience to reread and re-reread the book's many difficult passages, so I'm afraid quite a few of Csicsery-Ronay's ideas went sailing over my head, their presentation too stratospheric to even ruffle my hair.

But certainly not all of his ideas. At times I found Csicsery-Ronay's prose quite lucid, and at those times his ideas were usually interesting and enlightening. I remember in particular finding his discussion of the use of language in Dune quite intelligent and informative.

So if you're interested in science fiction studies and you're undaunted by the prospect of a lot of viscous, scholar-ese writing, I think you'll find this book quite rewarding. For impatient plebeians like myself, the operative word might be more "frustrating" than "rewarding."

[Alexander Páez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo he terminé ayer. Estoy muy orgulloso de haberlo terminado, la lectura en inglés más complicada a la que me he enfrentado antes.
Le pongo un 3,5/5 por lo críptico y complicado de algunas explicaciones, pero la buena nota es por lo interesante de la obra, que sin duda me ha abierto mucho los ojos, además de las gratas explicaciones en los blogs donde se ha hecho la lectura conjunta.

[boocia]

a good reread. was almost suspiciously clear after the butler n harraway, so a weird thing to reacclimate to.

some weaknesses:
- the first two chapters use the idea of 'modern societies/cultures/countries' a little weirdly; he never gives a fully crisp definition of what he's talking about; it stinks of some firstworld/secondworld delineation. by the end of the book he gives this incredibly exultant takedown of SF as a direct consequence of a capitalistic, imperialistic, oppressive technoscientific regime so the uninvestigated 'modern' didn't feel ... quite as condescending as it could have. he does have the wild take that certain languages lack the flexibility of english and so are less suited for science fiction ?? which is ??? and that these languages would become more flexible as technoscience permeates them more i guess? idk. it was weird.
- i did not really buy his take on 'the dynamic sublime' in movies; the idea of the sheer overwhelming action of movies being a form of sublime ? it just didn't resonate. idk.
- i get the sense that most readers don't like the last beauty, the 'technologliade': the narrative structure of SF about the triumph of scientific over the everything. i think his breakdown of the 'robinsonade (crusoe)' into tropes like 'shadow mage' and 'handy man' was a little general; it did not feel specific to adventure fiction or to science fiction - fantasy has handy mans (magicians) and shadow mages (i guess, also, magicians) i guess it might be a helpful way to talk about science fiction regardless, and the general direction he's going - of this culturally imperialist spirit within SF being a direct descendent of imperialist/colonialist adventure fiction - was really solid.

my favorite parts:
- i think the idea of the grotesque being implicitly queer has ... Weird connotations, but i liked it generally. it really helps inform a lot of horror movies, probably. queer i think he means really just. non-heteropatriarchical. this book talks a lot about the history of subversion of imperialism/patriarchy within SF, a genre that is intrinsically tied to these ideas; grotesquery feels like the most concrete 'escape hatch' to turning the whole thing inside out; frankenstein, annihilation, lilith's brood.
- writing-wise, Csicsery-Ronay isn't afraid to inject his own personal opinions on pop culture which makes for a nice read. he thinks the matrix sequels are a failure but really fucks with the alien sequels. he's *obsessed* with how Dune is weak because of the unexplained existence for arabic-speaking and french-speaking space people - is it extratextual? convergent evolution? some unexplored connection to our Earth? it's just amusing.
- throughout csicsery-ronay really drives home how much of sci-fi pop culture is informed by and informs society. linking scifi with NASA initiatives, with capitalism, with especially hyperreality - this cultural expectation of the inevitability of scientific advancement, without any informed-scientific reason for this belief. in its soft form the 'we should have jetpacks by now!' thing; in its hard form uninformed but concrete expectations for miracle cures, martian colonies, cryogenics etc. would elon musk's whole deal be happening without science fiction's impact on reality?
- just good argument building; pleasing re-purposing of for example kierkegaard's definition of the sublime for the purpose of SF studies.
- i really like how in the post-script he discusses the myth of the Singularity embodying all of the beauties - new words, novums, future sciences, future history, the grotesque, the sublime, the takeover and eminence of technoscience - and how real scientific-minded Men believe that it's definitely coming. and he opposes it directly with haraway's cyborg as another myth-dream; one that is about fusion with nature and with tech for democracy and freedom, instead of monocultural eminence. that was a cool connection.

solid gems in this one.

[Nicola · Rating 2 out of 5]

While a very interesting subject, it was a very hard read. The introduction said that he was trying to write for a non-academic audience but then found that he couldn't, and it showed. A dictionary of a must for this book.

[martha Hrdy]

another ASTR096 reading that i thought was a #slay. very easy read despite being such an in-depth exploration of complex themes in the vast genre of SF!

[Barrita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aunque no es un libro particularmente extenso, está lleno de ideas y conceptos bastante complejos. Puede tomarse como un estudio bastante filosófico acerca de los diferentes escenarios en que la ciencia ficción es planteada, o simplemente como una reflexión acerca de cómo la ciencia ficción nos afecta.

Al final, es un acercamiento elocuente y teórico al tema, pero creo que se reduce a darnos cuenta de que la ciencia ficción es principalmente un medio para asombrarnos/aterrarnos de manera simultánea, es una forma de confrontarnos individual y socialmente con nosotros mismos.

[John Mihelic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. It is a book of theory but it also has little bits of how the author would apply the theory to different texts and it shows how his theoretical concepts apply in practice. It's a very beautiful way of going about it. I think what was best for me is that he really gave me a vocabulary to describe and criticize science fiction in an academic manner. There are a lot of themes and tropes and characters and settings that are present in science fiction that don't really have a place of your come from a place of criticism of realistic fiction, and so it gives you a way to talk about it. This is the book I would give anybody who was trying to write a paper or to think more critically about science fiction. It's a very good starting place and you'll be glad you read it.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be sure that you have your phone fully charged when you start reading this. You are going to google more words than you ever have in your entire life, and likely kill your battery doing it. But despite its denseness in vocabulary it is a fully comprehensive guide to reading science fiction academically. I have met the author through my school and can also add that he is a very personable guy and can break down the density of these pages.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is the intent of science fiction? A simple answer might be that it's to predict the future. But if that were true, visions of the future that contain inaccuracies (and all of them do) would not be cherished parts of the canon. The 1996 of Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys" has come and gone, without a world-ending global pandemic (ahem), and yet the movie still feels as haunting (and even prescient) as it ever did.

Clearly, SF must offer more than wild speculation and cool gadgets.

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay does a good job of taxonomizing his eponymous "seven beauties" of the genre. These include obvious explorations that fans of the genre love: ersatz languages for fictive species; inventions that don't yet exist but could; as well as alternative and future histories, like those of Harry Turtledove (Confederate Nazis fly the Stars & Bars & Swastika over the Capitol!)

Less obvious and more complex are two interrelated beauties, the Sublime and the Grotesque, which function like a Janus-faced coin to show what happens when humans approach the godlike and attempt to apprehend it, and what happens when humans attempt to play god and discover that they are, alas, still mere flesh in a constant state of entropic decay.

There is a lot to admire in this work, but alas, the style is needlessly dense, and the tangles of clauses and thickets of loanwords get so obscurantist that it makes what should have been sublime more of a slog. Reading about the "phallologocentric technologiades" and their cultural hegemony brought back bad memories of grad school. I got the feeling more than once while reading the book that Csicsery-Ronay had read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" prior to writing, and then set out with the perverse intent to deliberately violate every admonition in the essay. It's not as bad as Judith Butler, but a couple pull quotes could definitely place runner-up in Denis Dutton's "Worst Writing of the Year" contest.

That would be nothing to bemoan, if the author weren't occasionally capable of thinking and writing clearly, and using his razor exegesis to state truths and apprehend insights that every science fiction fan can and should appreciate. The dude is unquestionably brilliant, enthusiastic, and maybe I'm being to hard on him. I guess one cannot spend that much time in academia without at least partially being affected by the culture, and its mores that extend to writing styles. It's like expecting someone to hang out in Chernobyl with no safety gear without any adverse affects.

But man, it coulda been so much more.

[Noémie J. Crowley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lorsque l’on dit aimer la science-fiction, beaucoup s’exclament que ce n’est pas un genre sérieux, que c’est pour les enfants/pour se vider la tête, ou sortent une liste de clichés liés au genre pour le discréditer (les robots géants, les voitures qui volent, les vaisseaux, bla bla bla).

Et pourtant, tous ceux qui lisent régulièrement de la SF savent qu’il y a ben plus dans le genre que les clichés grand publics qui lui sont accordés. The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction fait parti de ces ouvrages qui, en analysant les oeuvres et thèmes majeurs, permet de lui rendre justice et dans un sens, le légitimiser.

Le livre est composé de sept parties, suivant les septs « beautés » de la science fiction: Néologie Fictive, « Novums » Fictifs, Future Histoire, Science Imaginaire, Sublime de la SF, Grotesque de la SF, « Technologiade ». Chacune de ces parties explorent différents thèmes et sujets via différents auteurs, travaux et oeuvres. Certains reviennent souvent, comme la saga Alien, Neuromancer, la Trilogie de Mars ou Star Trek.

Même si je ne suis pas forcément toujours d’accord avec l’auteur (je ne trouve pas Star Wars particulièrement grotesque par exemple, ni Ripley soit une icône LGBT qui n’aime pas les hommes - quelqu’un a du manquer le début de romance dans Aliens), j’ai dans l’ensemble beaucoup apprécié The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, pour son point de vue très académique et le développement des différentes beautés associées à la science fiction. Sans pour autant le recommender nécessairement (je ne pense pas par exemple qu’il soit essentiel bien que souvent cité dans d’autres livres du genre, et il n’est pas vraiment accessible à ceux qui n’auraient pas déjà creusé un peu le sujet), sa lecture a été agréable et m’a permis d’approfondir mes connaissances et perspectives sur le genre.

[Tom Calvard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic work of 'science fiction studies', this is a great book for getting a deeper understanding of the genre. It does lean more academic than popular, and some passages do carry a lot of long words.

But the author's enthusiasm shines through, and it is full of examples and clever analyses, and doesn't leave much out. The book is organised around the titular 'Seven Beauties' framework, and taken together, these seven central chapters offer a pretty comprehensive, flexible and playful way of understanding all the various potentials of the science fictional imagination.

I'd say a lot of it has enduring relevance to the great amount of sf released since its publication (2007, I think!) but equally, an updated follow-up edition could be interesting to contemplate as well!

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Instead of discussing the genre historically, it focuses on its characteristics and analyses it in a clear, concise way that at the same time demonstrates the author's vast knowledge of the topic.

[Yisu Z. · Rating 3 out of 5]

科幻七美。分析范畴我觉得挺有意思，个案分析很好，但概念堆叠也很头痛。总体来说值得一读。

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense and difficult, yet Csisery-Ronay's work goes a long way towards explaining the structures by which science fiction operates. I cannot now read a work of science fiction without noticing its novums, its wordplay, or its ludic quality, or other structures; and noticing these structures in a way that aids interpretation.

Yet Csisery-Ronay's work buys into critical theories (including psychoanalysis and queer theory) heavily, relying not only on the mental models supplied by a theoretical approach to literature but on the language as well. This is a problem for me for two reasons. One, given that critical theories only developed in the last hundred years or so of literary study, I find their value in interpretation limited; I am belong to the New Critical school myself, and prioritize close textual analysis above the sometimes-facile glosses which theory provides.

Two, and more importantly, the extraordinary difficult language of critical theory made this a hard text to read, and remember. A few samples of this language:

"Even lyrical and performative sf texts that reject the epic conventions of the genre depend on the vast megatextual background of completed futures established in sf's archive of constructed worlds."

"Chaos and emergence theories provided the essential notions that the character of complex systems is profoundly sensitive to changes in initial conditions, and that their existence depends on a virtually incalculable number of contingent factors."

"Many alternative histories are constructed by voiding a break that occurred in real history, using the conceit of removing a real novum, and modeling what happens when extrapolation continues without having to adapt to particular impediments of experience. A novum that is not detectable may no longer be a novum, but a point of alternative linear origin, with no trace-memory of its obliterated past."

"The prosthetic concepts of sf are, like most prosthesis, prone to become fetishized in classically psychoanalytic fashion, taking on the energy and mana of the longed-for complete and satisfactory worldview, a utopian consummation that the real body of scientific concepts lacks - a fact continually marked by the generation of new fetish-supplements."

Can I understand these? Sure, eventually. Yet the guesswork that goes into piecing together his meaning slows my reading down, and makes it difficult to follow the overall argument. I understand that this is a critical academic work, but I am myself an academic, and I have always held that academics should as much as possible speak like real people.

I also felt as though Csisery-Ronay relied on the same few examples too often. Solaris comes up again and again. So does Dune, Alien, and the Martian Chronicles. If you're not familiar with these texts, Csisery-Ronay's points will be difficult to follow. Since Solaris, Dune, Alien, and the Martian Chronicles all loom large in critical studies of sf, Ronay's reliance on them is not a problem, except that he only briefly mentions other (and I think perhaps better-known) canonical texts: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Childhood's End, the Forever War, and Canticle for Leibowitz, to name a few. Casting his net wider for more examples would, I believe, have made this text more accessible.

But I have started to fuss. As an academic who teaches at a tiny college in the Midwest, and often hungers for good critical talk about literature, reading such an in-depth and relevant study was a pleasure. Recommended. Just don't expect it to be a quick read.

[Abby]

Science fiction is a great, big, gaping hole in my life, as I discovered when I realized I'd not read any of the books or seen any of the movies referenced in this critical work. So there were a whole bunch of spoilers, but also a bunch of titles I am now interested in reading. Many of them are on my reading list for this class (c'mon--I'm crazy but I don't read sci fi lit crit for giggles).

I'm far from up to snuff on literary criticism, but this strikes me as a really good roundup. It's dense, but so well organized that I can actually remember some of what I read. The sheer number of texts he references--in philosophy, science, literary criticism, and of course sf--blows my mind. I can't even imagine how long it would take to write something like this.

[Rajesh]

I decided lit-crit of SF would be an enlightening experience for me. Like eating bran for your brain. Not necessarily because it's a (wait for it) good read.

Update: now done
Book takes 7 major themes in SF, such as imaginary science and representations of the sublime, and traces them through SF history.

Bottom line: glad I read it. Doesn't fit into my use of star-ratings, so I am leaving it unstarred.

[Mariusz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential stuff. Love and passion. Deep understanding of the genre characteristics. Most of my misty insights are beautifully outwritten here. Maybe it's a Marxist approach to the genre, which usually attracts negative associations in Polish reception (no surprise), but so lovely energetic and powerful at the same time! Beauty. The 8th.

[First Second Books]

The strangest part so far was the digression into the importance of science fiction music – not something I’d even heard of before!

[Q]

I didn't read enough of this to really rate it. What I did read was unintelligible. Oh, academic writing. I had such high hopes for this book, too.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a majestic explanation of the genre's pleasures - and so well writ that it can only be consumed with concentrated focus.

[Moira Cohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A