A Quietus Interview
Glenn Branca
Things I Have Learned
Things I Have Learned About Sci Fi By Neil McAdams Of Black Breath
Things I Have Learned About Sci Fi By Neil McAdams Of Black Breath
Toby Cook
, May 8th, 2012 08:09
Just stop dicking about and get into sci-fi, says Neil McAdams to Toby Cook. Some of it is about the survival of the human race, and some of it is about humanoid-ant hybrid detective stories
Lurid book covers drag you in
What drew me to sci fi? Lurid covers – what else! And, I guess, the possibilities of a future different from our own. I picked up a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey [based on his 1948 short story The Sentinel] and then systematically read everything I could find that he had written and then things kind of snowballed. That was, like, 16 years ago.
Sci-Fi is not ‘geeky'
It's kind of a serious thing. Well not all of it. Surfing Samurai Robots isn't serious, but books like We by the Russian novelist [Yevgeny] Zamyatin or War With The Newts by Karel Capek are very serious and deal directly with totalitarian control systems and the collapse of the human species. Any science fiction regarding extra-solar colonization is extremely useful, as are ones about sex and alien space babes. I'd consider myself to be more of a ‘nerd' than a ‘geek', the only real sci-fi things I own are books and some VHS tapes; I have quite a few of those!
Fuck mainstream horseshit!
People are illiterate, that's the bottom line. Read Radio Free Albemuth by [Philip K.] Dick, it may hold the answer. And besides, science fiction should be subversive. Most TV or film sci-fi is really just action movies with aliens. But ‘real' sci-fi is about all kinds of things. It's in a large sense like cultural anthropology; it deals with any and all things human (and alien) – it's about us.
It's obvious why Philip K. Dick is the best known sci-fi author in the mainstream
Because he's fucking crazy! Read VALIS, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, or Martian Time-Slip for starters. I can only say that I'm glad he had found some kind of recognition in the U.S., you know like 30 years after his death – he's been well respected and popular everywhere else for decades.
And here are five others you should be getting into:
Dick is up there with the best, but you can't ignore William S. Burroughs, James Tiptree Jr (or Alice Sheldon, to use her real name), Philip Jose Farmer (read Image Of The Beast) and Arthur C. Clarke – they all write very dark, very sexy, very fucking twisted shit.
I don't give a shit about the Total Recall remake
The original short, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, is nothing like the movie, it's only the springboard, or an outline of what happens in the film.
Predator 2's not bad though, I guess
But Femalien and Femailen 2 are also pretty rad.
You might not know this, but I write sci-fi stories
I cover all sorts of shit: Diarrhoea time loops, centi-penis's, humanoid-ant hybrid detective stories, robots fishing, robo-sexualism, goat-priest paedophiles, ape molesting deities, sex-world… you know, the usual kind of erotic speculative fiction. But why do I do it? That's a strange question to answer. Why do people pursue essentially useless, masturbatory hobbies? I don't know. There's too much bullshit in my head, and it has to go somewhere, right?
You might not think it, but it actually fits in pretty well with what I do with Black Breath
There is no need to reconcile anything, science fiction is an extremely dark genre and there is plenty of occult sci-fi – I read a lot of both, I don't restrict my interests.
Not already in to sci-fi?
Then get into it!
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Toby C
May 8, 2012 4:19pm
May 8, 2012 4:19pm
In reply to John:
Then you sir clearly have all the sense of humour of an arthropod-cyborg bank manager from Snajgnar.
Richard
May 8, 2012 5:31pm
May 8, 2012 5:31pm
'Fuck the mainstream'... and then read these books from the SF Masterworks series that have been reprinted dozens of times.
May 8, 2012 5:34pm
I think 'Mainstream' in this context means non-genre commercial fiction, rather than mainstream SF. I'm not sure what mainstream SF would be tbh.
joseph
May 8, 2012 7:12pm
May 8, 2012 7:12pm
In reply to Richard:
word, he should read Greg Egan or David Zindell or Kim Stanley Robinson
John Gillanders
May 8, 2012 10:06pm
May 8, 2012 10:06pm
Black Breath are like the least interesting band in the universe. I love how all the critics are falling over themselves trying to explain their own cognitive dissonance. "Big name people told me this band was good, but they're not, so I have to rationalize some dumbshit reason to explain to myself why people could be wrong about something." Usually what they come up with is: Black Breath's complete lack of originality is EXACTLY what makes them so original. Same lame review on a hundred different sites.
"There is no need to reconcile anything, science fiction is an extremely dark genre and there is plenty of occult sci-fi – I read a lot of both, I don't restrict my interests."
Newsflash dipshit. The Occult is not remotely dark and in most practices involves summoning your Holy Guardian Angel. Yeah, basically the least dark, Jesus-y shit in the universe. If you bothered to learn anything about the Occult, you'd figure that out pretty quick. But no, better to write dumbshit lyrics about what you think the Occult is about (satanism, demons, etc.) and make yourself look like a total fucking moron. Yeah, that's the way the church slandered it to keep people as far away from it as possible, as it empowers people rather than enslaving them. Good move spreading that cliched stereotype to a new generation of inbred metal tards.
Worst part about Black Breath:
Toby C
May 8, 2012 10:42pm
May 8, 2012 10:42pm
In reply to John Gillanders:
Did one of Black Breath steal your girlfriend or something John?
Eugene Montpelier
May 9, 2012 2:24pm
May 9, 2012 2:24pm
Image of the Beast (and its follow up Blown) is one of the worst piles of trash I have ever had the misfortune of reading. I would unreservedly recommend it, it's horrible.
Mars
May 9, 2012 4:06pm
May 9, 2012 4:06pm
Ever read... ah, forget it, you never would have heard of him.
S
May 10, 2012 7:45am
May 10, 2012 7:45am
If you're seriously interested in Sci-Fi as literature then you should consider checking out Interzone a bi monthly magazine from TTA Press (http://www.ttapress.com/). Always has top notch fiction from established names and newcomers along with a whole load of reviews and news.
Michael O.
Jan 10, 2013 10:03pm
Jan 10, 2013 10:03pm
"And here are five others you should be getting into:"
I count four. Add Gene Wolfe.
Also fix your bolding. You lost a tag somewhere.
Mikal Cronin
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News Headlines
May 8, 2012 1:59pm
Science fiction is cool,but this is a childish as fuck article that wouldn't convince anyone to give it a try.
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