Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 191



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191.

America has always been a country that takes great pride in the genre known as science fiction.

Starting with Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of science fiction, through Hugo Gernsback, who founded Amazing Stories in 1926, and up to the present day, even if you just look at the profiles of major figures, it is clear that the United States is a country that is serious about science fiction.

Then, at this point, this question could have been asked.

‘why?’

Why America Became a Science Fiction-Crazy Country

There are many ways to analyze this, but three come to mind first.

‘Pioneering spirit’.

‘A brief history’.

Lastly, ‘natural environment’.

When European invaders came, the American continent was a land that still had its natural state. They massacred the natives and carried out the slave trade, and founded the country called the United States. And as they expanded westward, they conquered nature, and the national collective consciousness that resulted from this was structured into the word pioneer spirit.

But Americans also had an Achilles’ heel.

A history of only 200 years, which is overwhelmingly short compared to other countries.

That inferiority complex gave humans a longing for a universe they had not yet reached.

Towards a new zeitgeist and new history.

The genre is the realization of desire and vicarious satisfaction.

In that logic, SF could be said to be a more refined version of naturalistic literature, depicting both awe at the unknown and the innate human will to conquer it.

That’s why Americans couldn’t help but be fascinated by science fiction.

And as in all cultures, there were sharp conflicts of opinion on one topic.

‘Dreams, adventures, and hopes!’

As a counter culture to that, ‘No! Actually, we are evil!’

‘No! It’s dreams, adventure, and hope!’

‘All conquerors from Europe must die! And you, their descendants!’

‘Go! Dream! Adventure! Hope! Aaaah!’

······It was something like this.

A culture, or rather, a genre, often becomes a golden tower by piling up opposing forms in this way. In reality, the parties involved are frothing at the mouth, saying that each other’s methods are wrong, but in the process, criticism naturally piles up and produces better results. It was the principle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

The SF genre, which has continued to develop amidst the interest of so many people, has always been close to the mainstream, not only in the 80s, but also in the future.

‘If you look at it one way, superhero movies also have their origins in science fiction.’

Meanwhile, the development of a genre has become an industry, and due to the nature of the cultural and artistic industry, those involved have been trying to gain some authority. This is because the power of the industry itself increases, and additional industries such as criticism, secondary creation, and media franchises are created, increasing the industry’s share.

The Hugo Award and Nebula Award, which were created for this reason, have become the most prestigious science fiction literary awards in the United States.

These two awards have opposite formats to determine their winners.

The Hugo Award is decided by voting by hundreds to thousands of “general public participants” at an event called the “World Science Fiction Convention” held every August, while the Nebula Award is voted for by a “small number of experts.”

In other words, the Hugo Award places more weight on ‘popularity’, while the Nebula Award places more weight on ‘expertise’.

‘There are masterpieces that have won both awards, but they are not very many.’

These include such incredible works as ‘Dune’, ‘Ringworld’, and ‘Rendezvous with Rama’, whose names are being mentioned among people not only now but also in the future.

‘I wish that could happen, but I don’t think there’s any need to get my hopes up.’

In any case, the Hugo Award provided the impetus for holding the ‘World Science Fiction Convention’, and the Nebula Award allowed the so-called ‘small number of experts’ to continue to make money within the genre.

In addition, the authority of the two awards, which have been around for a long time, has also served as an opportunity for many writers to challenge science fiction.

‘In fact, I wrote science fiction novels for that very reason.’

One thing the two awards had in common was that they selected works published this year for judging in subsequent years.

So, the results of ‘Country of Losers’, published in 1985, and its second part, which is still untitled, will be decided in April 1986, when the Nebula Awards are announced, and in August, when the World Science Fiction Convention is held.

In addition to those two most prestigious awards, there were also various smaller awards, so it was a situation where people could look forward to seeing what kind of awards would be received from the end of 1985 to August 1986.

After sitting at my desk and finishing my calculations, I looked down at the schedule for each science fiction literary award I had written down in my notebook and nodded slightly.

‘good.’

Judging from the box office success of ‘Country of Loser’ so far, it was actually a situation where we had to predict how many awards it would win in the future rather than whether it would win them or not.

‘I guess my arms tend to bend inward, so I guess I’ll be the one riding it most of the time in California.’

Of course, there were good works all over the country during this period, even works like Ender’s Game, which had won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in its previous life, but that was actually a very good opportunity.

‘An opportunity to compare the power of my work with that of the rare winners of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.’

Now, in about half a year, various full-fledged ‘association awards’ will start to be decided.

– December 1985: The best works of the year, by magazine.

‘Is this the first thing?’

I looked through a list of science fiction literary awards that are held in various places from January to December each year, compiled by Simon and Julia and myself from searching through various magazines.

There were so many events held here and there that I wondered if there might be something like the ‘Gubber Jam Toast Sandwich SF Literature Award’ somewhere that I didn’t know about.

And as I thought about it that far, I suddenly realized.

‘ah.’

get hungry.

The time is ten o’clock in the afternoon. It’s late enough.

However, a 19-year-old’s stomach can digest food cleanly no matter how late it eats and goes to bed.

I looked back and opened my mouth slightly.

“zone.”

“Yeah, God!”

“Want some peanut butter and jelly?”

“Oh, that’s very good.”

John gives a thumbs up while writing a novel.

I snuck out of the dorm room with the guy.

There was a toaster machine on the first floor of the dormitory. Strictly speaking, it was not allowed to exist according to the rules, but the dorm leader, Ben, strongly insisted that one be installed because he thought it would be better for the young friends to sneak out of the school at night because they were hungry.

We went downstairs, grabbing the bread, jelly, and peanut butter that we had haphazardly stored away in the closet. There were already a lot of people gathered there to eat PB&J (peanut butter and jelly), the most beloved breakfast of all Americans, not just us. Unfortunately, it wasn’t breakfast, but a midnight snack, but whatever.

“Line up here.”

After quietly standing behind the male student who had been waiting for his turn before us, I looked up at John, who was obviously over 190 cm tall, and asked.

“How about a novel?”

“I’m still thinking about it in many ways.”

“What are you worried about?”

“What is it that I truly desire?”

“Oh, I see.”

“And I’m also wondering where that desire comes from. Oh, can I ask you one thing?”

“Yeah. Ask.”

“What is your desire?”

I smiled faintly and answered John’s words.

“I want to tell the world who I am.”

It must have been a universal desire that everyone had.

However, I thought that writers are a race that has such desires much more than ordinary people.

And I did even more so.

The situations and phenomena I experienced.

I wanted to tell people about the uniqueness that only I had that came from all those experiences.

And when people tell me they enjoy it, I feel alive.

“For example, just look at this PB&J.”

“Hoo.”

John listens.

His bright eyes were a bit burdensome, but I endured it and spoke. I knew he had no ill intentions.

“Everyone who is American has a memory of PB&J. It was probably the sandwich we ate the most at home as children. But I don’t. I ate a lot of it, but… it’s a little different. And just writing about it satisfies my desire.”

“Can I ask how they are different?”

“Because it’s personal, that part is a little bit.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No. Rather, I feel sorry for making you curious and not telling you.”

PB&J was a food that consisted of peanut butter and jelly, also known as fruit jam, spread on toast.

Whether toasted or spread on the ground, this rich mix of fat, sugar, and carbohydrates has been both a cause of obesity and a source of fond memories for many Americans.

And the product that combined PB&J into one easy-to-eat product was ‘Goober Jam.’

Although it is a convenient product to eat in many ways, Guber Jam is not well-received for its quality as it focuses only on convenience.

But for me, it was a food of memories.

It’s a memory that has a slightly bittersweet tinge to it.

‘After my father passed away, my mother only spread Guber jam on bread for every meal for a while.’

And every time he said he was sorry.

At the time, I thought it was delicious and ate it, but now that I look back, it was bitter. I guess I’ll understand why my mother said she was sorry when I get older.

And now, I was reminiscing about that memory, eating a sandwich I had spread with Guber Jam on myself in my college dorm with my roommates.

Strictly speaking, I thought that the writer’s job was to open up memories, distill them into a single form, and then introduce them to people.

For example, in my case, I could write something like this.

Hans’s family is poor and lives in modern England.

Due to circumstances, they had to eat only porridge instead of bread, but their mother was cheerful in front of the family, saying that porridge was much tastier than bread.

Hans, who grew up thinking that porridge was delicious, enters a boarding school by chance, and hears shocking words from the young master he meets there, James.

Porridge is the food of poor peasants. It is no different from pig feed.

Hans learns the truth about his childhood.

He overcomes his grief and decides to take revenge. He makes James wear a skirt and turns him into a ‘girl’, vowing to treat him like a woman for the rest of his life······.

······Huh? What on earth am I imagining?

If you keep having such wild imaginations, isn’t your life as a writer slowly coming to an end?

No matter how much I stay up late at night because of work and assignments······.

“······god?”

John, who had been making PB&J, noticed my strange aura and asked me.

I smiled awkwardly in front of him.

***

Henry Smith.

As the Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Noir Publishing, he has risen through the ranks at a remarkably fast pace considering his career.

The reason it was possible was very simple: skill and passion.

Henry was a passionate fan of genre fiction.

To be precise, he wasn’t the kind of fan who would hang out in comic book stores and read all sorts of commercialized genre books. He was from the generation that grew up at the tail end of an earlier era, reading novels by people like Raymond Chandler.

That’s why I couldn’t help but be a fan of the science fiction novel written by God, ‘Country of Losers’.

‘This work is worthy of being nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.’

Just as the United States was founded during its founding, ‘Noir Publishing’, which started in New York, grew by absorbing and merging various companies spread across the United States, advancing from the East to the West.

But that wasn’t something Henry really cared about.

Henry Smith was the man with the final decision-making authority regarding the creations.

And in fact, it was the first time since he took over as CCO that he personally flew all the way to California, on the other side of New York, just to obtain the ‘distribution rights’ for a single work.

That’s how special this work was.

‘And it doesn’t end with this one piece.’

A single work of art is ‘naturally’ imbued with the artist’s own color and imagination.

So the moment he read ‘Country of Losers’, Henry was sure.

‘This writer will definitely become great.’

Henry, who loved novels and had to read a lot for work, thought the imagination contained in the book was very special.

A problematic work that depicts a society where the ‘developed Internet’ has arrived with the bold insight characteristic of a young author, and further poses sharp questions to society through the imaginary being called ‘The Book’.

His novel was sure to shock American society.

And if he was a writer who could write a novel like this, I had to get in touch with him somehow, no matter what the reason, and I wanted to draw on all his potential, whether it was the copyright to his existing work or a contract for his next work.

Yes, Henry Smith’s ultimate goal was to make the new writer a writer for Noir Publishing.

I went all the way to California for that, and it was definitely worth it.

July 1985.

Summer is fast approaching in New York.

In his air-conditioned private office, a quiet smile spread across Henry Smith’s face as he read the reports his secretary had neatly laid out on his desk.

Although Henry didn’t really need to worry about his position or his duties, he received the sales figures separately out of curiosity about whether the new writer’s work was getting the response he expected.

‘Very good.’

As expected, ‘Country of Losers’ is creating a huge stir.

Passing through the Sun Belt, it has now reached New York, located at the eastern end. The novel, which started in California and has spread throughout the United States, is receiving an extraordinary response.

And the results in the report were beyond his wildest imagination.

In most states, including New York, it far outsold any other novel released at the same time.

In fact, ‘Country of Losers’ was by no means an easy novel. That’s why it didn’t show very high initial sales in regions where the author’s name, ‘Shin’, was not widely known.

But at some point, as if a dam had collapsed and the water that had been trapped inside had burst out, it began to reveal an enormous explosive force.

Henry thought the reason was because of the power of this work.

It is certainly not a novel that everyone can easily read. Nevertheless, those who understand this work highly praise it. Through this work, they want to share the feelings and thoughts engraved in them with others.

Debates between individuals take place, reviews in the media, and book reviews of the work pile up, and as a result, they once again attract new readers.

It was the so-called ‘bandwagon effect’.

But it has been a long time since I have seen a work in which this cycle is carried out so actively.

‘It’s not normal.’

It is said that the second part of the work will be published soon. I wonder what kind of impact this work will have on society.

‘And how can I work with that writer?’

Would it be possible to handle the distribution of other released works as well?

Should he offer any other special conditions that might be of help?

Henry sat in his office chair, pondering his thoughts with his characteristically inscrutable smile on his face.

His eyes were so bright that it was hard to believe he was plotting something.