Strange Invaders: An Essay-Review
In the subworld of science fiction (and, to a lesser extent, in the neighboring subworlds of fantasy and horror fiction), Andy Warhol's prediction that everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes is very nearly already realized. Seldom has a literature so assiduously set itself up as a "subculture"; seldom have writers, readers, editors, publishers, critics, academics, and even artists mingled and exchanged ideas as readily as in the science fiction world, and it is indeed possible to gain fame in this world, however fleeting, by simply being at the right place at the right time. When we think of a famous Western fan, such as Ronald Reagan, we think of someone famous who happens to read Westerns; but a famous science fiction fan, such as Forrest Ackerman, is famous for bang a science fiction fan. One such fan, Dena Benatan, gained a kind of immortality over a decade ago by scrawling on the blackboard at a convention, "Let's get Science Fiction back in the gutter where it belongs!" (or words to that effect; the story is recounted in David Hartwell's Age of Wonders, discussed below). Benatan was responding to the academic turn some of the discussions were beginning to take, and in so doing she created a rallying cry for a sizable chunk of fandom that would just as soon see the critics and scholars stay safely in the world that science fiction people call "mundane." Needless to say, she might have received unsolicited