Effectiveness, popularity, and The Motherhood Statement.

[elfs]

The Motherhood Statement: SF story which posits some profoundly unsettling threat to the human condition, explores the implications briefly, then hastily retreats to affirm the conventional social and humanistic pieties, ie apple pie and motherhood. Greg Egan once stated that the secret of truly effective SF was to deliberately "burn the motherhood statement."

I was thinking about this the other day in the context of Caprice Starr, and realized that Egan may have meant "effective," but he surely didn't mean "popular." A quick look at the most popular SF on the market shows that embracing the Motherhood Statement is a far quicker route to popularity and high sales numbers than burning it.

I mean, think about it. What are the two best selling characters in the past decade? Miles Vorkosigan: great family backing him, one that would never think twice about helping him. Hell, Lois coined the aphorism that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Honor Harrington's parents are rock solid supporters of her career despite her ongoing disabilities and tribulations, and like Miles' parents they're both major players in the sociopolitical fabric of Honor's existence.

Heck, The Iron Sunrise leaned toward the Motherhood Statement. The Kushiel series leaned on it. Even the Queng-Ho series succeeded by either refusing to threaten or otherwise supporting the Motherhood Statement.

Looking through my own work, I realized that I've done a terrible job of this. Caprice: orphan. Cheillène & Sarre: orphans, both of them. Aimee: orphan. Janae: orphan. Bloody Beth: orphan. Toby: mother alive, but separated by slavery. Kasserine: orphan. Kaede's parents are separated and driven further apart by her choice of spouse. Misuko's parents still love her dearly, but don't understand her lifestyle choice.

I'm starting to see a pattern here...

Comments

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

The story is "The Cold Equations", and he does dump the stowaway. You're either remembering it wrong, or you've read someone else's story in response to the original story. There have been a few. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations for description of the original story and one response. I've heard about another response with a very different solution--cutting off (with a laser, thus cauterized) and jettisoning all of both people's limbs, except for one arm to land with. Brutal, yet ultimately saves everyone's lives.

[cadetstar.livejournal.com]

And there was a made-for-tv movie where she forced him to dump her overboard even after he tried to go himself.

-Michael