There’s a fiction contest to celebrate the writing of H.G. Wells that offers a pretty spectacular £1,000 prize. Yet it received no entries.
Perhaps because it forbid any science-fiction entries.
And yet… the rules said
Stories should give readers in 2110 an idea of what life is like for ordinary people, working or retired, in the second decade of the 21st century—its complications and perplexities, and above all its humorous aspects. HG’s characters described the misery and humour of apprenticeship in a draper’s emporium. There must be both fun and drudgery working in a supermarket or MacDonald’s. Is this or back-packing a better way to fill in the time between college and university? And what is it like if you don’t go to university? Plumbing is said to be a well-paid alternative—and always good for a laugh. And how does it feel to be made redundant—all too familiar in 2010, but hopefully less well-known in 2110? There are plenty of non-sci-fi stories waiting to be written.
Leaving aside the silliness of an H.G. Wells competition which forbids SF, um… Stories written about the future are science fiction.
The rules have since been changed and the contest deadline extended but still… the failure to understand how broad the spectrum of science fiction can be is kind of sad and funny all at the same time.
Read the full article at the New Yorker.
Edited to add: I misread the instructions and thought they wanted stories written in 2110, not for readers in 2110. This does not make the rule disallowing SF any less silly in my mind but at least it isn’t contradictory with it’s own rules.
(Hat tip to lackriver)
neat. thanks for the hat tip. i found many of the rules for that contest odd. it almost seemed like a. he wanted mundane stories of the future (the plumbing thing is really weird) which i dont think anyone would really wish to write much less read and b. he wanted people to realize hg wells was about more than martians (seems the previous year he had all sorts of those stories to slog through) but in the end it got very muddled. its almost like he wanted jules verne’s – paris in the 20th century – in short story form.
Thanks for sharing the link! It’s just crazy.
(By the way, I wasn’t sure if I should use your real name or not, so opted for the twitter handle.)
I don’t think they wanted to give away anything, or even have a contest with those guidelines.
What cheapass bastards! DOH!
As I read the original instructions, they wanted stories set in modern day (second decade of the 21st century) – with the intended audience to be those living in 2110.
And per the New Yorker article, that requirement hasn’t been changed. They’re now allowing typed submissions, whereas prior they had to be handwritten.
Ow, my head hurts. o_O
My read of the rules is not that they want stories set in the twenty-second century. My read is they want stories set *now*, explaining the twenty-first century to *readers* in the twenty-second. Which is incoherent, unless the plan is to put the stories in a time capsule or something. After all, it’s going to be read by readers in 2010. So, what, kids are supposed to explain the second decade of the twenty-first century to their peers (and elders)?