"The science fiction novelette, on the other hand, can reduce [the novel's] scale to the manageable. Length does not compel it to resolve its themes; the novelette -- and its reader -- is satisfied with the problem dramatized, not solved."

Robert Heinlein posed many "basic truths" in Starship Troopers that few accept, yet it stimulated much creativity in its wake. Joe Haldeman, Harry Harrison, and Orson Scott Card all wrote different responses to this seminal work, by asking the questions that Heinlein may have neglected. Heinlein may pose faulty conclusions (as may the responses to his work), but it satisfies while simultaneously leaving its readers thinking. Of course, some readers would prefer to censor Heinlein from being read, but someday those works favored by the self-appointed censors may themselves be censored. Isn't debate and thought preferable? If Heinlein didn't pose these answers, someone else might, and abiding by them may be compulsory.

Gunn may not believe in basic truths or answers, like Cheney, but he does believe in the process of getting at truth. In fact, his career may be summarized in one word (if any career can be): "process." Gunn continues on how he resolved the science fiction novel problem:

"[N]ot only was I convinced that the best length for science fiction was the novelette and that the way to obtain the greatest immediate return on my investment of time and thought was by writing the shorter form, but I felt that a novel-length idea treated in this way made possible artistic effects not available to the novel....

"I would not be forced, I thought, to provide any specious solutions to any eternal problems. I could deal with an idea over a considerable span of time and over the lifetimes of several characters. I could dramatize, show the impact of the idea on individual lives, show how it works out for them, and allow the idea itself to complete its destiny, clarified but unresolved, after the book has ended."

This has to be the most difficult form of a novel. Sure, it may be a bit more financially and visually rewarding to see your work in multiple forms, but it has to be far more intellectually challenging in its perfection as each story must satisfy as an individual and as a whole. This means presenting small arcs that are immediately "resolved" without leaving the reader feeling dissatisfied that the larger arc is left hanging. I submit that it's okay to resolve the larger arc at the end, even if the answer is partial or even wrong. It is the process that allows readers to examine errors of reasoning for themselves and debate the text, generating discussion about the implications during and following the events of a novel.

Even Prometheus, that great novelist of fire that illuminated mankind, gave little more than the small truth of rubbing two sticks together. It took some other novelist to come up with flint and yet another for the cigarette-lighter. Zeus, that cruelest of critics who insisted that humanity never understand itself, made Prometheus pay for his small truth. But as we know, Hercules, lover of enlightenment and a good dubie, freed Prometheus. So it pays writers to be liberal with truths, no matter how small.

As Gunn works on his next masterpiece, tentatively entitled, Transcendental, we may hope that he continues to delight with adventure and extrapolated thought, but also a closure uniting the best of these novels -- thematic and speculative closure. Mission impossible? Maybe, but longevity seems to reward not only entertainment and thought and art, but also ambition.

One Reason To Be Named Grandmaster | Gift from the Stars | The Immortals | The Listeners | Closure