When good sci-fi goes bad

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me: I start reading a science fiction book, particularly something supposedly "classic" from the 1940s to the 1960s, and I get so excited about it, because the story and the characters are both interesting, and then...and then, the Big Idea of the book takes over, and the novel goes downhill.

I was halfway through Philip Jose Farmer's The Unreasoning Mask, when the didactic Big Idea of Farmer's novel took over, and the characters and the story took a decided (and much regretted) backseat. It is as if the writer somehow feels the story of these characters in this particular time is not enough -- that he must supplement it somehow with these grand pronouncements and a "solution" to the nature of the universe or some huge revelation about space/time travel, human nature, or insert-your-own-Big-Idea-here. It culminates in the undoing of a lot of potentially good science fiction novels, and results in a big sigh of disappointments, nearly every time, from me.

Farmer's novel had a really great opening -- a space ship captain, a former Muslim turned atheist, steals an artifact from a planet they've visited, and the artifact just happens to be considered the "god" of the people he took it from. In attempting to outrun the pursuing aliens, who want their god back, the captain and his crew also encounter a massive, planet-killing force which seems somehow tied in with the stolen god. Sounds interesting, right? It was, until about two-thirds of the way through, when it gets trippy and explication of the Big Idea takes over for the story. You can tell this happens when dialogue -- the main character Explaining The Nature of the Universe -- takes over for the actions and details of the plot.

I've got maybe fifty pages left, and I don't even want to finish it. I'm sick of the lecture.

The main thing science fiction genre writers need to learn is that the story itself is sufficient. Place us in the world, show us some of what you've got, but you don't need to explain everything to us. A little mystery is just fine with a reader, even preferred. That moment in science fiction, when the writer seems to say "ok, now, let me tell you how it is" -- that moment just induces a groan from the reader.

Ah well, on to the next one.