Does DR. BLOODMONEY Fit?

After a 1/4 of the way through the book, I kept thinking whether Dr. Bloodmoney fits in with this course on topias and science fiction. I'm not sure that it does when we start to deal with the characters Harry Hopington and "Mr. Tree." They both claim to have supernatural powers and nothing in the book really contradicts that perception from the readers' perspective. Why does Dangerfield on feel poorly/ill when he goes over the northeast part of America in the satellite? Because someone is transmitting negative airwaves at him from Earth? That seems to be the implication and the conclusion that Dangerfield comes up with. Still, we can't get away from psychoanalysis that is in the book and that Dr. Stockstill utilizes in the book. So, is part of Dangerfield's illness, a mental condition caused by his wife's suicide that is triggered flying over the northeast? Maybe...? One allusion that Brunner may be making is that psychoanalysis may be a form of magic.

As we have talked about, science fiction starts moving towards fantasy when aspect of "magic" and "supernatural" abilities start making their way into the story. This is where I think that the book goes astray in the genre of SF. For example, Jameson ("After Armageddon") writes:

"This power of Hoppy's to project bodies into the air like soccer balls later becomes lethal (the death of Bluthgeld), but it suggests a kinesthetic affinity for Dangerfield's fate as well - the live being housed in a cylindrical unit rolling through empty space. And when it is remembered that this plot line reaches its climax in Hoppy's attempt to substitute himself, through his own voice and powers of mimicry, for the ailing Dangerfield, the analogy between the two positions becomes unmistakable" (352).

And there are two comments that I want to making in relation to this quote from Jameson: 1) This power of being able to telepathically control people (like robots) made me think of the ethical position of Dr. Xavier (from X-Men) for not engaging in the practice of using his own telepathic powers to control people even if it benefits the "greater good." Still, Xavier may be considered in a weird location because, even though he doesn't control people, he always seems to read the minds of the people in his general vicinity and is smart enough to use his rhetorical moves to influence those other people. 2) Hoppy has a similar position even though it is not a supernatural power - his rhetorical skills place him in a position where he can take over Dangerfield's position as a radio host. His impersonations allow him to test his ability to persuade people that he is another person if those people do not see him (remember the stage performances in the barn(?) where he begins to impersonate Dangerfield - I think he even mentions, at one point, that the purpose of those performances is to test his own skills of persuasion). But even before testing those skills, his ability to bring people together and listen to him seems kind of supernatural since he was not looked upon favorably before the bomb.

At least in X-Men, there was a genetic mutation that cause the evolution of certain individuals to have supernatural powers as a survival mechanism. But where the hell did these supernatural powers come from in Dr. Bloodmoney? I don't think that we can claim it was a result of the bomb and the radiation. Hoppy was using his supernatural powers to fix a radio early on in the novel - the bomb didn't create that power.

I'm not convinced that Dr. Bloodmoney is within the science fiction tradition, at least as it has been explained up to this point in the class. I mean, I see the science in the book and I see the fiction in the book, but when combined, the term "science fiction" means something completely different.

Thanks to wikipedia's entry on "Science Fiction," we can contrast this book with some sci-fi writers' definitions of SF:

"According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."[10] Rod Serling's definition is "fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible."[11] Lester Del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado– or fan- has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is", and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction."[12]"