These gaps have a different effect on the process of anticipation and retrospection, and thus on the “gestalt” of the virtual dimension, for they may be filled in different ways. For this reason, one text is potentially capable of several different realizations, and no reading can ever exhaust the full potential, of each individual reader will fill in the gaps on his own way, thereby excluding the various other possibilities; as he reads, he will make his own decision as to how the gap is to be filled. ...With “traditional” texts this process was more or less unconscious, but modern texts frequently exploit it quite deliberately. They are often so fragmentary that one’s attention is almost exclusively occupied with the search for connections between the fragments; the object of this is not to complicate the “spectrum” of connections, so much as to make us aware of the nature of our own capacity for providing links. In such cases, the text refers back directly to our own preconceptions-which are revealed by the act of interpretation that is a basic element of the reading process. (959)

     Fredericks notes that most authors of sci-fi are notorious lovers of myth and will often incorporate mythic structures into their narratives. First, myth is a nice structural device because of all the prefigurative responses generated by the reader’s encountering them in a text. Myth is also readily available and since the iconic principles are already evidenced in society and education in general, there is a pretty good chance that the reader will be able to access some of the symbolic representations in the narrative. Because “the mind can adapt to a new set of ‘conditions’ no matter how implausible and function within the setting” the reader assimilates the mythic structures, not as individual components, but as a contiguous portion of the narrative. Thus the myth is experienced, not as a strange anomaly in the narrative, but as part of the story. Subsequently, it is through this incorporation and assimilation that the myths imbedded in the narrative often surprise the reader when, waiting like the guard in Prague, they point the reader back to his own dusty corner to re-discover a hidden treasure. Therefore, the reader is able to carry the metaphorical baggage of the mythical meaning, when encountered in its new form, back into the world at large and makes those meaningful cultural connections.
     To better see how this principal functions within the world of science fiction, let us take a common myth that has become impotent in the Western culture and examine how two authors have re-infused life back into the iconography. One of the familiar tales that has become passé is the tale of Adam and Eve, specifically where the temptation and decisions of Eve are concerned. Many Westerners are desensitized to the idea that Eve was first tempted by Satan and then eventually expelled from Eden for her transgression. The story often fails to elicit responses within the readers, due to its familiarity.
     Two authors have taken this integral story from the Western mythos and incorporated it into their novels, giving the story new life. The first example is C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra, a science fiction novel that takes place on Venus. The second example is Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, the third book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. Both of these stories revolve around the story of Eve and her temptation, providing Westerners an opportunity to re-experience a familiar myth in an unfamiliar way.
Perelandra is Lewis’s take on the creation story. The story is centered on Edward Ransom who is sent by aliens to the new planet of Venus. When Ransom arrives he finds a planet covered in water, populated with floating islands of vegetation. Ransom is forced to come to grips with this new concept of planet, one that is in constant motion rather than solid stationary land. As the reader sees Ransom’s reaction to the new surroundings, the defamiliarization process is initiated. So that as Ransom makes discoveries about the planet and about how to operate on this strange world, the reader becomes further immersed in Ransom’s experience and is able to step away from his world, into Ransom’s.
     Ransom soon discovers that he is not alone on the planet.

"It ran easily: the heaving surface of the field did not seem to trouble it. Then his own land reeled downwards and backwards and a great wall of water pushed its way up between the two countries...The creature was still running. The width of water between the two islands was about thirty feet, and the creature was less than a hundred yards away from his. He knew now that it was not merely man-like, but a man-a green man on an orange field, green like the beautifully coloured green beetle in an English garden..."(Lewis 53)

     But Ransom is in for another surprise, as it turns out not to be a green man, but a green woman that he has seen running on the other island. Ransom makes contact with the strange Lady and comes to understand that she is seeking her husband. Through conversation, Ransom learns that she is the first Lady and her husband is the first Man, and they have been separated.
     This bit of information should make the reader access the Eden myth as he is trying to make relationships between the knowledge in his head and the information on the page. In all likelihood the reader will recall the myth of Eden and understand that the situation on Perelandra is similar to the story of Adam and Eve. There is a key distinction between a story being “like” the Eden myth and the story actually being a verbatim recounting of the Eden myth. The difference lies in the reader’s response. A story that is “like” the Eden myth will often not illicit a negative response within the reader, as he is accessing the components of the story that are similar, allowing for a point of contact, while at the same time keeping the dissimilarities-in this case the Venutian setting and the interloper Ransom-in mind. However, a direct retelling will most likely illicit a response of preordination in the reader, where the reader can tell from the similarities and the preciseness of the story that this will just be a retelling of the Eden myth, and since he knows how the story ends there is no need to continue reading.
     It is the otherness of Lewis’s tale that keeps the reader engaged with the story. Lewis then introduces the character of Weston, an evil character from the first book in this series, Out of the Silent Planet. Weston is interesting in that he plays a dual role as adversary to Ransom, as well as fulfilling the role of the tempter in the Eden mythos. Weston is the introduction of evil into this paradise, and both the reader and Ransom know what his purpose on Perelandra is, to tempt the Green Lady. For the reader is not the only person aware of the Eden mythos, as Ransom and Weston both hail from Earth and are familiar with the Eden story.
     What follows in the story is Ransom having to deal with the fact that he has been sent to Perelandra as God’s representative to stop Weston and prevent a repetition of the exile from Eden. Ransom makes it very clear that if Weston should succeed that there would be no redemption for the Green Lady, as there was on Earth with the coming of Christ. So Ransom begins to battle Weston, who by this time has been possessed by the Devil, first mentally and then physically. In the end, Ransom must kill Weston in order to prevent the temptation of the Green Lady. Ransom defeats Weston and is reunited with the Green Lady who has discovered her husband. Ransom is then allowed to see how the Earth might have been if Adam and Eve had not been expelled from Eden.
     What this novel does for the reader is allow him to re-access a neglected corner of his mind, through the associative process of reading something that is unfamiliar. When the reader returns to the real world, there may or may not be a great change in his interpretation of the Eden myth. However, the important thing is that in that time that he was reading, the reader was once again actively involved with a central myth of the Western culture.
     Philip Pullman also uses the Eden myth in his novel The Amber Spyglass however his use is a bit different than Lewis’s. For Lewis, the importance seemed to be in updating the story and making it more relevant and accessible to the reader. Pullman, however, wants to call into question the dogma that has surrounded the myth of Eden.
     Pullman has created a world that is currently at war with the heavens and seeks to create their own paradise. Pullman has two central characters, Will and Lyra, both children on the cusp of adolescence. For Pullman, these two represent his Adam and Eve, as they exist in a state of innocence, but are approaching an age when understanding dawns in the minds of children. Pullman has set up a physical manifestation of this movement from child to adolescent in two ways. First there is the particle simply known as Dust. Dust only collects around adults, therefore when a special film is used only adults will show up as glowing entities. Secondly there is the fixation of the daemon in one state. Prior to adolescence, the daemon is able to change shape freely, but after the transition into puberty, the daemon becomes fixed in one shape.
     In terms of the use of the Eden myth, Pullman has almost pushed it to the periphery allowing the first two books of the trilogy to focus on the characters of Lyra and Will. The first indication that something like Eden is going on is early in The Amber Spyglass when it is revealed that Lyra is destined to repeat the choice of Eve. As this knowledge blooms in the book, the reader is able to see how the various factions react to the news. One faction sends a priest to kill Lyra, believing that she will further separate man from God. A second group seeks to use Lyra to lead them to a promised paradise, knowing that in order for Eve’s choice to be replicated, Lyra must be in a paradisal setting. Throughout all of the struggles, though, Lyra remains unaware of her impending choice.
     By allowing the reader to understand what is facing Lyra, the reader is forced to access the Eden myth, just as with Perelandra. However, unlike Lewis’s version, the reader must make evaluative judgments about the reactions of the people to the information about Lyra’s situation. By making the reader evaluate the Eden myth in this manner, Pullman is not pointing out that this is simply a nice myth, but he is forcing the reader to make decisions about what to do with the myth. Pullman further complicates the matter by not presenting a traditional retelling of the Eden myth.
     Pullman takes the Edenic situation, presenting some of the traditional symbols of the myth including the tempter, the fruit, and even the surroundings of paradise, and turns the eventual outcome on its ear. Pullman is relying on the reader to bring all the expectations of the Edenic myth to the text so that he can present an alternate interpretation to the tale. In this way, the otherness of the novel is not only bound up in settings and characters, but also in the outcome.
Focusing specifically on the temptation sequence in The Amber Spyglass we find that like Lewis, Pullman is using a human to represent the tempter. Mary Malone, a former nun, has be led to the land of the Mulefa, a paradise of giant trees and no humans. Her divination book of I-Ching leads Mary and she knows that she has been sent to this paradise to act as the tempter. Because she is a former nun, she understands what role she has been asked to play, though she is somewhat reluctant. When the children finally arrive, Mary does not specifically set out to tempt them but her story of leaving the church has profound effects.
     Lyra asks Mary if she remembers when she stopped being a nun. Mary relates how she was giving a paper in Lisbon and went out with friends to celebrate. She talks about going out and her beginning to “discover another side of [herself]...one that liked the taste of wine and grilled sardines and the feeling of warm air on [her] skin and the beat of music in the background.” (The Amber Spyglass, 442) Mary goes on to talk about how she realized that there was another part of her self that was missing; there was no love to balance her duty.

"Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I’d spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn’t matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.
“And then someone passed me a bit of some sweet stuff and I suddenly realized that I had been to China. So to speak. And I’d forgotten it.”
“Anyway,” Mary went on. “I remembered the taste, and all at once I was back tasting it for the first time as a young girl.
“ I was twelve years old. I was at a party at the house of one of my friends, a birthday party, and there was a disco...this boy-I didn’t know him-he asked me to dance, and so we had the first dance and then the next, and by that time we were talking...And you know what it is when you like someone, you know it at once; well, I liked him such a lot. And we kept on talking and then there was a birthday cake. And he took a bit of marzipan and he just gently put it in my mouth-I remember trying to smile, and blushing, and feeling so foolish-and I fell in love with him just for that, for the gentle way he touched my lips with the marzipan.”

The talk then turns to the notions of good and evil.

“When I first saw you, in your Oxford,” Lyra said, “You said one of the reasons you became a scientist was that you wouldn’t have to think about good and evil.”
“When you stopped believing in God,” [Will] went on, “did you stop believing in good and evil?”
“No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside of us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that’s an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.” (The Amber Spyglass, 446-447)

Lyra and Will, after listening to Mary’s story the night before, travel off into the woods for a picnic.

Will and Lyra followed the stream into the wood, walking carefully, saying little, until they were in the very center.
There was a little clearing in the middle of the grove, which was floored with soft grass and moss-covered rocks. The branches laced across overhead, almost shutting out the sky and letting through little moving spangles and sequins of sunlight, so that everything was dappled with gold and silver.
...Lyra took one of those little red fruits. With a fast-beating heart, she turned to him and said, “Will...”
And she lifted the fruit gently to his mouth. (The Amber Spyglass, 465)

Pullman has presented a moment from the Eden myth, the verdant surroundings, the use of the red fruit, the offering of that fruit to Will by Lyra. Each of these details resonates with the original myth, recalling in the mind of the reader the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. This scenario has another parallel as well, the offering of marzipan to Mary Malone on the night she left the church. That story, the one of Mary rediscovering love, is the one that the children are remembering, not the story of Adam and Eve.

She could see from his eyes that he knew at once what she meant, and that he was too joyful to speak. Her fingers were still at his lips, and he felt them tremble, and he put his own hand up to hold hers there, and then neither of them could look; they were confused; they were brimming with happiness.
Like two moths clumsily bumping together, with no more weight than that, their lips touched. Then before they knew how it happened, they were clinging together, blindly pressing their faces toward each other. (The Amber Spyglass, 465-466)

     This is the long awaited moment of Lyra repeating Eve’s choice, the tempter has played her part, the fruit has been exchanged, and now is time for the transgression. However, Pullman does not have the children discovering shame or their nakedness or even that there is good and evil in the world, rather Will and Lyra discover love.

“...I love you, Will, I love you-“
The word love set his nerves ablaze. All his body thrilled with it, and he answered her in the same words, kissing her hot face over and over again, drinking in with adoration the scent of her body and her warm, honey-fragrant hair and her sweet, moist mouth that tasted of the little red fruit. (The Amber Spyglass, 466)

     The discovery of love by Will and Lyra seems somewhat anti-climactic, particularly when viewed in light of those who would kill Lyra to prevent her from repeating the transgression of Eve. Yet Lyra is guilty of nothing more than discovering her first love and experiencing that love. Pullman has taken the negative expectations of other characters and turned the actuality of the act into something that is not only viewed as natural, but also good. Lyra is not participating in some vile rebirth of evil into the world. She is falling in love.
     Pullman has changed the outcome of the Eve myth, taking it in a direction that is unforeseen. The reader is now forced to deal with the myth, not only in terms of what has been taught over they years, but also in light of the new revelations brought forth by Pullman’s text. So not only does the reader face the otherness of the story, but the otherness of the outcome and the value of that outcome. The baggage the reader is forced to carry includes the realization that Eve’s choice may not have been solely about the knowledge of good and evil, but may have actually been about the knowledge of love and the wish to experience that love.
     Certainly this complicates things in terms of how the reader deals with the myth, but I think that is essentially what the O’Flaherty and Fredericks mean when they are talking about experiencing things in an estranged manner. The otherness forces the myth to grow from a planer concept into a complex and multi-faceted structure that bodes careful examination and study. In other words, the myth has become a valuable thinking tool for examining the world.
     If myth is to continue to function as a meaningful part of Western culture, then it falls to the authors to show us our traditions in new and unfamiliar ways. The culture has moved in a direction that the repetition of the same stories are ineffective, as they bounce off a mental canvas already supersaturated with the iconography and dogma of the culture. It is only through the re-presentation of the tradition in ways that seem strange and foreign that we will be able to reclaim the stories of the past and set the direction for the future.

     Works Cited

Fredericks, Casey. The Future of Eternity: Mythologies of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
     Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press, 1982.

Lewis, Clive Staples. Perelandra. New York. First Scribner Paperback Fiction. 1996.

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Other People’s Myths: The Cave of Echoes. Chicago. The
     University of Chicago Press. 1998.

Pullman, Philip. The Amber Spyglass. (His Dark Materials; Book 3) New York. Alfred A.
     Knopf. 2000.

Richter, David. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Second
     Edition. New York. Bedford/St. Martin’s. 1998.