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The Secret History of Science Fiction
San Francisco, 2:38 PM
Wed Dec 2
31 posts in the last 24 hours
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The Secret History of Science Fiction |
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10/30/09
11/02/09
At this point I would like to paraphrase Greg "Shock G" Jacobs of Digital Underground,:
"Doowutchyalike. Ritewutchyalike. Reedwutchyalike."
Can it get any simpler? #books
10/30/09
On a nitpicky note, you spelled Le Guin's last name wrong. It has a space in it. (Boy, am I getting tired of pointing this out.) #books
11/02/09
I apologize about the typo in Lady Ursula's name. I get it right about half the time. Bad of me. But as someone with an easily misspelled family name, I'm sure she's gotten used to it.
She knows we love her and her work.
10/29/09
You are so right on! It is ridiculous.
I don't get why the li-fi's and the escapists can't get along. That is why no matter what type of government and what people have people will always find stupid reasons to hate and fear each other. #books
10/29/09
What if all those li-fi writers disassociating themselves from what we've come to recognise as the genre are the true SF authors...as in, the ones really doing the genre justice? #books
10/29/09
You get bonus points for working your own handle into the description. #books
10/29/09
At any rate, by the definition of the Literati, "literature" cannot include SF. If a work appears to be SF, it must not be called SF.
Now, if _you_ have a work that you think is SF but you want it to be labeled "literature" you must have it translated into Lowland Finish, set it in Estonia, rename all the characters "Yerkil" and arrange for your friend the Grad Student to "find" it among the papers of some long dead scholar. #books
11/02/09
And therein lies the gag. Do check it out.It's a very wry take on the whole PoMo Deconstructionist Metafictional Whatchawhozits movement as well as a look at the current state of SF short fiction digests these days. No, really.
10/29/09
At the start of Atwood's career, before she published things like "the Handmaid's Tale", she was an esteemed poet and literary critic. She also wrote about three or four novels before the handmaid's tale. To say that she's a "sci-fi author" who has "turned her back on the genre" is just kind of childish, and shows a lack of knowledge about her career.
She's always been a multi-genre writer, and has been one of the few to actually successfully write globally-interesting speculative books.
From my point of view, Atwood is simply a great writer PERIOD, who has in fact been victimized and ghettoized by the vainer members of the science-fiction community, who out of an insecurity in their genre, can't abide when an author doesn't want to be lumped in with that category, and so makes them out to be an "elitist" when it's in fact the same thing they've been doing since 1970 - defying genre expectations. #books
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/30/09
Atwood, sadly, is a bit an elitist snob when it comes to classification, often fighting against any sci-fi labels that her books have deserved, but you're definitely right in that she has always been a multi-genre writer and an amazing one at that. She certainly never turned her back on sci-fi, but she also never owned up to her very obviously sci-fi books. #books
10/30/09
And to say that "Year of the Flood is closer to Ender's Game than it is to 100 Years of Solitude." is ridiculous. In theme, in tone, in use of language, ability to wrte and in how seriously she takes her literary endeavour, and in the underlying reasons why she's writing with elements of the fantastic she's WORLDS past Ender's Game; which is, at best, a relatively serious space opera. #books
10/30/09
In Atwood's case, brilliant as she is, she needs to just own up to her sci-fi books as just that and we can get on with it. #books
10/30/09
10/30/09
Science fiction doesn't equate to bad writing just as good writing doesn't equate to realistic, epiphany based literary fiction.
I mean, you're arguing that because it's good it shouldn't be called science fiction, essentially. The genre is defined by the plot points (Blood Meridian is a Mexico Western, 1984 is sci-fi, Wuthering Heights is romance, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is alternate history, Frankenstein is Horror, Inherent Vice is a detective novel, etc.). So yes, "just because" it takes place in the future with imagined technology and situations, it is sci-fi. how GOOD it is is determined by the writing. Just because something is also genre doesn't make it bad and just because something is expertly written doesn't make it non-genre.
The way of the ghetto is to stop saying that the term only applies to BAD writing and to include great works of fiction (past and contemporary) reside in the same place. So sci-fi is no longer the repository for crap stories, but is merely a framework in which to tell tales.
10/30/09
Oh and by the way, saying spec. fic is an "inane" name is sort of an incorrect pedantry. All fiction is not necessarily "speculative". That's silly. "speculative" doesn't mean "imaginary". #books
10/29/09
Just a thought, apropos of almost nothing - why don't publishers produce two editions of their author's work? One cover showing the traditional sci-fi " 'splodey spaceships and silver bikini-clad women" and the other a simple abstract image with the title in an unassuming font (think Never Let Me go and the like). It worked for Rowling, after all. #books
10/29/09
11/02/09
xxxooo #books
11/02/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
Speaking of the borderlines between mainstream and SF, is there anyone else wondering why Richard Powers (author of such novels as Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, and his latest, Generosity) vary rarely gets associated with science fiction in spite of novels featuring an artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the genetics of happiness? #books
10/29/09
There can't possibly be another site with a more impressive commenter cadre.
I stay in awe of you crazy kids. #books
11/02/09
10/29/09
11/02/09
@Moff: Oh gosh, praise from Cesar!
Thank you very much, Wimmer.
11/02/09
@Grey_Area: Oooh, that guy used to work with Ernest Borg 9! #books
10/29/09