Link-drop: two articles of interest. Read
this one first, and then a
blog post commenting on that article. I am all for the de-marginalisation of, well, marginalised genres. I don't quite take the same view that Kim Stanley Robinson does about sf - sure, some science fiction is about the "new", the "leading edge", but those are easily misunderstood, and mean different things to people. Perhaps what science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction,
fictions "in which things happen that are not possible today" - what all of that is, is simply exactly what "general fiction" or "literary fiction" is as well, only expressed with the aid of the unfamiliar. The same themes come up, again and again. All the time. Always. Perhaps the more generic, the most pulpy of science fiction (and what gives science fiction and fantasy such a bad name in the literary community, including prize judges) throws in the unfamiliar/alien/fantastic gratuitously, for the sole purpose of escapism; but the best of science fiction uses this unfamiliar to emphasise the familiar. What better way to explore the depths of what it is to be human than be placing said human in completely inhuman territory? Even the great philosophers do it. What if everything were a dream?
What if I could put my brain in a vat and then radio-communicate my body into the bowels of the earth and then it failed completely down there, leaving me sightlessly soundlessly abandoned in earth core and/or glass vat?
But I grudgingly admit that even the barest acknowledgement of science fiction's value (Naughtie saying Robinson "may well have a point") edifies my appreciation of the genre. I somehow find myself compelled to agree with the literary community's consensus that science fiction is pulp for the masses, and feel like I indulge secretly in it - although I can honestly say that I still don't understand what it is that's so fascinating about Harry Potter, or the Twilight series. It is true that if publishers don't put forward their science fiction to the Booker prize, not much will change. It can't be all the fault of the publishers though. It's a vicious cycle pretty much ruled by demand, supply, and the compulsion to classify everything into neat genres.
Favourite science fiction book of all time? The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. Closely followed by A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr.
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