[Links]
[links] Link salad wishes it was a fisherman, tumbling on the seas
Science fiction: the genre that dare not speak its name — The Guardian discovers our shame. It’s like I always say, millions of people who won’t touch that science fiction trash read that nice Mr. Crichton’s book about cloned dinosaurs.
SF Signal Mind Meld with Shrewd Writing Advice
Found in Translation: How a Thirteenth-Century Islamic Poet Conquered America — The best-selling poet in America today was born in Afghanistan, practiced a form of Islam that originated in Iraq, and has been dead for 800 years. (Thanks to Bill M.)
Weather sizzles on a planet that kisses its star — Exoplanetary weather, anyone?
More on the remote-controlled beetle — From a slightly more reliable source.
For GOP, a Case of Misshapen Identity — Gosh, destroy the economy, sharply degrade our international diplomatic and military power, corrupt the Constitution, run up the highest deficits in history. GOP, think you might have lost your way just a little? Oh, look! Over there! Liberals!
?otD: What is a hurtling fever train, anyway?
1/30/2009
Body movement: 40 minute ride on the stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 221.6
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
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Posted: 5:10 am Fri January 30 2009 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Comments
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That Guardian article is a little annoying in parts. It starts off so well, then throws this in: “Now we are actually living in a science fiction future, is it fair to label a novel that extrapolates from what is possible today to what will probably be possible tomorrow, such as Oryx and Crake, as a flight of fancy, no more than a fairy story?” Uh, what? You’re going to consider why authors and publicists might want to escape a stigma, and apply the stigma freely in your article? Because of course, everything that is unabashedly science fiction is negligible kid’s stuff. It’s not like the whole genre’s been ‘extrapolating tomorrow’ since Day One. (And that’s not getting into the fact that ALL fiction is “a flight of fancy”.)
It’s kind of like reading an article about women being pushed out of some profession and running across a sentence that says, “Of course, it’s reasonable that workers might not want women around, breaking their long nails and wearing pink hard hats.” It’s like he doesn’t really get it at all.