Literary Cribbing from Science Fiction

[browngirl]

This is not the entry I want to write about this subject; that entry is longer, contains more examples, and is far better supported. But the best is the enemy of the good; if I wait till I have time to write that entry... I'll never have time. So.

Reding about Nick Hornby's new book Slam (about an adolescent boy who, among other adventures, wakes up years in the future from when he went to sleep) I was struck by a growing trend which I'm no doubt the last to notice: literary writers writing science fiction. I was thinking about this when reading a rec for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (if you don't mind spoilers, read the Wikipedia plot summary; it uses a classic science fiction idea!). Part of what strikes me about this trend is that science fiction is still getting no respect, even though its ideas and tropes are being used in mainstream literature; if I had time I'd find Margaret Atwood's famous denunciation of science fiction as being about "talking squids", and Howard Bloom's comment that Doris Lessing didn't deserve her Nobel because she wrote "fourth rate science fiction".

(I was also struck by the fact that these days I read about literature much more than I read literature itself, especially hardbound literature. Aigh, I need to change that.)

Comments

[vass]

Howard Bloom's comment that Doris Lessing didn't deserve her Nobel because she wrote "fourth rate science fiction".

The more that man opens his mouth, the more I hate him.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

He believes that there is such a thing as first-rate science fiction, e.g., John Crowley's, and it is worthy of literary consideration.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good, at least.

[vass]

Oh, and - classic 'How To Suppress' there as well. *grinds teeth*

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I know! Argh!

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

I've started to wonder what Science Fiction really is, today. The Vorkosigan novels are character studies set in the future. The 163X novels are alternate history with a scifi Deus ex Machina to get them started.

What really bugs me is that many people don't realize that modern SF is about people and culture. It's just set in a place in which some readers can't reasonably suspend disbelief.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I so agree with you. The question of "what would people and cultures be like in other places and times than the ones that have existed so far" is such a fascinating one, with so many answers!