[Le Guin's] 2009 Guardian article began with a paragraph that has caused a certain amount of uproar in the skin-tight clothing and other-planetary communities-so much so that scarcely a question period goes by at my public readings without someone asking, usually in injured tones, why I have forsworn the term science fiction, as if I've sold my children to the salt mines.She'll always be a fine writer, but the squids-in-space thing remains to be silly. Sci-fi readers have a fairly broad definition of what sci-fi is. People who don't read very much sci-fi think it's all like bug-eyed monsters and flying saucers. Literary agents and PR critters and such have their own definition of sci-fi between those poles, for their own reasons.
Years ago I was working in Schenectady for General Electric, completely surrounded by machines and ideas for machines, so I wrote a novel about people and machines, and machines frequently got the best of it, as machines will. (It was called Player Piano, and it's coming out in hard covers again next spring.) And I learned from the reviewers that I was a science-fiction writer.I don't really like rigid attitudes toward genres, movements and similar works of art. I can't see any reason why a work of fiction can't be science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, slipstream, New Weird, noirish mystery and romantic realism all at once; genres help me identify other things I might like, or group certain themes, moods or styles together but things made to fit into a genre are almost always boring.
I didn't know that. I supposed that I was writing a novel about life, about things I could not avoid seeing and hearing in Schenectady, a very real town, awkwardly set in the gruesome now. I have been a sore-headed occupant of a file-drawer labeled ''science- fiction'' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a tall white fixture in a comfort station.
...
But there are those who love life in this fulsome drawer, who are alarmed by the thought that they might some day be evicted, might some day be known for what they really are: plain, old, short-story writers and novelists who mention the fruits of engineering and research. They are happy in the drawer because most of the people in it love each other as members of old-fashioned families are supposed to do. They meet often, comfort and praise one another, exchange single-spaced letters of 20 pages and more, booze it up affectionately and one way or another have a million heart-throbs and laughs.
I have run with them some, and they are generous and amusing souls, but I must now make a true statement that will put them through the roof: They are joiners. They are a lodge. If they didn't enjoy having a gang of their own so much, there would be no such category as science-fiction. They love to stay up all night, arguing the question, "What is science-fiction?" One might as usefully inquire, ''What are the Elks? And what is the Order of the Eastern Star?''
But that's my point - they're really not in any foreseeable future. Non-viable genetic train wrecks? Sure. But controlled modifications at the macro scale?Huh? Why not? I mean you can make pigs that glow and other weird stuff today, but for the most part genetic engineers aren't interested in doing stuff like that. I think that most of the stuff that's done with genetic engineering in Oryx and Crake will be done with robots and nanotechnology rather then genetic engineering, but I don't really see why the kind of stuff you see in Oryx and Crake would be impossible in theory if you assume massively powerful AI
CorpSeCorps. Honestly. That alone should be enough to invalidate her opinions all the way back beyond the day she was born and forward unto eternity.All the trademarks were written ThisWay. I'm not really sure why she decided to that but it but it made things clear when people were talking about corporations. They also served as a source of humor for the reader. I think they were intended to be dumb. Dumb was trying to paint a highly flawed world.
Do you believe there is a gene that controls the shape of your nose, and if we went back to a freshly conceived you and put a different gene there we'd get a new you who was exactly the same except with a different shaped nose?Do you believe that genetic engineers will only ever be able to change single genes, rather then whole complexes of genes? Like BC said, you have different genes expressed at different points in the body. So what you do is, you have to find genes that are turned on in the development of the nose and interact with other genes. So what you have to do is find the genes that activate the genes that are active in nasal development and have them activate a different set of genes. If you look you can find mutations in nature there are all sorts of things growing in the wrong spot, frogs with multiple legs, that sort of thing.
just to elaborate.... the "hero" of O&C is a shallow narcissistic fratboy who is allowed to live because his evil genius best friend thinks he's a dupe and a clown: an enduring demonstration of why humanity needed to get wiped out. and the hot asian girl that all the nerds want to fuck is scheming to kill everyone... and succeeds.Wow, someone sound butthurt. I guess we're not worried about spoilers, so here goes: that guy is obviously not supposed to be a 'hero' He's the main character, but in the end he's just some guy. There's nothing special about him, he's a morally bankrupt loser who only succeeds in life because he's friends with someone important, someone the reader is meant to identify with but who ends up being a villain. Also the hot Asian girl wasn't trying to kill everyone, she was used as a dupe.
"YO FEEL FREE TO SHUT ME OFF WHENEVER A NEW MODEL MAKES ME OBSOLETE"this is actually more disturbing than most sci-fi scenarios
'I don't know what you mean by "Science Fiction",' Alice said.posted by SyntacticSugar at 2:31 AM on October 7, 2011 [7 favorites]
Margaret Atwood smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals. Or talking squids in outer space."'
'But "Science Fiction" doesn't mean "talking squids in outer space",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Margaret Atwood said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Margaret Atwood, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
In its English language usage in arts and literature since 20th century, "speculative fiction" as a genre term is often attributed to Robert A. Heinlein. In his first known use of the term, in editorial material at the front of the 2/8/1947 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Heinlein used it specifically as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy.posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:46 AM on October 7, 2011
"Speculative fiction" is sometimes abbreviated "spec-fic", "specfic", "S-F", "SF", or "sf". The last three abbreviations are also used to refer to "science fiction", so they can lead to confusion.posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:50 AM on October 7, 2011
The use of "speculative fiction" in the sense of expressing dissatisfaction with traditional or establishment science fiction was popularized in the 1960s and early 1970s by Judith Merril and other writers and editors, in connection with the New Wave movement.(From a part of the "Speculative Fiction" wikipedia page you didn't quote.)
What a magpie Stanley was, seizing on whatever I might mention. A book I owned about The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals: he must borrow it. Papal Indulgences; and I was faxing him information. I had written a novel entitled Inquisitor set in the wacky far-future world of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000; he wanted a pre-publication printout right away. "Who knows, Ian?" he mused. "Maybe this is my next movie?" I arranged for Games Workshop to send him samples of their games and artwork and obtained for him from fantasy artist Ian Miller a portfolio of drawings of monsters. Anything could be grist to the mill, now or at some future date.posted by Sticherbeast at 10:46 AM on October 7, 2011 [1 favorite]
"It's Science Fiction, if, presuming technical competence on the part of the writer, he genuinely believes it could happen."I'm not a fan of that definition for a great many reasons but it should at least be taken seriously as a jumping off point. You're positing that any story fitting that definition would not be science fiction.
"Romance," in today’s general usage, is what happens on Valentine's Day. As a literary term it has slipped in rank somewhat—being now applied to such things as Harlequin Romances—but it was otherwise understood in the nineteenth century when it was used in opposition to the term novel. The novel dealt with known social life, but a romance could deal with the long ago and the far away. (p.157)So she's a pedant, a showoff AND broadly incorrect, since we did not "get into the habit of calling all examples of long prose novels", it's the very definition of novel these days.
« Older Now That You're Big... | Known as The Sundrome , I.M. P... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by GuyZero at 1:58 PM on October 6, 2011 [5 favorites]