Wednesday, September 02, 2009

And Now That You've Caught Up...

Ansible 266!

She's still at it...

MARGARET ATWOOD told her Edinburgh Book Festival audience that she doesn't write 'sci-fi' because her books don't contain (all together now!) 'talking squid'. Rather more cunningly, Marina Lewycka stated that she was not clever or imaginative enough to write 'sci-fi'. [JD]


Aha!

URSULA K. LE GUIN, reviewing Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, seizes on the key point which makes this novel Definitely Not Science Fiction: 'It is no comfort to find that some of the genetic experiments are humanoids designed to replace humanity. Who wants to be replaced by people who turn blue when they want sex, so that the men's enormous genitals are blue all the time? Who wants to believe that a story in which that happens isn't science fiction?' (Guardian)

And I heard it earlier, but it bears repeating:

Pete Young reports glad news: 'Miles Tanat Young was born on 4 August 2552 (that's not the distant future, that's the Thai calendar), in Bangkok, weighing 3.75kg. Named after Miles Davis and not Miles Vorkosigan, no matter what Del Cotter thinks.'

1 comment:

John Lambshead said...

It always amazes me what is not classed as science fiction and fantasy. Any novel that is deemed 'worthy' by the literati immediately becomes not science fiction and fantasy even if it has SF&F themes. So '1984' is not SF and A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a fantasy.
John