Dark Futures: What happens when literary novelists experiment with Sci-Fi(slate.com)
slate.com
Dark Futures: What happens when literary novelists experiment with Sci-Fi
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2017/05/literary_fiction_is_borrowing_the_tools_of_the_science_fiction_genre.html
16 comments
> Margaret Atwood furiously resists the idea that her stuff is Science Fiction because "SF is talking squids in outer space".
It was a little more nuanced than that. Her argument was that The Handmaid's Tale wasn't really science fiction because it was set in a dystopian "now". Recall there wasn't anything particularly advanced about the technology in the story and its timeline forked from ours sometime in the 1970s (the book took place in the 1980s I think). She instead preferred if the story were called "speculative fiction".
While some of that could rightly be attributed to not wanting to be shelved as science fiction, that's also not the full story. Pre-internet, Margaret Atwood's audience was primarily a literary audience. So it makes sense that she'd want this new book to be shelved in the same place her old books were shelved. Otherwise she might lose out on some of her core audience.
Atwood being a repeat offender of looting "the treasury of SF ideas" is baseless hyperbole, and your entire rant falls on a throwaway comment she made 30 years ago. She looted the "treasury of SF ideas" in the same way Delany looted Moby Dick to write Nova or Jo Walton looted Greek myth to write The Just City
It was a little more nuanced than that. Her argument was that The Handmaid's Tale wasn't really science fiction because it was set in a dystopian "now". Recall there wasn't anything particularly advanced about the technology in the story and its timeline forked from ours sometime in the 1970s (the book took place in the 1980s I think). She instead preferred if the story were called "speculative fiction".
While some of that could rightly be attributed to not wanting to be shelved as science fiction, that's also not the full story. Pre-internet, Margaret Atwood's audience was primarily a literary audience. So it makes sense that she'd want this new book to be shelved in the same place her old books were shelved. Otherwise she might lose out on some of her core audience.
Atwood being a repeat offender of looting "the treasury of SF ideas" is baseless hyperbole, and your entire rant falls on a throwaway comment she made 30 years ago. She looted the "treasury of SF ideas" in the same way Delany looted Moby Dick to write Nova or Jo Walton looted Greek myth to write The Just City
I had the extreme privilege of seeing M. Atwood speak this year, where she made the same argument as quoted in the OP (with a different example than squids, but the point was the same).
It is not a throwaway remark. It is something she strongly believes.
It is not a throwaway remark. It is something she strongly believes.
Did she not maintain that her fiction was "speculative" and not "science fiction"? Because everything I've seen has her being very clear in her description of the two.
Yes, of course she did. I'm disputing the end of your remark, not the beginning.
I see what you're saying now.
She has made the remark repeatedly, over the years, in different contexts. It's not a throwaway.
As for baseless hyperbole, I object to Atwood on this issue because she is 'borrowing' ideas from a genre that she is then disassociating herself from. Delany and Walton could expect their readers to have read Melville and Greek myth, but Atwood is delivering SF a nice little kicking while borrowing the ideas from the genre and transporting them to a more respectable context.
Apparently The Man in the High Castle is still SF, probably because Dick didn't strain at the oars to get shelved out of SF. Probably because he was a repeat offender with talking squids in outer space and worse - telepathic slime molds from Ganymede, IIRC.
Partly it's also a matter of taste. For someone so 'literary', I'd say that Atwood loves herself some serious schlock. It felt like every third character in the Oryx and Crake trilogy was Torn From the Headlines of whatever outrage articles that Atwood had read in the previous year... I keep dutifully reading each book - there's always something interesting in them - but I've got to say I feel both dirtier (Oryx and Crake trilogy) and stupider (the trilogy + Heart Goes Last) after each one.
As for baseless hyperbole, I object to Atwood on this issue because she is 'borrowing' ideas from a genre that she is then disassociating herself from. Delany and Walton could expect their readers to have read Melville and Greek myth, but Atwood is delivering SF a nice little kicking while borrowing the ideas from the genre and transporting them to a more respectable context.
Apparently The Man in the High Castle is still SF, probably because Dick didn't strain at the oars to get shelved out of SF. Probably because he was a repeat offender with talking squids in outer space and worse - telepathic slime molds from Ganymede, IIRC.
Partly it's also a matter of taste. For someone so 'literary', I'd say that Atwood loves herself some serious schlock. It felt like every third character in the Oryx and Crake trilogy was Torn From the Headlines of whatever outrage articles that Atwood had read in the previous year... I keep dutifully reading each book - there's always something interesting in them - but I've got to say I feel both dirtier (Oryx and Crake trilogy) and stupider (the trilogy + Heart Goes Last) after each one.
The whole idea of what gets shelved where is starting to lose definition and importance.
Not really. If you still buy books at stores, you'll want your Atwoods all shelved together, as opposed to her literary work being in "fiction" and her sci-fi work being shelved in "fantasy & science fiction"
I am trying real hard here and I really can not remember when I last bought a book for myself in a store. Last year in Berlin when I bought some Banks novels for a friend, that was an impulse buy because he did not know any of them yet was the last time I bought books in a store in general, but they were not for my own use.
Other than that books arrive in the mail.
Other than that books arrive in the mail.
I'm mostly an online buyer myself. But when I go to book stores I've noticed the sorting associates the genre with the author and not with the work. This is why authors who want to write in different genres do so under pen names. So if Atwood mostly writes literary fiction, it makes sense that she would want her speculative books shelved in their usual space. This is an old mode of thinking, admittedly, but it makes sense in terms of moving physical volumes.
A similar thing happens with comics; The New York Times's review of Art Spiegelman's WWII memoir "Maus" started with the line "Maus is not a comic".
This was meant as praise, because "obviously", if it's any good, it can't be called a comic book. (Then, of course, the term "graphic novel" got traction, and immediately got misused so often that it's now completely meaningless.)
This was meant as praise, because "obviously", if it's any good, it can't be called a comic book. (Then, of course, the term "graphic novel" got traction, and immediately got misused so often that it's now completely meaningless.)
The word comic comes with expectations about graphics style and content, same as manga has some expectations (through that has more variety of stuff). That is quite practical for people like me who don't like the comic style, but do enjoy differently painted pictures with bubbles.
Does not mean it must somehow inherently superior, it is more of attempt to sell to people who are aware of how it looks like usually and that they usually dont like it.
Does not mean it must somehow inherently superior, it is more of attempt to sell to people who are aware of how it looks like usually and that they usually dont like it.
In the film industry there seems to be a differentiation between things labelled SciFi (spaceships fighting, laser guns, squids in outer space) and Science Fiction (fictional science enabling the plot).
How does IMDb make the distinction?
I don't think it does. For instance I notice The Handmaids Tale - what I'd regard as a science fiction - is currently number 3 in their 'Most Popular Sci-Fi' list between Alien: Covenant at 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 at 4 - both films I'd place firmly in the Sci-Fi category. [http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=sci_fi&explore=genre...].
The classic SF by a literary novelist is E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops".[1] This is over a century old and still reads well.
[1] http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
[1] http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
I'll never forget something Lloyd Biggle Jr. wrote in the intro to a short story. It went something like this: given a group of people in a sewer, the mainstream author will lovingly write about those who stay there. The SF author will write about those trying to get out.
This seems an appropriate place for an Iain Banks quote:
" "Well," he says, "if you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes."
Banks freely admits that he enjoys writing his SF novels more than his "literary" novels, and the Culture novels more than his other SF. The hedonistic, anarchistic, post-scarcity series is "a hoot. It's my train set. I adore the freedom and the size of the canvas," even though writing them "requires a greater degree of concentration. And there's so much baggage with the Culture now that I have to get each new novel aligned with earlier Culture history. I don't have the same leeway to make things up compared with when I started." "
From his last(?) interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the...
" "Well," he says, "if you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes."
Banks freely admits that he enjoys writing his SF novels more than his "literary" novels, and the Culture novels more than his other SF. The hedonistic, anarchistic, post-scarcity series is "a hoot. It's my train set. I adore the freedom and the size of the canvas," even though writing them "requires a greater degree of concentration. And there's so much baggage with the Culture now that I have to get each new novel aligned with earlier Culture history. I don't have the same leeway to make things up compared with when I started." "
From his last(?) interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the...
I've always had a soft spot for Doris Lessing's bizarre '70s sci-fi experiment Shikasta.
Ursula Le Guin wrote a review of Shikasta in 1979:
https://newrepublic.com/article/115631/doris-lessing-shikast...
I found this review really fascinating because I consider Le Guin and Lessing to be writers of equal caliber. Le Guin was pegged as a sci-fi / fantasy author, while Lessing just experimented with the form. (She won the Nobel Prize in 2007.)
Ursula Le Guin wrote a review of Shikasta in 1979:
https://newrepublic.com/article/115631/doris-lessing-shikast...
I found this review really fascinating because I consider Le Guin and Lessing to be writers of equal caliber. Le Guin was pegged as a sci-fi / fantasy author, while Lessing just experimented with the form. (She won the Nobel Prize in 2007.)
I've never read Lessing, but Le Guin is one of my favorite authors. For me, _The Left Hand of Darkness_ is easily on a par with other canonical "great" 20th-century literature I've read. I've always felt that if she were born later, now that sci-fi has become a little less fringe and a little more respectable, that she'd be more properly grouped this way.
She really pushed the envelope on sociological SciFi.
"You may have the handkerchief i carry."
That review was amazing. Thank you for posting that!
The author Charles Stross stopped writing his Halting State series because the events depicted in his books were becoming real, and it frightened him.
He's actually an HN user:
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross
[NB As long as the events in his "Laundry" series don't start happening then we're probably fine]
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross
[NB As long as the events in his "Laundry" series don't start happening then we're probably fine]
The real world keeps derailing his Laundry universe. The next book, due out in July, was delayed because he had to rework it to accommodate Brexit.
Oh wow how cool!! Should've known. I have been Jonesing for his next Halting State novel for some time. It's such an amazing literary adventure, in second person no less, I really hope he reconsideres.
For anyone else curious: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...
I'm pretty sure anyone who thinks sci-fi doesn't deliver good characters isn't reading the right sci-fi. Go read Blindsight and The Quantum Thief and see if you can still tell me that with a straight face.
I read Blindsight and I thought it was good, I think, though I am no longer certain I exist as an I.
That works, too.
The author, Peter Watts, published this novel under a creative commons license. You can find the full text here, in multiple formats, at his website: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
Blindsight is a great story, but I don't really remember the characters. Why do you think the characters are noteworthy?
They where excellently shaped to display a philosophical problem.
The man with literally half his brain removed becoming, in essence, the surviving ego of the story, was a nice touch.
Some sci-fi has good characters, but character is inherently secondary in sci-fi. An ability to enjoy works without good characters (e.g. those of Asimov) on the strength of other merits is what separates sci-fi fans from dabblers.
The first SF book I ever bought with my allowance money was Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones, one of his later "juveniles". I was ten years old.
I read it for the spaceships, and the computers, and the other whiz-bang technology stuff. I never even noticed the characters. I went on to read a bunch of E E "Doc" Smith and other space opera and was happy.
On a lark, I re-read Starman Jones a few days ago. I'm 56 now. I am astonished at how well Heinlein had drawn his characters, and I could now spot the pivotal moment where the protagonist makes his big change; all stuff I missed when I was a pre-teen, but that is obvious now. If Heinlein hadn't put all that "character stuff" there, I would not have enjoyed the book, but I wasn't conscious enough to appreciate it.
I realized quite a few years ago that most of the SF I read used the whiz-bang stuff as a hook, but that the books I enjoyed the most had the best character development.
I strongly disagree that character is inherently secondary in SF. Or rather, it is just as secondary in crappy SF as it is in the crappy books of just about any genre (mystery, bodice buster, adventure, western, spy novel, etc.). [Apologies for the word "crappy", but I'm feeling rather Ellisonesque this morning]
I read it for the spaceships, and the computers, and the other whiz-bang technology stuff. I never even noticed the characters. I went on to read a bunch of E E "Doc" Smith and other space opera and was happy.
On a lark, I re-read Starman Jones a few days ago. I'm 56 now. I am astonished at how well Heinlein had drawn his characters, and I could now spot the pivotal moment where the protagonist makes his big change; all stuff I missed when I was a pre-teen, but that is obvious now. If Heinlein hadn't put all that "character stuff" there, I would not have enjoyed the book, but I wasn't conscious enough to appreciate it.
I realized quite a few years ago that most of the SF I read used the whiz-bang stuff as a hook, but that the books I enjoyed the most had the best character development.
I strongly disagree that character is inherently secondary in SF. Or rather, it is just as secondary in crappy SF as it is in the crappy books of just about any genre (mystery, bodice buster, adventure, western, spy novel, etc.). [Apologies for the word "crappy", but I'm feeling rather Ellisonesque this morning]
That does not makes much sense to me. You can be SF fan while demanding that arbitrary aspect of the book is high quality - whether character, action quality, gore, logical consistency or the text itself.
Just because you personally don't care about some aspect of the book does not mean all who do are dabblers.
Just because you personally don't care about some aspect of the book does not mean all who do are dabblers.
I didn't mean to insult others' tastes, and I'm sorry if I came across that way - I'm all for enjoying whatever palette of genres you like. But if your primary interest is character, surely you would want books written with that in mind. And if a book is primarily about its characters, why would that book be written as SF?
For me personally, if the character is unrealistic, then it bothers me. It is not that it would be primary interest, I don't read because of it. But when it is badly written it make me stop to read - it prevents immersion to me and makes me feel like that world does not "work".
I loved Station Eleven, but I was conscious of how incredibly suffused with privilege it was; somehow in this post-apocalyptic world our viewpoint characters can live as a travelling theatre/symphony and a museum curator and, aside from an offhand mention of a few hours' hunting, never have to worry where their next meal is coming from. I guess actual hardship is genuinely unimaginable for the literary audience.
True, but isn't this pretty much the case for post-apocalyptic literature in general? The protagonists are usually threatened by zombies, radioactive mutants, or roving gangs of punk rockers but not so much by starving to death, which would be a more realistic (if less interesting from a dramatic perspective) fate after the collapse of civilization.
Disease is even more realistic. Before modern civil engineering (at least in the west) almost all newborns died before age five. If a kid made it to 5 and avoided accidents and stuff, they made it to 80 just like we do today. But until 1900 or so in the west, about 80 to 90 percent of humans died before age 5.
This is a pretty inaccurate exaggeration. While death in childhood was a lot more common it was more like 30% in the middle ages and lower then that by the 1800s. And while people living to 80 wasn't rare it was by no means as common as today given that diseases and injury were both more common and treatment was worse. Childbirth was also a very dangerous time for the mother and accounted for a substantial amount of post-childhood mortality.
Yes I agree in the old days childbirth was more dangerous for women than warfare was for men (at least in that warfare isn't usually constant but pregnancy was).
I'd disagree in that the fundamental point is under those circumstances people would be dying of diseases and such faster than they can die of starvation.
As a concrete example where I live the civil engineers provide wells for water and sewage treatment plants dumping safe waste into the river. Without that engineering, people would die from waterborne illnesses faster than they can eat canned foods.
I'd disagree in that the fundamental point is under those circumstances people would be dying of diseases and such faster than they can die of starvation.
As a concrete example where I live the civil engineers provide wells for water and sewage treatment plants dumping safe waste into the river. Without that engineering, people would die from waterborne illnesses faster than they can eat canned foods.
Sorry, my comment isn't about how people would die post-apocalypse, it was about you saying that 80-90 percent of people died before age five before the year 1900 which is much higher than reality (probably about 30% in the middle ages, less then that in the 1800s) and also your assertion that if they survived to adulthood they lived to 80 at a similar rate as today when in fact it was much less common.
The Road would be a good counter-example.
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I didn't like Station Eleven and this is a big element of why. It seemed to refuse to engage with it's premise in a way even more so than lots of other post-apocalyptic works where there is a kind of yearning for a simpler technology free life that comes after billions of deaths.
Similarly the whole thing with Miranda and Dr. Eleven bugged me because you had someone writing a comic that seemed to be very Euro-comic inspired like Moebius or Christin but the only comic arist who's mentioned is Bill Waterson.
"it depicts a dystopian future in which a celebrity becomes an authoritarian politician. As shocking as the presidency of Donald Trump has been, there’s a history of mulishly regressive Americans electing such people, from Ronald Reagan to Jesse Ventura."
Reagan was an authoritarian? I've heard endless complaints about him, but not that one.
Reagan was an authoritarian? I've heard endless complaints about him, but not that one.
The slight towards Ventura is unfair as well. Although he is an odd guy, he is not ideologically in the same category as the recent American presidents at all. I am proud that my mulishly-regressive home state elected Ventura in a way, even though I don't necessarily think he was the most effective politician.
I'm surprised that an article about literature and scifi doesn't mention Gene Wolfe, the only scifi author I know who gets occasionally placed in the literature section at book stores.
Literature should not really be it's own genre, since the language used to tell a story isn't related to the contents of that story.
Literature should not really be it's own genre, since the language used to tell a story isn't related to the contents of that story.
This, easily one of the greatest writers in the genre but largely ignored in regards to marrying literature and sci fi. I suspect he is too dense for most, although they will never admit it.
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Can you recommend something of his to try? Go for best, not most palatable :-)
Wolfe's short story collection The Death of Doctor Island and Other Stories and Other Stories [not a typo] is an excellent introduction to his work. Some of these stories have stayed with me for 30 years.
For non-SF, I recommend reading Peace. Twice.
For non-SF, I recommend reading Peace. Twice.
Book Of The New Sun.
I've read about 300 fiction novels over the course of my life and that book still maintains a hold on me like nothing else ever has. It is easily the best fiction novel I've ever read.
I've read about 300 fiction novels over the course of my life and that book still maintains a hold on me like nothing else ever has. It is easily the best fiction novel I've ever read.
I consider the Solar Cycle (including this book) possibly the best work of fiction ever, but it's quite heavy. I'm not sure I'll ever reread them, because I remember feeling a bit like I'm drowning in the story.
For someone new to Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus gives a good taste about what's in store without so much commitment.
Besides those I also strongly remember these works:
- The Wizard Knight: straight-up fantasy but quite philosophical like sci-fi should be
- Pirate Freedom: an interesting "historic" view of pirate life
For someone new to Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus gives a good taste about what's in store without so much commitment.
Besides those I also strongly remember these works:
- The Wizard Knight: straight-up fantasy but quite philosophical like sci-fi should be
- Pirate Freedom: an interesting "historic" view of pirate life
Agreed on the entire Solar Cycle. IMO the interplay between the Long Sun series and Short Sun series is its own kind of magnificence. Like many Wolfe readers, I came into Long Sun looking for "more" New Sun, and it took me quite a while (probably 2 books in) to dispense with that expectation and start appreciating Long Sun on its own merit. By the end of Long Sun I was enjoying it very much, but it wasn't until I started reading Short Sun that I began to see the brilliance of what the author was trying to accomplish between the two stories.
Interesting. It shows Hyperion in the "People also searched for" section in Amazon. I liked Hyperion: it showed such promise. It's tricky: if your writing feels mythical, you shouldn't resolve/reveal too much at the end.
I also enjoyed Hyperion, but I would say that they are on two totally different levels from a literary perspective. I don't mean to sound dismissive of Hyperion, I think it's very good, but BoTNS is exceptional.
No worries. Hyperion was ultimately a letdown (compared to its promise), so better than that is good!
Usually tedium is what happens when literary novelists experiment with Sci-Fi. And the same when SF novelists try to get too lit'rary. Atwood has a couple of corkers though.
I think you're often correct. Literary writers seem to bring their ego to sci-fi, thinking "I'll show these plebes real writing." The result usually sounds like a Dad trying to play cool guitar licks for his teenage son's friends.
But there are counter-examples. Jonathan Lethem is at his best when he toes both worlds, and Iain "M" Banks is equally famous for his literature and his space operas. It's an absolute crime that James Morrow isn't better-known. And pretty much everything the Slate article hits is excellent.
But there are counter-examples. Jonathan Lethem is at his best when he toes both worlds, and Iain "M" Banks is equally famous for his literature and his space operas. It's an absolute crime that James Morrow isn't better-known. And pretty much everything the Slate article hits is excellent.
If the Handmaid's Tale is anything to go on, I don't want to see any more Atwood. It takes a lot for me to toss a book in the trash, but there was one...
How come? I mean, I don't regard it as particularly good, but I did at least get all the way through it. (On the other hand, I was much younger then.)
I was probably ruined by reading a few hundred good science fiction novels before hitting that in a freshman lit class.
It's basically Newbury-level dreck. It reminded me far too much of The Giver - wildly implausible dystopian societies bent on the authors childish ideological sympathies.
It's basically Newbury-level dreck. It reminded me far too much of The Giver - wildly implausible dystopian societies bent on the authors childish ideological sympathies.
I essentially agree with this criticism of the book, so I've been surprised that the Hulu series is pretty strong. They effectively convert a lot of the dull/portentous stretches in the book into subtle horror, and add some badly needed doses of action (often in the form of flashback). Also, they've artfully given the ruling regime a bro-ey, Alt-Right style that gives a touch of plausibility. YMMV but I found it to be an interesting exercise in what talented people can do with middling material.
I gotta agree with you on that. All concept, no character. Which really makes ideal as a kicking-off point for a tv series.
(ditto for Fahrenheit 451)
(ditto for Fahrenheit 451)
> All concept, no character.
Also known as high-concept sf - though probably not in this case, unless Atwood has stopped swearing at people who refer to her work in such terms.
On the other hand, postapocalyptic totalitarian religious dystopia isn't really what you'd call breaking new ground, even in 1985.
Also known as high-concept sf - though probably not in this case, unless Atwood has stopped swearing at people who refer to her work in such terms.
On the other hand, postapocalyptic totalitarian religious dystopia isn't really what you'd call breaking new ground, even in 1985.
Funny you should say that. Here in the UK we're three episodes into a Handmaid's Tale TV adaptation. It's surprisingly good and you're right, it's excellent TV, even if I found the book itself quite a struggle back in college.
> It's basically Newbury-level dreck.
That's a...really weird condemnation. I certainly haven't read all of them, but every Newbery Medal nominee I have read has been excellent.
That's a...really weird condemnation. I certainly haven't read all of them, but every Newbery Medal nominee I have read has been excellent.
Good lord, suffer yourself to Belle Prater's Boy or Out of the Dust, and come back to me. Granted, that's just late 90s Newbury's, maybe they sucked less going forward.
If I wasn't already reading Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum and Tolkien by that point, that kind of horseshit might have turned me off reading altogether at around 11-12.
If I wasn't already reading Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum and Tolkien by that point, that kind of horseshit might have turned me off reading altogether at around 11-12.
Give Oryx and Crake a couple chapters. I thought it was really good.
It's been a long, long time since I read that book but if you like science fiction or literature I'd advise reading something good in either genre instead. It was an emotionally flat book without giving the impression that it aimed at beautiful writing and total disinterest in the characters, like Lolita or American Psycho.
No mention of Ballard? Or any of the New Worlds "New Wave" era writers?
Ballard was primarily an SF author though. His autobiographical Empire of the Sun was an exception as was, arguably Crash. But really, although his later writing got away from the world destroying sub-genre, there were at least science fictional elements throughout.
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Who are the new wave writers? I'm looking for some more good authors, and not finding these jump out on Amazon.
Well, on the UK side of things you can probably pick any of the authors published during Michael Moorcock's tenure at New Worlds: so Aldiss, Moorcock, M John Harrison, Hilary Bailey, Ballard, Barrington J Bayley, Disch, Brunner.
You can also probably toss in Delany, Spinrad, much of Dangerous Visions, and then go on from there.
The movement, if there was one, is best characterised by a shift from puzzle stories to more complex fiction, with some authors crossing the divide, like Silverberg and Zelazny in the US.
You can also probably toss in Delany, Spinrad, much of Dangerous Visions, and then go on from there.
The movement, if there was one, is best characterised by a shift from puzzle stories to more complex fiction, with some authors crossing the divide, like Silverberg and Zelazny in the US.
A volume of Robert Silverberg stories blew me away when I was young and eager for ideas based fiction. I think he might be the under-rated author of that era - talented with characters and narrative, yet provocative and thought provoking in terms of his conceptual exploration.
However - decades (and probably puberty) sit in between me and my last reading of his work so this is probably an unreliable viewpoint.
However - decades (and probably puberty) sit in between me and my last reading of his work so this is probably an unreliable viewpoint.
I have read a lot of scifi books particularly post apocalyptic (yeah its overdone but I still love it) and "The Road" still haunts me.
I am more of a plot junkie and have very little to justify a good opinion of literature but for whats worth "The Road" is very well written. Highly recommend it.
I am more of a plot junkie and have very little to justify a good opinion of literature but for whats worth "The Road" is very well written. Highly recommend it.
Don't let her description of Void Star put you off. It's not literary, but it is fun scifi. Although I don't think it will ever be seminal, parts of its world-building compare favorably to Snow Crash, and the treatment of AIs is quite fun and sometimes thought-provoking.
Under the Skin looks like a novel about aliens on Earth. It's really about meat, and about how people, especially women, get treated like meat. It's brilliant. But based on the Amazon customer reviews, there's a sci fi audience that doesn't want that kind of bait and switch.
Avshalom(3)
This is devoutly desired by most authors as being tarnished with the "SF Author" label is a ticket to lower pay and guilt-by-association-with-trash. Margaret Atwood furiously resists the idea that her stuff is Science Fiction because "SF is talking squids in outer space".
What often feels irritating about literary adventures into SF is that they allow themselves to loot the treasury of SF ideas and present them under respectable covers to readers who would never venture into the SF section (I view Atwood as a repeat offender in this department).
This is considerably less irritating than the bulk of the F/SF section, of course, which is 90% extruded paint-by-numbers escape literature. The average page count should be the first clue that 'we're not here for the ideas'. Thank goodness for the "Masterworks" series (and a few other lines) which do the admirable job of keeping something other than the Escape Lit du Jour in print.