Just why are these writers shunned?
Science fiction authors have long been outcasts from the literary world, John Howell writes at galacticbrain.com, sometimes attacked by their own.
He quotes Margaret Atwood ‘s mocking remarks several years ago: ‘Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space,’ noting that it was just one of her many attempts to convince people that she is not a science fiction author, “even though one of her most famous novels, A Handmaid’s Tale, is exactly that.”
Personally, the distain for the literature-of-the-future by the here-and-now crowd has always astonished me. If anything, the sheer vision required to create ANY future from scratch – yes, even the squid in outer space! or The Handmaid’s Tale – should be a feature of modern literature, not the bug.
But it’s just so easy to wave a hand and close the door on the SF ghetto. Sometimes I think that the “real” writers are so afraid of how they’ll be shown up by us genre folks that they’d rather just not compete at all and fondly imagine that by keeping the gates locked will keep the cooties away.
But I have news for them. it’s HERE in the ghetto that the future lives. The fences and the locks and the keys…they’re keeping THEM out, not US in. Because we’re already out there amongst the stars. Have the literati considered the possibility that it is around THEM, rather than us, that the locked gates and the iron bars really are…?
I’ll get off my soapbox now. You can read more of John Howell ‘s take on this at galacticbrain.com HERE
~~~~~
In a story at Bookriot headlined
Recommendations From an Unexcitable Reader
Sarah Nicolasan talks about eight books that actually do excite her, including ‘The Shifter‘.
That caught my attention since the last book in my series, The Were Chronickes, is called ‘Shifter‘. Alas, similar name but different book.
‘The Shifter‘ is by Janice Hardy and it sounds like something I might like myself as it involves “a young girl with a pretty messed up power. She can heal someone, but she must then push their pain into someone else.”
The other recommendations by Sarah Nicolasan can be found at Bookriot HERE
For my own ‘Shifter’, a book which has excited readers and reviewers, go HERE
~~~~~
The 25 Best Quotes About Authors
Happy National Author’s Day! Well, actually you missed it. It was yesterday, November 1 but don’t let stop you from celebrating,
If you listen to my mother, writing is an affliction. When I would go off into my own little worlds she would call it being under the influence of my ‘writing virus’. But it is a syndrome that I have never really wanted to recover from, though.
Perhaps my favorite of this selection is a quote from David Gerrold — “Writers build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home.”
See all the quotes at writerswrite HERE
~~~~~
Tuck Everlasting author Natalie Babbitt dies at 84
Natalie Babbitt. Photograph: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images
Babbitt wrote and illustrated dozens of books, but was best known for ‘Tuck Everlasting‘, the 1975 novel which has sold over 3.5m copies.
It explores the concept of immortality and has been adapted into two movies and a Broadway play.
Read more at The Guardian HERE
~~~~~
Recent Comments