Time in a couple of weeks for my own "Harry Potter" update: William Gibson has a new book coming out, yoobee (as the Danes say in lieu of "yahoo").
Here is an Interview.
Quote:
"Famously his first novel set in the present, Pattern Recognition made me feel like I had put on special headphones tuned into the frequency of our lives with a sensitivity that my own biological antenna could never match. I was the fiction editor of our Canadian site at the time, and the great irony of that year was that Gibson had written a novel set in the present that was "literary" by any measure except his sci-fi pedigree, while the Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood in the same year wrote a classic science fiction novel, Oryx and Crake. Although by my lights Pattern Recognition was the far better book (and the best Canadian novel of the year), when it came time for the yearly literary award nominations, Atwood's science fiction book was recognized but Gibson's was nowhere to be found."
I can't believe SF is still a stepchild. Come on, literary people, wake up and smell the coffee. Science Fiction is not a "genre" like westerns or romance. SF is literature unbound from only describing the present "reality".
Twenty years ago Gibson said in an interview "I can't see how anybody can write a serious novel and have it not be science fiction". Well, apparently these days he can see it. Fortunately, like Iain Banks, he is equally good at both.
Nice coincidence, just found this quote:
"Mainstream literature seems like painting in miniature a lot of the time, and then suddenly you get to science fiction and you get the opportunity to work on a proper canvas." - Iain M Banks
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I am trying to make it clear when text is not my own by using italics and colors. And I seem to have fallen into the convention that when I quote from comments here on the blog, I use blue text, and when I quote (larger blocks) from outside, I use green. Crystale claire, n'est pas? :)
4 comments:
I like science fiction because it can allow the work to focus on its message without preconceptions.
I still think one of the more interesting SF books I read was very different. This book was set in a stone (flint) age country. A sailing ship appeared on the coast bringing bronze technology. The effects were, for the stone age people, the introduction of a wonderful new technology. This was fine for the farmers and the villagers, except for those who lived in the flint hills. They made the flint tools and bartered them for food. The advent of bronze was catastrophe.
Though written as a work of literature, Jim Craces "Gift of Stones" has all the classic SF elements. It has the introduction of radical new technologies. It has the meeting of races. It has the strong moral and human story, freed from the steel mills of Sheffield, freed from the auto factories of Detroit, freed from the constraints of time. It is a cautionary tale based on a possible then.
Now, you want to talk Gibson, and I railroaded you with Crace. Sorry, but like Atwood switching to SF with stories like "The Handmaidens Tale", I thought it might be worth mentioning authors who unintentionally stray into SF.
Now, Gibson. I tried Neuromancer about 15 years ago. I gave up after about 3 chapters. Can't remember why. I pooh-poohed Orson Scot Card for many years until I stumbled into Ender.
Is Gibson that great? I've been revisiting SF in short stories and now novel by PK Dick. Should I add Gibson to my to read list? Where do I start? What shows him in a good light? I'll add him to my to be read list.
William Gibson is a top favorite.
Try Pattern Recognition.
Nobody actually reads Margaret Atwood books. They just throw an award her way every couple of years to keep her quiet.
As an avid Sci-Fi fan, I greatly enjoyed a few years ago something that wasn't quite as opposite as it may seem. A historical fiction novel set in Ancient Rome, called the Caius Affair (French translation title).
In a nutshell, it's a whodunnit. In the real world, a graffiti was discovered by archaeologists on a Roman temple wall, reading "Caius asinus est". (Caius is a donkey. This is probably the origin of the English word "ass".)
Based on this event, the author imagines the story of this graffiti, in a very immersive and alive realistic ancient Roman society. A classmate of underachiever Caius plays an innocent joke on him, later the sentence he wrote is found sacrilegiously scribbled on a temple wall in his handwriting, and the boy faces capital punishment. "Underage, my gluteus augustus! He must pay for this crime." [Uh... NOT an actual quote from the book!]
A desperate investigation by Caius ensues to prove the innocence of his friend, and it's every bit as riveting as a Harry Potter. But without the sorcery. A hugely plausible mystery.
As you may have guessed, it's a story I warmly recommend.
AH! Found a link: http://www.amazon.com/Detectives-Togas-Henry-Winterfeld/dp/0152162801/ref=sr_1_1/105-8716424-7338812?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185753778&sr=8-1.
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