This week (episode 3 of season 13) we return to our tradition of almost entirely unstructured rambling. Jonathan and Gary consider such questions as to whether a novel can be good SF, but not much good in literary terms, or a good literary novel not much good as SF.
While we recognize that many popular subgenres, from military SF to heroic fantasy, have plenty of readers loyal to the old traditions, we muse about whether many of today’s writers feel some pressure to meet both traditional literary and SF standards, and Jonathan namechecks R.F. Kuang. Some writers we mention, such as Arkady Martine, seem to effortlessly do both. On the other hand, why were several genre mystery readers of the 1930s and 1940s, like Hammett and Chandler, were later recognized as major literary figures, the same didn’t seem to have to SF writers of the same period.
Toward the end, we touch upon Paul Kincaid's provocative new essay, "A Taxonomy of Reviewing" and his book on Brian W. Aldiss, amongst other things.
As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.
Episode 491: Ten Minutes with Sarah Gailey
Episode 487: Ten Minutes with Maureen McHugh
Episode 490: Ten Minutes with Amal El-Mohtar
Episode 489: Ten Minutes with Daniel Abraham
Episode 488: Ten Minutes with Brooke Bolander
Episode 486: Firing the canon
Episode 485: Ten Minutes with A.T. Greenblatt
Episode 484: Ten Minutes with Cheryl Morgan
Episode 483: Ten Minutes with Alec Nevala-Lee
Episode 482: Ten Minutes with Arkady Martine
Episode 481: Ten Minutes with Molly Gloss
Episode 480: Ten Minutes with K.M. Szpara
Episode 479: What Comes Next?
Episode 478: Ten Minutes with Sarah Monette and Katherine Addison
Episode 477: Ten Minutes with James P. Blaylock
Episode 476: Twenty One Minutes with Peter Watts
Episode 475: Ten Minutes with M. John Harrison
Episode 474: Ten Minutes with Jane Yolen
Episode 473: Ten Minutes with Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead
Episode 472: Ten Minutes with Kij Johnson
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