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 451: Ten Minutes with Aliette de Bodard
Episode 450: Ten Minutes with Zen Cho
Episode 449: Ten Minutes with Tobias S. Buckell
Episode 448: Ten Minutes with Dave Hutchinson
Episode 447: Ten Minutes with Kathleen Jennings
Episode 446: Ten Minutes with Ellen Datlow
Episode 445: Ten Minutes with Saad Z. Hossain
Episode 444: Ten Minutes with DongWon Song
Episode 443: Ten Minutes with Indrapramit Das
Episode 442: Ten Minutes with Nicola Griffith
Episode 441: Ten Minutes with Lisa L. Hannett
Episode 440: Ten Minutes with Terry Bisson
Episode 439: Ten Minutes with Daryl Gregory
Episode 438: Ten Minutes with Adrienne Martini
Episode 437: Ten Minutes with Karen Lord
Episode 436: Ten Minutes with Simon Ings
Episode 435: Ten Minutes with Claire McKenna (corrected audio)
Episode 435: Ten Minutes with Claire McKenna
Episode 434: Occasionally Enlightening - Three Stars
Episode 433: Ten Minutes with Jack Dann
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