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 509: Ten Minutes with Lev Grossman (redux)
Episode 509: Ten Minutes with Lev Grossman
Episode 508: Ten Minutes with Terri Windling
Episode 507: Ten Minutes with Sheree Renée Thomas
Episode 506: Ten Minutes with CSE Cooney
Episode 505: Ten Minutes with Mimi Mondal
Episode 504: Ten Minutes with Veronica Schanoes
Episode 503: Ten Minutes with Suzy McKee Charnas
Episode 502: Ten Minutes with Tim Pratt
Episode 501: Ten Minutes with Chen Qiufan
Episode 500: Second verse...
Episode 499: Ten Minutes with Vandana Singh
Episode 498: Ten Minutes with Elizabeth Knox
Episode 497: Ten Minutes with Karin Tidbeck
Episode 496: Ten Minutes with John Crowley
Episode 495: Ten Minutes with Charles de Lint
Episode 494: Ten Minutes with Christopher Priest
Episode 493: Ten Minutes with Nina Allan
Episode 492: Ten Minutes with Charles Vess
Episode 491: Ten Minutes with Sarah Gailey
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