BLOG POST: Out of This World
Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Jonathan Swift.
What have these writers got in common?
One answer is that they are all writers of science fiction…..yet none would feature in most lists of science fiction writers and in bookshops and libraries you are unlikely to find them in the science fiction section. In popular culture science fiction and its cousin, fantasy has long been big brand, big budget entertainment from Dr Who and Star Trek to Lord of the Rings and George R R Martin’s Game of Thrones. Yet in the book review section of most newspapers science fiction is lucky to be allocated more space than a monthly round up.
Publisher’s promotional budgets generally concentrate on the literary hopefuls and blockbuster thrillers while Science Fiction as a genre has so often been overlooked or actively consigned to the ‘pulp fiction’ scrap heap by the critics and the literary establishment. Yet it is a field that has consistently produced some of the most thoughtful, original and lastingly relevant writing across the years.
This is a personal selection of some great science fiction novels published over the last ten years or so, together with one or two ground breaking books from times past.
PETER DONALDSON
Out of This World Booklist
