Who’s afraid of big, bad sci-fi?
Wired scribe Jason Silverman has posted an article about the terror that strikes authors and filmmakers when their works are labeled as science fiction:
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is set during a nuclear winter. Two survivors walk south, breathing toxic air, seeking out the continent’s last canned food while ducking bands of flesh-eaters. Describe it as “post-apocalyptic,” as most critics did, or as a masterpiece of dystopian literature. Just don’t call McCarthy’s novel “science fiction.”
Chris Barsanti, a critic who dared to reference The Road in terms of sci-fi literature, said the phrase “science fiction” summons images of “space battles, aliens, mad scientists, time travel and the like … fantasy with testosterone.” So publishers, wary of putting their book into an “artistic ghetto,” twist themselves into knots to avoid using the label.
Silverman goes on to point fingers at Margaret Atwood, the Michel Gondry film The Science of Sleep, and even the TV series Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately, the piece comes to an abrupt halt just when it seems to be getting going. But if you scroll down below the article you’ll find an interesting series of reader postings about their favorite “closeted” sci-fi works.
(Watch for the Science Fiction Spotlight in the brand-new issue of Q&Q, in stores now.)
