"the fish in this barrel are all dead!"

[jazzfish]

John M. Ford on Genre Fic As Literature: "I’ve had three decades of being told that forms I work in can’t possibly do anything that isn’t cliched and juvenile by their nature, and it got old three decades less five minutes ago. Judging an art by its bad examples isn’t criticism; it’s tossing a grenade into the barrel and then complaining that the fish are dead." Relevant to a conversation I was too out of it to have coherently at elf's weekend before last, but which uilos picked up and ran with fairly respectably.

Whenever I get into this discussion I end up referring people to Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Gene Wolfe. Who do /you/ send people to for 'literary SF?'

Utterly unrelated except by genre, John Scalzi (mostly famous for taping bacon to his cat [context, more or less], although he's also written some decent SF) will be reading, chatting, and signing at Olsson's in DC on the 8th of May, at 7 PM. I am informed that there is a really really excellent sushi place in Dupont Circle that I should try. Conveniently, Olsson's is two blocks south of Dupont Circle. Fate has spoken, and it has said "Fish!"

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Literary SF

[selki.livejournal.com]

Some Ray Bradbury. Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World). Some Connie Willis (short stories). Some Zelazny.