Siren Song, by Margaret Atwood

[boxofdelights]

• What are you currently reading?

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. I tried this once before and gave up because I was not in the mood for a terrible person in a terrible situation, whose memories of "happier times" are even worse, and whose future does not look promising. I am reading it now for book group but I am still not in that mood.

I have loved other things written by Margaret Atwood, so I don't know why this is so very not for me. Hypothesis: I do not like science fiction written by people who claim they don't write science fiction. Yeah, I didn't like The Handmaid's Tale much either. I would like to test this hypothesis. Can you suggest other works of science fiction whose authors claim they are not science fiction?

• What did you recently finish reading?

I've browsed through several poetry books, but have not read any cover-to-cover.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Back to Multiplication is for White People.


I love this poem.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Can you suggest other works of science fiction whose authors claim they are not science fiction?

Doris Lessing's 'Canopus in Argos' sequence? or her Memoirs of a Survivor. Although I think Lessing actually considered these works science fiction (and was pals with Naomi Mitchison, who also considered her sf to be sf and not something else).

[oursin]

That was me - DW had logged me out without my noticing

[isis]

Can you suggest other works of science fiction whose authors claim they are not science fiction?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, maybe? I really loved it, partly because I went in knowing NOTHING about it (this was long before the movie, which I haven't seen).

(I remember liking The Handmaid's Tale but I read it a long time ago. I never read Oryx and Crake though.)

[wild_irises]

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut. (I actually like a couple of them.)

[wild_irises]

I haven't read Oryx and Crake, but I did read The Year of the Flood, not knowing it was a sequel to O&C. What a tough book that was!

[jesse_the_k]

I do think both Lessing and Vonnegut showed no disdain for the label, and called their relevant works "science fiction."