Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Drib
I alternate between "serious" literature and genre fiction.
For example, I just bought "A Manuscript of Ashes," by Antonio Muñoz Molina, along with "Life A User's Manual," by Geroges Perec.
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Same here. My love for speculative fiction, I think, is rooted in my love for experimental literary fiction (which admittedly, I rarely mention around here, so one would be forgiven for thinking I only bother to read AU sci-fantasy comedic murder mysteries where everyone tried to dunnit).
At their heart, both are rooted in examining the possibilities of exploring the potential of human achievement based on a challenge to the collective imagination drawing on previous group experience and testing out one's know-how, whether it's about how space colonization might work out when the AI of the colony ship you're in becomes unreliable, or just how alternate an alternate history can get if you assume a POD of Ancient Rome colonizing the Americas under the influence of time-stream-hopping aliens tracking down a meddling rogue criminal*, or if you really can write a fully-coherent novel with an actual plot while omitting the most common vowel in your language†.
Or maybe I just have a really skewed view of things.
* S.P. Somtow's excellent Aquiliad trilogy, BTW, which is kind of steampunk in Ancient Rome-dominated ancient North America, I guess. There are cars and trains and flying pyramids, oh my!
† And whether your translators† can do the same in theirs, which IMHO is a much more impressive feat‡ than coming up with the original story in the first place.
‡ One day I must track down
La disparition in the other languages that I more-or-less can kind-of read.
P.S. Freebie Oulipian work to read online if one happens to like constrained writing involving lipograms: Canadian Christian Bök's (
Wikipedia)
Eunoia (
Wikipedia,
online read link,
online audiobook link), which I notice has come out in a newer, more expanded edition since the one I originally bought, and the publisher offers a free e-book version to match a print purchase if you show them your receipt. I sense more book-buying in the near future.