Does this genre even have a NAME?
There's a sub-genre of recent novels that have the look-and-feel of science fiction, but which aren't actually science-fictional.
Cryptonomicon is probably the type specimen here: it hit every SF button I have, and yet it's SF mostly only by courtesy: the 'data haven' idea is a little bit sf'nal, the crypto is fun, but mostly it's some sort of technothriller/secret history.
Gibson's latest - Pattern Recognition and Spook Country - are similar: in that they feel science fictional, but when you look at them hard, you realize that they're simply some flavor of "contemporary fiction" without any sf/tech extrapolation to speak of.
So, given that these samples are some of my recent faves...
a) does this genre have a name? (Well, a name shorter than "Stuff that feels science fictional, but isn't, really");
and
b) can anyone think of any further examples?
Cryptonomicon is probably the type specimen here: it hit every SF button I have, and yet it's SF mostly only by courtesy: the 'data haven' idea is a little bit sf'nal, the crypto is fun, but mostly it's some sort of technothriller/secret history.
Gibson's latest - Pattern Recognition and Spook Country - are similar: in that they feel science fictional, but when you look at them hard, you realize that they're simply some flavor of "contemporary fiction" without any sf/tech extrapolation to speak of.
So, given that these samples are some of my recent faves...
a) does this genre have a name? (Well, a name shorter than "Stuff that feels science fictional, but isn't, really");
and
b) can anyone think of any further examples?