The Return of Margaret Atwood
In the Guardian:
Margaret Atwood's latest novel, Oryx and Crake , is not, she insists, "science fiction" but "speculative fiction". It is a distinction she has also made about her earlier dystopian book, The Handmaid's Tale (1985), currently being staged as an opera in London.
"Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen," she explains. Her work is always researched: Oryx and Crake, a novel blending a biological apocalypse with a genetically engineered genesis, acknowledges a number of personal debts in terms of research and background, but also scrupulously offers a list of documentary sources at a web address.
And then there's the Radio 4 review, from people who clearly have never read any other science fiction. Or paid attention to science news for the last five years.
Margaret Atwood's latest novel, Oryx and Crake , is not, she insists, "science fiction" but "speculative fiction". It is a distinction she has also made about her earlier dystopian book, The Handmaid's Tale (1985), currently being staged as an opera in London.
"Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen," she explains. Her work is always researched: Oryx and Crake, a novel blending a biological apocalypse with a genetically engineered genesis, acknowledges a number of personal debts in terms of research and background, but also scrupulously offers a list of documentary sources at a web address.
And then there's the Radio 4 review, from people who clearly have never read any other science fiction. Or paid attention to science news for the last five years.