I don't consider it SF. It's clearly fantasy, but since the Clarke juries have repeatedly nominated Mieville's novels, I take it that their definition of SF is similar to the Hugo's.
Cloud Atlas, in contrast, is neither SF nor fantasy.
There is no canonical Clarke definition of science fiction. The only rule is that it must be science fiction in some form; fantasy is not eligible. Every jury gets to decide what "science fiction" is. So by putting Perdido Street Station on the shortlist, the jury was arguing that it is science fiction.
I'm not a big fan of folding alternate history with no SFnal characteristics into SF. It seems more like a marketing decision than something organic to either genre.
More importantly, how is Hav alternate? Where is the point or points of diversion from our history? The only way in which Hav is alternate is in the existence of Hav. Which brings me right back to my conclusion from the Clarke review: if Hav is science fiction, why isn't Middlemarch?
Also, I look forward to the appearance of The Yiddish Policemen's Union on next year's Clarke shortlist.
I'm not a big fan of folding alternate history with no SFnal characteristics into SF. It seems more like a marketing decision than something organic to either genre.
Fair enough, but at the very least it's a tradition with a long pedigree (including at least one Clarke winner), and "marketing decision" implies that they are often liked by the same people. And I personally think the fundamental specualtive/extrapolative impulses are very similar.
if Hav is science fiction, why isn't Middlemarch?
First, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. It's the same reason a book set tomorrow isn't sf but one set five years from now is. Hav is more explicitly and more intricately twined into our history than is Middlemarch; and more importantly, it doesn't stay hidden. Last Letters From Hav is much less science fictional than Hav, because in Last Letters Hav has no impact on our world. By the time of "Hav of the Myrmidons", the world Jan Morris is writing about is no longer our world, because Hav has reached out into it -- "There can be few
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a book set tomorrow isn't sf but one set five years from now is
So, M. John Harrison's Signs of Life isn't SF, but the near-future segment in End of the World Blues is?
Hav is more explicitly and more intricately twined into our history than is Middlemarch
How is this significant, given that it doesn't alter that history?
By the time of "Hav of the Myrmidons", the world Jan Morris is writing about is no longer our world, because Hav has reached out into it -- "There can be few people nowadays who do not know the whereabouts of Hav" -- or are your supermarkets carrying snowberries?
On the contrary. The world Morris describes is precisely our world. She brings her novel into an equivalence with our present through an equivalence with our past (which once again leads me to ask what about Hav is alternate). You're right that there are no snowberries at my supermarket, but there are plenty of snowberry-analogues: fruits and vegetables, most of them exotic, which have been altered, some of them through agronomic manipulation and
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How is this significant, given that it doesn't alter that history?
Because, as I said, it's a difference of degree. The creation of Hav is a bigger alteration than the creation of Middlemarch, and the nature of Hav is central to Hav in a way that the nature of Middlemarch isn't central to Middlemarch.
I haven't read Signs of Life -- the book I actually had in mind was The Weight of Numbers, which has about ten pages set six months into the future, relative to the book's publication date -- but doesn't it include some pretty extreme genetic technology? If something science fictional happens tomorrow, then yes, the story is sf. But if tomorrow is just like today, it's not.
Same with Hav. I don't see how the fact that it has many real-world parallels -- though I disagree that snowberries are comparable to apples -- is relevant. I've already said it's the same kind of story as Middlemarch; for that matter, yes, it's the same kind of story as Possession. But it's taken to a greater degree than either of them. To turn it around, taking
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You say Hav isn't alternate because you can go to a dozen places and see aspects of Hav; I say Hav is alternate precisely because you can't go to any one place that's like it.
No, what I said was that there are dozens of places like it. I live in one.
To turn it around, taking your logic to its extremes would mean The Separation isn't an alternate history
How? The Separation is clearly an alternate history because it posits a diversion from ours and, from that point of diversion, arrives at a present radically different from our own. Hav, Middlemarch and Possession don't posit such a diversion. They merely add to history something very much like what was already there, and describe a present all but indistinguishable from the real one. These are two completely different approaches - two different kinds of stories
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Hang on, I thought Tel Aviv was founded at the start of the 20th century? I'm sure there were other settlements on the site beforehand (although I admit I'll be surprised if any of them were Chinese or Russian), but in at least that one sense no, you do not live in a place like Hav, because it doesn't have the same continuity.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours.
What I'm saying is that the addition of something sufficiently big de facto makes the present of the story different from ours. The present of Hav *is* different than ours -- everyone has heard of Hav, and lots of people go there as tourists. But the focus of the book is not on the extent of that difference.
If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie? Well, in one sense this depends whether you think science fiction is a form of naturalism or
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The Arthur C Clarke is an award for an sf novel - giving it to a fantasy novel requires a very strange definition of sf. The Hugos on the other hand are explicitly for science fiction or fantasy - hence Harry Potter and Strange and Norrell.
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Cloud Atlas, in contrast, is neither SF nor fantasy.
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Well, in that case, no, it probably shouldn't have been on the shortlist.
That said, I suspect that the argument for reading PSS as SF is more persuasive than the one for Cloud Atlas.
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More importantly, how is Hav alternate? Where is the point or points of diversion from our history? The only way in which Hav is alternate is in the existence of Hav. Which brings me right back to my conclusion from the Clarke review: if Hav is science fiction, why isn't Middlemarch?
Also, I look forward to the appearance of The Yiddish Policemen's Union on next year's Clarke shortlist.
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Fair enough, but at the very least it's a tradition with a long pedigree (including at least one Clarke winner), and "marketing decision" implies that they are often liked by the same people. And I personally think the fundamental specualtive/extrapolative impulses are very similar.
if Hav is science fiction, why isn't Middlemarch?
First, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. It's the same reason a book set tomorrow isn't sf but one set five years from now is. Hav is more explicitly and more intricately twined into our history than is Middlemarch; and more importantly, it doesn't stay hidden. Last Letters From Hav is much less science fictional than Hav, because in Last Letters Hav has no impact on our world. By the time of "Hav of the Myrmidons", the world Jan Morris is writing about is no longer our world, because Hav has reached out into it -- "There can be few ( ... )
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So, M. John Harrison's Signs of Life isn't SF, but the near-future segment in End of the World Blues is?
Hav is more explicitly and more intricately twined into our history than is Middlemarch
How is this significant, given that it doesn't alter that history?
By the time of "Hav of the Myrmidons", the world Jan Morris is writing about is no longer our world, because Hav has reached out into it -- "There can be few people nowadays who do not know the whereabouts of Hav" -- or are your supermarkets carrying snowberries?
On the contrary. The world Morris describes is precisely our world. She brings her novel into an equivalence with our present through an equivalence with our past (which once again leads me to ask what about Hav is alternate). You're right that there are no snowberries at my supermarket, but there are plenty of snowberry-analogues: fruits and vegetables, most of them exotic, which have been altered, some of them through agronomic manipulation and ( ... )
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Because, as I said, it's a difference of degree. The creation of Hav is a bigger alteration than the creation of Middlemarch, and the nature of Hav is central to Hav in a way that the nature of Middlemarch isn't central to Middlemarch.
I haven't read Signs of Life -- the book I actually had in mind was The Weight of Numbers, which has about ten pages set six months into the future, relative to the book's publication date -- but doesn't it include some pretty extreme genetic technology? If something science fictional happens tomorrow, then yes, the story is sf. But if tomorrow is just like today, it's not.
Same with Hav. I don't see how the fact that it has many real-world parallels -- though I disagree that snowberries are comparable to apples -- is relevant. I've already said it's the same kind of story as Middlemarch; for that matter, yes, it's the same kind of story as Possession. But it's taken to a greater degree than either of them. To turn it around, taking ( ... )
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No, what I said was that there are dozens of places like it. I live in one.
To turn it around, taking your logic to its extremes would mean The Separation isn't an alternate history
How? The Separation is clearly an alternate history because it posits a diversion from ours and, from that point of diversion, arrives at a present radically different from our own. Hav, Middlemarch and Possession don't posit such a diversion. They merely add to history something very much like what was already there, and describe a present all but indistinguishable from the real one. These are two completely different approaches - two different kinds of stories ( ... )
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Hang on, I thought Tel Aviv was founded at the start of the 20th century? I'm sure there were other settlements on the site beforehand (although I admit I'll be surprised if any of them were Chinese or Russian), but in at least that one sense no, you do not live in a place like Hav, because it doesn't have the same continuity.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours.
What I'm saying is that the addition of something sufficiently big de facto makes the present of the story different from ours. The present of Hav *is* different than ours -- everyone has heard of Hav, and lots of people go there as tourists. But the focus of the book is not on the extent of that difference.
If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie? Well, in one sense this depends whether you think science fiction is a form of naturalism or ( ... )
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The Hugos on the other hand are explicitly for science fiction or fantasy - hence Harry Potter and Strange and Norrell.
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