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Sci-fi? Goodness no! She writes speculative fiction. Stuff that "could really happen". Science fiction is, according to Atwood, no more than "talking squids in

• didntcheck 3y ago
  As much as I dislike the way sci-fi is looked down on (or at least used to be), I also think referring to socially-speculative fiction like Handmaid's and 1984 as sci-fi makes no sense. Nobody's reading 1984 for the telescreens! Nor calling Animal Farm "fantasy" because it has talking animals Sure, sci-fi is often very speculative, but lots also includes (for example) mystery elements, yet it would be strange to necessarily call all mystery stories set in a slightly future or alternate-contemporary timeline "sci-fi" I guess you could roughly taxonomize stories on "socially speculative" and "technologically speculative" axes. A high value in the latter often pushes the former up, but not necessarily the other way
  • YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    >> Nobody's reading 1984 for the telescreens! Surprisingly, nobody ever read Asimov for the positronic brains, either.
• deleted 3y ago
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• mimd 3y ago
  "Ugh nerd musk. Might be male. Might turn off the East Coast intelligentsia. They can't handle much. Ignore the bio apocalypse trilogy. It's speculative not sci-fi. I'm high brow. Market, market, market..." - Atwood "Wtf?" -Ursula --- I will give Atwood some slack, as less than half her bibliography is it. But still, evaluating the chasm between her and chatgpt is kinda what she wants on her terms.