New Adam Roberts Book on SF/F?
Interesting review of a new book by Adam Roberts I didn't know existed. The reviewer is not entirely sympathetic, writing, in part:But the problem with governing concepts is that they can become prisons. As the book progresses Roberts continually modifies and cavils, eventually conceding that there might indeed be such creatures as "Catholic SF" and "Protestant fantasy". What's more, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to demonstrate any influence or articulation between the various sub-genres he defines to prove those early origins of science fictional and fantastical writing: for example, moon fiction and utopian fiction.His historical overview suffers most from its neglect of the Renaissance. A careful reading of Mary Gentle (ignored) would open a window on the world view, both fantastical and science fictional, of memory theatres. His contemporary survey is patchy: the writer CJ Cherryh, for example, is cynically dismissed ("her only innovations are innovations of scale") on the basis of an unrepresentative selection from her work.Writers such as Ken Macleod, Liz Williams and Charles Stross merit terse mentions or none at all; Jeff Vandermeer's complex commentary on the genre is compressed into a couple of tiny website-culled quotes.I'll have to read the book first, but there is a kind of insularity