So writes Paul Goat Allen in Unabashedly Bookish, the B&N Book Club blog. He quotes Orson Scott Card as saying that science fiction is “no longer a cutting-edge genre – the edge is now in fantasy.” Then Goat praises Ken Scholes’ Psalms of Isaak saga as being “actually post-apocalyptic science fiction cloaked in grand-scale fantasy.”
I’m not sure I’m onboard with Goat’s position, though I agree with his conclusion, that, “the hybridization of genres that I blogged about a few months ago – It’s the End of Genre Fiction As We Know It – and I Feel Fine – has affected science fiction just as noticeably as fantasy, mystery and romance. But it’s a good thing. It’s bringing the originality, the sense of wonder – and, most importantly, the readers – back to science fiction. Science Fiction is dead. Long live Science Fiction!”