tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695280310697378421.post7904356583450210108..comments2024-03-25T02:15:02.505-07:00Comments on Nancy's Blog: Craft, Art, and SFadminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11442349453021015062noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695280310697378421.post-57664513222796397022008-04-13T09:55:00.000-07:002008-04-13T09:55:00.000-07:00By 'dazzling ideas' you must mean stuff from last...By 'dazzling ideas' you must mean stuff from last year's New Scientist, as that's all we get. Anyone reading scifi for dazzling ideas will be disappointed , unless they read Peter Watts.travelbloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14677835768275251790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695280310697378421.post-62163287365225971792008-04-12T10:49:00.000-07:002008-04-12T10:49:00.000-07:00Another blog I read, SF Novelists, had a post this...Another blog I read, SF Novelists, had a post this week about <A HREF="http://www.sfnovelists.com/2008/04/11/a-guide-to-reviewing-a-book-a-writers-perspective/" REL="nofollow">book reviews from the writer's perspective</A>. Mike Brotherton raised a good point about how one should review stories for which one is in the target audience, or at least not penalize a story because one happens to be outside of the target audience.<BR/><BR/>Like you, I think I have a healthy sense of what my relative weaknesses and strengths are. I hope I could take a review that made criticisms I thought were fair with with as much aplomb as you. <BR/><BR/>But I happen to think speculative fiction's biggest strength is how it allows you to isolate themes as a writer, by using the circumstances of your fictional future society to bring that theme out from the background and to a head. Right now the genetic engineering debate is mostly in the realm of hypotheticals. But what <I>would</I> it be like for people who were engineered before birth to have certain advantages if those modifications were successful beyond anybody's wildest expectations? What would society do to those individuals that were felt to possess an unfair advantage--even if it was one they never chose? I think science fiction allows you to take those hypotheticals and make them real, and make me as a reader really <I>live</I> them.<BR/><BR/>Needless to say, it is <I>because</I> of your focus on the social/societal rather than on the gee-whiz that I read your novels.José Iriartehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653811568201804995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695280310697378421.post-74872316085395015952008-04-12T10:46:00.000-07:002008-04-12T10:46:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.José Iriartehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653811568201804995noreply@blogger.com