The science fiction reviews on this site are my reflections on stories and novels that have meant a lot to me. In other words, it’s personal. In a time when everything gets professionalized (even fandom), I’d like to defend a space for the amateur reader as well as writer. I happen to believe that speculative and science fiction is more relevant to our lives right now than the domestic dramas that dominated literary fiction for so long. That is why, I think, contemporary fiction has been stretching reality in many ways to incorporate the unbelievable and the unthinkable events that shape the everyday world we are living in.
Sorry to say, in my ignorance, I used to look down on science fiction. Now I’d like to see it read much more widely. I’d love it if people would stop thinking about genre as limiting and realize it can be liberating to the mind of the reader as well as writer. Genres these days exist to be broken open and put to new uses.
Often the books I want to write about are classics of past decades, but some are among the latest releases. I’m not trying to review the torrent of new books that demand attention, only a small subset that deal well with the ideas about mind, consciousness, human capabilities, possible futures for better societies and worlds that many writers are imagining so well. Feel free to suggest books, especially science fiction in translation that doesn’t get enough attention.
And note that I never accept payment or other forms of sponsorship in return for reviews.
