Results: Jonathan Crowe
philosophical science fiction in the most literal sense
Science fiction that expects better of humanity
their obsessions, their shibboleths, their literary tricks
A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING
BY Jonathan Crowe
Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being has managed the rare feat of winning acclaim on both sides of the genre divide: It not only won the Kitchies’ Red Tentacle Prize, a genre award, it was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. (Something similar happened this year with Karen Joy Fowler’s We Were All Completely Beside Ourselves, which was shortlisted for both the Booker and the Nebula.) It’s what genre readers would call (and possibly dismiss as) a mainstream novel, but it’s unquestionably a work of what John Clute calls fantastika: It incorporates both fantasy and science fictional elements — on one level you could say that this a novel in which Zen Buddhism meets quantum mechanics — but those elements are put to use in decidedly non-genre ways.
extraordinary non-traditional narratives
the 'thriller mode'
quantum consciousness and self-destruction
First encounters with no second chances
a writer at the height of her powers