More Genre Mindfuckery
I love love love the Asimov message board. From the “What (if anything) is killing SF” thread:
There’s a whole subgenre now, in fact, sometimes called “interstitialism” (not the same as “slipstream”) that DELIBERATELY mixes genres, using tropes and motiffs from several different genres–not just SF and fantasy, but mystery as well, and even westerns and pirate stories–in the same stew; China Mieville’s work could be categorized as this. It’ll be left to history to determine the long-term popularity of this (China’s work is quite popular, although a lot of other work in this mode is at the moment largely relegated to what’s been called “the miniscule press,” a step below small press, where it’s not exactly setting the world on fire). –Gardner Dozois
The gift that keeps on giving.
I try to read the Asimov’s message boards from time to time, but honestly, they just get me depressed.
Well, there’s always the Analog message board, wherein we find such things as the following:
“If you can take the speculative science out of the story, and it still makes sense, then it’s not science fiction. Assimov’s is like that, Analog isn’t. Fantasy is in another catagory altogether, more suited to women readers.”