New Space Opera

[coalescent]

Sparked by this essay by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and following on from the recent Locus focusing on the same topic, a discussion has started in the Night Shade books forums. It's attracting many of the same participants as the New Weird discussions over at The Third Alternative did, and some more besides; for instance, M John Harrison gets provocative about the difference in US/UK SF writing, and Lucius Shepard responds:

What's being published in the States may be less adventurous generally speaking than what's being publshed in the UK (I think this has always been the case), but this surely doesn't state a case for there not being writers in the States who're pushing the envelope. It's currently difficult to sell a straight science fiction novel in the States if you're a midlist writer like, say, Jablokov. I myself have been dissuaded from writing science fiction by my agent, because he feels he can sell my mainstream and fantasy work far more easily. The publishers want fantasy, great wads of it, and, being slaves to the machine, writers are thus persuaded to provide it.

And then, on the less serious side:

Mr. Harrison, It’s such a thrill finding you here – I had no idea you wrote sci-fi. Me and my friends at school all just LOVE your Gabriel King books!!!