I went to a talk last night at the ICA on the new blood of British Science Fiction (do all of those need capitals?) which had a panel of people on both sides of the critic front line. Everyone was very keen and very excitable about everything they talked about. Highlighted by what Paul McAuley said at one point, that the difference between SciFi authors and “mainstream” authors was that everyone was all so supportive of each other. Genre authors in general took every opportunity to promote each other and raved about other books, something that he had found lacking in non-genre authors.
There were a couple of themes that kept recurring. One was What is the difference between SciFi and fantasy? The other was around what characterises this so called new blood?
