This is Easter weekend; last weekend, I sang in the Easter concert of First Baptist Church here in Regina as a guest soloist and chorister. The whole concert is worth listening to, but if you’d …
I put a link to this in the previous post on my Aurora-eligible work for 2025, but wanted to highlight it. This was my contribution to the Shapers of Worlds Volume V anthology, and it …
The Aurora Awards are Canada’s best-known science fiction and fantasy awards, voted on by fans every year. I’ve been fortunate enough to win twice, for Marseguro (DAW Books) (soon coming out in a new edition from Tuscany …
Put this under the category of “things I’ve meant to do for a long time”: I finally published (under my Endless Sky Books imprint) a new edition of The Haunted Horn, a modern-day middle-grade ghost …
The Shards of Excalibur audiobooks, narrated by the wonderful Elizabeth Klett, are now available again after being off the market for a short while. Best of all, while they’re once more on Audible.com and Audible.ca, you …
The official press release from the publisher says it all: Award-winning Canadian author, and host of The Worldshapers podcast, Edward Willett, is joining the Tuscany Bay Books family in 2026 with his The Helix War series. Tuscany Bay Books …
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What is science fiction?" A definitive answer at last!
John C. Wright* nails down the ever-pesky definition of science fiction:
Science Fiction is that genre of cognitive estrangement in a post-Gothic mode, utilizing a willing suspension of disbelief, transcending anthropocentricism and temporal provincialism, where spacemen, raygun in fist, soar through outer space with a glamorous brunette Space-Babes in their brawny arms.
He offers extensive pictorial proof. And I’m pleased to say the cover of Marseguro, with a brunette Space-Babe (OK, she has gills, but still) on the cover (in a skin-tight wetsuit!) being at least peripherally menaced by a giant robot (it’s on the back of the book, but close enough), definitely qualifies it as science fiction.
Whew. That’s a relief!
*Founder of the Space Princess Movement, of which I am an official member
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2008/06/what-is-science-fiction-a-definitive-answer-at-last/
