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I checked out Jeff VanderMeer's blog and found him reporting on all kinds of interesting speculative fiction from all over the world. I need to get serious about keeping up with the field or fields.

The stories he describes have a couple of traits, I think. One is they are multicultural and multinational, which is cool. SF and related kinds of fiction should be multi. They also sound to me (I haven't read any yet, though I am making lists) as if they sit the line between SF and literature. They are not the old-time, plot-driven, popular trash I grew up on. (And here I have to correct myself. I was reading William Tenn and Alfred Bester and P.K, Dick as a kid. This was not exactly Doc Smith. To be fair, I was also reading E.R. Burroughs. Though never -- as far as I can remember -- Doc Smith.) So I am wondering if what's happening to SF is it's becoming multi and slipstream. And that's where it's alive and growing, rather than exhausted and dying. I am in favor of #1, but I resist #2. As far as I can remember, I have always wanted to write science fiction and fantasy and folk tales; and I have never wanted to write literature. This is a prejudice I need to deal with. I will have to read some of the stories that Jeff likes.

And I should also consider whether SF is alive and growing in several different directions. I have read some New Space Opera which I really like. New Weird sounds interesting, though I haven't read enough of it. I like what Aquaduct Press publishes. New Feminist? Or simply What Aqueduct Press Likes?

Maybe I should see SF and related fields as a creature with many tentacles, reaching and grasping in many directions. That will make me happy. I like tentacles.

Maybe I should see this entire post as a way of avoiding getting to work cleaning the bathroom.