Oh dear. This is blowing up: UK literary heavyweight Ian McEwan has decided he's going to do something that sci fi writers have never once thought to consider: use science fiction to say something about the human condition. Because all we've been writing about up to date is anti-gravity boots:
The Guardian
Thanks for the tips, old bean. If only it had occurred to Philip K Dick, Issac Asimov, or Mary fucking Shelley to use science fiction to examine what artificial life says about humanity. Imagine what works they might have written, if only McEwan had been around to make the suggestion.
Literary writers really oughta broaden their reading, at lest if they're planning to totally revolutionise a genre they have no fucking idea about. I'm glad this review's getting roundly mocked, and we're getting some dank memes out of it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4Mnsf9XsAATIyn.jpg:large But oh, for a literary reviewer with the genre chops to give poor McEwan some suggestions. I think his mind would be blown.
The Guardian
McEwan has an abiding faith that novels are the best place to examine such ethical dilemmas, though he has little time for conventional science fiction. “There could be an opening of a mental space for novelists to explore this future, not in terms of travelling at 10 times the speed of light in anti-gravity boots, but in actually looking at the human dilemmas of being close up to something that you know to be artificial but which thinks like you. If a machine seems like a human or you can’t tell the difference, then you’d jolly well better start thinking about whether it has responsibilities and rights and all the rest.”
Thanks for the tips, old bean. If only it had occurred to Philip K Dick, Issac Asimov, or Mary fucking Shelley to use science fiction to examine what artificial life says about humanity. Imagine what works they might have written, if only McEwan had been around to make the suggestion.
Literary writers really oughta broaden their reading, at lest if they're planning to totally revolutionise a genre they have no fucking idea about. I'm glad this review's getting roundly mocked, and we're getting some dank memes out of it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4Mnsf9XsAATIyn.jpg:large But oh, for a literary reviewer with the genre chops to give poor McEwan some suggestions. I think his mind would be blown.