American science fiction master Kim Stanley Robinson has slammed the US Republican Party’s attitude towards climate change, describing it as “like the Catholic Church denying the Earth went around the sun in Galileo’s time”.

57-year-old Robinson is best known for his Mars trilogy, but has also written a number of other books, including his recent Science in the Capital series, which explores the consequences of global warming.

The author’s comments came in a new interview published as part of the re-publication of Robinson’s novella Lucky Strike, being published as part of PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series. Robinson says the Republicans are going to crawl away from their climate policy “mistake” later and pretend it never happened. And it’s a dangerous moment on the world stage in general:

“What’s been set up and is playing out now is a huge world historical battle between science and capitalism. Science is insisting more emphatically every day that this is a real and present danger. Capitalism is saying it isn’t, because if it were true it would mean more government control of economies, more social justice (as a climate stabilization technique) and so on.

These are the two big players in our civilization, so I say, be aware, watch the heavyweights go at it, and back science every chance you get. I speak to all fellow leftists around the world: science is now a leftism, and thank God; but capitalism is very, very strong. So it’s a dangerous moment. People who like their history dramatic and non-utopian should be pleased.”

The full interview is available at Shareable.net. Image by AllyUnion.

Commentary
I kind of know how Kim Stanley Robinson feels – in Australia, our conservative party, a coalition of the Liberal and National parties, has similar climate change denial problems.

Guy Gavriel Kay

Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay has stuck the boot into one of the judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize, declaring his attitude towards science fiction to be “hall of fame-quality idiocy”.

The prize is awarded to the best novel each year written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth and has a 50,000 pound prize. Earlier last month, the shortlist for the prize was announced, but no science fiction books were to be found on it, spurring American sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson to lambast the judges of the award for what he said was a misguided focus on historical fiction.

In an article published by UK newspaper The Guardian, Booker judge and University College London professor of English John Mullan, made some rather disparaging comments about sci-fi literature.

“One of this year’s Booker judges, John Mullan, replied to Robinson’s comments with an almost definitively asinine comment,” wrote Kay in a column published in Canada’s Globe and Mail last week:

“”It was Hall of Fame-quality idiocy. After first noting that he was “not aware of science fiction” (which might normally preclude going on to comment), he proceeded to declare, through the foot in his mouth, that it was “bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other.” I do admit to wondering what size shoe Professor Mullan wears, and how it fits between his teeth, and whether he teaches grammar.”

Kay has published eleven fantasy novels, commencing with his applauded trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry. He has won a number of major awards and been nominated for many more. His next novel, Under Heaven, is slated to be published in April 2010.

Kay’s comments come as part of a wider debate within the sci-fi and fantasy community about whether the broad genre is being discriminated against by the literary establishment.

American fantasy author Janny Wurts recently argued in a podcast that the fantasy genre was chronically marginalised by its immature image by book critics and readers, a theme she expanded on in a recent interview with Keeping the Door.

And Canadian author Margaret Atwood, considered to be a ‘mainstream’ novelist, has taken a stance that her latest novel The Year of the Flood is not to be classified as science fiction, despite the book containing a dystopian vision of the future including mutated versions of humanity. American sci-fi and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin has criticised Atwood’s stance.

Ultimately, Kay is optimistic about the future of the sci-fi genre, concluding his Globe and Mail column by noting that speculative fiction themes are embedded in many younger writers, a theme that is eroding prejudice and genre assumptions on the part of the literary mainstream.

Kim Stanley Robinson

American sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson has slammed the judges of the well-known Man Booker Prize, saying they hand out the coveted award “in ignorance”, passing over science fiction books he considers to be “the best British literature of our time”.

The prize is awarded to the best novel each year written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth and has a 50,000 pound prize. Earlier this month, the shortlist for the prize was announced, but no science fiction books were to be found on it.

In a scathing article published by New Scientist online last week, Robinson, best-known for his terraforming Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars), said the Booker Prize tended to focus on historical novels instead of giving at least some credibility to what he considered to be the literature of here and now today: Science fiction:

“Sometimes these are fine historical novels … But working, like all of us, in the rain shadow of the great modernists, they tend to do the same things the modernists did in smaller ways. A good new novel about the first world war, for instance, is still not going to tell us more than Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford. More importantly, these novels are not about now in the way science fiction is.”

(via The Guardian, image by AllyUnion)

For the next two days only you can legally download electronic copies of popular sci-fi and fantasy books such as Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars.

Random House sub-site Suvudu has been offering these titles, along with His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, Settling Accounts: Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove and Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt for the past few months as a once-only promotion.

However it will end on August 18, so you had better be quick if you want copies. Keeping the Door thanks the generous folks at Suvudu for the copy of His Majesty’s Dragon we downloaded; we haven’t read it yet but plan to read it on our iPhone.

But don’t worry too much if you miss out; there are still a stack of other free e-books up, some from quite famous authors such as Stephen Baxter, whose book Manifold Time is available, Terry Brooks, who has Magic Kingdom for Sale — Sold! up and Michael Moorcock, who has Elric: The Stealer of Souls available.