Comments on: Michael Chabon Writes Not Science Fiction

By: Not Science Fiction | JeremiahTolbert.com

Not Science Fiction | JeremiahTolbert.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:35:15 +0000

[...] published in SciFiction, but the real tipping point for me has been her blogging. Today, she made a great post about Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and her own label for the genre of fiction that has been labeled strenuously by the authors and [...]

By: claire

claire — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:05:24 +0000

it’s also a Not Ethnic novel.

By: Rory Harper

Rory Harper — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:46:42 +0000

Speaking of Not Science Fiction, I think, I’m addicted to the ‘In Death’ series written by J.D Robb, a pseudonym for Nora Roberts. They’re like popcorn.

They’re set in 2059, have computers and other s-f stuff and don’t feel like s-f at all. It’s like she’s using s-f furniture as the background, but you could pull it all out, except for the computer stuff. The books don’t feel like ‘Space Westerns’, since she isn’t trying to disguise them as s-f.

By: Morgan J. Locke

Morgan J. Locke — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 20:36:12 +0000

Stephenson has such a distinctive style, it’s hard to say. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone who preceded him with a style similar to his — though I am not all that well read outside the field, and may simply not have encountered it.

By: Paul M. Cray

Paul M. Cray — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:07:43 +0000

The extract reads like Neal Stephenson, which makes sense as Chabon is doubtless familiar with Stephenson. The question is who did Stephenson lift the style from? Some 1970s thriller or crime writer? Certainly not any of the usual suspects (Chandler/Fleming/Deighton).

By: Steven Gould

Steven Gould — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:00:12 +0000

5.25″ ? Isn’t that a softball?

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:11:49 +0000

A 40 oz. baseball bat would be used by someone large. (iirc, Babe Ruth used a 42 oz bat for part of his career.)

The weight of the bat affects bat speed and you’re swinging at a 5.25″ sphere being thrown about 90mph over 60feet, so as a ballpark you’ve got 1/7,440 of an hour = 1/124 of a minute = 1/2 second so every ounce counts for most hitters. (The non-home run hitters tend to use 28-32 oz bats.)

All above estimates are net of steroids, but probably including greenies.

By: Maureen McQ

Maureen McQ — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:06:15 +0000

If alternate history comes from “If Napoleon Had Won the Battle of Waterloo” (which is sort of like all those people who used to redo classical battles with miniature soldiers) then why is it genre? Because SF writers do it?

I guess it could be. But I think all fiction is “what if”. On the other hand, historical fiction and sf & fantasy have a lot in common, at least as technical exercises.

By: Steven Gould

Steven Gould — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:12:00 +0000

True, Ted, that it probably came more from “what if” than multiple universes, but that, even more, explains why it got stuck in the “what if” genre.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:41:21 +0000

Although I know why alternate history is genre (it started from the theory that that there are multiple universes

I’m not so sure about this. According to the Clute/Nicholls encyclopedia, there was a collection of historical essays entitled If It had Happened Otherwise published in 1931; this book was inspired by a 1907 essay titled “If Napoleon had Won the Battle of Waterloo.” I doubt these were based on the idea of multiple universes. (The first appearance of alternate worlds in the genre wasn’t until 1934, with Murray Leinster’s “Sidewise in Time.”)

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:02:07 +0000

That’s wonderful. ::moves Yiddish Policeman’s Union higher up the stack of to-be-read:: I loved Kavalier and Clay, not least because I’m an old comic book geek. Golems and Brooklyn, what’s not to love?