Yesterday two students came up to Birmingham to ask questions about Stan’s Cafe for dissertations of various kinds. Hopefully it’s a mutually rewarding process. Some lines of questioning only require the well rehearsed answers, but usually there a angles of enquiry that make you think about what you do in a fresh way. Yesterday I was forced to think about the place of God in our work and how much of our work is Science Fiction – all good stuff.
James
And? What did you say?
Yes, what *did* you say?
SF is my thing, as you know: I think that *good* science fiction takes the world as we know it and explores one or two key isses. For example, Left Hand of Darkness explores gender issues by doing away with gender; A Deepness in the Sky explores belonging by contrasting relationships and perceptions between humans and aliens. I think that good SF explores what it is to be human. And to me, that’s what Stan does, too.
*removes pretentious hat and slinks off to boil kettle*