Here's Ursula LeGuin's opinion on genre ghettos. She's writing about Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel The Buried Giant. The article addresses fantasy, but the things she says apply to Science Fiction and, for that matter, most genre literature.

The geezer speaks!

Thank you Charlie Jane and (even though I'm not religious) bless you. You've shared with us a beautifully rounded, nuanced, and affectionate portrait of an extraordinary man.

Slimeballs unite. You have nothing to lose but your fundamental humanity. (Which you probably threw way years ago.)

99 and 44/100ths of vaccines are safe. There are now and will always be a very very tiny number of people who will have negative reactions, some times severe. The problem for most rational people is that those who oppose vaccinations for personal reasons, are harming the health of those who cannot take vaccinations,…

Although I'm substantially older than most of you, Star Wars has particularly wonderful memories. I had a friend in NYC who may have been the only SFF fan I knew in the early 70's. We heard rumors of Star Wars so, as soon as we saw it was opening, we both planned to play hooky from our jobs. My then 7 year old son…

Thank you, as usual, Charlie Jane. Growing up in the 50's my mother, the librarian, was a huge archy and mehitabel fan. And she turned me into one. I haven't thought of dear archy in years, and you just restored some wonderful memories.

This sounds like a perfect target for Kevin Kelly's "1,000 True Fans."

I think the dickwad who made the call should be heavily punished.

I found the following statistics fascinating;

I am fully aware that Watts did not invent the thesis. I first encountered it in one of Antonio Damasio's early books on consciousness. As for psychopaths, what you are doing is citing a distinction without a difference. If they don't recognize the self in others, isn't that due to a deficit in normal human empathy?…

James, I'm sure that you've read Bill Joy's year 2,000 essay on why the future may not need us and, of course, Vernor Vinge's Singularity essay. The problem, somewhat contrary to Vinge, is that we will not experience a "Singularity". Far more likely is what's happening now; a slow supposedly "manageable" transition of…

Thank you sir.

Charlie Jane,

One thing that always makes me grateful to be a Science Fiction fan is that so many of my fellow fans have a decent grasp of culture and history. Anyone reading IO9 or Stross or Scalzi recognizes this. One of the most profound problems in American culture and society today is a deep and sometimes willful ignorance of…

Isn't there something oxymoronic about the"Church" of Satan?

I'm 70. I grew up in one of the older suburbs of Boston. We had a small farm next door and what seemed to be a gazillion acre woods behind the farm. When school was out for summer vacation, my mother would basically throw us out of the house around 9 and tell us to come back for lunch. Then she tossed us out until…

I just posted the following on my Facebook page.

Have you ever had a car with pop ups. They suck and, are usually the first thing to go on a car. I've had 2 cars with them.

This has to be the best looking Miata ever. We always loved it because it carried on the tradtion of the MGA, TR3 and the really good British Roadsters. But, when it came to design, it was pretty pedestrian. They have now adopted the overall Kodo design language while maintaining that general sense of fun and esprit…