“Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.” IfsCultureFictionMajorsConcernViolentDystopianEscapismDystopian FictionEnamoredViolent Death Author:Maggie Stiefvater
“For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside.” SeemsCultureFictionWorstDangerousTvsOughtDatingPopsCompromiseAnnoyingSeriousnessPop CultureIconsDeploymentPlatonicTics Author:Jonathan Lethem
“I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant’s brilliant non-fiction about humankind’s tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar’s Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it.” WorldShouldHumansChildrenLongRealCultureNaturalHuman BeingsAnimalFictionMoralNovelBraveBrilliantTreatedStorytellingPreservesComplexityHumankindNatural WorldNon FictionLamentVisceralDebutAmbivalentJaguars Author:John Burnham Schwartz
“In a lot of Western science fiction, you need some form of conflict, whether it's aliens or robots. I think in Western culture, being more suspicious of science, and hubris, you'll see a lot of fear of creating something that goes out of control.” ThinkingNeedsFormCultureFictionConflictCreatingScience FictionWesternAliensRobotsSuspiciousHubrisWestern CultureCreating Something Author:Cynthia Breazeal
“You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some scandal, but people are scandalized all the time; it's a way of life for them. It doesn't mean a thing. If you ask if I want my fiction to change anything in the culture, the answer is still no. What I want is to possess my readers while they are reading my book if I can, to possess them in ways that other writers don't. Then let them return, just as they were, to a world where everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them.” PeopleIfsWorldWayWantMeanStillsI CanBookCultureReadingAsksAnswersFictionChangedReturnReaderScandal Book:Conversations with Philip Roth Source: Conversations with Philip Roth
“My current novel, Pallas, is all about that culture war - in fact it's been called the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the Sagebrush Rebellion - and yet what I hear all too often from libertarians is that they don't read fiction.” WarFactsCultureFictionNovelCurrentsLibertarianRebellionTomsUnclesCabinsUncle Tom Author:L. Neil Smith
“The oft-heard comment that Leonardo [da Vinci]'s genius managed to transcend the culture of his time is amply justified. But his was not a science-fiction voyage into the future as much as a plunge into the past.” PastCultureFictionHeardGeniusScience FictionCommentJustifiedVoyagesPlungeLeonardo Author:Lucio Russo
“We live in a culture that has a real hard time distinguishing fiction from reality. Even when they're told something is fiction.” RealHardRealityCultureFictionHard Times Author:Nic Pizzolatto
“I am a born novelist, which does not happen all that often. There are people who try to write for a certain time, then they become Ministers of Culture under de Gaulle, and they begin living their own fictions.” PeopleWritingTryingDoeHappensCertainCultureBornFictionMinistersNovelists Author:Gore Vidal
“A lot of comic conventions go way beyond comic books and include other parts of pop culture, like celebrities and science fiction and movies and books. So I go to them either as a celebrity, or as a fan, because I'm a big sci-fi geek.” WayBookBigsCultureFictionFansScience FictionPopsComicSci FiConventionsComic BookGeekPop Culture Author:Jane Wiedlin
“The culture is still there, and people are still doing it. I imagine some people are doing it very well indeed. As for me, it definitely was my native literary culture. Science fiction was where I'm from, but on the way to now, I went through a lot of other territory, and I wasn't really that culturally conventional an SF writer when I started.” PeopleWayWellsStillsCultureFictionImagineScience FictionNativeTerritoryConventional Author:William Gibson
“In a way, being a Mormon prepares you to deal with science fiction, because we live simultaneously in two very different cultures. The result is that we all know what it's like to be strangers in a strange land. It's not just a coincidence that there are so many effective Mormon science fiction writers. We don't regard being an alien as an alien experience. But it also means that we're not surprised when people don't understand what we're saying or what we think.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayMeanTwoDifferentScienceReligionCultureSpaceResultsDealsFictionTechnologyLandStrangeRegardScience FictionStrangerIdeologyAliensCoincidenceFiction WritersDifferent CulturesStranger In A Strange Land Author:Orson Scott Card
“If you're writing fiction, you're dealing with characters who, themselves, will have heartfelt sentiments but who, themselves, live in this culture right now and thus face all the impediments to sort of dealing with those parts of their lives that, you know, that we did. So it would be not only silly but unrealistic to have a character saying that kind of stuff.” IfsKnowsWritingKindCharacterWould BeFacesCultureStuffFictionRight NowSillySentimentsHeartfeltWriting FictionImpediments Author:David Foster Wallace
“Literary science fiction is a very, very narrow band of the publishing business. I love science fiction in more of a pop-culture sense. And by the way, the line between science fiction and reality has blurred a lot in my life doing deep ocean expeditions and working on actual space projects and so on. So I tend to be more fascinated by the reality of the science-fiction world in which we live.” WorldWayRealityCultureLinesSpaceFictionBandOceanProjectsScience FictionPopsFascinatedPublishingPop CultureExpeditionsScience LoveDeep OceanFiction And Reality Author:James Cameron
“Much more than an entertaining set of exaggerated facts, fiction is a metaphoric method of describing, dramatizing and condensing historical events, personal actions, psychological states and the symbolic knowledge encoded within the collective unconscious; things, events and conditions that are otherwise too diffuse and/or complex to be completely digested or appreciated by the prevailing culture.” StatesFactsActionCultureFictionConditionsEventsMethodHistoricalComplexesPsychologicalUnconsciousCollectivesEntertainingAppreciatedSymbolicDescribingExaggeratedPrevailingCollective UnconsciousHistorical EventsMetaphoric Author:Tom Robbins
“What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.” MenWritingWellsDoeMatterSeemsUsedCultureInterestingFictionNovelWrittenSeeingSubjectsSettingUsed To BeSettingsPostsThemeDystopianSubject MatterApocalypticDystopian FictionPost Apocalyptic Author:Laurie Foos
“I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read... I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.” ThinkingWorldSaidDoneCultureLanguageFictionHavensCultures Of The World Author:Don DeLillo
“My own sense is that fiction is inching its way over to join poetry on the cultural margin. It's an area of passionate concern for me, as for many people, but it's nowhere near as central to the culture as it used to be.” PeopleWayUsedCultureMy OwnFictionAreasConcernPassionateUsed To BeMargins Author:Matthew Specktor
“I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.” ThinkingKindBookMightCultureFictionFantasyGenerationsExampleTelevisionScience FictionBritishFamiliarCombinationAustraliaAmerican CultureMy GenerationAmerican TelevisionScience Fiction And Fantasy Author:Garth Nix