So I managed, over the course of a rainy weekend — during which I’d actually expected to be mailing out copies of Kaleidotrope‘s second issue — to get my accumulated “to read” links down to a more manageable level. Which means that I might again be able to make the occasional post that doesn’t involve your having to guess song lyrics.
Like this one. Which is really just a quote from M. John Harrison:
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.
Via Warren Ellis.