Lost In Space

My review of Lost In Space by Toby Litt is up now at Strange Horizons.

I mentioned Ursula K LeGuin’s review of it earlier and, as usual, I disagree with her but it does make interesting reading and I will be looking forward to other reviews of the novel.

ETA: Litt in Prospect on his love of science fiction:

Young-Toby is more into television than books, and more into films than television, but the books he does buy tend to come out of cardboard boxes on trellis tables at fêtes, harvest festivals and bring and buy sales. He judges books entirely by their covers and, if he’d seen a book like Journey into Space in 1979, he would have bought it—despite the fact that it doesn’t bear those ultra-desirable words: “Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards,” sci-fi’s two most august prizes. Although he hasn’t yet realised it, young-Toby is a big fan of Chris Foss—the leading sci-fi artist. Whenever he sees one of his battered, heroic spacecraft on a novel by EE “Doc” Smith, Isaac Asimov or Arthur C Clarke, young-Toby knows that it’s the right kind of thing… Since the age of 11, I’ve constantly moved away from and then back towards science fiction. William Gibson (Count Zero) brought me back, as did Iain M Banks (Use of Weapons) and Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age).

Tantalisingly he concludes: “I want to write more science fiction. This wasn’t a one-time visit.”