Those In Peril On The Sea

My review of In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield is up now at SF Site.

I loved this book. A side effect of this is that I had a bit of trouble ordering my thoughts about it so I’d suggest reading Nic Clarke’s excellent review as well.

In Great Waters is definitely a work of speculative fiction but what sort wasn’t immeditaely clear to me. I didn’t want to go into this in the review because taxonomy is a bit wanky but it is something that interests me. It is something I also came across when I read Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol. Do undiscovered species in the real world make a book SF or fantasy? I am indebted to Tom Anderson for showing me the way through the taxonomical minefield:

New species of shrimp: SF
New species of dragon: fantasy
New species of dragon shrimp: horror