The Briefing Room

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: bigheadfred on February 11, 2017, 01:45:17 pm

Title: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: bigheadfred on February 11, 2017, 01:45:17 pm
Science fiction has nothing in common with the Trump administration’s “alternative facts”, distinguished sci-fi novelist Ursula Le Guin said this week.

The hugely influential author dismissed claims of a relationship between the two after the Oregonian newspaper published a letter that said that the “alternative facts” of the US president and allies including press secretary Kellyanne Conway – who first coined the phrase – had much in common with sci-fi and fantasy writing.

“The comparison won’t work,” Le Guin wrote to the paper in reply. “We fiction writers make up stuff. Some of it clearly impossible, some of it realistic, but none of it real – all invented, imagined – and we call it fiction because it isn’t fact,” she added.

The 87-year-old author, whose bestselling novels include The Earthsea Chronicles and The Left Hand of Darkness, called out the phrase alternative facts as a disguise for lies that “are seldom completely harmless, and often very dangerous”. She added, in what appeared to be a direct reference to the new president, that peddlers of alternative facts were liars, whom most people consider “contemptible”. (bolding mine)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/03/ursula-le-guin-rebuts-charge-that-science-fiction-is-alternative-fact
Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: geronl on February 11, 2017, 01:55:58 pm
She is correct, of course.
Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: bigheadfred on February 11, 2017, 02:08:00 pm
She is correct, of course.

Yes, she is and Kellyanne Con-way is a liar.

Hey geron! See how my use of "bolding" means Kellyanne is a bold-faced liar?   :laugh:

Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: geronl on February 11, 2017, 02:34:59 pm
Yes, she is and Kellyanne Con-way is a liar.

Hey geron! See how my use of "bolding" means Kellyanne is a bold-faced liar?   :laugh:

lol.
Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: bigheadfred on February 12, 2017, 01:42:41 am
I could never get into Le Guin's novels.

The concepts were interesting, but her writing style always made me lose interest after the third page.

uh huh

Not enuf pics more like.  ^-^

FWIW, I define her writing style as melancholy.
Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: Joe Wooten on February 14, 2017, 08:22:54 pm
I could never get into Le Guin's novels.

The concepts were interesting, but her writing style always made me lose interest after the third page.

Agreed. I could never finish one of her crappy books.
Title: Re: Ursula Le Guin rebuts charge that science fiction is 'alternative fact'
Post by: Suppressed on February 15, 2017, 01:18:04 pm
I could never get into Le Guin's novels.

The concepts were interesting, but her writing style always made me lose interest after the third page.

Same here, but I think I need to give her another shot (after finishing my buddy's novella manuscript sitting over there...  ^-^).