When Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature last week, my first thought was: What a victory for science fiction!

In 1979, three decades after her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing," and 17 years after the release of her landmark "The Golden Notebook," Lessing published "Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta." It was the first book in a five-volume outer-space fantasy, "Canopus in Argos: Archives," that aggressively broke with naturalism.

Today, such a novel would be no big deal; literature is full of time travel, gender ambiguity and that nifty catch-all "magical realism." But in the 1970s, mainstream fiction took pains to set itself apart -- and above -- genres like science fiction. "Shikasta" was met with jeers.

"At best, Lessing's prose is stolid and slow and a bit flat-footed," Gore Vidal wrote in the New York Review of Books. Writing three years later about the fourth novel in the sequence, "The Making of the Representative for Planet 8," the New York Times' John Leonard was blunter. "Why does Doris Lessing -- one of the half-dozen most interesting minds to have chosen to write fiction in English in this century -- insist on propagating books that confound and dismay her loyal readers? The answer: She intends to confound and dismay."

*****

Science fiction was messy. It tackled big themes: What makes us human? Are we alone in the universe? Does God exist, and if so, might she be vicious? It aspired to be epic, and an epic, as midcentury novelist Marguerite Young has aptly observed, must have "a vast undertow of music and momentum and theology." "Shikasta" had all these things, and they contributed, I suspect, to the Nobel committee's recognition of Lessing as an "epicist of the female experience." The book was a reworking of the Bible -- casting the forces of good and evil as warring aliens.

The planet Shikasta, where the action took place, bore similarities to Earth. In "The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five," the second volume in the series, Lessing used this mythic structure to revisit ground she had broken in her earlier, realistic novels: the tumultuous relationship between men and women.

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Terry O'Quinn Wins Emmy for Portrayal of John Locke

Terry O'Quinn won an Emmy last night for his portrayal of John Locke on Lost.

The Emmy Awards slighted SF&F TV again in ceremonies broadcast live on Fox on Sept. 16, with Lost's Terry O'Quinn winning the only major prime-time award, for best supporting actor. O'Quinn won the Emmy for his portrayal of the conflicted John Locke on the ABC SF show.

"Sometimes when we're rolling around in the jungle in the mud, hitting each other and stabbing each other, I wonder what it would be like to bake up a sheet of cookies on Wisteria Lane and get one of their checks," O'Quinn said in accepting his award, referring to ABC's Desperate Housewives, according to a report by the Associated Press.

"Then I think about my castmates and crewmates, and I realize why I have the best job in the world," O'Quinn added. Lost returns in midseason.

O'Quinn's was up against his Lost co-star Michael Emerson, Grey's Anatomy's T.R. Knight, Masi Oka from Heroes and Michael Imperioli from The Sopranos. Other than O'Quinn's well-deserved win for Best Suporting Actor in a Drama, Lost was otherwise pretty much ignored at the Emmys.

Posted on September 17, 2007
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Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge Wins Hugo Award For Best Novel

The winners of the Hugo awards were announced this past weekend in Japan, at the 65th World Science Fiction Convention, better known as WorldCon. Awarded annually by the World Science Fiction Society, the awards showcase the best in science fiction and fantasy in several media.

The winners are:

Finalists for the year's British Fantasy Awards include Best Novel nominees Chaz Brenchley, Mike Carey, Mark Chadbourn, M. John Harrison, Tim Lebbon, Scott Lynch, Sarah Pinborough, Mark Samuels, and Conrad Williams... plus Ian McDonald, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Datlow, John Picacio, Julie Phillips, and others in categories for novella, short fiction, anthology, collection, artist, small press, and non-fiction. The winners will be announced at Fantasycon, 21-23 September 2007 in Nottingham, UK.