Since my article about the disrespect handed to the phrase "science fiction," two interesting developments, both in one night. One: a science-fiction novel won the Pulitzer. Two: a science-fiction icon was given a lifetime achievement Pulitzer.
No one in the publishing business will call Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning The Road what it is: a science fiction novel. For whatever reason, publishers, writers, film directors and MSM critics seem to have agreed to boycott the term. They avoid it like nuclear ash.
Does Cormac (pictured) use the dread phrase himself? No one knows – he's hermited himself away from the press for years (he did drop a few choice phrases to Wired's David Kushner a few months back). That's about to change: Cormac will be sitting on Oprah's couch in the near future. (Random House, any coffeeshop loiterers or airplane travelers probably noticed, hustled out The Road in paperback once it heard Cormac got Oprah's Book Club nod). If the reclusive author has an itch to give the words "science fiction" some traction, he'll soon have the perfect chance.
As for the Pulitzer's Special Citation, given this year to Ray Bradbury, the awards committee didn't dodge the obvious, praising his "distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."
