Interesting post on M. John Harrison's blog.
He tackles the Science Fiction Fantasy genre/strategy 'worldbuilding' in a handful of sentences.
It's certainly a thought provoking post, and I agree with the sentiment, but am not sure the argument is as entirely clear-cut as he makes it out to be. Nor am I a fan of what appears to be a touch of finger-pointing.
From Uncle Zip's Window:
"Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.
Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid."
Here's the permalink to the post.
If you haven't read Light yet, go out and do so. It's a brilliant, complex Science Fiction novel of the first order.
Update: I was thinking about China Mieville as I read Harrison's post. Hear China's thoughts here.