Reviewed by Andrew J Wilson

Interzone 217
September 2008

Damon Knight severed a Gordian Knot of conflicting and unsatisfactory definitions by claiming that, "The term 'science fiction' is a misnomer [...] it means what we point to when we say it."  Paul Kincaid points to an impressive variety of texts in his latest book, but what he essentially wants to do is "talk about words as signposts".

What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction is the work of a widely read and well-informed critic.  Although this collection of essays and reviews spans nearly thirty years of publications, Kincaid's recurring themes and ongoing assessments of favoured authors allow him to shape a reasoned and coherent argument across seven themed sections.

 In the essay that gives the collection its title, Kincaid engages in a debate with Gary Westfahl and Samuel R. Delaney over SF's relationship with language.  The genre coins many neologisms, of course, but it also creates startling and disconcerting images by using unexpected combinations of very familiar words.  "The door dilated" delineates the future of Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon, for example, and Kincaid argues that, far from alienating us from the text, SF's separation of language from its normal referents allows us "to model a new, an invented reality".

A section on Christopher Priest forms an excellent overview of his work.  Significantly, Kincaid's arguments rebut the idea that Priest's literary progress has seen him move out of SF and into the mainstream.  Priest's prose has been of undeniable quality throughout his career, but these essays show that his science-fictional use of language has been remarkably consistent as well.

Kincaid also collects material on both British and international SF.  There is much to admire here, particularly the pieces on English writers like Robert Holdstock, Christopher Evans and Keith Roberts, and useful introductions to theoretically sui generis authors such as Steve Erickson and Steven Millhauser.

What is most satisfying about Kincaid's criticism is that his deep readings of the material he dissects are always enhanced by a healthy amount of common sense and a desire to illuminate the work under discussion.  He also has the happy knack of citing choice examples just as you're wondering if he has missed these tricks.

Nevertheless, Kincaid can also lay traps for the unwary reader.  The essays dedicated to Gene Wolfe deal mainly with minor work and so his masterpiece, The Book of the New Sun, becomes the metaphorical elephant in the room.  What's more, his discussions of British SF are nothing of the sort:  Kincaid is almost wholly concerned with English SF, and the quality of the southern writers he discusses shouldn't obscure the fact that there are other voices to be heard.

The final section consists of a single short review.  On first reading, this analysis of an excellent although unjustly neglected magic realist novel, By-Ways on the Shining Path, seems to be an odd coda to the book.  But it's also a signpost in words that points back to everything Kincaid has already written about modelling a new reality..