'Is science fiction dying?' So asks New Scientist's SF special. They direct the question to six writers of SF ranging from Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin to William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson, the last of whom provocatively asserts that "Science fiction is now simply realism, the definition of our time." Via MeFi and Biology in Science Fiction.

George Saunders explains realist and experimental fiction. (Thanks, Egan!)