I’ve made a handful of passing references over the years to the genre I call “New Wave Socialist Scottish Sci-Fi” of which the principle proponents are Iain Banks and Ken Macleod, but also Charlie Stross, and (though he comes from a bit farther south) China Meiville. While there is some obvious accuracy to the moniker, I mostly used it to amuse myself, and as a way to speaking about this group of authors who are currently producing some of the most interesting, amusing, creative and yet relevant literature anywhere.

However reading Stross’ blog this evening, I found that there is significant truth to my turn of phrase. Checkout the Edinburgh Writers Bloc. They’ve got a whole movement going on up there. (no word on whether they do their readings in balaclavas)

p.s. it’s worth clicking through to read the related entries on this post.