So what do we write now? by Elizabeth Kay
It’s a poser, isn’t it. If you want to write contemporary fiction, what do you do? Writing anything that is set in the here and now is impossible unless you can publish it the following day, as everything changes so quickly. So you set it slightly in the future, and imagine Covid-19 has gone and everything is back to normal. But it won’t be, will it? We don’t have a clue how the world situation will have changed. So you set it further in the future, but that’s no good as no one wants SF any more. Historical fiction is still safe, and Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light came out at exactly the right time. Nice bit of lengthy escapism into a world where the plague was an everyday hazard. Not to mention the sweating sickness, which has never been identified but was probably a Hantavirus. That one disappeared as suddenly as it arrived, so let’s hope Covid-19 behaves the same way – which would give us another sixty-five years to wait before it bows out. You could be fine at ...