SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

John wrote: "I am enjoying Embassytown a lot--it integrates weird style and weird plot nicely. I am also looking forward to Ubik. But I am puzzled by something (I am very new to the group, so maybe what I am wondering about has already been explained somewhere): I thought this Group read one scifi and one fantasy each month; which one of these books is fantasy? I love the definition from the Scifi vs Fantasy thread, "If it has elves, it is fantasy; if the elves use ray guns, is is scifi." Well, all the elves in these two books are using rayguns, so to speak.
This is NOT a complaint. I am glad to be reading both books. But I am wondering whether some months we do all scifi, or if one of these books is better labeled Fantasy than SciFi in an interesting way that I don't yet know."

I was waiting for that comment, but so hoping it wouldn't come up! Yes John, we do read one of each genre every month. Embassytown snuck on to our weird fiction fantasy poll because it's such a good example of "new weird". Although I agree that it is more scifi than it is fantasy, by the time I realised that it was already on the poll and doing well. It won with an overwhelming majority so I think the group has spoken! Both books this month have elements of fantasy so we're not completely ignoring the genre.

My apologies for letting it through, I'll try to be more careful in the future.

Thanks for the answer. No apology was needed! Embassytown is fun (and yes, weird), so even though I usually prefer fantasy, I'm delighted that it sneaked in. And yes, the central language elements are fantastical as much as scifi.

Thanks John! I might have to quote you on that :)