alt Hacker News> Atwood doesn't wish to be regarded as a sci-fi author
She's repeatedly said she doesn't. Indeed her dismissive remark that "SF is that 'squids in space' stuff, isn't it?" is what inspired the great Ken Macleod to write his "Engines of Light" trilogy which starts with Cosmonaut Keep.
Due to her attitude I've never even tried to read any fiction of hers. Macleod is a genius nearly on a level with his close friend Iain Banks.
I am with the other commenter in this thread: I've read quite a few (usually very highly-regarded) alleged SF novels by literary authors who say they don't write SF. I have hated pretty much every such book.
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Margaret Atwood likes to position herself as a champion of values such as equity, justice, and progress, while using her clout to oppose a multi-family condo development close to her multi-million dollar mansion [1]
Needless to say, I will also never read any of her work.
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3707723/margaret-atwood-condo-con...
As one of very few women in the field, and one of even fewer who writes primarily about women, I tend to think a lot of this attitude is a reflection of the extent to which sci-fi has been an "old boys club" for most of Atwood's career, more than it is about the genre itself