Lit Trek: The Next Generation

Hooray for multicultural Britain! check out Waterstones' 'next generation of literary superstars'
as reported in the Independent and the Guardian , who call it a 'diverse list', so, apart from one Indian guy and a black girl all the next generation of British writers will be white? great job fellas. I'm sure all these middle-calss writers have some carefully repeated ethnic/working class background, but you have to admit visually at least it's pretty depressing. Oh, and do graphic novelists count?

Just reading the Guardian's a three line summary of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair book made me want to puke. I have no problem with litarary types churning out sub-twilight zone style parallel dimension fare but when the litarary establishment continually steals the ideas of science fiction while simultanuously looking down on it, it drives me up the wall. I think it's also a product of being in close proximity to creative writers at college, and serving them every year in the bar listening to similar ideas each year: someone in year 1: it's a novel about Picasso, but from the perspective of his mistress; someone in year 2: it's a novel about Van Gogh, but from the prespective of his mistress; someone in year 3: it's a novel about Guaguin, but from the presepective of his mistress, etc. etc. Oh and what are you doing? some PhD on funny books, that's cute....