I was part of the NY sf publishing scene in 1990s. In those days the genre felt like a constraining box. The commercial successes of the 1970s and 80s, and the corporatization of publishing in general, meant that there were limits, in literary and conceptual ways. It's funny that he mentions Jonathan Lethem--I saw Jonathan a lot in those days. How to break out of genre was a frequent topic of conversation. It really seemed the only way up was out.
A friend recently related the life of Robert E. Howard in a really fascinating way, and one of the points he made about how he got into writing Conan really stuck with me.
Howard started out writing historical fiction, but the research was pretty grueling and the outcomes mediocre, so he switched to a sort of adventurous self-insert character in historical fantasy settings, which later turned into Conan.
When I consider notable science fiction authors, they all seem to start with some understanding of a facet of the natural universe, then tease ideas into explorations of those points. To the layman on reflection, this might seem like some sort of predictive exercise, but I see it as a sort of rote process of extrapolation. Contrast that to science fantasy authors who focus on theme and aesthetic, imagining Westerns in future-space with gadgets or contemporary plots in scifi-associated settings, and there's quite a vast and exciting landscape left to be explored.
