Mainstream authors and publishers seem happy to appropriate the tropes of science fiction but not the label itself

What do novels about a journey across post-apocalyptic America, a clone waitress rebelling against a future society, a world-girdling pipe of special gas keeping mutant creatures at bay, a plan to rid a colonisable new world of dinosaurs, and genetic engineering in a collapsed civilisation have in common?

They are all most definitely not science fiction.

Literary readers will probably recognise The Road by Cormac McCarthy, one of the sections of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood from their descriptions above. All of these novels use the tropes of what most people recognise as science fiction, but their authors or publishers have taken great pains to ensure that they are not categorised as such.

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway has just had its paperback release, and is a tour-de-force of ninjas, truckers, Dr Strangelove-type military men, awe-inspiring imagery and very clever writing. It's also undeniably science fiction. Harkaway is an unrepentant fan of the genre, but his publishers William Heinemann have taken a lot of care not to market the book as such. Harkaway himself said in a recent interview: "I suppose the book does take place in the future, but not the ray-guns-and-silver-suits future. It's more like tomorrow if today was a really, really bad day."

It's this cartoon imagery of science fiction that least appeals to serious writers and readers. Or, as Margaret Atwood put it more bluntly and infamously: "Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space."

Jeanette Winterson has leapt into the fray too, commenting: "People say to me, 'so is the Stone Gods science fiction?' Well, it is fiction, and it has science in it, and it is set (mostly) in the future, but the labels are meaningless. I can't see the point of labelling a book like a pre-packed supermarket meal. There are books worth reading and books not worth reading. That's all."

Those in the science fiction camp would say that it is unfair for mainstream authors to appropriate the clothing of the genre but refuse to be counted among their number. SF uber-fan and pundit David Langford publishes a monthly column called Ansible, both online and in the SF magazine Interzone, in which he has a section called As Others See Us, featuring (usually disparaging) quotes from the mainstream media about science fiction.

Are they right? If you want to buy Oryx and Crake or Stone Gods, should you head for the general fiction section in Waterstone's or the science fiction and fantasy shelves?

Perhaps the problem is that our present has caught up with the future presented to us by the pioneers of science fiction. Back in the 40s and 50s, when bright-and-shiny/dark-and-dangerous futures were given to us by the pulps, they were truly beyond anyone's ken. Now we are actually living in a science fiction future, is it fair to label a novel that extrapolates from what is possible today to what will probably be possible tomorrow, such as Oryx and Crake, as a flight of fancy, no more than a fairy story?

Those writers such as Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Ian McDonald, who write literary, contemporary fiction but don't mind the science fiction label, would probably disagree that everything in the genre deserves to be slapped with a "pure fantasy" sticker. But it is doubtless true that rocket ships and rayguns do form a part of the science fiction panoply, and it is this image which will cause readers who do not consider themselves fans of that genre to shun it.

Is it feasible, as Jeanette Winterson seems to be suggesting, to do away with all categories on novels, and simply file them all in an A-Z of general fiction? It might conceivably give every novel a fighting chance, but would the reader who visits a shop or library looking for the latest crime, war or, indeed, science fiction novel really be well served by such a move?