No, this is not a review of The Goldfinch, but a look at the way Tartt’s novel might be read as an accidental sort of science fiction. … Clearly Donna Tartt had no intention of writing a science fiction novel. There is nothing in the plot of The Goldfinch which is science-fictional. In fact it is the absence of anything science-fictional which is so striking, given that almost half the book is set in the near future.