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From: ddb@mrvax.DEC
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Literary vs SF genres
Message-ID: <2359@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 11:42:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2359
Posted: Wed May 29 11:42:35 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 05:05:52 EDT
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Lines: 48

With or without a license, as they say, I gotta butt into this.

I'm pleased to see such a large amount of light being directed into this
discussion, even if mostly we're shining it into each others eyes.  Detailed
suggestions of what is "good literature" today are especially usefull.  
Indeed, I haven't read most of the authors listed, and it's possible that
I may try some of them and perform the comparisons suggested (GOOD suggestions
on how to compare books, by the way).  However, the fact is that both at home
and in school I've tried a moderate amount of what various people at various
times thought was good literature (literary genre, as opposed to best-seller
genre;  there is no "mainstream" any more), and I thought it stunk, for exactly
the reasons various people are criticizing SF: unbelievable characters, bad
dialogue.  So I'm not enthusiastic about diving back into the swamp for 
another go.

People have sufficiently different views of humanity that characters probably
can't please all of us.  Those of you espousing the literary genre as a
religion should note that many of us in the other camp feel at least as
strongly.  I wouldn't say that most of the best writers today are working in
SF and fantasy.  A good number of them are also in mystery and children's
(or young-adult) literature.

As for the acerbic attack on Lord of Light, I can only say you must not have
read it in the last few years; certainly the line you quote doesn't appear
in the book.  Not being a lit-crit bullshit artist, I'm not interested in
attempting a line-by-line defense of the book, but it's one of my favorites.

The Ellison attack was shoddy, very shoddy.  The criticism of him for putting
forward a hip, witty, front, may be true of him in person, and even of
his non-fiction perhaps, but is completely irrelevant to his fiction.

Apart from the differences on what constitutes a "believable" character,
I think a major source of argument is the relative importance of plot and
character to everything else (particularly style, or "quality of writing").  
To me, a good plot can sometimes carry mediocre writing; but superb writing
can never carry a dull plot.  (unsatisfactory characters will ruin everything
else no matter what.)

			-- David Dyer-Bennet
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