Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE FICTION TODAY - PART I Message-ID: <2779@nsc.UUCP> Date: Thu, 30-May-85 13:53:24 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.2779 Posted: Thu May 30 13:53:24 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 06:35:56 EDT References: <1088@druri.UUCP> <316@unc.UUCP> Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Organization: The Blue Parrot Lines: 77 Summary: In article <316@unc.UUCP> wfi@unc.UUCP (William F. Ingogly) writes: >Without even >trying hard I've come up with a list of more-or-less active mainstream >fiction writers who at their worst are at least as good as the best SF >has to offer, and are CERTAINLY better than certain poseurs who are >sometimes cited as paragons of writerly virtue in this group. How many >of the following authors have you read, for example; Jorge Amado, John >[continued ad nauseum]... Oh, we are back into this argument again. sigh. To start with, it is possible to generate a list at least as long of BAD mainstream writers as it is to generate a list of good mainstream writers. It is ALSO possible to generate a list of writers, both good and bad, in SF, in mystery, romance, or any genre. This proposition is intuitively obvious to anyone who has studied Sturgeons Law, which also, I should add, is appropriate to postings to sf-lovers, and probably to this posting. For every Graham Greene (who isn't really mainstream, but more in the thriller/mystery/spy genre) or Gunter Grass, you can find an author in some other [generic] genre that writes as well. You can also find a clinker in their work. What I see here is an attempt to define mainstream by the best of the best and compare it with the worst of the best in the SF genre, and that's apples and oranges, folks. Sure, Ellison has clinked out at times, but Mailer and Capote and the rest have tossed out some outrageous and/or self-indulgent stuff as well. If you want to get into the second rank (and rank is an appropriate word for some of this stuff) in the mainstream, look to sydney sheldon and friends. What DOES matter is this: the best of the mainstream work is very good. The best of the genre stuff (even in romance) is very good. I'll hold up 'When Jefty is five' or 'Adrift of the Isles of Langerhans' or Wolfe's New Sun books or any number of other genre works against the works of a Capote or a Mailer. I'll also throw away the garbage of both, very happily. >People in this newsgroup have cited Harlan Ellison and Roger Zelazny, >for example, as examples of superior craftsmen of fiction. Harlan >Ellison covers a lack of talent by projecting a hip, wisecracking >persona that he apparently thinks will delude the unsophisticated into >thinking he has something important to say. You sound suspiciously like you are proving a point to yourself. If you've decided going in that SF is sh*t, then you will no doubt be able to prove your preconceptions. I find that Ellison has a wonderful command of the English language. Zelazny deals with cultures and mores, Varley and Spider Robinson with people and attitudes, and heinlein with whatever he wants to (clunkers and all). If I were to decide that mainstream work was garbage, I'd have no problem 'proving' that to myself, simply because when I went to 'research' the topic, I'd be expecting it. And I'd find it. That doesn't prove anything. >Lift your heads out of the SF ghetto, people; there are a LOT of >excellent craftsmen outside the SF genre writing first-rate fiction. There are lots of people IN the genre writing first rate fiction, and lots of people outside the genre writing garbage and lots of people in the genre writing garbage. so what? I don't think of it as a ghetto, either -- I prefer the term neighborhood. Lots of people DO stay in their neighborhood, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I would like to point out, however, that there IS more to life than sf/fantasy, and all of the serious sf authors I've met seem to have read widely beyond the genre literature. You can enjoy 'To Reign in Hell' (to take a recent example on the net) just fine on its own. If you've plowed your way through 'Paradise Lost' (not for the weak of heart) or skipped lightly through 'Inferno' and the rest of Dante's work a lot of the subtle references start making sense and the book takes on different meanings. Lots of authors make allusions to literature outside the genre. A good book survives without it, but it becomes a better book when you can recognize it. -- :From the misfiring synapses of: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA This space for rent. Political, religious and racist quotes need not apply.