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From: peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The Literature of Ideas
Message-ID: <597@baylor.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 14:00:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: baylor.597
Posted: Tue Sep  3 14:00:39 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 07:13:29 EDT
References: <515@baylor.UUCP> <1381@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX
Lines: 24

OK. You gave "Rendezvous with Rama" as one example, and "Glory Road" as
another. I don't see that this is in any way a refutation of my thesis.
Even throwing in LeGuin and a few other authors doesn't change things.

Item: Leguin and the other authors you mentioned with her are outside the
domain of SF. So, I think, are the other authors you mentioned. One must
distinguish between SF and literature with an SF background. Stephen King
writes plenty of the latter, but I don't believe he has provided one new theme.

Item: Most of Clarke's writings, and now Bob Forwards, are pretty bad
literature, but they succeed by fulfilling the other and I believe more
important goal of being great SF. It is possible to write great SF by
concentrating on the SF aspect. It is not possible to do so by concentrating
on the literature. See, for example, the works of Stephen King.

Item: 90% of SF is crud. So is 90% of everything else. How many romances are
great works of literature? How many westerns?

Item: Counterexamples to the assertion that SF is stylistically flat: The
Demolished Man, Golem 100,...
-- 
	Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva
		UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
		MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076