Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site hyper.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!hyper!brust
From: brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Brin, Sagan, etc.
Message-ID: <257@hyper.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 13:50:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: hyper.257
Posted: Mon Sep 30 13:50:48 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Oct-85 03:51:24 EDT
References: <5703@tekecs.UUCP> <27800018@ISM780B.UUCP>
Organization: Network Systems Corp., Mpls., Mn.
Lines: 47


It could be argued that it is a waste of resources
to respond over the net with agreement that doesn't
carry anything forward, but I just couldn't let this
go by without shouting, yea, verily!

> 
> Aw, c'mon guys.  Let's start a "Tastes Great" vs. "Less Filling" argument.
> It depends on what you read SF for.  Personally, I'm happy to sit down
> with a text book when I want to learn science.

Yea!  Verily!

> 
> Brin and Wolfe render pleasant dreams in mutually different but
> fresh ways that allow me to share the dream by that marvelous translating
> device, the book.

Yea!  Verily!

> 
> I happen to agree with you about Greg Bear; he paints nice pictures that have
> a high degree of technical verisimilitude.  (I've talked to the man and he
> has a manic sense of research and does *not* have a science degree or job.
> As far as I know, he's a full time fiction writer, which is a truly
> endangered species.)  But as nice (and moving!) as the pictures are, they
> haven't (yet) approached the breathtaking grandness of Brin or Wolfe.

Yea!  Verily!

> Admittedly, STARTIDE is direct descendant of 50's and 60's Heinlein-style SF,
> but there is a depth and texture to it that Heinlein acheived but rarely and
> most others of the era not at all.  The Wolfe is almost *sui generis* , but
> it, too has a richness of plot and character that is hard to match.
> 

Yea!  Verily!

> To not like something is one thing, but to dismiss it as "bad"....
> 
> I wish more people would swallow the idea that it is possible not to like a
> good book and to love a mediocre one.
> 
> 

That is exactly what I have been trying to find a way of saying
(and failing at) for some time now.  Thank you.


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com