[This is a great article about one of the greatest writers.--DC]
The New York Times July 19, 2009 The Genre Artist By CARLO ROTELLA
Jack Vance, described by his peers as “a major genius” and “the greatest living writer of science fiction and fantasy,” has been hidden in plain sight for as long as he has been publishing — six decades and counting. Yes, he has won Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards and has been named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and he received an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America, but such honors only help to camouflage him as just another accomplished genre writer. So do the covers of his books, which feature the usual spacecraft, monsters and euphonious place names: Lyonesse, Alastor, Durdane. If you had never read Vance and were browsing a bookstore’s shelf, you might have no particular reason to choose one of his books instead of one next to it by A. E. van Vogt, say, or John Varley. And if you chose one of these alternatives, you would go on your way to the usual thrills with no idea that you had just missed out on encountering one of American literature’s most distinctive and undervalued voices.
That’s how Vance’s fans see it, anyway. Among them are authors who have gained the big paydays and the fame that Vance never enjoyed. Dan Simmons, the best-selling writer of horror and fantasy, described discovering Vance as “a revelation for me, like coming to Proust or Henry James. Suddenly you’re in the deep end of the pool. He gives you glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he’d been born south of the border, he’d be up for a Nobel Prize.” Michael Chabon, whose distinguished literary reputation allows him to employ popular formulas without being labeled a genre writer, told me: “Jack Vance is the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel don’t get the credit they deserve. If ‘The Last Castle’ or ‘The Dragon Masters’ had the name Italo Calvino on it, or just a foreign name, it would be received as a profound meditation, but because he’s Jack Vance and published in Amazing Whatever, there’s this insurmountable barrier.”
The barrier has not proved insurmountable to other genre writers — like Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, who have commanded critical respect while moving a lot of satisfyingly familiar product, or like H. P. Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler, pulp writers whose posthumous reputations rose over time until they passed the threshold of highbrow acceptance. But each of these writers, no matter how innovative or poetic, entered the literary mainstream by fully exploiting the attributes of his specialty. Vance, by contrast, has worked entirely within popular forms without paying much heed to their conventions or signature joys. His emphasis falls on the unexpected note, the odd beat. The rocket ships are just ways to get characters from one cogently imagined society to another; he prefers to tersely summarize battle scenes and other such potentially crowd-pleasing set pieces; and he takes greatest pleasure in word-music when exploring humankind’s rich capacity for nastiness. For example: “As he approached the outermost fields he moved cautiously, skulking from tussock to copse, and presently found that which he sought: a peasant turning the dank soil with a mattock. Cugel crept quietly forward, struck down the loon with a gnarled root.” While Vance may play by the rules of whatever genre he works in, his true genre is the Jack Vance story.
His loyal readers are fiercely passionate about him. An inspired crew of them got together in the late 1990s to assemble the Vance Integral Edition, a handsome 45-volume set of the great man’s complete works in definitive editions. Led by Paul Rhoads, an American painter living in France (whose recent critical appraisal of Vance, “Winged Being,” compares him to Oswald Spengler and Jane Austen, among others, and anoints him the anti-Paul Auster), the V.I.E. volunteers painstakingly compared editions and the author’s drafts to restore prose corrupted by publishers. Hard-core Vancians also created Totality (pharesm.org), a Web site where you can search the V.I.E. texts, which is how we know that he has used the word “punctilio” exactly 33 times in his published prose. It was an extraordinary display of true readerly love — a bunch of buffs giving a contemporary genre writer the Shakespearean variorum treatment on their own time.
Vance, who is 92, says that his new book — a memoir, “This Is Me, Jack Vance!” — will definitely be his last. Also arriving in bookstores this month is “Songs of the Dying Earth,” a collection of stories by other writers set in the far-future milieu that Vance introduced in some of his first published stories, which he wrote on a clipboard on the deck of a freighter in the South Pacific while serving in the merchant marine during World War II. The roster of contributors to the collection includes genre stars and best-selling brand names, among them Simmons, Neil Gaiman, Terry Dowling, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin and Dean Koontz. It’s a literary tribute album, in effect, on which reliable earners acknowledge the influence of a respectably semiobscure national treasure by covering his songs.
Right about now you might be thinking, Well, if Vance is as good as Simmons and Chabon and Rhoads say he is, and if he refused to give in to the demands of the genres in which he worked, then maybe he would have done better to try other forms that better rewarded his strengths — isn’t it a shame that he confined himself to adolescent genres in which his grown-up talents could not truly shine? But I think that question would be wrong in its assumptions: wrong about Vance, about genre and about what “adolescent” and “grown-up” mean when we talk about literary sensibility.
WHEN I WAS 14 or so, in the late ’70s, I knew an Advanced Boy, a connoisseur of all that was cooler than whatever his classmates were listening to, smoking or reading. I was impressed with myself for having graduated from Tolkien to E. R. Eddison and Michael Moorcock. “Kid stuff,” said the Advanced Boy. “Try this.” He handed me a paperback copy of Vance’s “Eyes of the Overworld.” On the cover a giant lizardlike creature was tipping over a rowboat containing a man in regulation swords-and-sorcery attire and a buxom woman in regulation dishabille.
I can remember the exact lines on the second page that sank the hook in me for keeps, a passing exchange of dialogue between two hawkers of sorcerous curios at a bazaar:
“ ‘I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.’
‘No need,’ said Cugel. ‘My interest was cursory.’ ”
The feral, angling politesse, the marriage of high-flown language to low motives, the way Cugel’s clipped phrases rounded off Fianosther’s ornate ones — I felt myself seized by a writer’s style in a way I had never experienced before. Vance didn’t even have to describe the “captive erb.” The phrase itself conjured up rows of teeth and the awful strength of a long, sinewy body surging up your leg.
Cugel soon finds himself in Smolod, a village whose inhabitants wear magical eye cusps that transform their fetid surroundings into apparent splendor. The cusps are relics of the demon Unda-Hrada’s incursion from the subworld La-Er during the Cutz Wars of the 18th Aeon. “I dimly recall that I inhabit a sty and devour the coarsest of food,” one elder admits, “but the subjective reality is that I inhabit a glorious palace and dine on splendid viands among the princes and princesses who are my peers.” It’s a typical Vancian setup: a few bold conceptual strokes, ripe descriptions and evocative names combine to fully realize a weird place that feels real — because the meatiness of his language endows it with presence, but also because every reader lives in a place sort of like it.
Cugel manages to steal a single cusp before fleeing Smolod ahead of an angry mob. It’s merely the first stop on his journey across the Dying Earth, a realm of cynical wonders in which the last exemplars of human civilization go about the age-old business of lying, cheating and stealing to satisfy base desires as the enfeebled sun falters toward final darkness.
I read the book in a kind of rapt delirium and went looking for more. In addition to picaresque fantasy, Vance has written science fantasy, planetary romance, extraterrestrial mystery, revenge sagas and less-classifiable speculative adventure tales on scales ranging from the short story to the multivolume chronicle. For good measure, he wrote 11 mysteries under his given name, John Holbrook Vance, and three more under the floating pseudonym Ellery Queen. He had a brief stint early in his career as a writer for the Captain Video television series, and over the years several of his stories have been optioned, but Hollywood has not snapped up his work as it snapped up, say, Philip K. Dick’s. Part of Hollywood’s lack of interest in Vance can be traced, I think, to an oversimple reading of him as a baroque stylist whose writing depends mostly on language to achieve its effect, rather than on plot, character or high-concept premise.
Vance believes that the musical flow of language is all-important to storytelling — “The prose should swing,” he told me more than once — but some social or cultural problem always moves beneath the action,
...
On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:43:04 -0700, Dan Clore wrote: > [This is a great article about one of the greatest writers.--DC]
> The New York Times > July 19, 2009 > The Genre Artist > By CARLO ROTELLA
This review is getting some serious play here on rasfw, which is fair enough.
I do think a slight emendation of a phrase of Rotella's might well best describe one of Vance's most addictive of his several talents, "feral politesse".
It's a talent of Congreve's; Sheridan's, at least in _The Way of the World_; Melville's, at least in _The Confidence-Man_; and Compton-Burnett, all over the place, as well.
And forms the very core of what is called "the comedy of manners".
--
Decorum, after all, was a more subtle and ultimately more satisfactory weapon than high feelings and improper conduct.
> [This is a great article about one of the greatest writers.--DC]
> The New York Times > July 19, 2009 > The Genre Artist > By CARLO ROTELLA
> Jack Vance, described by his peers as “a major genius” and “the greatest > living writer of science fiction and fantasy,” has been hidden in plain > sight for as long as he has been publishing — six decades and counting. > Yes, he has won Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards and has been named > a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, > and he received an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America, but such > honors only help to camouflage him as just another accomplished genre > writer. So do the covers of his books, which feature the usual > spacecraft, monsters and euphonious place names: Lyonesse, Alastor, > Durdane. If you had never read Vance and were browsing a bookstore’s > shelf, you might have no particular reason to choose one of his books > instead of one next to it by A. E. van Vogt, say, or John Varley. And if > you chose one of these alternatives, you would go on your way to the > usual thrills with no idea that you had just missed out on encountering > one of American literature’s most distinctive and undervalued voices.
> That’s how Vance’s fans see it, anyway. Among them are authors who have > gained the big paydays and the fame that Vance never enjoyed. Dan > Simmons, the best-selling writer of horror and fantasy, described > discovering Vance as “a revelation for me, like coming to Proust or > Henry James. Suddenly you’re in the deep end of the pool. He gives you > glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he’d > been born south of the border, he’d be up for a Nobel Prize.” Michael > Chabon, whose distinguished literary reputation allows him to employ > popular formulas without being labeled a genre writer, told me: “Jack > Vance is the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel > don’t get the credit they deserve. If ‘The Last Castle’ or ‘The Dragon > Masters’ had the name Italo Calvino on it, or just a foreign name, it > would be received as a profound meditation, but because he’s Jack Vance > and published in Amazing Whatever, there’s this insurmountable barrier.”
> The barrier has not proved insurmountable to other genre writers — like > Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, who have commanded critical respect > while moving a lot of satisfyingly familiar product, or like H. P. > Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler, pulp writers whose posthumous > reputations rose over time until they passed the threshold of highbrow > acceptance. But each of these writers, no matter how innovative or > poetic, entered the literary mainstream by fully exploiting the > attributes of his specialty. Vance, by contrast, has worked entirely > within popular forms without paying much heed to their conventions or > signature joys. His emphasis falls on the unexpected note, the odd beat. > The rocket ships are just ways to get characters from one cogently > imagined society to another; he prefers to tersely summarize battle > scenes and other such potentially crowd-pleasing set pieces; and he > takes greatest pleasure in word-music when exploring humankind’s rich > capacity for nastiness. For example: “As he approached the outermost > fields he moved cautiously, skulking from tussock to copse, and > presently found that which he sought: a peasant turning the dank soil > with a mattock. Cugel crept quietly forward, struck down the loon with a > gnarled root.” While Vance may play by the rules of whatever genre he > works in, his true genre is the Jack Vance story.
> His loyal readers are fiercely passionate about him. An inspired crew of > them got together in the late 1990s to assemble the Vance Integral > Edition, a handsome 45-volume set of the great man’s complete works in > definitive editions. Led by Paul Rhoads, an American painter living in > France (whose recent critical appraisal of Vance, “Winged Being,” > compares him to Oswald Spengler and Jane Austen, among others, and > anoints him the anti-Paul Auster), the V.I.E. volunteers painstakingly > compared editions and the author’s drafts to restore prose corrupted by > publishers. Hard-core Vancians also created Totality (pharesm.org), a > Web site where you can search the V.I.E. texts, which is how we know > that he has used the word “punctilio” exactly 33 times in his published > prose. It was an extraordinary display of true readerly love — a bunch > of buffs giving a contemporary genre writer the Shakespearean variorum > treatment on their own time.
> Vance, who is 92, says that his new book — a memoir, “This Is Me, Jack > Vance!” — will definitely be his last. Also arriving in bookstores this > month is “Songs of the Dying Earth,” a collection of stories by other > writers set in the far-future milieu that Vance introduced in some of > his first published stories, which he wrote on a clipboard on the deck > of a freighter in the South Pacific while serving in the merchant marine > during World War II. The roster of contributors to the collection > includes genre stars and best-selling brand names, among them Simmons, > Neil Gaiman, Terry Dowling, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin and Dean > Koontz. It’s a literary tribute album, in effect, on which reliable > earners acknowledge the influence of a respectably semiobscure national > treasure by covering his songs.
> Right about now you might be thinking, Well, if Vance is as good as > Simmons and Chabon and Rhoads say he is, and if he refused to give in to > the demands of the genres in which he worked, then maybe he would have > done better to try other forms that better rewarded his strengths — > isn’t it a shame that he confined himself to adolescent genres in which > his grown-up talents could not truly shine? But I think that question > would be wrong in its assumptions: wrong about Vance, about genre and > about what “adolescent” and “grown-up” mean when we talk about literary > sensibility.
> WHEN I WAS 14 or so, in the late ’70s, I knew an Advanced Boy, a > connoisseur of all that was cooler than whatever his classmates were > listening to, smoking or reading. I was impressed with myself for having > graduated from Tolkien to E. R. Eddison and Michael Moorcock. “Kid > stuff,” said the Advanced Boy. “Try this.” He handed me a paperback copy > of Vance’s “Eyes of the Overworld.” On the cover a giant lizardlike > creature was tipping over a rowboat containing a man in regulation > swords-and-sorcery attire and a buxom woman in regulation dishabille.
> I can remember the exact lines on the second page that sank the hook in > me for keeps, a passing exchange of dialogue between two hawkers of > sorcerous curios at a bazaar:
> “ ‘I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies > the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I > thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my > booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I > must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises > during the night.’
> ‘No need,’ said Cugel. ‘My interest was cursory.’ ”
> The feral, angling politesse, the marriage of high-flown language to low > motives, the way Cugel’s clipped phrases rounded off Fianosther’s ornate > ones — I felt myself seized by a writer’s style in a way I had never > experienced before. Vance didn’t even have to describe the “captive > erb.” The phrase itself conjured up rows of teeth and the awful strength > of a long, sinewy body surging up your leg.
> Cugel soon finds himself in Smolod, a village whose inhabitants wear > magical eye cusps that transform their fetid surroundings into apparent > splendor. The cusps are relics of the demon Unda-Hrada’s incursion from > the subworld La-Er during the Cutz Wars of the 18th Aeon. “I dimly > recall that I inhabit a sty and devour the coarsest of food,” one elder > admits, “but the subjective reality is that I inhabit a glorious palace > and dine on splendid viands among the princes and princesses who are my > peers.” It’s a typical Vancian setup: a few bold conceptual strokes, > ripe descriptions and evocative names combine to fully realize a weird > place that feels real — because the meatiness of his language endows it > with presence, but also because every reader lives in a place sort of > like it.
> Cugel manages to steal a single cusp before fleeing Smolod ahead of an > angry mob. It’s merely the first stop on his journey across the Dying > Earth, a realm of cynical wonders in which the last exemplars of human > civilization go about the age-old business of lying, cheating and > stealing to satisfy base desires as the enfeebled sun falters toward > final darkness.
> I read the book in a kind of rapt delirium and went looking for more. In > addition to picaresque fantasy, Vance has written science fantasy, > planetary romance, extraterrestrial mystery, revenge sagas and > less-classifiable speculative adventure tales on scales ranging from the > short story to the multivolume chronicle. For good measure, he wrote 11 > mysteries under his given name, John Holbrook Vance, and three more > under the floating pseudonym Ellery Queen. He had a brief stint early in > his career as a writer for the Captain Video television series, and over > the years several of his stories have been optioned, but Hollywood has > not snapped up his work as it snapped up, say, Philip K. Dick’s. Part of > Hollywood’s lack of interest in Vance can be traced, I think, to an > oversimple reading of him as a
> [This is a great article about one of the greatest writers.--DC]
> The New York Times > July 19, 2009 > The Genre Artist > By CARLO ROTELLA
> Jack Vance, described by his peers as “a major genius” and “the greatest > living writer of science fiction and fantasy,” has been hidden in plain > sight for as long as he has been publishing — six decades and counting. > Yes, he has won Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards and has been named > a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, > and he received an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America, but such > honors only help to camouflage him as just another accomplished genre > writer. So do the covers of his books, which feature the usual > spacecraft, monsters and euphonious place names: Lyonesse, Alastor, > Durdane. If you had never read Vance and were browsing a bookstore’s > shelf, you might have no particular reason to choose one of his books > instead of one next to it by A. E. van Vogt, say, or John Varley. And if > you chose one of these alternatives, you would go on your way to the > usual thrills with no idea that you had just missed out on encountering > one of American literature’s most distinctive and undervalued voices.
> That’s how Vance’s fans see it, anyway. Among them are authors who have > gained the big paydays and the fame that Vance never enjoyed. Dan > Simmons, the best-selling writer of horror and fantasy, described > discovering Vance as “a revelation for me, like coming to Proust or > Henry James. Suddenly you’re in the deep end of the pool. He gives you > glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he’d > been born south of the border, he’d be up for a Nobel Prize.” Michael > Chabon, whose distinguished literary reputation allows him to employ > popular formulas without being labeled a genre writer, told me: “Jack > Vance is the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel > don’t get the credit they deserve. If ‘The Last Castle’ or ‘The Dragon > Masters’ had the name Italo Calvino on it, or just a foreign name, it > would be received as a profound meditation, but because he’s Jack Vance > and published in Amazing Whatever, there’s this insurmountable barrier.”
> The barrier has not proved insurmountable to other genre writers — like > Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, who have commanded critical respect > while moving a lot of satisfyingly familiar product, or like H. P. > Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler, pulp writers whose posthumous > reputations rose over time until they passed the threshold of highbrow > acceptance. But each of these writers, no matter how innovative or > poetic, entered the literary mainstream by fully exploiting the > attributes of his specialty. Vance, by contrast, has worked entirely > within popular forms without paying much heed to their conventions or > signature joys. His emphasis falls on the unexpected note, the odd beat. > The rocket ships are just ways to get characters from one cogently > imagined society to another; he prefers to tersely summarize battle > scenes and other such potentially crowd-pleasing set pieces; and he > takes greatest pleasure in word-music when exploring humankind’s rich > capacity for nastiness. For example: “As he approached the outermost > fields he moved cautiously, skulking from tussock to copse, and > presently found that which he sought: a peasant turning the dank soil > with a mattock. Cugel crept quietly forward, struck down the loon with a > gnarled root.” While Vance may play by the rules of whatever genre he > works in, his true genre is the Jack Vance story.
> His loyal readers are fiercely passionate about him. An inspired crew of > them got together in the late 1990s to assemble the Vance Integral > Edition, a handsome 45-volume set of the great man’s complete works in > definitive editions. Led by Paul Rhoads, an American painter living in > France (whose recent critical appraisal of Vance, “Winged Being,” > compares him to Oswald Spengler and Jane Austen, among others, and > anoints him the anti-Paul Auster), the V.I.E. volunteers painstakingly > compared editions and the author’s drafts to restore prose corrupted by > publishers. Hard-core Vancians also created Totality (pharesm.org), a > Web site where you can search the V.I.E. texts, which is how we know > that he has used the word “punctilio” exactly 33 times in his published > prose. It was an extraordinary display of true readerly love — a bunch > of buffs giving a contemporary genre writer the Shakespearean variorum > treatment on their own time.
> Vance, who is 92, says that his new book — a memoir, “This Is Me, Jack > Vance!” — will definitely be his last. Also arriving in bookstores this > month is “Songs of the Dying Earth,” a collection of stories by other > writers set in the far-future milieu that Vance introduced in some of > his first published stories, which he wrote on a clipboard on the deck > of a freighter in the South Pacific while serving in the merchant marine > during World War II. The roster of contributors to the collection > includes genre stars and best-selling brand names, among them Simmons, > Neil Gaiman, Terry Dowling, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin and Dean > Koontz. It’s a literary tribute album, in effect, on which reliable > earners acknowledge the influence of a respectably semiobscure national > treasure by covering his songs.
> Right about now you might be thinking, Well, if Vance is as good as > Simmons and Chabon and Rhoads say he is, and if he refused to give in to > the demands of the genres in which he worked, then maybe he would have > done better to try other forms that better rewarded his strengths — > isn’t it a shame that he confined himself to adolescent genres in which > his grown-up talents could not truly shine? But I think that question > would be wrong in its assumptions: wrong about Vance, about genre and > about what “adolescent” and “grown-up” mean when we talk about literary > sensibility.
> WHEN I WAS 14 or so, in the late ’70s, I knew an Advanced Boy, a > connoisseur of all that was cooler than whatever his classmates were > listening to, smoking or reading. I was impressed with myself for having > graduated from Tolkien to E. R. Eddison and Michael Moorcock. “Kid > stuff,” said the Advanced Boy. “Try this.” He handed me a paperback copy > of Vance’s “Eyes of the Overworld.” On the cover a giant lizardlike > creature was tipping over a rowboat containing a man in regulation > swords-and-sorcery attire and a buxom woman in regulation dishabille.
> I can remember the exact lines on the second page that sank the hook in > me for keeps, a passing exchange of dialogue between two hawkers of > sorcerous curios at a bazaar:
> “ ‘I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies > the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I > thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my > booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I > must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises > during the night.’
> ‘No need,’ said Cugel. ‘My interest was cursory.’ ”
> The feral, angling politesse, the marriage of high-flown language to low > motives, the way Cugel’s clipped phrases rounded off Fianosther’s ornate > ones — I felt myself seized by a writer’s style in a way I had never > experienced before. Vance didn’t even have to describe the “captive > erb.” The phrase itself conjured up rows of teeth and the awful strength > of a long, sinewy body surging up your leg.
> Cugel soon finds himself in Smolod, a village whose inhabitants wear > magical eye cusps that transform their fetid surroundings into apparent > splendor. The cusps are relics of the demon Unda-Hrada’s incursion from > the subworld La-Er during the Cutz Wars of the 18th Aeon. “I dimly > recall that I inhabit a sty and devour the coarsest of food,” one elder > admits, “but the subjective reality is that I inhabit a glorious palace > and dine on splendid viands among the princes and princesses who are my > peers.” It’s a typical Vancian setup: a few bold conceptual strokes, > ripe descriptions and evocative names combine to fully realize a weird > place that feels real — because the meatiness of his language endows it > with presence, but also because every reader lives in a place sort of > like it.
> Cugel manages to steal a single cusp before fleeing Smolod ahead of an > angry mob. It’s merely the first stop on his journey across the Dying > Earth, a realm of cynical wonders in which the last exemplars of human > civilization go about the age-old business of lying, cheating and > stealing to satisfy base desires as the enfeebled sun falters toward > final darkness.
> I read the book in a kind of rapt delirium and went looking for more. In > addition to picaresque fantasy, Vance has written science fantasy, > planetary romance, extraterrestrial mystery, revenge sagas and > less-classifiable speculative adventure tales on scales ranging from the > short story to the multivolume chronicle. For good measure, he wrote 11 > mysteries under his given name, John Holbrook Vance, and three more > under the floating pseudonym Ellery Queen. He had a brief stint early in > his career as a writer for the Captain Video television series, and over > the years several of his stories have been optioned, but Hollywood has > not snapped up his work as it snapped up, say, Philip K. Dick’s. Part of > Hollywood’s lack of interest in Vance can be traced, I think, to an > oversimple reading of him as a
> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF > authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't > think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had > Asimov in mind.
I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was marketing, rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always envied the cool kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
> Al Smith wrote: >> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >> Asimov in mind.
> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was marketing, > rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always envied the cool > kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with Heinlein and Clarke. I read a lot of his novels and stories and enjoyed them -- I even read the "Foundation" trilogy which was a bit ponderous and boring -- but I never considered him in the same rank as Clarke or Heinlein. Asimov never really came up with much in the way of big ideas. He is remembered for his three laws of robotics, and that's about it. I suppose it could be said that he was forward thinking with his whole concept of scientific prediction of social trends, but that's not a very exciting idea -- at least, I didn't find it exciting at age 14 or so, when I read about it. Still don't, for that matter. Asimov is best remembered for being so damned prolific.
In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
> On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: > > Al Smith wrote: > >> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF > >> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't > >> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had > >> Asimov in mind.
> > I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was marketing, > > rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always envied the cool > > kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with > Heinlein and Clarke.
Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably in the 1980's I was not convinced.
I think some marketeer, who cared not a whit for science fiction but had an eye for sales, picked out those three names.
Heinlein, yes.
Clarke, maybe... more for the movie 2001 than anything else.
Asimov? I really think his "appeal" in the latter part of his career was based on his willingness to write sequels, prequels, and what-do-you-call-them? in-quels? linking up novels and series from the 1940's and 1950's. This was a a marketing-driven operation. Of course the marketeers thought it was good. Should anyone else?
Why is not Poul Anderson on the short list of mid-century SF greats? I think he beats out Asimov, and gives Clarke a hard fight. From the marketeer's point of view he had a limitation: he tended to write novellas and "short novels" at his best. E. g., many of the books in the Flandry series are stitchups of two or three stories and still come out slender. But they are rereadable. And so are the early stories on the "Operation Chaos" series. And so are the early "Time Patrol" stories.
-- Christopher J. Henrich chenr...@monmouth.com http://www.mathinteract.com "A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver." -- Boon
Here, Christopher Henrich <chenr...@monmouth.com> wrote:
> In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, > Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
> > Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with > > Heinlein and Clarke.
> Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably > in the 1980's I was not convinced.
That's because it was a fannish cultural holdover from the late 1960s, early 1970s. I think the definition shifted invisibly from "the important authors writing SF now" to "the authors who got me reading SF" to "the authors who influenced all the current SF writers." Followed by "They sure had a lot of influence, didn't they?"
(However, the "Big Three" as I remember it included Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Bradbury. In various combinations.)
--Z
-- "And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..." *
> Here, Christopher Henrich <chenr...@monmouth.com> wrote: > > In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, > > Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
> > > Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with > > > Heinlein and Clarke.
> > Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably > > in the 1980's I was not convinced.
> That's because it was a fannish cultural holdover from the late 1960s, > early 1970s.
Hrm. I see I was failing to respond to what you actually said. Sorry, context blowout.
"Big Three" was something I was aware of as soon as I started picking up SF culture at all. Which couldn't have been later than 1980. (I was browsing my father's Analog collection earlier than that.) The Foundation trilogy was still a trilogy, Rama and 2001 had no sequels, and people were still arguing whether _Number of the Beast_ represented Heinlein going nuts or transcending. (Okay, the concensus was on "nuts".)
--Z
-- "And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..." *
Al Smith wrote: > On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: >> Al Smith wrote: >>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >>> Asimov in mind.
>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was >> marketing, rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always >> envied the cool kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with Heinlein > and Clarke. I read a lot of his novels and stories and enjoyed them -- I > even read the "Foundation" trilogy which was a bit ponderous and boring > -- but I never considered him in the same rank as Clarke or Heinlein. > Asimov never really came up with much in the way of big ideas. He is > remembered for his three laws of robotics, and that's about it. I > suppose it could be said that he was forward thinking with his whole > concept of scientific prediction of social trends, but that's not a very > exciting idea -- at least, I didn't find it exciting at age 14 or so, > when I read about it. Still don't, for that matter. Asimov is best > remembered for being so damned prolific.
He was an absolute master of the short SF "Idea" story, better than RAH, at least as good as Clarke. He was also the one who established the SF mystery as a workable subgenre. And as you note he created the Laws of Robotics, which changed the entire approach of the genre to the concept of robots.
Christopher Henrich wrote: > In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, > Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
>> On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: >>> Al Smith wrote: >>>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >>>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >>>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >>>> Asimov in mind. >>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was marketing, >>> rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always envied the cool >>> kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
>> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with >> Heinlein and Clarke. > Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably > in the 1980's I was not convinced.
Er, dude, that was like 30 years after it was first made. RAH, Clarke, and Asimov were the Big Three.
> I think some marketeer, who cared not a whit for science fiction but had > an eye for sales, picked out those three names.
> Heinlein, yes.
> Clarke, maybe... more for the movie 2001 than anything else.
Childhood's End. Rendezvous with Rama. A *SLEW* of classic short stories (The Nine Billion Names of God, The Star, A Walk in the Dark, The Wind From the Sun...)
2001 was a latecomer and more adding one more jewel to the crown than being a career maker.
> Asimov? I really think his "appeal" in the latter part of his career > was based on his willingness to write sequels, prequels, and > what-do-you-call-them? in-quels? linking up novels and series from the > 1940's and 1950's. This was a a marketing-driven operation. Of course > the marketeers thought it was good. Should anyone else?
The original Robot stories and novels changed the face of SF in those areas. The Foundation series had tremendous impact when first published and still has resonance with many writers today. Asimov's countless short stories included many gems of significance, perhaps the best known being "Nightfall" and "The Dead Past".
He was one of the reigning stars of SF in those days; the 80s was after the heyday of ALL of them, RAH included.
> Why is not Poul Anderson on the short list of mid-century SF greats?
He wouldn't make the top three for sure. He was good, and rated well, but never in the top three for their era.
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> writes:
> He was an absolute master of the short SF "Idea" story, better > than RAH, at least as good as Clarke. He was also the one who > established the SF mystery as a workable subgenre. And as you note he > created the Laws of Robotics, which changed the entire approach of the > genre to the concept of robots.
And anyway, it would seem rather weird to term Asimov a "jackass or a showoff" -- his public persona, at least, seemed very straight-forward and friendly. [I'd think RAH would be a better target for those terms, actually, if one needs to pick from amongst the top-three...]
Though knows what kind of wacky internal squabbles were going on....
-Miles
-- Yo mama's so fat when she gets on an elevator it HAS to go down.
Miles Bader wrote: > "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> writes: >> He was an absolute master of the short SF "Idea" story, better >> than RAH, at least as good as Clarke. He was also the one who >> established the SF mystery as a workable subgenre. And as you note he >> created the Laws of Robotics, which changed the entire approach of the >> genre to the concept of robots.
> And anyway, it would seem rather weird to term Asimov a "jackass or a > showoff" -- his public persona, at least, seemed very straight-forward > and friendly.
If you were female it could go from amusing to highly creepy. If you were male, he was a pretty bombastic personality and could feel OTT and so on. This is from accounts I've heard from people who knew him; I saw him once but never got to talk with him at any length.
> Al Smith wrote: >> On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: >>> Al Smith wrote: >>>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >>>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >>>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >>>> Asimov in mind.
>>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was >>> marketing, rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always >>> envied the cool kids to finally finding a place where he was one of >>> them.
>> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with Heinlein >> and Clarke. I read a lot of his novels and stories and enjoyed them -- >> I even read the "Foundation" trilogy which was a bit ponderous and >> boring -- but I never considered him in the same rank as Clarke or >> Heinlein. Asimov never really came up with much in the way of big >> ideas. He is remembered for his three laws of robotics, and that's >> about it. I suppose it could be said that he was forward thinking with >> his whole concept of scientific prediction of social trends, but >> that's not a very exciting idea -- at least, I didn't find it exciting >> at age 14 or so, when I read about it. Still don't, for that matter. >> Asimov is best remembered for being so damned prolific.
> He was an absolute master of the short SF "Idea" story, better than > RAH, at least as good as Clarke. He was also the one who established the > SF mystery as a workable subgenre. And as you note he created the Laws > of Robotics, which changed the entire approach of the genre to the > concept of robots.
Asimov's ideas weren't important ideas. They didn't stick around, or make any waves in science fiction, or in life.
Heinlein conceived the water bed (which was actually popularized), rolling roads, powered military exo-armour, tribbles, the Crazy Years, techno-fascism, intelligent computers, robotic vacuums, freezing of corpses for later revival, and too many other major and minor things to list. Our conceptions of ballistic interplanetary space flight largely stem from Heinlein's writings.
Clarke conceived the communication satellite and popularized the concept of a space elevator.
Other than the three laws, what outstanding concepts did Asimov originate -- concepts that have carried over to other science fiction writers, and into actual life?
Al Smith wrote: > Asimov's ideas weren't important ideas. They didn't stick around, or > make any waves in science fiction,
You mention the Three Laws. Those alone had immense impact on SF, and potentially may in real life -- albeit not exactly as he envisioned them. The concept, however, carries over and has been used in many works that he never wrote nor had interaction with.
And whether the ideas were important or not was irrelevant to the fact that he was Damn Good at writing those stories, which is why he was one of the top three SF authors of that era.
> Christopher Henrich wrote: >> In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, >> Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
>>> On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: >>>> Al Smith wrote: >>>>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >>>>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >>>>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >>>>> Asimov in mind. >>>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was >>>> marketing, rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always >>>> envied the cool kids to finally finding a place where he was one of >>>> them.
>>> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with Heinlein >>> and Clarke. >> Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably >> in the 1980's I was not convinced.
> Er, dude, that was like 30 years after it was first made. RAH, Clarke, > and Asimov were the Big Three.
I became aware of this sort of thing in the late Sixties/early Seventies. The impression I had was that Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Bradbury were the Big Three, depending on who was talking.
In article <h44mib$9p...@news.eternal-september.org>, Al Smith <inva...@address.com> writes: >On 7/21/2009 7:18 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote: >> He was an absolute master of the short SF "Idea" story, better than >> RAH, at least as good as Clarke. He was also the one who established the >> SF mystery as a workable subgenre. And as you note he created the Laws >> of Robotics, which changed the entire approach of the genre to the >> concept of robots.
>Asimov's ideas weren't important ideas. They didn't stick around, or >make any waves in science fiction, or in life.
Search around for "AAAI" and "Three Laws" before you say something like that.
>Heinlein conceived the water bed
He might have been conceived *on* one, since they date back to the nineteenth century.
>rolling roads, powered military exo-armour, tribbles, the Crazy >Years, techno-fascism, intelligent computers, robotic vacuums, >freezing of corpses for later revival, and too many other major and >minor things to list.
Most of which still don't exist, so these ideas don't seem to have made any waves, either.
>Clarke conceived the communication satellite and popularized the >concept of a space elevator.
Although I'm not much of a Clarke fan, these were more significant than any of either Asimov's or Heinlein's ideas.
-- Michael F. Stemper #include <Standard_Disclaimer> Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
On 7/21/2009 12:16 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> Al Smith wrote:
>> Asimov's ideas weren't important ideas. They didn't stick around, or >> make any waves in science fiction,
> You mention the Three Laws. Those alone had immense impact on SF, > and potentially may in real life -- albeit not exactly as he envisioned > them. The concept, however, carries over and has been used in many works > that he never wrote nor had interaction with.
> And whether the ideas were important or not was irrelevant to the > fact that he was Damn Good at writing those stories, which is why he was > one of the top three SF authors of that era.
The Three Laws were an important contribution to science fiction, granted.
> Christopher Henrich wrote: > > In article <h437m4$ih...@news.eternal-september.org>, > > Al Smith <inva...@address.com> wrote:
> >> On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: > >>> Al Smith wrote: > >>>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF > >>>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't > >>>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had > >>>> Asimov in mind. > >>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was > >>> marketing, > >>> rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always envied the cool > >>> kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
> >> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with > >> Heinlein and Clarke. > > Always?? I remember hearing this assertion for the first time, probably > > in the 1980's I was not convinced.
> Er, dude, that was like 30 years after it was first made. RAH, Clarke, > and Asimov were the Big Three.
> > I think some marketeer, who cared not a whit for science fiction but had > > an eye for sales, picked out those three names.
> > Heinlein, yes.
> > Clarke, maybe... more for the movie 2001 than anything else.
> Childhood's End. Rendezvous with Rama. A *SLEW* of classic short > stories (The Nine Billion Names of God, The Star, A Walk in the Dark, > The Wind From the Sun...)
> 2001 was a latecomer and more adding one more jewel to the crown than > being a career maker.
> > Asimov? I really think his "appeal" in the latter part of his career > > was based on his willingness to write sequels, prequels, and > > what-do-you-call-them? in-quels? linking up novels and series from the > > 1940's and 1950's. This was a a marketing-driven operation. Of course > > the marketeers thought it was good. Should anyone else?
> The original Robot stories and novels changed the face of SF in those > areas. The Foundation series had tremendous impact when first published > and still has resonance with many writers today. Asimov's countless > short stories included many gems of significance, perhaps the best known > being "Nightfall" and "The Dead Past".
> He was one of the reigning stars of SF in those days; the 80s was after > the heyday of ALL of them, RAH included.
Well, I think I've been set right.
> > Why is not Poul Anderson on the short list of mid-century SF greats?
> He wouldn't make the top three for sure. He was good, and rated well, > but never in the top three for their era.
-- Christopher J. Henrich chenr...@monmouth.com http://www.mathinteract.com "A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver." -- Boon
On Jul 20, 10:45 pm, Christopher Henrich <chenr...@monmouth.com> wrote:
> Why is not Poul Anderson on the short list of mid-century SF greats?
That is a difficult question. He's very readable (and as you say, re- readable), won a huge number of awards (seven Hugos and three Nebulae, Google tells me), and was very productive.
He had his own voice, as well, a good knowledge of history and mythology, and for all the optimism characteristic of the field, a realism that goes down well (i.e. Flandry is not going to save the empire, however great his achievements, at best he will postpone the collapse a bit). I like his fiction a lot and back when I made lists (which I couldn't do now), I usually put him in the top five.
Though he consistently wrote well, I think the reason he wasn't then listed as one of the top few SF writers may be that he never had a novel (or set of stories) that really shook the field, as early Heinlein did, or Asimov's robot stories (alternate title "You're doing robots all wrong, you idiots"). Something to make readers sit up and pay attention.
Or it may just be that he was younger, still a bit of a new writer when people were talking about the "big three" back in the 1960s.
Al Smith wrote: > On 7/20/2009 8:45 PM, Mike Schilling wrote: >> Al Smith wrote: >>> Just read the article. Now I want to know which well known SF >>> authors Jack Vance thinks are a "jackass or a show-off." I can't >>> think he'd say that about Heinlein or Clarke, but I bet he had >>> Asimov in mind.
>> I think you're right. He thought Asimov's behavior at cons was >> marketing, rather than the natural reaction of someone who'd always >> envied the cool kids to finally finding a place where he was one of them.
> Asimov was always ranked as one of the big three, along with Heinlein > and Clarke. I read a lot of his novels and stories and enjoyed them -- I > even read the "Foundation" trilogy which was a bit ponderous and boring > -- but I never considered him in the same rank as Clarke or Heinlein. > Asimov never really came up with much in the way of big ideas. He is > remembered for his three laws of robotics, and that's about it. I > suppose it could be said that he was forward thinking with his whole > concept of scientific prediction of social trends, but that's not a very > exciting idea -- at least, I didn't find it exciting at age 14 or so, > when I read about it. Still don't, for that matter. Asimov is best > remembered for being so damned prolific.
On the other hand, I can't think of an Asimov novel that I actually disliked, whereas I hated all the later Clarke and Heinlein books.
Christopher Henrich wrote: > Why is not Poul Anderson on the short list of mid-century SF greats? I > think he beats out Asimov, and gives Clarke a hard fight. From the > marketeer's point of view he had a limitation: he tended to write > novellas and "short novels" at his best. E. g., many of the books in the > Flandry series are stitchups of two or three stories and still come out > slender. But they are rereadable. And so are the early stories on the > "Operation Chaos" series. And so are the early "Time Patrol" stories.
I liked Poul Anderson and also Damon Knight - didn't they collaborate at some point or am I thinking of someone else? --
Kurt Busiek wrote: > I became aware of this sort of thing in the late Sixties/early > Seventies. The impression I had was that Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and > Bradbury were the Big Three, depending on who was talking.
It always seemed to me that people with "literary" tastes that lauded Bradbury, who, in my memory, mainly wrote short horror stories. I'm afraid I never liked him. Someone, no-one has mentioned is the British writer, John Wyndham, even if he is best remembered for "The Day of the Triffids". There was also James Blish, who wrote some good stuff, but not always.
On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:21:10 -0700, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>I became aware of this sort of thing in the late Sixties/early >Seventies. The impression I had was that Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and >Bradbury were the Big Three, depending on who was talking.
It changes over time. At one time A. E. Van Vogt was often mentioned as such, but he isn't remembered that fondly now.
-- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
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