(1st post) IF and Critical Theory
Andrew Plotkin
here:
tabl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> 2: GENRE: The discussion on genre has been mostly limited to defining genre
> by style and subject matter rather than genre as defined by inherent
> structure.
Genre *is* a matter of style and subject matter (and, to some extent,
intent). I don't think structure applies, simply because I see every kind
of structure possible in (say) SF or fantasy writing.
> What to what genre of structure does IF most easily lend itself?
> Is it possible for IF to follow a Classical mode of Tragedy? of Comedy? Does
> the structure of presentation of IF make it inherently Postmodern?
Those aren't genres, as I understand the term... but tragedy or comedy (in
the classical sense) should be fully applicable. I don't know if anyone's
*done* them.
Hm. _Infidel_ probably counts as tragedy.
As for Postmodern, I don't use that word.
> 3: CANON: What is the canon of interactive fiction? (or: Which works and
> authors do the IF establishment consider "major works?")
The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer. When
the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
The "list of major works" is a much more answerable question, and I refer
you to the XYZZY ratings page or Dejanews. :-) (Just search for people
asking, "I'm new at IF, what's good out there?")
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Andrew Plotkin
> Hm. _Infidel_ probably counts as [classical] tragedy.
Great purple dooglies -- I completely forgot about _Varicella_.
Sort of an ensemble-cast classical tragedy.
Magnus Olsson
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> Hm. _Infidel_ probably counts as [classical] tragedy.
>
>Great purple dooglies -- I completely forgot about _Varicella_.
>
>Sort of an ensemble-cast classical tragedy.
Funny; I saw it as a (very black) comedy - discounting the epilogue,
which I don't think belongs to the story proper.
_Photopia_ is the closest thing to a tragedy that I've seen yet.
It's not a classical tragedy in any sense, but it's tragic, and the
catharsis is certainly there.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
Nick Montfort
to save most of my virtual breath for discussion of techniques directly
useful to authors rather than critical theory.) But since we're being
critical for now...
In article <87md1u$du9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, tabl...@my-deja.com wrote:
> 1. STRUCTURE: What is the current model for IF in its fledgling
state (the general consensus seems to be either film or prose)
No, the consensus model is very clearly "game." Critics, who come from
a background of film and literary criticism, assume that the medium
should be like film or prose, despite the fact that everyone calls IF
works "games" and refers to the person who interacts with them as
the "player," not the "audience" or "reader." Anthropoligical study of
games is probably going to be more fruitful than literary theory for
formal analysis of IF, but that's a matter for critics to determine.
> Does
> the structure of presentation of IF make it inherently Postmodern?
Whatever you mean by postmodern (a term that ususally does not signify
at all) this is an absurd question. IF presents a sort of toy or model
world in which all the components and behaviors are defined. The
general pattern is that the interactor assumes the unitary persona of
the protagonist. Then the interactor proceeds to find out everything
about the narrative world, conqering all of its secrets and solving all
of the puzzles that are presented to reach a victorious conclusion. How
is that postmodern?
> 3: CANON: What is the canon of interactive fiction?
Interesting question for someone wondering if the medium is inherently
postmodern...
Overall -- to come at IF from the standpoint of critical theory -- your
set of questions seems like a reasonable starting point.
-Nick M.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <87mvom$dll$1...@nntp5.atl.mindspring.net>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>> Hm. _Infidel_ probably counts as [classical] tragedy.
>>
>>Great purple dooglies -- I completely forgot about _Varicella_.
>>
>>Sort of an ensemble-cast classical tragedy.
>
> Funny; I saw it as a (very black) comedy - discounting the epilogue,
> which I don't think belongs to the story proper.
Really? Huh. I can't separate it from the story in my head.
> _Photopia_ is the closest thing to a tragedy that I've seen yet.
> It's not a classical tragedy in any sense, but it's tragic, and the
> catharsis is certainly there.
Agreed, but (as you said) not in the classical sense, which is what the
original poster asked about.
Magnus Olsson
Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> 1. STRUCTURE: What is the current model for IF in its fledgling
>state (the general consensus seems to be either film or prose)
>
>No, the consensus model is very clearly "game."
Be careful when you speak of "consensus" here. I'm not sure a
consensus exists.
But, OK, almost everybody calls IF games. Does that exclude
film or prose as models for IF? I'm not so sure about that;
rather, I think we're talking about different kinds of models,
modelling different levels of reality. Or something.
>> Does
>> the structure of presentation of IF make it inherently Postmodern?
>
>Whatever you mean by postmodern (a term that ususally does not signify
>at all) this is an absurd question. IF presents a sort of toy or model
>world in which all the components and behaviors are defined. The
>general pattern is that the interactor assumes the unitary persona of
>the protagonist. Then the interactor proceeds to find out everything
>about the narrative world, conqering all of its secrets and solving all
>of the puzzles that are presented to reach a victorious conclusion. How
>is that postmodern?
There are postmodern aspects to IF: the eclectic way in which various
traditions and styles are mixed together, and the ironic commentary
and more or less deliberate breakin of the fourth wall. Of course,
whether the last features are modern or postmodern is open to debate.
David Samuel Myers
: The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer. When
: the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
Gee, I hope we don't slip into dark ages any time soon.
Nick Montfort
m...@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> In article <87nblh$5m1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >> 1. STRUCTURE: What is the current model for IF in its fledgling
> >state (the general consensus seems to be either film or prose)
> >
> >No, the consensus model is very clearly "game."
>
> Be careful when you speak of "consensus" here. I'm not sure a
> consensus exists.
True - I used the term only because it was there to begin with, and I
shouldn't have. People do very different things with the medium. I shy
away from the "game" and "player" terminology myself, since, as an IF
creator (and reader, for that matter) I prefer to view IF as literature.
I've made the same elaborate mistake before, though, of looking at IF
critically and ignoring the underlying "game" nature of IF because
literary criticism seemed to be the expected tool to use and "gaming"
isn't chic. I'd hate to see this offhand mistake made again at a later
date...
Mary J Mcmenomy
: In article <87md1u$du9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, tabl...@my-deja.com wrote:
: > Does
: > the structure of presentation of IF make it inherently Postmodern?
: Whatever you mean by postmodern (a term that ususally does not signify
: at all) this is an absurd question. IF presents a sort of toy or model
: world in which all the components and behaviors are defined. The
: general pattern is that the interactor assumes the unitary persona of
: the protagonist. Then the interactor proceeds to find out everything
: about the narrative world, conqering all of its secrets and solving all
: of the puzzles that are presented to reach a victorious conclusion. How
: is that postmodern?
If there is something postmodern in this scenario, I would say it resides
here: in the newsgroups and the ifMUD, in the community of player/authors
who are acutely sensitive to the processes by which they write/play IF --
and who enjoy talking about these processes so much that the discussion
becomes a substitute for actual writing and actual playing.
Which remark itself is so very meta- that I feel the need to go off and
code right now, as naively as I can.
--
Mary McMenomy
Dept of Classical Studies,
University of Pennsylvania
Andrew Plotkin
European history.
So you should watch out for a New Wave instead. Or was there something
before that? I'm not really an expert.
J Walrus
David Samuel Myers <dmy...@sparky.ic.sunysb.edu> wrote in message
news:389f7...@dilbert.ic.sunysb.edu...
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> : The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer.
When
> : the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
>
> Gee, I hope we don't slip into dark ages any time soon.
I think (hope) that that 'When' should have been an 'If ever'.
JW
Philip Goetz
> 1. STRUCTURE: What is the current model for IF in its fledgling state
(the
> general consensus seems to be either film or prose), and how does this
model
> bias the works of IF that are produced? Can the model be changed (perhaps
to
> theatre, dance, or poetry)? If so, what changes do or would occur? If
changes
> occur, do they remove the work from the definition of IF forcing a new
term
> to be defined? Do the terms "Interactive Fiction" and "Text Adventure"
bias
> artists and viewers? If so, in what ways?
I like Brenda Laurel's division of IF into interactive drama (visual,
usually 3D,
real-time, physical interface -- think Half-Life) and interactive fiction
(text-based, turn-based, sentence interface). The model for interactive
drama is movies (Zoesis) or games (Half-Life); the model for interactive
fiction is prose (Photopia, Tapestry) or games (Zork). "The Space Under
the Window" by Plotkin* is a little more like poetry, IMHO. But interactive
poetry would be tough! I wouldn't even try. Interactive theatre suggests a
multiplayer environment, whether text or graphics, with a dramatic model
rather than a gameplaying model.
I interviewed at Valve (Half-Life) on the theory that they were getting
closer to
interactive drama than anyone other than Zoesis, but it turned out they
want to stick to doing shooters and not risk losing the adolescent male
demographic. I also interviewed with Sony, but they were really
focused on graphics and did not seem to have AI concerns on their
minds at all. (They announced that the Playstation 2 would have an
"emotion engine"; later it turned out that all it was was a graphics
processor. To their minds, that's what is needed to convey emotions
-- higher resolution at more polygons per second.) IMHO pfMagic
(Petz) is doing the most interesting work today in interactive drama.
They are interested in behavior-based stories, but not going to try
for dramatically-structured plots. Zoesis will be worth watching if
they ever bring a product to market. (I don't work there anymore.)
> 2: GENRE: The discussion on genre has been mostly limited to defining
genre
> by style and subject matter rather than genre as defined by inherent
> structure. What to what genre of structure does IF most easily lend
itself?
> Is it possible for IF to follow a Classical mode of Tragedy? of Comedy?
Does
> the structure of presentation of IF make it inherently Postmodern?
As I've argued before, IF inherently appeals to postmodernists because it
is in some sense inherently deconstructionist (or post-structuralist, or
whatever
the current jargon is). A narrative is disassembled and reassembled in an
unknown order. It is IMHO very unfortunate that, in the literary world,
everyone interested in IF (ex: Richard Coover, Michael Joyce) has been
interested in it strictly for its postmodernist possibilities. They wrote
hyperfictions which the reader must meander through, unable to find the
central narrative -- the whole point of these works is that there IS no
central narrative, no preferred story, but a set of intersecting stories.
(You might be thinking of Photopia, but that was very different -- more
like The Sound and the Fury, a central story seen from different
viewpoints.)
These Coover & Joyce stories have a beginning but no end.
Coover & Joyce are authors who wanted NOT to tell a story. IMHO
their work had experimental value but, as a reader, I would rather read
the phone book. I am afraid that these eager postmodernists have already
given IF a bad name.
IF is perfectly capable of telling a traditional story which has a
beginning,
middle, and end.
> 3: CANON: What is the canon of interactive fiction? (or: Which works and
> authors do the IF establishment consider "major works?")
Infocom (though, personally, none of my favorites are Infocom games)
and the games most discussed here. Maybe a short list of groundbreaking
stories -- can someone correct and add to this list? Roughly chronological
order:
Adventureland -- first PC adventure
Softporn (I think this was remade with graphics as Leisure Suit Larry) --
first porn IF
Mystery House? -- first graphic IF
Deadline -- landmark in use of NPCs
Planetfall -- another landmark NPC; first attempt to force the player to
make
unpleasant choices (the lizard puzzle)
A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the world
or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving a mystery
or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this long?
Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
Carmilla's Kiss -- A vampire game that was an early tightly-plotted,
repeated, multiplayer IF. There were plotted multiplayer games before
that; they just didn't have episode names to refer to, and they were
played
only once.
That Graham Nelson game with the checkerboard puzzle and the pyramid,
whose name escapes my swiss-cheese memory, where you try to prevent
history from being changed -- first intentional use of ambiguous gender
roles
Tapestry -- first linear (ok, 3-branched), non-puzzle-based IF
In The End -- actually, I don't want to list this one, since it was
obviously
made with the intention of being a first, and didn't really succeed for
me as a dramatic work. It brought an idea up for discussion but
didn't demonstrate it satisfactorily.
Insert here first game that cannot be made non-winnable
> Subquestion: Who constitutes the "IF establishment?"
I do.
>Does the concepts of the Male Gaze or Veil of Race apply to IF?
I dunno. What are they? Did you really expect us to know?
> 5: MATERIALIST CRITICISM: In what ways do pieces of IF, in whole or in
part,
> work within the ideological framework of the world in which it exists
and/or
> the world it portrays? (Example: Do games like Zork enforce a capitalist
> ideology?)
I wanted to insert here a parody ideological critique of Zork and Quake III:
Arena, but was afraid it would be taken seriously.
> I hope you have some ideas. I have some of my own, but am waiting to get
some
> more experience in games before I begin making full arguments. Thanks in
> Advance! Tony Delgado
IF doesn't need literary criticism as much as it needs good stories.
You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
and that frightens me.
Phil Goetz
ph...@i-a-i.com
* You've arrived when you're referred to by last name only, Zarf!
Magnus Olsson
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>> In article <87mvom$dll$1...@nntp5.atl.mindspring.net>,
>> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>>Great purple dooglies -- I completely forgot about _Varicella_.
>>>
>>>Sort of an ensemble-cast classical tragedy.
>>
>> Funny; I saw it as a (very black) comedy - discounting the epilogue,
>> which I don't think belongs to the story proper.
>
>Really? Huh. I can't separate it from the story in my head.
I think this is a point which deserves an essay-length answer. I'll
try to come back to the point once I get the time (right now, I'm
posting while waiting for the compiler to finish) and the energy (I've
got a bit of a flu right now which makes me about as creative as a
slug).
okbl...@my-deja.com
I'm curious why you would include this as opposed to the original
Collossal Cave?
> Softporn (I think this was remade with graphics as Leisure Suit Larry)
> first porn IF
Re LSL, I don't think you could call it a remake, but "inspired by",
perhaps.
> Mystery House? -- first graphic IF
Generally conceded as such, yes. I think there was one before it which
used (very limited) text-based graphics.
> That Graham Nelson game with the checkerboard puzzle and the pyramid,
"Jigsaw"
> IF doesn't need literary criticism as much as it needs good stories.
> You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
> and that frightens me.
Don't let that scare you. Let that free you.
--
[ok]
Magnus Olsson
>In article <R7Bo4.3991$lK6....@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
> "Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
But without criticism, storytellers aren't likely to improve, are
they?
>> You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
>> and that frightens me.
>
>Don't let that scare you. Let that free you.
Amen.
Standeven
Philip Goetz wrote:
> <tabl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:87md1u$du9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > 3: CANON: What is the canon of interactive fiction? (or: Which works and
> > authors do the IF establishment consider "major works?")
>
> Infocom (though, personally, none of my favorites are Infocom games)
> and the games most discussed here. Maybe a short list of groundbreaking
> stories -- can someone correct and add to this list? Roughly chronological
> order:
>
You forgot Colossal Cave: First adventure...
>
> Adventureland -- first PC adventure
> Softporn (I think this was remade with graphics as Leisure Suit Larry) --
> first porn IF
> Mystery House? -- first graphic IF
> Deadline -- landmark in use of NPCs
> Planetfall -- another landmark NPC; first attempt to force the player to
> make unpleasant choices (the lizard puzzle)
Lizard puzzle? Maybe you're thinking of Trinity...
> A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the world
> or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving a mystery
> or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this long?
What about Savage Island? For that matter, what about Trinity?
> Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
Not the first parody, surely...
> Carmilla's Kiss -- A vampire game that was an early tightly-plotted,
> repeated, multiplayer IF. There were plotted multiplayer games before
> that; they just didn't have episode names to refer to, and they were
> played only once.
What do you mean, played only once?
> That Graham Nelson game with the checkerboard puzzle and the pyramid,
> whose name escapes my swiss-cheese memory, where you try to prevent
> history from being changed -- first intentional use of ambiguous gender
> roles
> Tapestry -- first linear (ok, 3-branched), non-puzzle-based IF
> In The End -- actually, I don't want to list this one, since it was
> obviously made with the intention of being a first, and didn't really
> succeed for me as a dramatic work. It brought an idea up for discussion
> but didn't demonstrate it satisfactorily.
> Insert here first game that cannot be made non-winnable
>
I think Loom was the first game that was _touted_ as being non-winnable, but not
necessarily the first one that actually was.
Philip Goetz
Didn't forget it; assumed it was known. Didn't mention Zork either.
> Lizard puzzle? Maybe you're thinking of Trinity...
Yes, I think so.
> > A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the
world
> > or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving a
mystery
> > or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this long?
>
> What about Savage Island? For that matter, what about Trinity?
???
Savage Island: I think this was the 14th Scott Adams game?
Anyway, I recollect it was another one where you are at risk.
Trinity is also a game with high stakes. Change in the Weather
was an important landmark because it tried to make you care
about an event because of its details, not because of its scale or stakes.
>> Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
>
> Not the first parody, surely...
Can you think of an earlier one?
> > Carmilla's Kiss -- A vampire game that was an early tightly-plotted,
> > repeated, multiplayer IF. There were plotted multiplayer games
before
> > that; they just didn't have episode names to refer to, and they were
> > played only once.
>
> What do you mean, played only once?
As in, they were designed as part of ongoing, continuing-world IFs,
so that any particular episode happened only once, and if you weren't
there, you missed it. They were not software.
> > Insert here first game that cannot be made non-winnable
> >
>
> I think Loom was the first game that was _touted_ as being non-winnable,
but not
> necessarily the first one that actually was.
"Cannot be made non-winnable" -- different. In the End was non-winnable.
Phil
Philip Goetz
positive things in a critique as you do negative things.
Phil
Standeven
Philip Goetz wrote:
> > > A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the
> > > world or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving
> > > a mystery or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this long?
> >
> > What about Savage Island? For that matter, what about Trinity?
>
> ???
> Savage Island: I think this was the 14th Scott Adams game?
The 10th one.
> Anyway, I recollect it was another one where you are at risk. Trinity is also
> a
> game with high stakes. Change in the Weather was an important landmark
> because it tried to make you care about an event because of its details, not
> because of its scale or stakes.
OK. I wasn't sure exactly what you were getting at. In that case, what about
Ballyhoo?
> >> Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
> >
> > Not the first parody, surely...
>
> Can you think of an earlier one?
I was thinking of the "Pork Trilogy", and some other AGT games. But then I
remembered Inhumane...
>
>
> > > Carmilla's Kiss -- A vampire game that was an early tightly-plotted,
> > > repeated, multiplayer IF. There were plotted multiplayer games
> > > before that; they just didn't have episode names to refer to, and they
>
> > > were played only once.
> >
> > What do you mean, played only once?
>
> As in, they were designed as part of ongoing, continuing-world IFs,
> so that any particular episode happened only once, and if you weren't
> there, you missed it. They were not software.
Ah, I see.
> > > Insert here first game that cannot be made non-winnable
> >
> > I think Loom was the first game that was _touted_ as being non-winnable,
> > but not necessarily the first one that actually was.
>
> "Cannot be made non-winnable" -- different. In the End was non-winnable.
>
Oops! That's what I meant; they advertised that Loom could not be put into an
unwinnable
state. It's often hard to say when an adventure game has this property,
though...
okbl...@my-deja.com
m...@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> In article <87v9f7$tjp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <okbl...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> >In article <R7Bo4.3991$lK6....@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
> > "Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
stories.
>
> they?
We have criticism. It's another thing altogether to have CRITICs. :-)
> >> You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
> >> and that frightens me.
> >
> >Don't let that scare you. Let that free you.
>
> Amen.
I meant that tongue-in-cheek. ;-)
J Walrus
Philip Goetz <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote in message
news:LJYo4.4518$lK6....@iad-read.news.verio.net...
*snip*
> > Lizard puzzle? Maybe you're thinking of Trinity...
>
> Yes, I think so.
Although 'Planetfall' certainly did feature a puzzle
involving making unpleasant choices: the access card in the
bio-lab. I suppose some of those mutants were probably
lizardlike.
*snip*
> > > Insert here first game that cannot be made
non-winnable
> > >
> >
> > I think Loom was the first game that was _touted_ as
being non-winnable,
> but not
> > necessarily the first one that actually was.
>
> "Cannot be made non-winnable" -- different. In the End
was non-winnable.
Although you could argue that Loom was non-winnable, since
it ended with the destruction of all but a tiny fragment of
the universe. And I'm pretty sure it could be made
non-winnable.
Jw
Jon Ingold
>> Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
>
I'm not sure about the chronology of these things, but what about Leather
Goddesses?
Jon
Magnus Olsson
>In article <87vdql$pq1$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
> m...@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
>> In article <87v9f7$tjp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <okbl...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>> >In article <R7Bo4.3991$lK6....@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
>> > "Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>> >> IF doesn't need literary criticism as much as it needs good
>stories.
>>
>> But without criticism, storytellers aren't likely to improve, are
>> they?
>
>We have criticism. It's another thing altogether to have CRITICs. :-)
But not all literary critics are Literary Critics :-).
>> >> You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
>> >> and that frightens me.
>> >
>> >Don't let that scare you. Let that free you.
>>
>> Amen.
>
>I meant that tongue-in-cheek. ;-)
Really? Well, such things don't carry very well in a text-only
medium...
But, anyway, I don't think there's any reason to be scared of Literary
Critics barging in and demolishing IF for not being Literary enough.
Magnus Olsson
Standeven <be...@worldinter.net> wrote:
>> >> Detective: A Misting -- first meta-IF? First something.
>> >
>> > Not the first parody, surely...
>>
>
>I was thinking of the "Pork Trilogy", and some other AGT games. But then I
>remembered Inhumane...
These are all IF parodying IF, but the MiSTing of _Detective_ brought
something new: the interactive commentary on the original work,
or whatever one should call it.
Magnus Olsson
Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <87ncv5$5lm$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
> m...@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
>> In article <87nblh$5m1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >No, the consensus model is very clearly "game."
>>
>> Be careful when you speak of "consensus" here. I'm not sure a
>> consensus exists.
>
>True - I used the term only because it was there to begin with, and I
>shouldn't have. People do very different things with the medium.
The reason I brought this up is that I've assumed myself that what
seemed tothe consensus (or at least majority opinion) of this group
was some sort of global consensus, only to realize that there were
lots of people with the contrary opinion, who either didn't read the
group or read it but didn't post.
It seems the rec.*.i-f regulars comprise far from the majority of IF
fans, a fact which is very easy to forget.
>I shy
>away from the "game" and "player" terminology myself, since, as an IF
>creator (and reader, for that matter) I prefer to view IF as literature.
>
>I've made the same elaborate mistake before, though, of looking at IF
>critically and ignoring the underlying "game" nature of IF because
>literary criticism seemed to be the expected tool to use and "gaming"
>isn't chic. I'd hate to see this offhand mistake made again at a later
>date...
I think you're right in that "game" is the prevalent way of looking
at IF. For many people, perhaps most, the primary criterion for a good
piece of IF is its gameplay, and very few people disregard gameplay
issues entirely.
To go back to the original question (if we still have the attention of
the original poster :-)), I think that, how shall I express it, the
model for the _medium_ (rather than for the entire piece of IF) is
prose for text IF, and film for graphic IF. Zarf's _Space Under the
Window_ has been called interactive poetry.
okbl...@my-deja.com
m...@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> In article <8822nf$v2v$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <okbl...@my-deja.com>
>
> But not all literary critics are Literary Critics :-).
Heh. I have a real problem with it, I admit. I like to think a minimal
contribution is to review IF (I mean, for those of us whose IF projects
haven't seen the light of day), but I think more is served by praising
what is good rather than criticizing what is bad. But then I have to
sit on some reviews where I'm hung up on the bad. (My own failing, of
course.)
> Really? Well, such things don't carry very well in a text-only
> medium...
Not to mention cross cultural barriers. Where I come from "Don't let
that scare you/let that free you" is pseudo-whatever enough to
immediately be recognized as a joke. (Although not necessarily
insincere or sarcastic.)
Philip Goetz
>> they?
>
>We have criticism. It's another thing altogether to have CRITICs. :-)
There's a short story about an artist who is sitting on the sidewalk in
front of his run-down tenement building, working on his latest
painting, picking out crickets that have jumped onto the canvas and
gotten stuck. He is complaining loudly about the crickets, when a
spaceship lands and a little man with a gun gets out.
"I am an exterminator," he says. "I can solve this problem for you
if you will give me five of your paintings."
The painter eagerly agrees, since he hasn't sold any paintings in
a year anyway. But he refuses to give the paintings until the job
is done.
A year later, the same spaceship lands in the courtyard of the
now-famous artist's new mansion, modelled after rather simpler
structures in the Taj Mahal. The little man gets out and asks for
his paintings.
"You won't get anything!" the artist says, pointing to the crickets
jumping around at his feet. "The crickets are still here!"
The little man's jaw drops. "My God," he says.
"I thought you said critics!"
Philip Goetz
news:38A8DC74...@america.net...
> Standeven wrote:
>
> > Philip Goetz wrote:
>
> > > <tabl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:87md1u$du9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
and
> > > > authors do the IF establishment consider "major works?")
>
> > > Infocom (though, personally, none of my favorites are Infocom games)
> > > and the games most discussed here. Maybe a short list of
groundbreaking
> > > stories -- can someone correct and add to this list? Roughly
chronological
> > > order:
>
>
> I seem to have heard that "A Mind Forever Voyaging" was pretty
> groundbreaking, though I never got to play it myself. (yeah, I know,
> it's Infocom, but it sounded like it deserved mention as specifically
> groundbreaking.)
Yes! Make that the first non-puzzle game? (The first which, tho it
had puzzles, didn't block you from progress if you didn't solve them,
mostly.) Unless /Portal/ came first. /Portal/ was groundbreaking in
its interface, too, which was very Web-like.
The Infocom Egyptian pyramid game (Infidel?) was groundbreaking in that
you played a not-likeable character, and, um, how can I say this without
a spoiler... you don't exactly "win" in the end.
Phil
Philip Goetz
news:87o0qs$852$1...@nntp4.atl.mindspring.net...
> David Samuel Myers <dmy...@sparky.ic.sunysb.edu> wrote:
> > Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> >
> > : The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer.
When
> > : the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
> >
> > Gee, I hope we don't slip into dark ages any time soon.
>
> European history.
>
> So you should watch out for a New Wave instead. Or was there something
> before that? I'm not really an expert.
>
> --Z
The timeline of science fiction went something like this, with a +/-
of at most 10 years on the details:
1865-1890: Science fiction not idenfied as a genre; no conventions,
some literary SF but also much boy's adventure fiction with robots
(tho not yet called that).
1890-1920: Peak of respectability for science fiction. Writers such as
Jules Verne, HG Wells, Olaf Stapledon. Young Jack Williamson
travels to New Mexico by covered wagon & begins writing.
Around 1920: Relegation of SF to the genre ghetto. At about this time, HG
Wells
was the most popular author on earth, and writing good literary science
fiction. He got into a famous, long argument (in magazine letters) with
Henry James over the proper mode of fiction. James argued that fiction
should focus on a specific person. Wells argued that fiction was not
socially significant unless it dealt with people en mass: stories of
revolutions
and wars and social sea changes. Also, James was on the side of style,
and Wells on the side of content. Wells was essentially arguing that
fiction
should deal with ideas (as science fiction does). In the eyes of the
literary establishment, James won. Since then,
"literary" fiction has tended to emphasize style over
content and details over generalities.
1920s-1930s: The all-time low point of science fiction from a literary
perspective; also known as "the golden age". Buck Rogers was written
in the 1920s and typifies this era's pulp adventure science fiction.
Hugo Gernsback is publishing the only decent science fiction
stories in _Astounding_. (Tho note Aldous Huxley published
some outstanding science fiction during this time.)
1940s: John Campbell dominated the 1940s. He had
specific ideas of what a science fiction story should be like (for instance:
aliens must never defeat earth men), and because he controlled the
market, he shaped science fiction. He worked very hard
with his authors, trying to refine their schlock into better
fiction, and trying to train them as authors. He trained most of the
famous writers of the 1950's. He is responsible for oddities such
as the fact that telepathy is considered an acceptable topic in science
fiction (Campbell believed in telepathy & other paranormal
phenomena). Rate for short stories tops out at about 5 cents a word.
1950s: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. Science fiction goes
bureaucratic: rogue lone-wolf heros of the golden age
replaced by foundations, starfleets, & other more
regimented organizations.
1960s: New Wave, primarily British. Strange styles, strange
story structures, opening of taboo subjects, mixing of
science & fantasy, emphasis on the psychological instead
of just the technological. "Led" by Michael Moorcock
as editor of New Worlds magazine, IIRC, altho
strangely Moorcock's own fiction is not very New Wave.
William Burroughs, Thomas Disch, JG Ballard,
Samuel Delaney considered "New Wave" authors.
1970s: Feminist science fiction arrives. Star Wars & D&D
revitalizes industry, at least in terms of volumes published.
Rate for short stories tops out at about 10 cents a word.
1980s: Cyberpunk. Star Wars effect begins leading to higher
percentage of books being derivative works & media tie-ins.
1990s: Biotech & nanotech science fiction. Field continues to
have still higher percentage of shelf space devoted to
media tie-ins. Rate for short stories still max 10 cents a word.
Number of new short-story authors published per year in major
science fiction magazines drops to a few dozen.
Probably the field's all-time low in terms of financial
viability for authors. Jack Williamson still writing.
I think Zork would typify our "golden age": a work that
everyone cut their teeth on and remembers fondly, even
though, in retrospect, it wasn't all THAT good.
Who volunteers to be Campbell?
Phil G.
David Samuel Myers
: 1950s: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. Science fiction goes
: bureaucratic: rogue lone-wolf heros of the golden age
: replaced by foundations, starfleets, & other more
: regimented organizations.
Not to mention Bester, who is right up that alley too
: 1960s: New Wave, primarily British. Strange styles, strange
Don't forget the US completely: Philip K. Dick had a grand influence too,
over multiple decades
: 1990s: Biotech & nanotech science fiction. Field continues to
: have still higher percentage of shelf space devoted to
: media tie-ins. Rate for short stories still max 10 cents a word.
: Number of new short-story authors published per year in major
: science fiction magazines drops to a few dozen.
: Probably the field's all-time low in terms of financial
: viability for authors. Jack Williamson still writing.
But there are a few success stories: Jonathan Lethem, for instance. Dan
Simmons... these are the guys that are getting their stuff through
despite all the difficulties.
david
Andrew Plotkin
>> > Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > : The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer.
>> > : When the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
>> >
>> > Gee, I hope we don't slip into dark ages any time soon.
>>
>> I was rather thinking of the timeline of science-fiction publishing, not
>> European history.
>>
>> So you should watch out for a New Wave instead. Or was there something
>> before that? I'm not really an expert.
>
> of at most 10 years on the details:
Thanks! This is just what I wanted to mull over.
I'm trimming a bit now...
> 1865-1890: Science fiction not idenfied as a genre; no conventions,
> some literary SF but also much boy's adventure fiction with robots
> (tho not yet called that).
>
> 1890-1920: Peak of respectability for science fiction. Writers such as
> Jules Verne, HG Wells, Olaf Stapledon. Young Jack Williamson
> travels to New Mexico by covered wagon & begins writing.
>
> Around 1920: Relegation of SF to the genre ghetto. At about this time, HG
> Wells
> was the most popular author on earth, and writing good literary science
> fiction. He got into a famous, long argument (in magazine letters) with
> Henry James over the proper mode of fiction. [...]
>
> 1920s-1930s: The all-time low point of science fiction from a literary
> perspective; also known as "the golden age". Buck Rogers was written
> in the 1920s and typifies this era's pulp adventure science fiction.
> Hugo Gernsback is publishing the only decent science fiction
> stories in _Astounding_. (Tho note Aldous Huxley published
> some outstanding science fiction during this time.)
Now, I can't agree with that. Doc Smith originally published in this era.
It was not a low point; it was... some sort of a *fast* point.
And it's exactly what I'm thinking of when I call the *current* IF
generation a Golden Age. (It's not an exact analogy, so bear with me.) The
good Doc didn't write memorable books by careful craftsmanship; he threw
out mind-blowing ideas so fast that if you blinked, you'd miss the FTL
planets whipping past. (Those were *projectile weapons*, by the way.
Duck!)
That was the pulp era. It was, as you note, the heydey of science fiction
as "literature of ideas".
I think we're currently in a phase where ideas are popping up just exactly
that fast. Now, we're certainly paying a lot of attention to craft and
good writing as well. (That's why it's not an exact analogy.) And the
ideas aren't *story* ideas, as they were in early SF. They're ideas of
technique, and scope, and what IF can do.
All those groundbreaking games from the other thread -- that's the "pulp"
of this golden age. Games that inspire one to say, okay, it had some flaws
-- but *I never imagined that IF could do that*. And this has not yet
started to slow down. (See _Shrapnel_.)
> 1940s: John Campbell dominated the 1940s. He had
> specific ideas of what a science fiction story should be like (for instance:
> aliens must never defeat earth men), and because he controlled the
> market, he shaped science fiction. He worked very hard
> with his authors, trying to refine their schlock into better
> fiction, and trying to train them as authors. [...]
In a sense, we're doing this for ourselves, in parallel with the pulp.
Because we've *got* the refined, high-quality body of written fiction to
look back on. We don't have to re-invent that, only adapt it.
> 1950s: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. Science fiction goes
> bureaucratic: rogue lone-wolf heros of the golden age
> replaced by foundations, starfleets, & other more
> regimented organizations.
>
> 1960s: New Wave, primarily British. Strange styles, strange
> story structures, opening of taboo subjects, mixing of
> science & fantasy, emphasis on the psychological instead
> of just the technological. "Led" by Michael Moorcock
> as editor of New Worlds magazine, IIRC, altho
> strangely Moorcock's own fiction is not very New Wave.
> William Burroughs, Thomas Disch, JG Ballard,
> Samuel Delaney considered "New Wave" authors.
And Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, "James Tiptree", George Alex Effinger,
etc. (And Piers Anthony, for about three weeks. :-)
This has not happened to IF yet, and the analogy will be even less exact
when it does. (We've already seen "emphasis on the psychological". A New
Wave of IF would be... re-exploration of the techniques developed in the
Golden Age, taking them for granted, and using them to convey something
entirely new. I don't venture to predict what *that* will be. But I look
forward to it... and I note that such a movement can't happen until the
Golden Age *ends*.)
> 1970s: Feminist science fiction arrives. Star Wars & D&D
> revitalizes industry, at least in terms of volumes published.
Ork! Ack! You mean "Star Trek and imitation Tolkien".
Star Wars novels were a minor footnote in the 70's. (_Splinter of the
Mind's Eye_, plus a handful of Han Solo novels.) It was the Trek novels
that took off. And fantasy became a commercial genre with Terry Brooks
and, oh, folks like David Eddings. People specifically trying to do what
Tolkien did. D&D had nothing to do with it; gaming tie-ins were much
later.
Now, in terms of IF, that could mean almost anything. Maybe someone will
write the Breakout IF Work, the one that gets mainstream attention. That
could happen right now or in twenty years -- but I tend to think that
popular culture is too noisy for that to happen, ever again, in any
medium. There are too many media-hyped properties out there. It ain't the
Sixties, and even a genius like Tolkien -- or like Gene Roddenberry, with
original Trek -- can only make a blip in the noise now.
> 1980s: Cyberpunk. Star Wars effect begins leading to higher
> percentage of books being derivative works & media tie-ins.
>
> 1990s: Biotech & nanotech science fiction.
These categories seem much too limited to me. Subject matter isn't the
important trend.
The 80's were rather a holding pattern in SF and fantasy. Many great
books, some new trends, slowly increasing quality, but fundamentally more
of the 70's.
The 90's -- I'm tempted to call this the Borders Era. *Huge* growth in
number of titles published. Reams of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other
tie-ins; but that expansion is *matched* by growth in original fiction,
which is still a majority. SF becomes a mainstream genre.
Could that happen to IF? Yes. When? Sometime between now and 2050, I'm
betting.
Eric Mayer
wrote:
>Philip Goetz <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>>> > Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > : The canon is under construction. This is the only sensible answer.
>>> > : When the Golden Age is over, people can start arguing about the canon.
>>> >
A really fascinating exchange. Sorry I'm not sure how to snip it up
sensibly since I somehow missed the original posts.
>
>> 1920s-1930s: The all-time low point of science fiction from a literary
>> perspective; also known as "the golden age". Buck Rogers was written
>> in the 1920s and typifies this era's pulp adventure science fiction.
>> Hugo Gernsback is publishing the only decent science fiction
>> stories in _Astounding_. (Tho note Aldous Huxley published
>> some outstanding science fiction during this time.)
>
>Now, I can't agree with that. Doc Smith originally published in this era.
>It was not a low point; it was... some sort of a *fast* point.
>
>And it's exactly what I'm thinking of when I call the *current* IF
>generation a Golden Age. (It's not an exact analogy, so bear with me.) The
>good Doc didn't write memorable books by careful craftsmanship; he threw
>out mind-blowing ideas so fast that if you blinked, you'd miss the FTL
>planets whipping past. (Those were *projectile weapons*, by the way.
>Duck!)
>
>That was the pulp era. It was, as you note, the heydey of science fiction
>as "literature of ideas".
>
This was the sf I was bringing home from the library when I was a kid.
This is what I loved and once I exhausted the best of that era my sf
reading started to diminish. Of course that stuff was already several
decades old when I encountered it but still new to me.
I think one thing that made that era so special was that writers were
not overly self conscious. They just, seeminly, had these wild and
exciting ideas and wrote them down, not a lot of thought was given to
literary concerns.
The combination of so many magazines, and so little regard for
complicated literary techniques, meant that, for a time, anybody with
a sufficiently fantastic idea could get it into print.
And what interests me most about IF is how these still very new
authoring systems allow so many people with cool ideas to make their
own games. The literary aspect is not all that attractive to me.
Take my own game The HeBGB Horror! A few years from now, when many
more hundreds of games have been written, when the authoring systems
have evolved in complexity and writers have become ever more
sophisticated, something like that from a nonprogrammer likely won't
be acceptible any longer. The whole level will be much too high to
accomodate such stuff. Yet there's something exciting about all the
not so great and polished stuff that's around too. Adds some flavor,
just like all the brass bra and BEM variety of sf added a lot to the
stew that included the best writers like Doc Smith or my own favorite
Van Vogt.
>>
>> 1960s: New Wave, primarily British. Strange styles, strange
>> story structures, opening of taboo subjects, mixing of
>> science & fantasy, emphasis on the psychological instead
>> of just the technological. "Led" by Michael Moorcock
>> as editor of New Worlds magazine, IIRC, altho
>> strangely Moorcock's own fiction is not very New Wave.
Jerry Cornelius has got to be New Wave. Was shocked to learn that Mike
Moorcock is now a Texan.
>
>Now, in terms of IF, that could mean almost anything. Maybe someone will
>write the Breakout IF Work, the one that gets mainstream attention.
That seems impossible right now. But what about these handheld
electronic book reading thingees.? If the average reader is someday
used to slipping a cartridge into, or just downloading content, into a
reader the size of a paperback, given that the reader has some
computing capacity, -- if that becomes an acceptible way of reading,
then it is just possible that interactive fiction could come creeping
into the mainstream.
--
Eric Mayer
Web Site: <http://home.epix.net/~maywrite>
"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski
David Samuel Myers
: All those groundbreaking games from the other thread -- that's the "pulp"
: of this golden age. Games that inspire one to say, okay, it had some flaws
: -- but *I never imagined that IF could do that*. And this has not yet
: started to slow down. (See _Shrapnel_.)
Although, I wonder if some of the effect comes from what I've built up
from playing a lot of games. I mean, you wouldn't feel the same thing
resonating from giving a newbie Shrapnel, or Aisle as their first game.
It'd still be good, be there's no reference point.
I imagine bringing aliens to the earth and trying to explain culture. If
you showed them a few movies, and they had absolutely no reference point,
would any of it make sense? It would *really* depend what you picked...
I guess the original poster had asked about 'canonization', and my thought
is that we have yet to reach the peak of IF that has the universality that
we could 'show it to the aliens'. I don't mean universality in appeal.
Nothing is universally appealing. See mixed reactions to semi-adult IF
like Chyx or I-O. But universal in terms of accessibility-- a work has
this if even taken out of the context of all that came before it, it has a
vestige of sense left inherent to itself.
I've seen a few works that do this, and I expect we have are going to see
a lot more. This doesn't exclude IF that isn't completely story driven.
I'm thinking of some of the more puzzlish games too, in that their
settings and moods reflect something 'universal' (I use that term pretty
loosely).
Is there at least a grain of truth in my thinking, or am I on drugs?
: In a sense, we're doing this for ourselves, in parallel with the pulp.
: Because we've *got* the refined, high-quality body of written fiction to
: look back on. We don't have to re-invent that, only adapt it.
Amen. Example- LA Confidential is a great movie. It's a genre movie. It's
based on earlier films that are similar in a lot of places (e.g.
Chinatown). A new take on an old idea *is* the embodiment of most art. A
truly *new* idea, well... that only comes along once in a lifetime or so.
: Could that happen to IF? Yes. When? Sometime between now and 2050, I'm
: betting.
And hopefully sooner. I'll be 73 in 2050.
david
Andrew Plotkin
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> : of this golden age. Games that inspire one to say, okay, it had some flaws
> : -- but *I never imagined that IF could do that*. And this has not yet
> : started to slow down. (See _Shrapnel_.)
>
> from playing a lot of games. I mean, you wouldn't feel the same thing
> resonating from giving a newbie Shrapnel, or Aisle as their first game.
> It'd still be good, be there's no reference point.
>
> I imagine bringing aliens to the earth and trying to explain culture. If
> you showed them a few movies, and they had absolutely no reference point,
> would any of it make sense? It would *really* depend what you picked...
Thirties SF didn't stand, ahem, in a vacuum either. In fact, it was mostly
pretty formulaic -- "everyone knows what a raygun is".
> I guess the original poster had asked about 'canonization', and my thought
> is that we have yet to reach the peak of IF that has the universality that
> we could 'show it to the aliens'.
I don't think *any* art form has that property. Certainly literature (all
genres) has been moving farther away from it, ever since newfangled
stylistic tricks like "metaphor" were invented. :-)
> I've seen a few works that do this
Examples? My standards obviously aren't matching up.
> : In a sense, we're doing this for ourselves, in parallel with the pulp.
> : Because we've *got* the refined, high-quality body of written fiction to
> : look back on. We don't have to re-invent that, only adapt it.
>
> Amen. Example- LA Confidential is a great movie. It's a genre movie. It's
> based on earlier films that are similar in a lot of places (e.g.
> Chinatown). A new take on an old idea *is* the embodiment of most art. A
> truly *new* idea, well... that only comes along once in a lifetime or so.
I'm not even talking about new ideas here -- merely the idea that writing
can *be* good. That's what Campbell did for the SF market.
> : Could that happen to IF? Yes. When? Sometime between now and 2050, I'm
> : betting.
>
> And hopefully sooner. I'll be 73 in 2050.
On the other hand, Jack Williamson is 91. :-)
Joe Mason
>
>> 1980s: Cyberpunk. Star Wars effect begins leading to higher
>> percentage of books being derivative works & media tie-ins.
>>
>> 1990s: Biotech & nanotech science fiction.
>
>These categories seem much too limited to me. Subject matter isn't the
>important trend.
I'd give you cyberpunk, because it has a definite unique style as well as
subject matter. Biotech & nanotech is too limited, I agree. It'll take a few
more years before we have enough objective space to judge trends of the 90's.
Joe
okbl...@my-deja.com
"Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
> [a very interesting timeline]
Just wanted to add that most references to SF that I see tend to refer
to the Welles/Verne period as "pre-" or "proto-" SF and "the Golden Age"
as going from 1938 to 1950. I'm not quite sure what the precision is
based on--something to do with editorial changes in Astounding in 1938
and '50.
Magnus Olsson
>should focus on a specific person. Wells argued that fiction was not
>socially significant unless it dealt with people en mass: stories of
>revolutions
>and wars and social sea changes. Also, James was on the side of style,
>and Wells on the side of content. Wells was essentially arguing that
>fiction
>should deal with ideas (as science fiction does). In the eyes of the
>literary establishment, James won. Since then,
>"literary" fiction has tended to emphasize style over
>content and details over generalities.
I don't really think you can say the Great Divide is over style
vs. content. *Some* LitCrits may emphasize style over content, but far
from all do.
You're right in that SF is Literature of Ideas. What happened was that
this got out of fashion in "literary" fiction, and that the literary
fashion brought the mainstream along with it. So the Great Divide is
rather between Literature of Ideas and literature where personal
development and things like that are at the forefront.
Peter Smith
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message news:88en9h$2f7
> Now, in terms of IF, that could mean almost anything. Maybe someone will
> write the Breakout IF Work, the one that gets mainstream attention. That
> could happen right now or in twenty years -- but I tend to think that
> popular culture is too noisy for that to happen, ever again, in any
> medium. There are too many media-hyped properties out there. It ain't the
> Sixties, and even a genius like Tolkien -- or like Gene Roddenberry, with
> original Trek -- can only make a blip in the noise now.
>
Would it be a good thing if IF got mainstream attention? If it became a
mainstream product?
It is debatable that Science Fiction has benefitted from getting mainstream
attention. What you find on the bookshelves labelled as SF are shelves and
shelves of Terry Pratchetts and Robert Jordans. The great the innovative
the imaginative authors like Zelazny are barely in print any more. Science
Fiction has become a commodity. One book which fails to sell can mean an
author finding themselves out in the cold.
Is IF a well-defined genre or in fact several genres lumped together, each
with their own 'readership'? (I would argue that Science Fiction has become
a very vague term now.)
Peter Smith.
Magnus Olsson
Peter Smith <peter...@smallworld.co.uk> wrote:
>Would it be a good thing if IF got mainstream attention? If it became a
>mainstream product?
>
>It is debatable that Science Fiction has benefitted from getting mainstream
>attention. What you find on the bookshelves labelled as SF are shelves and
>shelves of Terry Pratchetts and Robert Jordans. The great the innovative
>the imaginative authors like Zelazny are barely in print any more. Science
>Fiction has become a commodity. One book which fails to sell can mean an
>author finding themselves out in the cold.
I think you're confusing two meanings of "mainstream"
here. Commercially, SF is "mainstream" in the sense that it's not a
niche product. But it's still regarded as genre literature as opposed
to mainstream literature, by authors (who follow different genre
conventions) and the audience (which has different expectiations and
prejudices - SF is still mainly read by SF fans, who tend to mainly
read SF) as well as critics (mainstream critics mostly ignore SF or
treat it as some weird curiosity).
It's different in the film world: SF films aren't treated very
differently from ordinary action or adventure films - but on the other
hand, most SF films are really sci-fi, not SF :-).
>Is IF a well-defined genre or in fact several genres lumped together, each
^^
I suppose you mean SF?
>with their own 'readership'? (I would argue that Science Fiction has become
>a very vague term now.)
I think SF as literature is really a collection of sub-genres, which
can be more or less commercial, more or less Literary, more or less
mainstream. It seems to me that what holds SF together as a category
is fandom.
Philip Goetz
> > of at most 10 years on the details:
>
> Thanks! This is just what I wanted to mull over.
Before you try to apply it to IF, note that some of this history
had more to do with historical context than with any natural
development of art forms. The changing views of the
literary community in the 1920s were, IMHO, the
result of the spreading of postmodernist thought;
ideas were much too objective and value-oriented
to be attractive to postmodernists.
Low paper prices and low income had a lot to do
with the success of the pulps in the 1930s; paper
prices rose during WWII & killed the pulps.
The organization-man heroes of the 1950s probably had
a lot to do with the cold war and the rigidity of
1950s American society. Boom of the 1970s
had to do with Tolkien, Star Trek, & (I still think)
Star Wars & D&D. Current literary trends
might have more to do with mergers & acquisitions
than they do with any artistic considerations.
Sorry for forgetting Phil Dick. :P
I forgot Harlan Ellison too, which is nearly
as bad, but I'm not sorry for that. ;)
> > 1920s-1930s: The all-time low point of science fiction from a literary
> > perspective; also known as "the golden age". ...
> Now, I can't agree with that. Doc Smith originally published in this era.
> It was not a low point; it was... some sort of a *fast* point.
:) Sorry, I'm not a big Doc Smith or Van Vogt fan.
They are the sort of writers I'm talking about.
I remember one Doc Smith line: "Then they ate
inch-thick steaks -- rare, because they were real men."
Gag. Tho I think he was in the 1940s?
Maybe the "golden age" is called the golden age because
it was a great time to be an /author/ -- you could publish
crap and get paid good money for it. And it's the
authors who named it.
> > 1990s: Biotech & nanotech science fiction.
>
> These categories seem much too limited to me. Subject matter isn't the
> important trend.
I know. I felt I had to write something.
> The 90's -- I'm tempted to call this the Borders Era. *Huge* growth in
> number of titles published. Reams of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other
> tie-ins; but that expansion is *matched* by growth in original fiction,
> which is still a majority. SF becomes a mainstream genre.
Good name.
Whether number of original titles has increased probably
depends on whether you're counting just the US, or the entire world.
I suspect that Europe (esp. eastern Europe), Australia, & maybe
Japan are up, while US may be down. Don't have the figures
at hand. Somebody check Locus.
Phil G.
Andrew Plotkin
>
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message news:88en9h$2f7
>> Now, in terms of IF, that could mean almost anything. Maybe someone will
>> write the Breakout IF Work, the one that gets mainstream attention. That
>> could happen right now or in twenty years -- but I tend to think that
>> popular culture is too noisy for that to happen, ever again, in any
>> medium. There are too many media-hyped properties out there. It ain't the
>> Sixties, and even a genius like Tolkien -- or like Gene Roddenberry, with
>> original Trek -- can only make a blip in the noise now.
>
> mainstream product?
Based on the tenuous analogy I've been making... yes, absolutely. But
there might be a decade or two in which people would complain how awful
all this popular crap was.
> It is debatable that Science Fiction has benefitted from getting mainstream
> attention. What you find on the bookshelves labelled as SF are shelves and
> shelves of Terry Pratchetts and Robert Jordans. The great the innovative
> the imaginative authors like Zelazny are barely in print any more. Science
> Fiction has become a commodity. One book which fails to sell can mean an
> author finding themselves out in the cold.
I disagree with this paragraph in more ways than you have sentences.
Really.
Damien Neil
wrote:
>It is debatable that Science Fiction has benefitted from getting mainstream
>attention. What you find on the bookshelves labelled as SF are shelves and
>shelves of Terry Pratchetts and Robert Jordans. The great the innovative
>the imaginative authors like Zelazny are barely in print any more. Science
>Fiction has become a commodity. One book which fails to sell can mean an
>author finding themselves out in the cold.
Vernor Vinge. Ken MacLeod. C. J. Cherryh. Diana Wynne Jones.
Steven Brust. Lois McMaster Bujold. Iain Banks.
I can find all of these people on the shelves, and I would categorize
any one of them as among "the great the innovative the imaginative".
Indeed, there's so much good stuff out there that I have difficulty
finding the time to read everything I want.
- Damien
R. Alan Monroe
>1950s American society. Boom of the 1970s
>had to do with Tolkien, Star Trek, & (I still think)
>Star Wars & D&D.
Why did Tolkien hit big then, when it was written
around WWII? I was born in 69 and didn't discover it
myself until the early 80's. Or maybe I should just lurk on a Tolkien
newsgroup for a few months.
Have fun
Alan
Joe Mason
"Fiction & Literature" section looking for some non-SF authors. I was
surprised how much SF I saw mixed in on the shelves. On the A-B shelf alone,
I saw Ray Bradbury (expected that), Marion Zimmer Bradley (a little
surprising, but I can see that), Steven Baxter (huh?) and... uh, at least one
other that I've forgotten now, and it wasn't Iain Banks. This is just the
ones that I'd already seen in the SF section, too: there were quite a lot that
I would have guessed "SF" immediately from the titles and cover art.
There. Made my pointless digression for the day.
Joe
okbl...@my-deja.com
amo...@earth1.net (R. Alan Monroe) wrote:
>
> Why did Tolkien hit big then, when it was written
> around WWII? I was born in 69 and didn't discover it
> myself until the early 80's. Or maybe I should just lurk on a Tolkien
> newsgroup for a few months.
Interesting question. Tolkien was just *huge* in the '60s college
culture. (To the point where, if you grew up in the '70s, he was almost
trite, sort of "Tolkien, yeah, yeah, of course, but...") Tolkien and Ayn
Rand.
But why? I would guess it had something to do with the relative
prosperity of the society at the time. It's hard to get interested in
alternate realities when you're starving in the current reality.
Something like that. Plus a lot of social barriers were being torn down
(for better or for worse) and this may have sent people looking for
inspiration on how to rebuild things. Something like that. (With
wild-ass speculation like this, I should apply for a PhD.:-)
Joe Mason
>> I saw Ray Bradbury (expected that), Marion Zimmer Bradley (a little
>> surprising, but I can see that), Steven Baxter (huh?) and... uh, at least one
>> other that I've forgotten now, and it wasn't Iain Banks.
>
>as non-genre literature.
Not under B, it wasn't.
Joe
Philip Goetz
> meant derivatives of Tolkien. The humble hero. The quest.
> The evil, powerful overlord. The brutish evil henchmen. The helpful,
> comic, companions. The wise old mentor.
>
> I'm not sure that Tolkien invented all that though. Was he the
> first? I think that Joseph Campbell claimed that these elements
> were ancient.
>
> Daryl McCullough
> CoGenTex, Inc.
> Ithaca, NY
He borrowed a great deal from Wagner's Ring trilogy, & other sources.
He may have been the first to use such a humble & less-than-lifesize hero,
for which I thank him.
IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
adults --
the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
who consciously choose to do evil. It embodies Tolkien's Oxford
conservatism in other ways as well (the world is decaying,
the old was better than the new, etc.) And in that way fantasy
today is still mostly in line with Tolkien. There were older works
of considerably greater intellectual & moral complexity (such as
Ghormengast or perhaps Frankenstein). There are modern works
that try to see differently (The Gunslinger, The Urth of the New Sun,
maybe some Elric books by Moorcock), tho these are generally
some blend of gothish angst and Kissingerian realpolitik.
Phil G.
John Walsh
Philip Goetz <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote in article
<%bds4.8194$lK6.2...@iad-read.news.verio.net>...
> > It seems to me that for a while the genre of "fantasy" simply
> > meant derivatives of Tolkien. The humble hero. The quest.
> > The evil, powerful overlord. The brutish evil henchmen. The helpful,
> > comic, companions. The wise old mentor.
> >
> > I'm not sure that Tolkien invented all that though. Was he the
> > first? I think that Joseph Campbell claimed that these elements
> > were ancient.
> >
> > Daryl McCullough
> > CoGenTex, Inc.
> > Ithaca, NY
>
> He borrowed a great deal from Wagner's Ring trilogy, & other sources.
> He may have been the first to use such a humble & less-than-lifesize
hero,
> for which I thank him.
>
> IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
> but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
> adults --
> the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
> moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
> who consciously choose to do evil. It embodies Tolkien's Oxford
> conservatism in other ways as well (the world is decaying,
> the old was better than the new, etc.) And in that way fantasy
> today is still mostly in line with Tolkien.
This is not strictly speaking the case. One of the more common and
interesting themes in Old English poetry (and literature more generally)
was of the world passing away and everything becoming worse. It was
symbolised or perhaps reified if you prefer by the sight of Roman
constructions (ruins and otherwise) of stone which were considered to be
the work of giants - since no one then could achieve anything remotely
comparable. Recall The Wanderer: Hwaer cwom mearg? Hwaer cwom mago? etc
(Where is the Rider, Where is the Warrior and so on) which follows the
Christian tradition of sic transit gloria mundi et ubi sunt (tr: world is
going to hell in a handbasket).
In terms of good and evil, consider firstly that the language used to
describe orcs is very much related to the way that people wrote of and
presumably spoke of the invaders from the East (Asiatic nomads, by and
large) and secondly that the Old English tradition uses the German
comitatus idea of a community in which only when members obey rules can
order and harmony reign - anyone who broke a rule not only would be likely
to bring down ruin on his or her head but also in his or her compatriots.
This gives rise to moral absolutism and sheds light on the character of
Saruman, for example.
Probably enough from me now.
John Walsh
okbl...@my-deja.com
"Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>
> IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
> but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
> adults --
> the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
> moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
> who consciously choose to do evil.
This sort of thing sits vaguely unwell with me. I'm not particularly a
Tolkien fan and his work, for all I know, may have been *intended* for
juvenilles. (I'm consistently amazed at the range of ideas and just
vocabulary I find in pulp fiction "for kids" of the '30s.)
Most people I know who are "moral absolutists" have a poor grasp on
reality, to the extent that they can't *read* fantasy, or any sort of
speculative fiction that suggests a different reality. Most Tolkien fans
I know, on the other hand, easily grasp how things might be right or
wrong from different viewpoints.
Then there's Shakespeare. In many of his tragedies, there is a
character who is pure evil. I've heard people try to justify, for
example, Iago's actions in terms of jealousy, ambition, and so on, yet
Iago is not himself consistent with these motives beyond a desire to
destroy Othello. So, too, with Cassius and Caeser.
It's true enough that evil wears a white hat and pretends to go around
helping people while stabbing them in the back, and it's probably also
true that those who do evil are not "conscious" of what they do (in the
way that, say, the character in "Bliss" knows not).
I don't know if any of this is much at odds with your point, but, there
it is. :-)
Iain Merrick
[...]
> IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
> but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
> adults --
> the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
> moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
> conservatism in other ways as well (the world is decaying,
> the old was better than the new, etc.)
In other words, Tolkien's work is 'juvenile' because you disagree with
his politics?
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Daryl McCullough
I thought Philip was calling it "juvenile" because it portrayed
a world of moral absolutes, when the real world is mostly a lot
of grey.
However, I don't completely agree with Philip that Tolkien's
story had *only* moral absolutes. Certainly Sauron and his
minions seemed unredeemably evil, but the "good" guys (the
hobbits and dwarves, anyway) were not absolutely good. They
were good in the way that most ordinary people can be
good---they rose to the occasion.
okbl...@my-deja.com
"Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>
> plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
> those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
> worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
> work hard enough.
So, then, confusion is the hallmark of "adult" literature? That is,
"We can't fix the world, no matter how hard we work?" :-)
> But this attitude is maintained throughout life by members
> of various ideologies: religions, political parties, etc.
But we consider these ideologies "juvenille" because they're naive or
obviously incorrect. What about a reality, such as in LOTR, where the
viewpoint is *correct*? Necessarily juvenille? Besides which, the guy
doing the fixing is not really the guy with the worldview, and all the
people who really *do* have the worldview lack the adolescent's
viewpoint of incorruptibility. (To borrow your metaphor: "I'll never
turn out like THEM.")
> The people are not absolutely good, but every /action/ is good
> or evil; every major choice is between a good action and an evil one.
I thought the Elves had to make some sort of decision in the books that
was quite bad for them, but good for existence in general. (Oh, Lord, I
hope I don't have to go back and re-read these things now! :-)
Michael Brazier
>
> > Iain says...
> > >
> > >Philip Goetz wrote:
> > >[...]
> > >> IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
> > >> but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
> > >> adults --
> > >> the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
> > >> moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
> > >> who consciously choose to do evil. It embodies Tolkien's Oxford
> > >> conservatism in other ways as well (the world is decaying,
> > >> the old was better than the new, etc.)
> > >[...]
> > >
> > >In other words, Tolkien's work is 'juvenile' because you disagree with
> > >his politics?
> >
> > I thought Philip was calling it "juvenile" because it portrayed
> > a world of moral absolutes, when the real world is mostly a lot
> > of grey.
>
> in a negative sense; I meant it has these components that appeal
> mostly to people between the ages of, say, 14 and early 20s:
>
> plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
> those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
> worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
> work hard enough.
Allow me to point out that any book containing both "the past is always
better than the future" and "we can repair the world" contradicts
itself. If, globally, the future cannot improve on the past, all our
efforts can only improve things locally and temporarily; thus, we
_cannot_ repair the world.
Tolkien's books do include "mundus senescit" as an assumption, but they
don't have the worldview you call "juvenile". As for the plots, _The
Hobbit_ has a plot of roughly that kind (and was written for a young
audience) but _LotR_ does not.
--
Michael Brazier But what are all these vanities to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
X^2 + 7X + 53 = 11/3
-- Lewis Carroll
Philip Goetz
> >
> >Philip Goetz wrote:
> >[...]
> >> IMHO Tolkien's work is the best juvenile fiction ever written --
> >> but it's still juvenile fiction. In a way, it's juvenile fiction for
> >> adults --
> >> the kind of adults who believe that the world can be seen in terms of
> >> moral absolutes, and that the world's problems are caused by people
> >> who consciously choose to do evil. It embodies Tolkien's Oxford
> >> conservatism in other ways as well (the world is decaying,
> >> the old was better than the new, etc.)
> >[...]
> >
> >In other words, Tolkien's work is 'juvenile' because you disagree with
> >his politics?
>
> I thought Philip was calling it "juvenile" because it portrayed
> a world of moral absolutes, when the real world is mostly a lot
> of grey.
More because it's a coming-of-age plot. I didn't mean "juvenile"
in a negative sense; I meant it has these components that appeal
mostly to people between the ages of, say, 14 and early 20s:
plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
work hard enough.
In a sense I am calling things juvenile that disagree with my
philosophy. The attitude that "I know how to fix the
world, and the world is in a mess only because previous
generations were jerks", I call juvenile because it sounds
like every teenager thinking his/her parents are idiots.
But this attitude is maintained throughout life by members
of various ideologies: religions, political parties, etc.
> However, I don't completely agree with Philip that Tolkien's
> story had *only* moral absolutes. Certainly Sauron and his
> minions seemed unredeemably evil, but the "good" guys (the
> hobbits and dwarves, anyway) were not absolutely good. They
> were good in the way that most ordinary people can be
> good---they rose to the occasion.
The people are not absolutely good, but every /action/ is good
or evil; every major choice is between a good action and an evil one.
Phil G.
Jurgen Lerch)
Philip Goetz <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
[Tolkien juvenile]
> More because it's a coming-of-age plot. I didn't mean "juvenile"
> in a negative sense; I meant it has these components that appeal
I don't think either the Hobbit or the LotR has a ,,coming
of age plot'' (and neither the Silmarillion).
> plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
> those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
Hm. I think this probably could fit Bilbo in the Hobbit,
although he isn't really young anymore even there.
And it also might fit for Merry and Pippin (and Eowyn) in the
LotR, but IMHO not for Frodo and Sam.
Generally, I think that it's more a thing of ,,even (even
by themselves) vastly underestimated people can make _the_
difference in a conflict and succeed where heroes fail''.
> worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
> work hard enough.
In the Hobbit nobody wanted to fix the world. In the LotR they
were trying to _save_ the world. And yes, that's something
different.
> In a sense I am calling things juvenile that disagree with my
> philosophy. The attitude that "I know how to fix the
> world, and the world is in a mess only because previous
> generations were jerks", I call juvenile because it sounds
> like every teenager thinking his/her parents are idiots.
> But this attitude is maintained throughout life by members
> of various ideologies: religions, political parties, etc.
But for all I know this is rather _contrary_ to Tolkiens
viewpoint. That seems more like: ,,Everything was better
in the past''.
>> However, I don't completely agree with Philip that Tolkien's
>> story had *only* moral absolutes. Certainly Sauron and his
>> minions seemed unredeemably evil, but the "good" guys (the
(And IIRC in the Silmarillion I *think* not even Sauran was
_absolutly_ unredeemable - it just didn't happen.)
>> hobbits and dwarves, anyway) were not absolutely good. They
>> were good in the way that most ordinary people can be
>> good---they rose to the occasion.
> The people are not absolutely good, but every /action/ is good
> or evil; every major choice is between a good action and an evil one.
Hm ... maybe even in our world there _is_ an absolut good and
evil ... we just can't know for sure - at least not until we're
dead ... ;-)
Ad Astra!
JuL
--
ler...@uni-duesseldorf.de / Aim at the moon, if you miss you'll
Jürgen ,,JuL'' Lerch / land among the stars.
http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~lerchj/
Philip Goetz
news:38B47504...@argusinc.com...
> Philip Goetz wrote:
>
> > More because it's a coming-of-age plot. I didn't mean "juvenile"
> > in a negative sense; I meant it has these components that appeal
> >
> > those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
> > work hard enough.
>
> better than the future" and "we can repair the world" contradicts
> itself. If, globally, the future cannot improve on the past, all our
> efforts can only improve things locally and temporarily; thus, we
> _cannot_ repair the world.
Good point. I spoke sloppily. Not to "fix globally", but to improve;
to remedy the current evil, not to rewind the world's mainspring.
> Tolkien's books do include "mundus senescit" as an assumption, but they
> don't have the worldview you call "juvenile". As for the plots, _The
> Hobbit_ has a plot of roughly that kind (and was written for a young
> audience) but _LotR_ does not.
I think of Frodo's story as
the book's central plot, & it's still a lone, isolated young hero, who is
cut
off physically, geographically, and intellectually from most of the rest of
the world, and who saves the world. The "one (young) person (or small
group of children) who saves the world" theme is another aspect I
associate with juvenile literature -- Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon,
the Pevensies in Narnia, Frodo, Luke Skywalker, Taran Wanderer,
those "Wrinkle in Time" kids, and the assorted heroines of the Pern novels.
"I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those darned kids!"
I may be doing the book an injustice. I would have to read it again
to be more confident. But my remembered impression is that it does
take that worldview. Not that the /characters/ in the book always know
what the right thing to do is, but if a character doesn't see which of two
courses of action is the morally right action, it is usually either because
of a flaw in the character (typically pride), or because the choice is a
tactical choice rather than a moral choice. There are still some choices
that you might consider moral grey areas ("do I bring all these people
into danger though there is little hope of survival?"), but they are more
like optimization problems than philosophical problems.
Phil
Gunther Schmidl
> plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
> those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
> worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
> work hard enough.
But they can't "fix the world"! When the Ring is finally taken care of, most of
the main characters, and indeed all the elves, are doomed too.
And the destruction of the Ring isn't a good-or-bad choice either.
Anyway, IMO, Tolkien writes some of the more "grown up" fiction out there.
And what I especially like is that LOTR is concise; there's always something
happening.
Now go read the Wheel of Time, where the last three books were blah blah blah
blah blah because Jordan seems to be afraid to get on with the plot and all the
characters are infuriating because of their damn stupidity and stubbornness;
the writing is repetitive and redundant. And redundant. Also, repetitive. Also,
redundant.
*sigh* And it started out rather nice.
--
+-----------------+---------------+------------------------------+
| Gunther Schmidl | ICQ: 22447430 | IF: http://gschmidl.cjb.net/ |
|-----------------+----------+----+------------------------------|
| gschmidl (at) gmx (dot) at | please remove the "xxx." to reply |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------+
Michael Brazier
>
> Michael Brazier <mbra...@argusinc.com> wrote in message
> news:38B47504...@argusinc.com...
>
> > don't have the worldview you call "juvenile". As for the plots, _The
> > Hobbit_ has a plot of roughly that kind (and was written for a young
> > audience) but _LotR_ does not.
>
> I think of Frodo's story as the book's central plot, & it's still a lone,
> isolated young hero, who is cut off physically, geographically, and
> intellectually from most of the rest of the world, and who saves the world.
But Frodo isn't young (literally or figuratively), and he doesn't save
Middle Earth. At the last moment, you'll recall, he chooses _not_ to
destroy the Ring; and had Gollum not been there, the quest would have
failed.
> The "one (young) person (or small group of children) who saves the world"
> theme is another aspect I associate with juvenile literature --
The only thing that associates that plot with juvenile literature,
really, is the youth of the characters. The right name for this is "the
Quest plot", and it's the base for some powerful, and very much _adult_,
literature. _The Odyssey_ and _The Aeneid_, for instance, are both
Quest stories.
> I may be doing the book an injustice. I would have to read it again
> to be more confident. But my remembered impression is that it does
> take that worldview. Not that the /characters/ in the book always know
> what the right thing to do is, but if a character doesn't see which of two
> courses of action is the morally right action, it is usually either because
> of a flaw in the character (typically pride), or because the choice is a
> tactical choice rather than a moral choice.
And with one fell swoop, practically every story written before World
War I is consigned to the "juvenile" category. The great majority of
books implicitly put forth a moral standard, and ask the reader to judge
the characters by it. Books which don't do so are either shallow,
escapist fantasies that require no thought to read, or else bring
several moral standards into collision and ask the reader to choose
between them.
J. Holder
> He borrowed a great deal from Wagner's Ring trilogy, & other sources.
> He may have been the first to use such a humble & less-than-lifesize hero,
> for which I thank him.
Some of the other sources:
"The Nibelungenlied" (Which Wagner based much of his operas on) (written
AD 1200)
"The Elder Edda"
"The Volsungasaga" from old Norse, also in the thirteenth century.
(The Volsungasaga is a retelling of much of the Elder Edda).
From the Elder Edda, stanza 10-13 (names Tolkien appropriated in CAPS):
10: There was Motsohnir the mightiest made
Of all the dwarfs, and DURIN next;
Many a likeness of men they made,
The dwarfs of the earth, as DURIN said.
11: Nyi and Nithri, Northri and Suthri
Austri and Vestri, Althjof, DVALIN,
Nar and Nain, Niping, DAIN,
BIFUR, BOFUR, BOMBUR, NORI,
An and Onar, Ai, Mjothvitnir.
12: Vigg and GANDALF, Vindalf, THRAIN,
Thekk and THORIN, THROR, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath -- now I have told --
Regin and Rathsvinth -- the list aright.
13: FILI, KILI, FUNDIN, Nali,
Heptifili, Hannar, Sviur,
Frar, Hornbori, Fraeg and Loni,
Aurvang, Jari, Eikinskjaldi.
Verse 15 mentions GLOIN, DORI, and ORI.
A footnote in the Edda even defines Gandalf's name as meaning
"magic elf", even though he is listed among the dwarves.
Many themes, such as the cursed ring, can also be traced to these.
Both the Nibelungenlied and the Volsungasaga can be found at
project Gutenberg.
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
<jholder> do you like FreeBSD?
<hal> I need to get the ISDN line running so that I will tell it to pass over
me and replace my SuSE box with FreeBSD.
Gene Wirchenko
>"Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>
>> plot: One hero, who is in some way isolated or separated from
>> those around him, goes on a journey of self-discovery.
>> worldview: We know how to fix the world, if we only
>> work hard enough.
>
>But they can't "fix the world"! When the Ring is finally taken care of, most of
>the main characters, and indeed all the elves, are doomed too.
>
>And the destruction of the Ring isn't a good-or-bad choice either.
It generally was a Good Thing, but with some consequences that
weren't nice. Those consequences weren't as large as Darkness
everlasting. Arwen could've decided not to marry Aragorn. I didn't
like that the nonhuman races were necessarily going to fade away, but
that is still smaller in magnitude.
>Anyway, IMO, Tolkien writes some of the more "grown up" fiction out there.
Yes.
>And what I especially like is that LOTR is concise; there's always something
>happening.
>
>Now go read the Wheel of Time, where the last three books were blah blah blah
>blah blah because Jordan seems to be afraid to get on with the plot and all the
>characters are infuriating because of their damn stupidity and stubbornness;
>the writing is repetitive and redundant. And redundant. Also, repetitive. Also,
>redundant.
I tried reading some of it. I didn't see the point of the
length. In the local used bookstore, there was a copy of a
promotional item. It was a book that that was the first part of one
of Jordan's efforts. It was as thick as a novel!
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Gunther Schmidl
[about Robert Jordan]
> I tried reading some of it. I didn't see the point of the
> length. In the local used bookstore, there was a copy of a
> promotional item. It was a book that that was the first part of one
> of Jordan's efforts. It was as thick as a novel!
At least readers of the English books have to deal with "only" eight novels.
The publishers of the German books are up to volume 24 or so, with EACH book
costing around $8-$10. What a rip-off, nevermind the fact any given bookstore
will have only n-2 of the n volumes, and volume m (- n will be out of print.
[ (- is a crude 'element of' symbol, by the way ]
Phil
>In article <zmAq4.6753$lK6.1...@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
>Philip Goetz <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>
>I don't really think you can say the Great Divide is over style
>vs. content. *Some* LitCrits may emphasize style over content, but far
>from all do.
>
>You're right in that SF is Literature of Ideas. What happened was that
>this got out of fashion in "literary" fiction, and that the literary
>fashion brought the mainstream along with it. So the Great Divide is
>rather between Literature of Ideas and literature where personal
>development and things like that are at the forefront.
>
OK, I'll go along with that too. There are people who cling
to "style over content" (such as a creative writing
instructor I had in college, who repeatedly insisted that "it
doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say it well!"), but
they're missing much of the picture.
Maybe the emphasis on the personal, rather than the collective,
stems from a postmodern philosophy that became powerful soon after
WWI, which denies that we can make meaningful generalizations (about
large groups of people, historical trends, etc.)?
Phil
Phil
>But we consider these ideologies "juvenille" because they're naive or
>obviously incorrect. What about a reality, such as in LOTR, where the
>viewpoint is *correct*? Necessarily juvenille? Besides which, the guy
>doing the fixing is not really the guy with the worldview, and all the
>people who really *do* have the worldview lack the adolescent's
>viewpoint of incorruptibility. (To borrow your metaphor: "I'll never
>turn out like THEM.")
When I say "juvenile" I don't mean "obviously incorrect", I mean
a viewpoint that is statistically correlated with a certain human age.
There are viewpoints that I tend to associate with older people
that are not any more correct. Tolkien's idea that everything
was better in the past is one such. (So I can't apply the word
"juvenile" to Tolkien's work as a whole. I shouldn't
have used the word "juvenile" so broadly. Sorry. But I do
think that a large component of LOTR's popularity is due to
things it has in common with children's adventure stories.)
>> The people are not absolutely good, but every /action/ is good
>> or evil; every major choice is between a good action and an evil one.
>
>I thought the Elves had to make some sort of decision in the books that
>was quite bad for them, but good for existence in general. (Oh, Lord, I
>hope I don't have to go back and re-read these things now! :-)
The decision to leave Middle Earth, maybe?
There is stoicism in Tolkien.
Phil
Phil
>Philip Goetz wrote:
>>
>> Michael Brazier <mbra...@argusinc.com> wrote in message
>> news:38B47504...@argusinc.com...
>>
>> > Tolkien's books do include "mundus senescit" as an assumption, but they
>> > don't have the worldview you call "juvenile". As for the plots, _The
>> > Hobbit_ has a plot of roughly that kind (and was written for a young
>> > audience) but _LotR_ does not.
>>
>> I think of Frodo's story as the book's central plot, & it's still a lone,
>> isolated young hero, who is cut off physically, geographically, and
>> intellectually from most of the rest of the world, and who saves the world.
>
>But Frodo isn't young (literally or figuratively), and he doesn't save
>Middle Earth. At the last moment, you'll recall, he chooses _not_ to
>destroy the Ring; and had Gollum not been there, the quest would have
>failed.
IIRC, the first chapter says Frodo is young in hobbit terms, of the
age when young hobbits entering upon adulthood may go wandering.
You can't spell out "coming of age story" much more clearly.
(I may be confusing this with Hobbit, but don't think so.)
Gollum inadvertently making the quest a success is a very
interesting point of the story, atypical of that type of story.
I think Gollum is Frodo's shadow; there's more that could be said
about how "Frodo" (the composite of Frodo and Gollum) acts at
the last moment.
>> The "one (young) person (or small group of children) who saves the world"
>> theme is another aspect I associate with juvenile literature --
>
>The only thing that associates that plot with juvenile literature,
>really, is the youth of the characters. The right name for this is "the
>Quest plot", and it's the base for some powerful, and very much _adult_,
>literature. _The Odyssey_ and _The Aeneid_, for instance, are both
>Quest stories.
The Quest plot is not the right name for this.
Saving the world is the right name for this.
It's specifically associated with young-adult literature,
when it's not associated with messianic texts.
The Odyssey and Aeneid are, ethically, worlds apart from Tolkien.
They are nearly amoral. Some of the heroes in those works are
rapists, murderers, thieves, and enslavers; these things have no
bearing upon their nobility in the mind of the author(s).
Very Nietzschian.
>> I may be doing the book an injustice. I would have to read it again
>> to be more confident. But my remembered impression is that it does
>> take that worldview. Not that the /characters/ in the book always know
>> what the right thing to do is, but if a character doesn't see which of two
>> courses of action is the morally right action, it is usually either because
>> of a flaw in the character (typically pride), or because the choice is a
>> tactical choice rather than a moral choice.
>
>And with one fell swoop, practically every story written before World
>War I is consigned to the "juvenile" category. The great majority of
>books implicitly put forth a moral standard, and ask the reader to judge
>the characters by it. Books which don't do so are either shallow,
>escapist fantasies that require no thought to read, or else bring
>several moral standards into collision and ask the reader to choose
>between them.
I'm not calling putting forth a moral standard as juvenile.
I mean something more like putting forth the kind of moral standard
that we tell to our kids when they're young to keep them obedient.
WWI was a turning point, but when I think of classics written before
WWI, many of them don't have the simplistic viewpoint I find in Tolkien.
Don Quixote: Deeply ironic work, simultaneously condemning
and praising the Don's simple moral framework.
Paradise Lost: Attempts to be simplistic, but Satan has all the best lines.
Frankenstein: What responsibilities do you have to society if society
rejects you? Does responsibility for an individual's misanthropy
always lie with that individual? The monster in Mary Shelley's
novel deliberates about these philosophical problems extensively.
Uncle Tom's Cabin: No moral ambivalence AFAIK, but we cannot call it
naive or obvious because it was a controversial topic at the time.
Huckleberry Finn: How to live in a violent, deceptive, immoral world
without becoming that way yourself.
Moby Dick: Not just a simple tragedy about fatal hubris; gives
fairly good representation of Ahab's point of view.
Like Milton's Satan, Ahab has the best lines.
Les Miserables: Javaire (okay, I can't spell his name) is the primary
villian, and imagines himself to be the hero because he represents
the law.
Oliver Twist: Moral criminals, immoral law-abiders.
How does Dickens regard Fagan ethically?
Phil Goetz
Phil
>In article <R7Bo4.3991$lK6....@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
> "Philip Goetz" <pgo...@i-a-i.com> wrote:
>>
>> Adventureland -- first PC adventure
>
>I'm curious why you would include this as opposed to the original
>Collossal Cave?
I didn't mention CC because, like Zork, I didn't think it needed mentioning.
Colossal didn't appear on PCs until about 1980.
I'm almost certain that Adventureland (Scott Adams) was the first on a PC.
>> IF doesn't need literary criticism as much as it needs good stories.
>> You sound more like a literary critic than a storyteller,
>> and that frightens me.
>
>Don't let that scare you. Let that free you.
I'm sorry I said that, but I don't know what you mean about freeing me.
Phil
Phil
>
>
>Philip Goetz wrote:
>
>> > > A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the
>> > > world or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving
>> > > a mystery or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this long?
>> >
>
>OK. I wasn't sure exactly what you were getting at. In that case, what about
>Ballyhoo?
Interesting question. Ballyhoo wasn't high-stakes, but I didn't
/care/ about the outcome in Ballyhoo, except to win. Change in
the Weather made you /feel/ as if saving the bridge were important.
Phil
Joe Mason
>>But Frodo isn't young (literally or figuratively), and he doesn't save
>>Middle Earth. At the last moment, you'll recall, he chooses _not_ to
>>destroy the Ring; and had Gollum not been there, the quest would have
>>failed.
>
>IIRC, the first chapter says Frodo is young in hobbit terms, of the
>age when young hobbits entering upon adulthood may go wandering.
Well, yeah, but there's a 20-year gap between the first and second chapters,
or something like that.
Joe
TenthStone
wrote:
>On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Michael Brazier <mbra...@argusinc.com> wrote:
>>Philip Goetz wrote:
>>>
>>> Michael Brazier <mbra...@argusinc.com> wrote in message
>>> news:38B47504...@argusinc.com...
>>>
>>> > Tolkien's books do include "mundus senescit" as an assumption, but they
>>> > don't have the worldview you call "juvenile". As for the plots, _The
>>> > Hobbit_ has a plot of roughly that kind (and was written for a young
>>> > audience) but _LotR_ does not.
>>>
>>> I think of Frodo's story as the book's central plot, & it's still a lone,
>>> isolated young hero, who is cut off physically, geographically, and
>>> intellectually from most of the rest of the world, and who saves the world.
>>
>>But Frodo isn't young (literally or figuratively), and he doesn't save
>>Middle Earth. At the last moment, you'll recall, he chooses _not_ to
>>destroy the Ring; and had Gollum not been there, the quest would have
>>failed.
>
>IIRC, the first chapter says Frodo is young in hobbit terms, of the
>age when young hobbits entering upon adulthood may go wandering.
Young hobbits entering upon adulthood aren't really supposed to go
wandering at all, certainly not out of the Shire. Probably a response
mechanism to the fact that they can't really compete physically.
>You can't spell out "coming of age story" much more clearly.
There may be a coming of age story in LOTR, but it's more with
Pippin than Frodo. Frodo is spiritually an old hobbit by the time
he's at Mount Doom.
>(I may be confusing this with Hobbit, but don't think so.)
Well, maybe. The Hobbit's not as much of a coming-of-age story
as a story about living instead of existing.
>Gollum inadvertently making the quest a success is a very
>interesting point of the story, atypical of that type of story.
>I think Gollum is Frodo's shadow; there's more that could be said
>about how "Frodo" (the composite of Frodo and Gollum) acts at
>the last moment.
Ahem. Doppelganger. And that's just.
>>> The "one (young) person (or small group of children) who saves the world"
>>> theme is another aspect I associate with juvenile literature --
>>
>>The only thing that associates that plot with juvenile literature,
>>really, is the youth of the characters. The right name for this is "the
>>Quest plot", and it's the base for some powerful, and very much _adult_,
>>literature. _The Odyssey_ and _The Aeneid_, for instance, are both
>>Quest stories.
>
>The Quest plot is not the right name for this.
>Saving the world is the right name for this.
>It's specifically associated with young-adult literature,
>when it's not associated with messianic texts.
Well, Lord of the Rings has a lot more in it than saving the world,
but I understand what you mean.
>I'm not calling putting forth a moral standard as juvenile.
>I mean something more like putting forth the kind of moral standard
>that we tell to our kids when they're young to keep them obedient.
>WWI was a turning point, but when I think of classics written before
>WWI, many of them don't have the simplistic viewpoint I find in Tolkien.
>
>Don Quixote: Deeply ironic work, simultaneously condemning
> and praising the Don's simple moral framework.
>Paradise Lost: Attempts to be simplistic, but Satan has all the best lines.
>Frankenstein: What responsibilities do you have to society if society
> rejects you? Does responsibility for an individual's misanthropy
> always lie with that individual? The monster in Mary Shelley's
> novel deliberates about these philosophical problems extensively.
>Uncle Tom's Cabin: No moral ambivalence AFAIK, but we cannot call it
> naive or obvious because it was a controversial topic at the time.
>Huckleberry Finn: How to live in a violent, deceptive, immoral world
> without becoming that way yourself.
>Moby Dick: Not just a simple tragedy about fatal hubris; gives
> fairly good representation of Ahab's point of view.
> Like Milton's Satan, Ahab has the best lines.
>Les Miserables: Javaire (okay, I can't spell his name) is the primary
> villian, and imagines himself to be the hero because he represents
> the law.
>Oliver Twist: Moral criminals, immoral law-abiders.
> How does Dickens regard Fagan ethically?
Lord of the Rings: mythology where one person works to seize ultimate
power. Reactions thereto.
Look. If you want to, you can object that Sauron's character is not
fleshed out, that his quest for power is pure evil. Eh. I'm not sure
that's an unreasonable thing, given a magical world. Sauron's
perspective is explained somewhat in the Silmarilion.
----------------
The Imperturbable TenthStone
tenth...@hotmail.com mcc...@gsgis.k12.va.us
Heinz-Georg Pussar
>
[snip]
> From the Elder Edda, stanza 10-13 (names Tolkien appropriated in CAPS):
>
>pedantic on
This post is now in "pedantic mode", which gives annoying annotations
>
> 13: FILI, KILI, FUNDIN, Nali,
> Heptifili, Hannar, Sviur,
> Frar, Hornbori, Fraeg and Loni,
> Aurvang, Jari, Eikinskjaldi.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
That name was also used (translated to Oakenshield)
>
> Verse 15 mentions GLOIN, DORI, and ORI.
>
>pedantic off
Heinz-Georg
Lelah Conrad
I've just this very week finished rereading LOTR (well, folks, the
movies are coming out, three of them, starting about a year from this
summer, and I thought I should get ready.)
I hadn't read them since I was a teenager, and I was surprised how
much I enjoyed them. They are not juvenile literature imho, nor are
they any sort of simplistic good-vs-evil stories. There are
characters with failings and problems, and as somebody here said
(Darryl?), with the guts to "rise to the occasion." The endings and
loss of the old world are quite ambiguous also, as are the conflicting
views of the role of "men" -- heh, humans.
(You can't read them without picking up lots of racist overtones
though. I decided just to plow through and ignore all that rather
than get bogged down in it.)
Anyway, these were definitely worth a reread. There's a lot in there
the second time around, more subtlely and complexity than I expected.
Plus, good writing, lots of mythology, a very complete alternate
world, and lots of adventure. These characters are made for the big
screen if done right! Go ENTS!
Lelah
David Cornelson
news:38b887c9...@news.nu-world.com...
> How delightful to check the newsgroup and find this thread going!
> I've just this very week finished rereading LOTR (well, folks, the
> movies are coming out, three of them, starting about a year from this
> summer, and I thought I should get ready.)
I'm with Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol, just as we've decided that the main gate
is not probably a good way to go. I believe I've read LOTR at least twice
before, the first time when I was 18 (18 years ago) and then probably a few
years after. I think reading the Silmarillion is what gives LOTR its true
depth. I don't think you can appreciate the simplicity of the story-telling
in LOTR unless you read the 'history of middle-earth' as it were. Tolkein
created a substantial world and LOTR is just a really small part of that. I
think they should have done 6 movies and started from the beginning (please,
no SW references).
Anyway, I haven't read Jordan or likely any of the other references, except
maybe for the Illiad, so I'm no expert on the 'structure', but it seems to
me that Tolkien did as fine a job as you can in telling a story without; a)
getting bogged down in made-up language b) false-pretenses to extend a story
c) unneccessary comic relief.
I've also been reading this Janny Wurts thing whom I'm a fan of and she's
pretty much blown it. The latest novel, Grand Conspiracy, is simply a waste
of paper. She puts all of her characters through some silly motions, but the
'plot' really never moves forward.
Tolkien's plot continually moved forward, something you have to
re-experience, I guess, to appreciate.
It may be simple, it may be an easy read, but the depth is there. That's the
genius of it. Now go read the Silmarillion. That's hardly simple and hardly
an easy read. There you'll find all of the proof that you need that Tolkien
could have created LOTR as something less-simple.
The fact that he didn't says something. He was more interested in telling a
story than in any pretext of creating great literature.
Personally, I think more writers should take heed.
Jarb
PS: I would love to be an actor and get to play Gollum. Truly one of the
most memorable fantasy characters ever written.
Daryl McCullough
>...The endings and loss of the old world are quite ambiguous also,
>as are the conflicting views of the role of "men" -- heh, humans.
Yes. What to me makes Lord of the Rings much more mature than
truly juvenile stuff like _Star Wars_ is the lack of an
unambiguously happy ending. The bad guys are defeated, but
the elves are going away, Frodo is permanently wounded by
his quest, the Shire is not the same place that it was for
Bilbo and Frodo. The victory has a great cost, and the ending
is rather sad. In contrast, most truly juvenile stories end
with everything hunky dory.
Of course, there is a darker strain of "juvenile" literature,
such as the novels of Robert Cormier (_I am the Cheese_, _The
Chocolate War_), Philip Pullman (_The Golden Compass_, the
Sally Lockhart mysteries), and John Christopher (_The City of
Gold and Lead_) that are every bit as depressing as anything
adults read.
I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
Daryl McCullough
> Ursula Leguin wrote of how Frodo and Gollum were two sides of a
>coin. Maybe Samwise was part of it, too, but I don't recall that
>clearly.
Well if Sam were part of it, that would have required a three-sided
coin. 8^)
Gene Wirchenko
>l...@nu-world.com (Lelah Conrad) says...
>
>>...The endings and loss of the old world are quite ambiguous also,
>>as are the conflicting views of the role of "men" -- heh, humans.
>
>Yes. What to me makes Lord of the Rings much more mature than
>truly juvenile stuff like _Star Wars_ is the lack of an
>unambiguously happy ending. The bad guys are defeated, but
>the elves are going away, Frodo is permanently wounded by
>his quest, the Shire is not the same place that it was for
>Bilbo and Frodo. The victory has a great cost, and the ending
^^^^^
Bilbo didn't go back.
>is rather sad. In contrast, most truly juvenile stories end
>with everything hunky dory.
>
>Of course, there is a darker strain of "juvenile" literature,
>such as the novels of Robert Cormier (_I am the Cheese_, _The
>Chocolate War_), Philip Pullman (_The Golden Compass_, the
>Sally Lockhart mysteries), and John Christopher (_The City of
>Gold and Lead_) that are every bit as depressing as anything
>adults read.
>
>I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
>Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
>the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
Right. No sense freaking out the *adults*.
I am amazed at how science fiction can be categorized by
librarians. Sometimes, it seems as if it all gets shoved into "Young
Adult", even very mature works. By "very mature", I am NOT referring
to sex, etc..
Joe Mason
>Yes. What to me makes Lord of the Rings much more mature than
>truly juvenile stuff like _Star Wars_ is the lack of an
>unambiguously happy ending. The bad guys are defeated, but
>the elves are going away, Frodo is permanently wounded by
>his quest, the Shire is not the same place that it was for
>Bilbo and Frodo. The victory has a great cost, and the ending
>with everything hunky dory.
I'll point out that Luke is also permanently wounded by his ordeal at the end
of Star Wars: the scene where he's standing by Vader's pyre has a feeling
which I find very similar to Frodo's "I am wounded by knife, sting, and tooth,
and a long burden."
Joe
Lelah Conrad
wrote:
(To David: yeah, I've got the Silmarillion staring at me on the shelf
-- maybe I'll tackle it. I've tried before, to no avail.
To Daryl: That was a hilarious quote from Heinlein about juvenile
fiction!)
One thing I wanted to say about LOTR (sorry, didn't have time
yesterday) is that I realized this time that the hero was Sam, not
Frodo. Frodo is depicted often as being tired, weary, ill,
unconscious, etc. etc. whereas Sam is on the quest just because he
loves his friend. This was a real eye-opener to me -- I didn't see
this when I read it as a teenager. Sam wasn't there for the ring bit,
really -- he was there to help a friend, no matter what. His decision
to be with his friend takes precedence over the rest of the
fol-de-rol -- he had already decided to go through it all to the
bitter end *for Frodo*. This is a more universal theme, a human
relationship theme, than good vs evil, and really adds a stoic, adult
story line to the plot.
Also, Frodo DOES succumb to the power of evil, finally, when
he's at Mt. Doom -- only his "shadow side" Gollum succeeds in saving
him by biting off the finger with the ring. So Frodo never does the
heroic deed -- it is Sam all the way. Frodo I think is presented as
part of a package deal with Gollum as a bit of an alter-ego. Thus, he
remains a wounded soul, has lost part of himself after Mt. Doom, and
never really "gets a life" as Sam does. Sam is the one who reaps the
benefits in classical comedic style -- the marriage, the kids, the
long life, etc.
Anyway, I'm glad I've re-read it (even if I did, as I kept
muttering to my spouse, have to go "up one too many hill and down one
too many dale" for my liking.) If anybody wants to follow the movie
progress, and even see some of the advance screen art, here's a couple
of web sites (some more official than others):
http://www.lordoftherings.net/
http://www.tolkien-movies.com/
http://www.xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie/
http://theonering.net/
Lelah
"Sam lives!" ;)
R. Alan Monroe
>ge...@shuswap.net says...
>> Ursula Leguin wrote of how Frodo and Gollum were two sides of a
>>coin. Maybe Samwise was part of it, too, but I don't recall that
>>clearly.
>
>Well if Sam were part of it, that would have required a three-sided
>coin. 8^)
Must be the ridges around the edge.
:^)
Have fun
Alan
Adam J. Thornton
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@shuswap.net> wrote:
><snicker>
> What is it with these middle-aged hobbits going off on adventures
>ANYWAY?
></snicker>
They didn't have access to Ferraris, and mistresses wouldn't take them
seriously.
Adam
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
Andrew Plotkin
>
> I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
...but that was 40 years ago, and these days they don't remove the sex.
I was at a con this weekend, and listened to some discussion of what
"young adult" literature is. The authors (Tamora Pierce was on the panel)
pretty much agreed that it's a marketing decision, often made after the
fact of writing. But the biggest factor in deciding where to shelve the
thing is whether the protagonist is a kid.
Obviously, this is not a universal rule.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Adam Cadre
> I was at a con this weekend, and listened to some discussion of what
> "young adult" literature is. The authors (Tamora Pierce was on the
> panel) pretty much agreed that it's a marketing decision, often made
> after the fact of writing. But the biggest factor in deciding where
> to shelve the thing is whether the protagonist is a kid.
Sho nuff. When my book was being bid on, the two houses in question
had quite different plans for it -- Avon would have released it as a
YA novel, while HarperCollins will be releasing it as regular fiction.
Avon assured me that even with a YA label, they wouldn't have edited
for content -- they mentioned that their YA imprint's current release
was a book called Smack, which didn't flinch at vivid depictions of
heroin use. Nevertheless, in retrospect, I'm extremely glad that it'll
be coming out as standard fiction despite the protagonist being sixteen.
Just feels... more real, somehow.
Avon is now part of HarperCollins, of course. Ah, capitalism.
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
http://adamcadre.ac
Iain Merrick
> "David Cornelson" <dcorn...@placet.com> wrote:
[...]
> >I'm with Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol, just as we've decided that the main gate
> >is not probably a good way to go. I believe I've read LOTR at least twice
> >before, the first time when I was 18 (18 years ago) and then probably a few
> >years after. I think reading the Silmarillion is what gives LOTR its true
> >depth. I don't think you can appreciate the simplicity of the story-telling
> >in LOTR unless you read the 'history of middle-earth' as it were. Tolkein
>
> Hmm, it looks as if I'm going to have to tackle the other JRRT.
Don't expect anything as good as The Hobbit and LotR.
The Silmarillion is like the appendices in the last volume of LotR, only
more so. It was pieced together by his son after JRR Tolkien died. It
might very well enhance your enjoyment of LotR, since it shows
conclusively that there was a vast, detailed, internally-realistic
universe behind the story of Bilbo, Frodo and the rest.
As a work of literature in its own right, it reminds me somewhat of the
bible: it's untidy and often inconsistent, but with fragments of really
memorable writing dotted here and there. The theology is much less
confused than that of the bible, though, and it has a better plot -- I
suppose it's more like those Norse myths, really. Wish I knew more about
them.
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Iain Merrick
[...]
> I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
Leaving what, exactly?
My local bookshops don't stock much Heinlein, and when they do it tends
to be his somewhat obsessive later stuff. Take all the sex out of those
and you'd be left with, like, a pamphlet or two. Though I suppose they'd
be _good_ pamphlets.
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
dcorn...@placet.com
Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
> Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>
> > "David Cornelson" <dcorn...@placet.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > >I'm with Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol, just as we've decided that the
main gate
> > >is not probably a good way to go. I believe I've read LOTR at least
twice
> > >before, the first time when I was 18 (18 years ago) and then
probably a few
> > >years after. I think reading the Silmarillion is what gives LOTR
its true
> > >depth. I don't think you can appreciate the simplicity of the
story-telling
> > >in LOTR unless you read the 'history of middle-earth' as it were.
Tolkein
> >
> > Hmm, it looks as if I'm going to have to tackle the other JRRT.
>
> Don't expect anything as good as The Hobbit and LotR.
>
> The Silmarillion is like the appendices in the last volume of LotR,
only
Hmm. I have to agree with this opinion because The Silmarillion is a
jumbled sort of publication, but I also have to say that it, in its own
way, carries a beauty that is broader and deeper than simply an appendix
or two of information.
Give credit to Tolkien's son for doing such a fine job in putting it all
back together. His father always intended to make something more solid
of it all (at least you get that from the notes), but was so obsessed
with the 'whole history of middle-earth' that outside of The Hobbit and
LOTR, he never got a chance to do so.
His son tried to remain faithful to the notes that were left behind
where he could easily have said to himself, "Here, I should add my own
bits to glue it all together," or, "I think my father would have added
a chapter with this information," and that would have been a lessor work
in my mind.
Sort of like Brian Herbert trying to write that prequel to Dune. I'm
ashamed (for him) that he even tried. I tried reading it and the sad
fact is, he just doesn't have whatever it is that his father had in
talent, vision, and worse, good judgement.
Christopher Tolkien did the right things, only historically delivering
annotated publications of his father's universe, instead of trying to
take his father's work as his own.
Read the Silmarillion. It's disjointed as Iain mentioned, but well worth
the effort to plod through the glue and get to the good parts.
Jarb
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Andrew Plotkin
> Daryl McCullough wrote:
> [...]
>> I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
>> Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
>> the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
>
> Leaving what, exactly?
The characterization, storytelling, and all-around good writing that made
him one of the best-known sci-fi writers by the Sixties.
Check out his juveniles. Hell, *I* should check out his juveniles -- I
only read a few of them myself.
Matthew T. Russotto
Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
}Daryl McCullough wrote:
}[...]
}> I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
}> Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
}> the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
}
}Leaving what, exactly?
In _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, almost everything.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Adam Atkinson
>> I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
>> Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
>> the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
>Leaving what, exactly?
You'd be surprised. His juveniles are (IMHO) frequently better than
much of his adult stuff. Try "Starman Jones" or, um, the one with
"Farmer" in the title. Or "Tunnel in the..." um, something.
Do NOT read "Podkayne of Mars".
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
I am never forget the day I first meet great Lobachevsky. In one
word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarise.
David Given
Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> writes:
[...]
> Leaving what, exactly?
>
> My local bookshops don't stock much Heinlein, and when they do it tends
> to be his somewhat obsessive later stuff. Take all the sex out of those
> and you'd be left with, like, a pamphlet or two. Though I suppose they'd
> be _good_ pamphlets.
Well, you should read _Have Spacesuit: Will Travel_ at the very least.
It's possibly his best work; the first ten to twenty pages are a brilliant
example of storytelling. It's also dated very well. It's only until about
half-way through that you realise that it's set in about 1980 and Oscar
the Mechanical Man is in fact nothing more than a glorified drysuit. Kip
goes swimming in it, for gods' sake. And I'm not entirely happy with the
Three Galaxies Tribunal.
That said, it's an excellent read and a brilliant antidote to, say, _I
Will Fear No Evil_ (which I read by accident once and I will safely say
that it's one of the worst books I've ever had the misfortune to finish).
Heinlein at his best rather than his worst.
--
+- David Given ---------------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | Does a Con Neumann machine run a Make
| Play: dgi...@iname.com | Machines Fast scam?
+- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+
kar...@fermi2.chem.yale.edu
> You'd be surprised. His juveniles are (IMHO) frequently better than
> much of his adult stuff. Try "Starman Jones" or, um, the one with
> "Farmer" in the title. Or "Tunnel in the..." um, something.
> Do NOT read "Podkayne of Mars".
I'm only biting here because I'm rereading "Rolling Stone" right now. And
of course you could find out more by doing a web search for Heinlein. But
here's a list of some "juveniles".
- Have Space Suit, Will Travel - one of my favorites
- Space Cadet
- Rolling Stones
- Podkayne of Mars (*I* liked it)
- Fifth Column, which is now called something else, which is one of the
most fun
- Puppet Masters
- Door into Summer (or something like it)
- Star Beast
I actually read Starship Troopers as a kid, and didn't notice any of the
philosophy stuff (which is surprising, since it's like most of the book).
Great story, neat bad guys, etc.
Moon is a Harsh Mistress is probably my favorite. It's longer than those
listed above (300 or 350 vs. maybe 150-200 pages) and he starts rambling
about government and stuff, but it's a really good story. (In case you
haven't notice by now, "good story" is one of my main criteria for liking
fiction. Deep moral stuff I get enough of in synagogue :)
Stranger in a Strange Land is quite good too, but the ratio of sex and
politics to fun story has gone way up by now.
Haven't read much of his later stuff because I'm told I would hate it.
> Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
> I am never forget the day I first meet great Lobachevsky. In one
> word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarise.
Actually, Tom Lehrer was American, so I suspect he said "Plagiarize". Hm. I
don't know how a Russian would spell it.
-Amir
Adam Atkinson
>- Puppet Masters
>- Door into Summer (or something like it)
Are these two juveniles?
>Haven't read much of his later stuff because I'm told I would hate it.
Seems pretty likely. "Number of the Beast" onwards, I just couldn't
be bothered.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
We know Jesus must have been Italian for 3 reasons: he lived at home
until he was 30, he thought his mother was a virgin, and she thought
he was God.
J. Robinson Wheeler
> Standeven <be...@worldinter.net> wrote:
> >Philip Goetz wrote:
> > > A Change in the Weather -- first IF in which you are not saving the
> > > world or the kingdom or yourself or gathering treasure or solving
> > > a mystery or in some way gathering glory -- did it really take this
long?
> >
>
> Interesting question. Ballyhoo wasn't high-stakes, but I didn't
> /care/ about the outcome in Ballyhoo, except to win. Change in
> the Weather made you /feel/ as if saving the bridge were important.
I think you have to admit that you've switched from listing points of
development in IF to grasping for an excuse to put in a remarkable game
that happened to stir your emotions. Myself, I found ACitW so frustrating
that I didn't care what happened to the silly bridge. Your view that
you /felt/ as if the goal of the game were important was not part of the
experience of the game for me.
Thus the answer is: no, it didn't take until ACitW for the first IF in
which the player was not saving the world, etc etc., to appear. Perhaps
if we need an excuse to call A Change in the Weather a landmark of some
kind, we should just say, "Here's when Andrew Plotkin started winning
awards for writing IF." Or how about: turn-by-turn dynamically changing
full room descriptions? Maybe that will eventually turn out to be a
commonly employed authoring style. We'll know better after the Golden
Age ends.
--
J. Robinson Wheeler http://raddial.com/
whe...@jump.net
Standeven
Gene Wirchenko wrote:
> fl...@CC860922-A.home.com (Phil) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >IIRC, the first chapter says Frodo is young in hobbit terms, of the
> >age when young hobbits entering upon adulthood may go wandering.
>
> The first chapter is the birthday party where Bilbo turns
> eleventy-one (111) and Frodo comes of age (33). That was in 3001
> T.A.. By the time things get interesting (3018-3019), Frodo is 50.
> For a species that lives to 100 as often as not, I think this may
> qualify as middle-aged.
>
[...]
> Bilbo was born in 2890. "The Hobbit" takes place in 2941-2
> making Bilbo 51-52 at the time.
>
> <snicker>
> What is it with these middle-aged hobbits going off on adventures
> ANYWAY?
> </snicker>
In fact, my literature professor described them as "midlife-crisis stories".
Daryl McCullough
>
>Philip Goetz wrote:
>>...Change in the Weather made you /feel/ as if saving the bridge
>>were important.
>
>I think you have to admit that you've switched from listing points of
>development in IF to grasping for an excuse to put in a remarkable game
>that happened to stir your emotions. Myself, I found ACitW so frustrating
>that I didn't care what happened to the silly bridge.
Well, this is a little bit embarassing to admit, but I'm pretty
sure I would never have gotten very far in _A Change in the Weather_
or _So Far_ without the third-party solutions found on the
if-archive. Since Zarf works so hard on his tough puzzles, I
suppose I'm missing something big by punting on them,
but *with* the solutions in hand when I got stuck, I enjoyed
those games immensely.
Once upon a time, I would spend untold hours trying to solve
IF games, often playing straight through the night. However,
with wife and kids and general senility, I find that I can't
devote that kind of time to playing anymore.
Arcum Dagsson
> Daryl McCullough wrote:
> [...]
> > I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> > Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> > the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
>
> Leaving what, exactly?
>
> My local bookshops don't stock much Heinlein, and when they do it tends
> to be his somewhat obsessive later stuff. Take all the sex out of those
> and you'd be left with, like, a pamphlet or two. Though I suppose they'd
> be _good_ pamphlets.
Hmmm. Interesting thought. <tries it>. <snip> L.L's mom goes to jail, and starts
reminicing about her life. <snip life> Her son rescues her. <snip incest> . They
rescue her father. <snip more incest>
Sure they'd fill out a pamphlet?
--
--Arcum Dagsson
Playing tonight live at Milliways, it's the Transfinite Cardinals.
Let's give them a big hand as they perform their first number,
'Multiple Orders Of Infinity'
J Walrus
J. Robinson Wheeler <whe...@jump.net> wrote in message
news:89esb5$si2$1...@news.jump.net...
*snip*
> Or how about: turn-by-turn dynamically changing
> full room descriptions? Maybe that will eventually turn out to be a
> commonly employed authoring style. We'll know better after the Golden
> Age ends.
You're depressing me here: please can't that 'after' be an 'if ever'?
Jw
Iain Merrick
> Iain Merrick wrote:
>
> > Daryl McCullough wrote:
> > [...]
> > > I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> > > Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> > > the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
> >
> > Leaving what, exactly?
> >
> > My local bookshops don't stock much Heinlein, and when they do it tends
> > to be his somewhat obsessive later stuff. Take all the sex out of those
> > and you'd be left with, like, a pamphlet or two. Though I suppose they'd
> > be _good_ pamphlets.
>
> Hmmm. Interesting thought. <tries it>. <snip> L.L's mom goes to jail, and starts
> reminicing about her life. <snip life> Her son rescues her. <snip incest> . They
> rescue her father. <snip more incest>
Coincidentally, that's the one I just read.
> Sure they'd fill out a pamphlet?
Just about, I think. The last chapter was good fun.
(And _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ is very good, as people have pointed
out in other replies. But that was written back in, what, the early
60's?)
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
okbl...@my-deja.com
ge...@shuswap.net wrote:
> [in response to Darryl writing this:]
> >I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> >Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> >the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
>
In Steinbeck's (tragically) unfinished rewrite of King Arthur (which he
meant children to read), he left the sex in (Uther taking Igraine). His
argument was that children were better able to handle that sort of thing
than adults. That it was becoming an adult that cluttered up the
viewpoint about sex, in essence.
--
[ok]
okbl...@my-deja.com
l...@nu-world.com (Lelah Conrad) wrote:
>
> "Sam lives!" ;)
Aw, geez, now I =am= gonna hafta reread it!
Thanks for the insight, Lelah. :-)
Andrew Plotkin
>
> J. Robinson Wheeler <whe...@jump.net> wrote in message
> news:89esb5$si2$1...@news.jump.net...
>
>> full room descriptions? Maybe that will eventually turn out to be a
>> commonly employed authoring style. We'll know better after the Golden
>> Age ends.
>
> You're depressing me here: please can't that 'after' be an 'if ever'?
I think he's echoing back to my post on the subject. It shouldn't be a
depressing thought.
No "Golden Age" can last forever. Broadly speaking, you can't step back
and re-evaluate while you're in the thick of things. And you can't do the
next thing until you know what you did first.
Arcum Dagsson
wrote:
> Arcum Dagsson wrote:
>
> > Iain Merrick wrote:
> >
> > > Daryl McCullough wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > > I'm not sure exactly what makes literature "juvenile". Robert
> > > > Heinlein said that in writing juvenile novels, he just wrote
> > > > the same as he would for an adult, and then removed all the sex.
> > >
> > > Leaving what, exactly?
> > >
> > > My local bookshops don't stock much Heinlein, and when they do it tends
> > > to be his somewhat obsessive later stuff. Take all the sex out of those
> > > and you'd be left with, like, a pamphlet or two. Though I suppose
> > > they'd
> > > be _good_ pamphlets.
> >
> > Hmmm. Interesting thought. <tries it>. <snip> L.L's mom goes to jail, and
> > starts
> > reminicing about her life. <snip life> Her son rescues her. <snip incest>
> > . They
> > rescue her father. <snip more incest>
>
> Coincidentally, that's the one I just read.
>
> > Sure they'd fill out a pamphlet?
>
> Just about, I think. The last chapter was good fun.
True, and Random Numbers is a cool cat name...
>
> (And _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ is very good, as people have pointed
> out in other replies. But that was written back in, what, the early
> 60's?)
Yes, that would have to be my favorite Heinlein novel. His short stories
generally were good. "All you Zombies" was classic time travel, for example. And
who can forget "Green Hills of Earth"? Stranger and a Strange Land was pretty
good. It's mainly his latter novels that go for more and more of the obsessive
"L.L. and his father have an orgy with his two sisters, his mother, and a couple
dozen of his lineal decendants" touch...
Lelah Conrad
wrote:
>
>In fact, my literature professor described them as "midlife-crisis stories".
>
Well, *that* explains why I liked them this time...
Lelah :)