Burned out on SF -- Is there hope?
Bill Oliver
A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
up a book to see what it was like.
I was shaken. Being a science fiction and fantasy fan has been
part of my self-definition. I have a thirty-year
history of reading just about everything that came on the
market. My house is little more than a book warehouse.
Discovering that I had lost my desire to read sf was
tatamount to finding that I had radically changed
my orientation or lost my desire for sex or food.
The easy thing to say is that, of course, writers are
writing more crap these days, and that I finally realized
that the weeds have simply overrun the fields. But I
don't think so. There is good sf out there, and
there has been plenty of crap in the past (I have
shelves of it). I have always been a critical reader,
but finding the gems has always made rooting in the mud
worthwhile before. It's me.
My wife, a long-time mystery fan, has introduced
me to some interesting mysteries. I had picked up a few
in the past, but didn't enjoy them for the most part
because they were too much of a busman's holiday
for me (I am involved in forensics as a profession).
Now, I find I enjoy mysteries more than sf.
My other reading interests in other areas such as
history, other fiction, etc. haven't changed.
Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
if you did?
Is there a rec.xxx for mysteries?
billo
STEPHANIE G. FOLSE
Bill Oliver <oli...@cs.unc.edu> wrote:
>
>A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
>peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
>I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
>interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
>up a book to see what it was like.
>
I read very fast, and I read a lot. This happens to me on a regular
basis -- although it's usually specific genres within SF/F that I burn
out on. For the past year to year and a half, I haven't been able to
read anything vaguely resembling "traditional" (read anything involving a
Quest or with Celtic/Germanic roots) in fantasy -- which means most of
it. I recently went htrough a spate of reading military SF, but at the
moment I can't bring myself to pick up any of the three books I have
sitting beside my bed.
>
>My wife, a long-time mystery fan, has introduced
>me to some interesting mysteries. I had picked up a few
>in the past, but didn't enjoy them for the most part
>because they were too much of a busman's holiday
>for me (I am involved in forensics as a profession).
>Now, I find I enjoy mysteries more than sf.
>
My mother reads mysteries almost exclusively, and I have read a lot of
them from her shelves or due to her recommendations. It gives me a
needed break.
>My other reading interests in other areas such as
>history, other fiction, etc. haven't changed.
>
>Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
>sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
>if you did?
All I do is switch to another genre -- or stop reading SF/F completely
for a while. Once I get back to it, I'm no longer so hyper-sensitive and
can actually enjoy it. I usually go to historical fiction and mysteries,
or cheesy adventure novels. It'll come back after a while.
>Is there a rec.xxx for mysteries?
Yep -- I think it's rec.arts.books.mysteries, but I'm not 100% sure of
the name.
>billo
Stephanie
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Louis Sivo
: A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
: peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
: I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
: interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: up a book to see what it was like.
Yikes. A crisis in faith. You must be helped before it is too late! :-)
: I was shaken. Being a science fiction and fantasy fan has been
: part of my self-definition. I have a thirty-year
Me too. That's one thing that is "core" to who I am. I read science
fiction.
: history of reading just about everything that came on the
: market. My house is little more than a book warehouse.
As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
"oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
book since college.
Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
Sorry, back to the topic at hand....
<snip>
: Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
: sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
: if you did?
My main problem was that I found I did not have as much time to read as I
used to so I became very critical of wasting my time on the garbage out
there. You could do what I did.
- Look for authors that you've had good experiences with before.
- Try reading all the old winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards. (Have you
read them all?)
- Read this group to find any new gems people are talking about. Thanks to
this group I discovered David Brin. I've only read one of his books but
I loved it. (One of the Uplift books.) I then went out and bought 2 more.
(Haven't gotten to them yet though.)
- Try branching out to other books when nothing catches your eye in the
science fiction section. (This doesn't really solve the problem of
not getting access to good science fiction, but it helps me to try something
else for awhile. Plus I don't feel I'm wasting my time reading garbage
SF while waiting for something worth my while to come along.)
- Lastly try re-reading some old classics from your collection. The books that
you loved the first time (or 10th time.) If anything recharges me, this is
the one that works for me.
Hope this helps. Don't give up.
: Is there a rec.xxx for mysteries?
: billo
--
Louis Sivo
lou...@nafohq.hp.com
Jeff Markel
Yes. I burned out about 1980 and, to tell the truth, I've not yet gotten
over it. I also am not sure what exactly changed, but I too am finding
mysteries far more interesting. Perhaps it is due to the "literaturization"
of SF; most mainstream lit. is very angst-oriented, unlike older SF. Most
mysteries, even the most contemporary, with angst-ridden protagonists, are
ultimately about the competency, however circumscribed, of their heroes...
just like older SF.
Just my 2 centi-dollars.
Jeff Markel
Internetics Corporation | Of course I speak for | je...@internetx.com
26 Scenic Drive | my employer... | "Don' point at me,
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 | I AM my employer! | Daddy-o...I cut off
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*** "Our world is more and more crowded with things that will work ***
*** only if lots of people have been correct and precise. That ***
*** they seem to work less often and less well is a sad fact ***
*** directly related to the third grade teacher who can't spell." ***
*** Richard Mitchell - _Less Than Words Can Say_ ***
Berni Phillips
: A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
<A>
: peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
: I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
<B>
: interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: up a book to see what it was like.
Also consider the possibility that B is caused by A. There is a lot of
good stuff that doesn't make it to the big stores, or not enough copies
by the time you get there, or it's masked by the shelves and shelves
of Star Trek and Piers Anthony novels.
I'd recommend going to a good independent bookstore. There is also nothing
wrong with reading other stuff as well. Just don't think there's nothing
worth reading in the SF field anymore because the generic book-as-product
stores don't seem to have it.
Berni (Support your independent book dealers!) Phillips
Robert Plamondon
>
>A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
>peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
>I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
>interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
>up a book to see what it was like.
I call this the "K-Mart Effect." You stride purposefully into Bigge
Generic Shoppe, and the flourescent lights, bored clerks, insipid
merchandise displays, and dispirited clientele cause you to falter.
If you're lucky, you turn on your heel and leave on the spot, since
wandering around the store like a lost soul just makes things worse.
>My other reading interests in other areas such as
>history, other fiction, etc. haven't changed.
>
>Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
>sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
>if you did?
I get burned out when I overindulge. I watched my video tape of
Miyazaki's NAUSICAA about twenty times, and then put it back on the
shelf for a few years. I later recovered. I sometimes burn out on
individual authors. Sometimes I return to them, sometimes I don't.
I don't burn out on the medium as a whole because I don't read
indiscriminately. I *reread* indiscriminately, but that's another
story.
I also read more non-fiction than fiction. Non-fiction tends to be
better constructed, has more surprising plotlines, and in general
puts all but the most imaginative fiction to shame. (I recommend
MALARIA DREAMS by Stuart Stevens, THE LAST CRUISE OF THE EMDEN, by an
author whose name I forget, and THE ZEPPELIN IN COMBAT by Douglas
Robinson, for example). Also, I've discovered that Patrick O'Brian's
"Jack Aubry" books are tremendously well-written, and demonstrate
a converse of Clarke's Law: "A sufficiently archaic technology
is just as cool as an advanced one."
Autobiographies straddle the boundary between fact and fiction,
especially T.E. Lawrence's SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM, which is
fascinating. Lawrence is weirder than most aliens in SF.
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon * Writer * rob...@plamondon.com * (408) 321-8771
4271 North First Street, #106 * San Jose * California * 95134-1215
"Just cut a few notes and it will be perfect."
Bruce Baugh
oli...@cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) wrote:
:Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
:sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
:if you did?
Happens to the best of us. Go do something else until the interest
returns, and don't worry about it.
Recent reading I have enjoyed very much:
Iain Banks' Culture novels
Roger Zelazny's A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER
Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series
Brian Stableford's THE WEREWOLVES OF LONDON and THE ANGEL OF PAIN
Alan Rodgers' PANDORA
Dan Simmons' THE FIRES OF EDEN
Alexander Jablokov's THE BREATH OF SUSPENSION
...among others. Try something new. (This is one of the things
libraries are good for.)
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
bru...@teleport.com + Bruce Baugh, from but not for Teleport + in Portland, OR
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"we become what we do not what we pretend"
- Devo
Bret Jolly
>peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
>I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
>interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
>up a book to see what it was like.
I know the feeling, but part of the problem might be
that you are in the wrong bookstore. Even our local
Borders, generally an excellent bookstore, has a weak
saifai section with about 1/4 the shelving devoted to
movie novelizations, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dragonlance,
and so forth. However I found a local used bookstore
that always has something interesting, and BookStar is
pretty good. Even if you don't have a local specialist
saifai bookstore, you might be able to find one with a
good saifai section if you look around.
Specific recommendations: Get _Snow Crash_ by
Stephenson. Pick up a few short story collections
by Bruce Sterling. Avoid anything that has recently
won a Hugo or a Nebula.
>Now, I find I enjoy mysteries more than sf.
But after a while, when you are pretty much done
with all the classic goodies like Rex Stout, Raymond
Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, Ross MacDonald, Dashiell
Hammett, Agatha Christie, and so forth, you will find
yourself taking a long look at the current mysteries,
and you will find that they have the same problem as
saifai: good books are still being written, but every
year they get harder to find amongst all the dreck.
You will feel the same old frustration when you
discover that all the new mysteries in the store seem
to be written about cats.
James Alexander Chokey
My experience is probably a little different than yours. Back
when I was in junior high and early high school, I used to read sci-fi
and fantasy intensely. My appetite for it was seemingly unlimited.
Then one day I was looking at sci-fi/fantasy bookshelves and decided
that I didn't have any unread books that I wanted to read and that
I didn't want to reread any old ones. When I went to the pall to
peruse the typical chain bookstores, I just wasn't inspired by a single
one of the books on the shelves.
So I started reading other things: non-fiction, mysteries, poetry,
etc.-- and found that I was enjoying many of them more than most of the
the SF that I had been reading. What had happened to me, I think, was
that I reading so much of this stuff that I just sort of overloaded.
Reading it was something that I did so reflexively that I never stopped
to think, "Am I really enjoying this novel/series?" I needed to read
something, but I never really considered the possibility of reading
something other than sci/fi. And since I had been reading the genre
so intensely and for so long, I had pretty much gone through all of the
available good sci-fi and Iwas really slumming among the schlock, trying
to fool myself that I was enjoying things like _God Emperor of Dune_ and
_Orn_.
Because pretty much everything I read after this moment of
readerly ennui was much better than the schlock SF I had been reading
towards the end, I just abandoned the whole genre for a number of years,
thinking that I must have "grown out of it" or something. I made a
few attempts in high school and college to go back and re-read a couple
of things I remembered liking, but I didn't really enjoy them. In fact,
upon re-reading Donaldson's Covenant series and Elric's Moorcock novels
in college, I really wondered, "How on earth did I ever enjoy this
crap!"
My state of complete disenchantment with the entire genre
lasted until around my third undergraduate year, when a professor
of mine assigned _The Lord of the Rings_ for a class that I was
taking. I had fond memories of reading LotR when I was younger,
of course, but I had presumed that it would have been just like
the other things that I had remembered liking-- that when I reread
it now, it would seem just as trashy, poorly-written, and formulaic
as the other things I mentioned. Boy, was I wrong! (And, believe
me, I'm ever so glad that I was wrong!) I was amazed-- almost
entranced-- by the beauty, the power, the complexity, the depth,
and the richness of Tolkien's magnum opus. Everything about LotR--
its plot, its language, its geographical and historical conceptions,
its intertextualities, its relevance to modern society reminded me of
just what it was that made me like SF in the first place.
Since then, I started re-reading some other things that I
had also remembered liking, but with a few notable exceptions (some
Vonnegut, some Clarke, some Heinlein, Frank Herbert's _Dune_) I
found most of it still quite wanting. But at least I *desired* to
read sci-fi and fantasy again, even if my tastes had become so finicky
that I didn't really enjoy the vast majority of it. Still, I have
to say that sci-fi has not re-become a major part of my literary diet.
There are a few great SF works out there, a substantial number of good
ones, and a whole lot of mediocre-to-bad ones. (The same, of course, can
be said with any other genre.) But I generally find it to be much more
worth my time and money to be reading good books that aren't SF than
mediocre ones that are. Life is too short to read unenjoyable
books for pleasure-- and the simple fact of numbers dictates that
there are going to be many more enjoyable non-SF books than enjoyable
SF books-- so I spend most of my pleasure-reading time with those.
Wow, I never intended to write so much. It's kind of weird,
actually. I feel like I've just written some sort of Augustinian
or Apuleian conversion narrative or something. I don't know whether
it will provide any insight on your own situation, but it does, at
the very least, vouch for the fact that the sort of "burnout" feeling you
are experiencing is not necessarily permanent.
-- Jim C.
==========================================================================
| James A. Chokey jch...@leland.stanford.edu |
| |
| Alas! Coquettes are but too rare. |
| -- Disraeli |
==========================================================================
Craig Becker
lou...@nafohq.hp.com (Louis Sivo) writes:
> Bill Oliver (oli...@cs.unc.edu) wrote:
>
> : A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
> : peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
> : I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
> : interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
> : up a book to see what it was like.
Been There, Done That.
First off, I'd like to comment that perhaps part of the problem
is your bookstore. In my humble experience, places like "B.WaldenCrown"
don't tend to carry a very good selection. See if you can find a local
bookstore that specializes in SF/Fantasy.
> - Try reading all the old winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards. (Have you
> read them all?)
Great idea, and a challenge, too: just try _finding_ all of the old
Hugo and Nebula winners.
> - Read this group to find any new gems people are talking about. Thanks to
> this group I discovered David Brin. I've only read one of his books but
> I loved it. (One of the Uplift books.) I then went out and bought 2 more.
> (Haven't gotten to them yet though.)
Personally, I consider Brin to be unreadable, but the basic advice about
reading r.a.sf.w for "new gems" is sound. I've found it helps to have a
list of "books to look for" that I carry around all the time (actually,
I keep it on my Newton). Anytime I'm reading a newsgroup and see mention
of a book that sounds interesting, I make a note of it. This is very
helpful whenever I walk into one of the many CIA-owned bookstores that
beam microwave radiation into my head whenever I walk in the door,
thereby causing me to forget all of the titles I'm looking for.
> As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
> house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
> "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
> book since college.
>
> Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
Your viewpoint is intolerant and elitest, and one that I share :-|
I had a roommate back in college days who had, in her entire life,
read only one book for pleasure, something called _Audrey Rose_,
that had to do with reincarnation. I'm not sure if she was better
off having read it or not.
Craig
--
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-- "They want to own the light!" --
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to peruse the
> new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles, I suddenly came to
> the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely interesting. I had
> *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick up a book to see what it was like.
> I was shaken. Being a science fiction and fantasy fan has been part of
> my self-definition. I have a thirty-year history of reading just about
> everything that came on the market. My house is little more than a
> book warehouse. Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on sf? Did
> you get over it? How long did it last, if you did? [snip]
Happens all the time, especially to college inmates :) But post-adolescent
cases have also been reported :) I suspect that root causes are different,
though. When a 20-something-year-old discovers that there is a literary
world outside science fiction and that Proust and Dostoyevsky are somewhat
better writers than van Vogt and even (heresy!) Asimov, he may 'burn out'
on SF the way David Bischoff so publisly did in ... oh, was it 1978?
When a 40-year-old, whose knowledge of the non-SF world is hardly suspect
(yes, I remember your posts in the censorship thread, Bill :), burns out,
the reasons are likely to be different. One possibility that I would like
to mention is that science ficiton may have been developing in a direction
that may be different from the one that you have been moving in.
For example, I find Robert Reed's _Black Milk_ and Kim Grimwood's _Replay_
very well written, but they fail to excite me the way Doc Smith, Campbell,
Williamson, Hamilton, Heinlein, Brown, Clarke, Piper, Anderson and company
used to. I can think of a number of reasons *why* I feel the way I do, but
your reasons are likely to be different, so I won't :) The important thing
is that this divergence may be real, in which case there is precious
little you can do about it. Thankfully, there is enough stuff out there
to make finding bill-o-compatible SF a breeze :)
Either that or you may just need a break after a 30 year binge :)
--
Ahasuerus
http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer
(including books on writing SF, the Heinlein page and the alt.pulp FAQ)
ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/heinlein.faq
Robert Devereaux
: A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
: peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
: I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
: interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: up a book to see what it was like.
Bill, the answer is clear: It's time for you to graduate to horror! :^)
--
Robert Devereaux
bob...@fc.hp.com
Fort Collins, CO
(303) 229-3423
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: As I scanned the titles,
: I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
: interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: up a book to see what it was like.
...
: The easy thing to say is that, of course, writers are
: writing more crap these days, and that I finally realized
: that the weeds have simply overrun the fields. But I
: don't think so.
...
: Now, I find I enjoy mysteries more than sf.
: My other reading interests in other areas such as
: history, other fiction, etc. haven't changed.
: Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
: sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
: if you did?
I spend about half my life burned out on sf, alternating with
being burned out on a variety of other kinds of books. I've
nearly quit thinking of it as being burned out, and taken to
thinking of my current interests as inherently transitory,
my current "fling" with the printed word never involves
a commitment of significance. The major love affairs last
about 18 months, and run to forty or so books.
Thanks for not taking the easy way out and slamming the field;
too many people do that.
I've been through three rounds of mysteries-are-more-appealling-
than-sf: the Agatha Christie Tommy and Tuppence books spawned
the first round, which was then carried by Ngaio Marsh and
Dorothy Sayers. The second round was mystery edging onto
action and adventure stuff, and the most recent round involved
Sara Paretsky. I'm not counting juvenile crushes on the likes
of Phyllis A. Whitney, of course.
I've suffered from bouts of Heyer's Regency Romances. I've
been hooked on CogSci and culinary history. But despite it all,
and despite the fact I read as much or more non-sf than I do sf,
I still consider myself a science fiction fan. You're almost
certainly more of one than I am (of late, I've buried myself
in the oop BAF books), but don't worry. It'll come back.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
Andrea Brice
"library" has a representation of every subject for which I may have ever
had a passing fashion. I do have to agree with the other responses about
the choice of bookstores. My heart goes out to the rest of the reading
world who do not live in Seattle, Washington. I haven't stepped in a
Walden/B.Dalton pile of poo in four years. In many neighborhoods in
Seattle there are three and four used, independent book-stores per city
block. These are the places and the people who know what is worth
holding, and keeping, and touching, and...
Burn-out always happens to me when I've run through a favorite author and
haven't found a new one, when I've settled for the worst, or when I'm
too lazy to pick up one of the non-fiction pieces I really want to read.
Why worry about it? There's more books to buy, and read, and own, and
possess, and.....
Andrea Brice
Kandi K. Hopkins
: As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
: house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
: "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
: book since college.
: Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
: Sorry, back to the topic at hand....
My particular favorite, oft repeated, is "Have you read all them books?"
My husbands taste in relatives leaves something to be desired.
--
Kandi Hopkins, Columbus, OH
ka...@infinet.com
The end does not justify the means.
Kandi K. Hopkins
: In article <3it507$5...@baldhead.cs.unc.edu> oli...@cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) writes:
: >My other reading interests in other areas such as
: >history, other fiction, etc. haven't changed.
: >
: >Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
: >sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
: >if you did?
: I also read more non-fiction than fiction. Non-fiction tends to be
: better constructed, has more surprising plotlines, and in general
: puts all but the most imaginative fiction to shame.
I agree. Non-fiction is the best alternative when burnt out. OTOH, I am
usually reading fiction and non-fiction simultaneously. OTGH, reading
another "genre" works for me too. ;-) I tend to "burn out" for some
months, once for a year. During that time I read all kinds of different
stuff. Then one day, I'm in the book store or library and see something
by Cherryh, or Bujold, or another author I really like and (Viola!) I'm
reading sf again.
Jo Walton
lou...@nafohq.hp.com "Louis Sivo" writes:
> Bill Oliver (oli...@cs.unc.edu) wrote:
> > My house is little more than a book warehouse.
>
> As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
> house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
> "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
> book since college.
>
> Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
I have a new strategy for people like this. I'm going to install a trap-door
under the welcome mat. As I sit at the computer and they come in and say "My,
what a lot of books," I'll put my finger on the trap-door release button
and say "This is A-R, Fiction." If they look blank, this proves that they not
only don't but *can't* read and don't recognise conventional ways of shelving.
It also means I'll press the button. The world will be a better place. Oh, they
have to say it while gazing blankly at the spines. Anyone coming in any saying
"Books, Books, let me at them!" or variants is welcome.
:-)
> Sorry, back to the topic at hand....
I've never burned out on SF, though I do read a lot of other stuff all the
time, and I re-read a lot. I don't read much fantasy, and I used to, so maybe
I've burned out on that. There are always things I want, if not in the shop
then in the states, if not published yet, then about to be.
--
Jo (eternally optimistic that There Will Be Books!)
*************************************************************
- - I kissed a kif at Kefk - -
*************************************************************
Help me run the Galactic Empire at Confabulation, Easter 1995
*************************************************************
Mike Van Pelt
Dan 'Fergus' Roberts <fergu...@delphi.com> wrote:
>> Specific recommendations: Get _Snow Crash_ by Stephenson.
>
>
>It's saturday-morning-TV-cartoon-cyberpunk, with flat, uninteresting
>characters and a rather specious SF 'hook' hiding underneath it all.
Sorry, I agree with Jeff.
It's a hilarious send-up of a pretentiously self-important sub-genre
that has been overripe for such a sendup for far too many years.
(Just don't read it if you're in the mood for "serious" SF. This is
sort of Douglas Adams territory, except with more logical consistency,
and heaping helpings of the stereotypical cyberpunk "grit".)
--
"Facts will not sway me in this matter." Mike Van Pelt
-- Dianne Feinstein m...@netcom.com
Think before you vote, people! KE6BVH
Joseph Francis Nebus
>Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on sf? Did you get over it?
I've occasionally had minor cases of SF-burnout. Some of the usual
tricks to get over it:
1. Read other genres. Collections of comic strips; trivia books;
humor; even a book of SF criticism can help. Or go to comic books, either
truly juvenile (hey, I LIKE the Thundercats, OK?) or regular (X-Men, etc) or
jes' plain weird (Japanese comics).
2. Don't bother reading for a while. It's OK to veg out in front of
the TV for a time. You may or may not want to watch the SF Channel.
3. Try writing a little SF. Short story, poem, working on the
Great Unfinished Novel, whatever. Trying to write the story you want to read
can help you figure out what it is in SF you do like.
4. Go to the bookstore, find a book that looks unpromising, a book
you'd never want to read, and buy it. Read the whole thing (or as much as
you can stand). Hopefully it'll help you relearn what it is about SF that
you do like and do appreciate; and at best it can get you interested in an
entirely new subgenre of SF. (And at worst you've lost $4.99 less the
10% Book Club Discount.)
5. Don't worry about it, go to the local arcade and play pinball
until your hands hurt. This probably won't do anything for you getting over
SF burnout, but it can't hurt, except physically.
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan 'Fergus' Roberts
Avoid 'Snow Crash'.
It's saturday-morning-TV-cartoon-cyberpunk, with flat, uninteresting
characters and a rather specious SF 'hook' hiding underneath it all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan 'Fergus' Roberts Fergu...@delphi.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Craig
(Dan 'Fergus' Roberts) writes:
>
>> Specific recommendations: Get _Snow Crash_ by Stephenson.
>
>Avoid 'Snow Crash'.
>
>It's saturday-morning-TV-cartoon-cyberpunk, with flat, uninteresting
>characters and a rather specious SF 'hook' hiding underneath it all.
>
Sorry, can't agree. I would say the purpose of _Snow Crash_ is to
satirize cyberpunk, and does so brilliantly. Wildly funny stuff.
Also can't agree about the characters. The reader definitely gets a good
feel for the feelings and motivations of the two main protagonists.
All of this just MHO, of course. :)
Jeff
--
Jeff Craig |
cra...@ix.netcom.com | Support your local literacy program.
Chris Camfield
I have little to no patience with bookstores around here. Why not try the
public library?
As you say, it isn't really that more crap is being written than it used to
be. However, I've seen a continual tendency to stock lots of Star Trek
books and what have you, which don't interest me, and maybe the people
who write back covers, and the artists, have gone down in quality?
I'm an author-oriented reader: Find an author. Read all his or her books.
Next author!
Chris
--
Christopher Camfield "If I was after the Ring, I could have it -
ccam...@uwaterloo.ca NOW!... But I am the real Strider, fortunately...
1996 BMath CS/C&O I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and if by life or
1998 BA Classical Studies death I can save you, I will." (JRRT, _TFOTR_)
John T. Dow
: lou...@nafohq.hp.com (Louis Sivo) writes:
: > Bill Oliver (oli...@cs.unc.edu) wrote:
: >
: > : A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
: > : peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
: > : I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
: > : interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: > : up a book to see what it was like.
: Been There, Done That.
Seems like it's a very common thing... (Comforting thought. :)
: First off, I'd like to comment that perhaps part of the problem
: is your bookstore. In my humble experience, places like "B.WaldenCrown"
: don't tend to carry a very good selection. See if you can find a local
: bookstore that specializes in SF/Fantasy.
Actually the reverse is true as well, on occasion. Sometimes
they do get a book or two that just hasn't shown up anywhere else, for
whatever reason... I think the main idea is to try switching bookstores.
(I go to the local Borders (Barnes & Noble when forced, as well) and
venture to a "mall" bookstore once every few months just to see if they've
got anything I haven't seen yet... It may not be a new book, either. I
think they get books that the distributor had lying around in their
shipments sometimes, which would account for it...)
: > - Read this group to find any new gems people are talking about. Thanks to
: > this group I discovered David Brin. I've only read one of his books but
: > I loved it. (One of the Uplift books.) I then went out and bought 2 more.
: > (Haven't gotten to them yet though.)
: Personally, I consider Brin to be unreadable, but the basic advice about
: reading r.a.sf.w for "new gems" is sound. I've found it helps to have a
: list of "books to look for" that I carry around all the time (actually,
So I'm not the only one who does this? :) (And people look at me
strangely when I whip out my list infront of the SF&F shelves in the stores. :)
: I keep it on my Newton). Anytime I'm reading a newsgroup and see mention
: of a book that sounds interesting, I make a note of it. This is very
: helpful whenever I walk into one of the many CIA-owned bookstores that
: beam microwave radiation into my head whenever I walk in the door,
: thereby causing me to forget all of the titles I'm looking for.
Is THAT what's happening? (It happens the most at new bookstores,
I've found. If you come across a new store that might have something you've
been looking for, you will immeadiately forget the title, the author, and
the general plot-line, if you knew it beforehand. Ultimately, you will
end up attempting to describe it to the sales clerk, who will, in most
situations, just look at you as if you've gone insane. :)
: > As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
: > house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
: > "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
: > book since college.
: >
: > Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
: Your viewpoint is intolerant and elitest, and one that I share :-|
: I had a roommate back in college days who had, in her entire life,
: read only one book for pleasure, something called _Audrey Rose_,
: that had to do with reincarnation. I'm not sure if she was better
: off having read it or not.
Well, if you would like to rid the world of a bunch of these
un-enlightened souls, the high school I go to, the University School in
Pgh, is full of them. Just warn me first so I can make sure everyone
who should be in out of the building. :)
-The quiet one
(Really Kristine, inspite of what this account thinks, and a
high school junior. :)
Jamie Rubin
> My main problem was that I found I did not have as much time to read as I
> used to so I became very critical of wasting my time on the garbage out
> there. You could do what I did.
>
> - Look for authors that you've had good experiences with before.
> - Try reading all the old winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards. (Have you
> read them all?)
> - Read this group to find any new gems people are talking about. Thanks to
> this group I discovered David Brin. I've only read one of his books but
> I loved it. (One of the Uplift books.) I then went out and bought 2 more.
> (Haven't gotten to them yet though.)
> - Try branching out to other books when nothing catches your eye in the
> science fiction section. (This doesn't really solve the problem of
> not getting access to good science fiction, but it helps me to try something
> else for awhile. Plus I don't feel I'm wasting my time reading garbage
> SF while waiting for something worth my while to come along.)
> - Lastly try re-reading some old classics from your collection. The books that
> you loved the first time (or 10th time.) If anything recharges me, this is
> the one that works for me.
Another suggestion might be to the news stands or anthologies for
short sf; I've read lots of sf novels and I'm becoming increasingly
more fond of short sf (I've always liked the short form; you have less
space, yet can do more if it's done right). PULPHOUSE, F&SF, and
SCIENCE FICTION AGE seem to have the better science fiction and fantasy
shorts these days. ANALOG isn't bad for hard science fiction, but
I find that becomes tedious. I can think a at least a dozen memorable
stories in the former three this past year than in ANALOG or ASIMOVS
(of which there were maybe a few memorable ones.) You might want to
try it out. The reads are shorter and can, in many cases, be more
enjoyable. (And you may end up fooling yourself into thinking you're
getting more reading done because you're reading stories rather than
novels.
/Jamie Rubin/
Jo Walton
ka...@infinet.com "Kandi K. Hopkins" writes:
> Louis Sivo (lou...@nafohq.hp.com) wrote:
> : As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
> : house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
> : "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
> : book since college.
>
> : Why are these people allowed to breath our air and reproduce?
> : Sorry, back to the topic at hand....
>
> My particular favorite, oft repeated, is "Have you read all them books?"
That's it. That's exactly what they say! I'm thinking of waiting until I go to
their house and then saying "Look at that box in the corner! Do you really
watch all them programmes?"
(My little boy, on first encountering television, in a friend's house, aged 2
and a half "That's got good graphics!")
--
Jo
Sion Arrowsmith
>Avoid 'Snow Crash'.
>
got _Diamond Age_ in hb. The last hardback fiction I bought was a
remaindered copy of _Ivory_ (Hi, Mike!) five years ago. So it probably
helps if you've got a cynical sense of humour, but it's a damn good
book in any case.
--
\S | "And all the superhighways have disappeared
si...@bast.demon.co.uk | "One by one. And all the towns and cities and signs
| "Are underwater now. They're gone." -- Laurie Anderson
Jocelyn Elana Goldfein
I have a suggestion, above and beyond the "find a better bookstore" section
of this thread.
Go back to the children's section of your local public library, or perhaps
even your own personal library. Find the juvenile sf and fantasy books -
not the Joe Bob boy scout goes to Mars type, but the simple, whimsical ones.
Like Susan Cooper's books, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Diana
Wynne Jones' "Spellcoats" or "Cart & Cwidder" or "Drowned Ammet."
I guess what I'm saying is go back to the basics, the very simple, but
immeasurably rich books at the back. If every flavor on the market is
peanut butter brickle fudge cherry chip toffee cookie dough, it's easy to
think you've gotten sick of ice cream, but you might want to try going
back to vanilla before you completely give up.
I don't know how you first got drawn to sf/f, so this may not work for you,
but I always enjoyed the "sense of wonder" and queerness which means that
the world might not really be as mundane as it seems... I'm not putting
this well. But go back to the simple stuff.
Good luck, and if worst comes to worst, well, give it another try in a
couple of years.
Oh, and try Carole Nelson Douglas' series which begins with "Goodnight Mr.
Holmes" and continues with "Good Morning, Irene." These are well written
mysteries based on teh character Irene Adler who appears in Conan Doyle's
"A Scandal in Bohemia." They're much better than her sf/f, IMHO. But
avoid her Midnight Louie mysteries.
-Jocelyn
--
jocelyng@[leland][downtime][slac][grumpy].stanford.edu | kath...@ix.netcom.com
"Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance."
Dan 'Fergus' Roberts
>>Avoid 'Snow Crash'.
>>
>>It's saturday-morning-TV-cartoon-cyberpunk, with flat, uninteresting
>>characters and a rather specious SF 'hook' hiding underneath it all.
And Jeff Craig wrote:
>Sorry, can't agree. I would say the purpose of _Snow Crash_ is to
>satirize cyberpunk, and does so brilliantly. Wildly funny stuff.
Satirize? Lemme think about that one.
<think, think, muddle, ponder>
Weeeelllll....maybe. I'll get back to you on that one <g>.
Peter Cash
Bill Oliver <oli...@cs.unc.edu> wrote:
...
>Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
>sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
>if you did?
Confession time, eh? Yeah, it happened to me, too. I was a total SF nut
from age 8, but my interest gradually waned during my mid-twenties. I would
still pick up an occasional book, but was usually disappointed, and I was
convinced this was because there just weren't any good writers about. Then,
a couple of years ago, I told a co-worker about my feelings, and he vowed
to prove me wrong. He loaned my Joan Vinge's SNOW QUEEN and SUMMER QUEEN,
Dan Simmon's HYPERION/FALL of HYPERION, and a bunch of Bujold books. He was
right--and I was immediately hooked again, and SF is once more a major
proportion of my reading.
So don't worry about it--read what you feel like reading. What changes may
easily change back. Life goes in phases, and we have to go along.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. |
Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |ca...@convex.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nancy Lebovitz
Jocelyn Elana Goldfein <joce...@leland.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>
>I have a suggestion, above and beyond the "find a better bookstore" section
>of this thread.
>
>Go back to the children's section of your local public library, or perhaps
>even your own personal library. Find the juvenile sf and fantasy books -
>not the Joe Bob boy scout goes to Mars type, but the simple, whimsical ones.
>Like Susan Cooper's books, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Diana
>Wynne Jones' "Spellcoats" or "Cart & Cwidder" or "Drowned Ammet."
>
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
NEW EDITION of the calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Brian Eirik Coe
years, I have some suggestions.
Now, I am a strange kind of reader. When I find an authour I really
like, I'll tend to read everything that they have written, sometimes even
their non-fiction stuff. But, have found over the years that this makes
it hard to find new stuff.
You need to take recommendations from freind
whose taste you trust (A freind bugged me for six year to read Eddings.
I read PAwn of Prophecy last Thursday, and finished the series on
Sunday).
Occationaly, jump into other sections of the bookstore. you'd be
surprised the nuimber of books in the fiction section that boarder on
s/f and fant, particularly in the horror section. Try reading a little
King, Koontz, Clancy, Cussler, or whatever random author strikes your
fancy. When I read Clancy for the first time, it ignigted an interest in
hard sf than I used to read. A great deal of Koontzes work is really
thinly vieled sf/fant.
Best of all, poke through a used bookstore. The older the better. there
are a lot of gems that are no longer in print. You may have to deal with
a badly faded cover, torn pages and poor binding, but the words are often
just as good.
Lastly, if none of that really works,. then put it all down for a little
while. Give the bookstores a little time to rotate theior stock. New
good stuff is always on the horizon...
--
Brian Eirik Coe * "God himself couldn't sink this ship!"
Optometrist-in-Training * --White Star Line employee at launch of Titanic
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" -The Brain, Animaniacs
"It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent." -Q, ST:TNG
Mark Mark
says:
>oli...@cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) wrote:
>:Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on
>:sf? Did you get over it? How long did it last,
>:if you did?
>Happens to the best of us. Go do something else until the interest
>returns, and don't worry about it.
>Recent reading I have enjoyed very much:
[list deleted]
>...among others. Try something new. (This is one of the things
>libraries are good for.)
Exactly. Plus, they're a _lot_ cheaper. (Except for the overdue fines.)
When you decide to pick up some SF again, here are three books I've
read recently and would like to pass on --
AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND by Iain M. Banks,
DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis, and
ISLANDS IN THE NET by Bruce Sterling.
Warning: these books are the literary equivalent of a kick in the
stomach. It's worth it, though.
<*> mbs...@psuvm.psu.edu: Mark Sachs, Itinerant Graphicist and Webmaster <*>
I've gone to build the Supercollider.
"Fraid so infinity!" "Fraid not infinity plus one!" "D'oh!"
Chris Clayton
>: As a side note. Don't you just wonder about people when they come to your
>: house get a glazed look seeing your collection and say something like,
>: "oh, you like to read." Then you find out they haven't read a complete
>: book since college.
As an educational exercise, try things that take you into random houses.
Real estate open houses are good. (Cat burglary is bad.) When I was buying
a house, I went through dozens of places still being lived in. Only one or two
had bookshelves, most had no reading material at all. It's frightening to
consider, but these people who haven't read a whole book since leaving school
are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.) SF readers and fans
are an abnormal subset of the population, self-selected by the criterion of being
actively and enjoyably literate. Since we hang out with people who have the same
tastes, we lose sight of the info-drought around us.
It explains so MUCH about recent elections. :-)
Chris Clayton
Return mail to: USFM...@ibmmail.com
Ford has a better idea, but the opinions are all mine.
Katherine Rossner
: IMHO, I thought "Snow Crash" was a great book, and I laughed hysterically
: while reading the early part of the book, although I wish that the rest
: of the book was funny. Oh well, I guess I haven't been the same since
: finishing the Hitchhiker books by Adams... I have a terrible longing to
: laugh that hard again! Anyone have any suggestions for funny SF/Fantasy
: books, especially if you think the Hitchhiker books were damn funny?
I agree about "Snow Crash", though I'm less enthusiastic about
"Hitchiker's Guide" (and the rest). Have you tried Terry Pratchett? I
find him funny in a way that is similar to Adams' but more interesting.
Other stuff that has made me laugh aloud, though it's less manic:
Tom Holt, "Expecting Someone Taller"
Elizabeth Scarborough's trilogy about a demonic plot against folk music--
aack! I can't remember the titles, though I think one of them is
"Picking the Ballad's Bones"...[can somebody else fill in here, please?]
Katherine
--
Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge |
Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho | J.Katherine Rossner
That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge | j...@netcom.com
Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. -- Chaucer |
Joseph Francis Nebus
>Best of all, poke through a used bookstore. The older the better. there
>are a lot of gems that are no longer in print. You may have to deal with
>a badly faded cover, torn pages and poor binding, but the words are often
>just as good.
Ah, but that used-book smell...
If the publishers were smart, they'd print all books with that magical
odor and make all the covers slightly faded and marvelously dusty. I'd never
leave the bookstore. Not that I do now.
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine Rossner
: had bookshelves, most had no reading material at all. It's frightening to
: consider, but these people who haven't read a whole book since leaving school
: are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.) SF readers and fans
: are an abnormal subset of the population, self-selected by the criterion of being
: actively and enjoyably literate. Since we hang out with people who have the same
: tastes, we lose sight of the info-drought around us.
As a lonely teenager (who, probably like most of the people here,
therefore read all the time), I got a "pen pal" through some girls'
magazine. Participants were matched up through a questionnaire; in
addition to questions about religion, favorite TV shows, etc., there was
one that asked how much one read, with answers something like "nothing
outside of schoolwork", "1-5 books a year", and so on. I think the
maximum was "15-20 books a year"; I checked that, but wondered: didn't
anybody but me read more than that?
(The pen pal I was assigned had checked the same box. We must have been
the only two to do so; we certainly had _nothing_ else in common...)
Juliana Pickrell
: Well, I don't know what the sf selection is like at B.Waldencrown, but
: I have little to no patience with bookstores around here. [...]
B. Waldencrown offers a wide variety of provocative and original
works in the F/SF market segment. I particularly recommend nos.
#11, #28, and #137 in the Muscular Swords series, as well as the
sparklingly written, mold-breaking Future Empire decalogy (the
first 1100 pages of Volume VII, _Space Battle_, are particularly
gripping).
Bryce Koike
>Steven Clover (scl...@crash.cts.com) wrote:
>
>: IMHO, I thought "Snow Crash" was a great book, and I laughed hysterically
>: while reading the early part of the book, although I wish that the rest
>: of the book was funny. Oh well, I guess I haven't been the same since
If the entire book read like the first chapter, it would have been a
very poor novel unless you're the type of person who considers the
Red Dwarf novelisations to be good literature.
Now everyone has their own opinions on what they thought of the
second half of the book or so, but after a couple of reads, I came
to find the humor in the second half almost more enjoyable because
it wasn't so utterly in your face.
>: finishing the Hitchhiker books by Adams... I have a terrible longing to
>: laugh that hard again! Anyone have any suggestions for funny SF/Fantasy
>: books, especially if you think the Hitchhiker books were damn funny?
Sadly, Snow Crash is quickly going the same direction of the
Hitchhiker novels. Everyone I know is memorizing whole passages and
just dying to find situations in life to babble quotes from the
book. Spending five hours in a car with people saying, "Huh, huh,
look, burbclaves" made me wonder exactly what sort of monster
Stephenson has wrought.
Sadly, it's because of people like this that I have a great deal of
difficulty appreciating books like Snow Crash.
And, if it makes you any better, it appears that Adams is working on
yet another Hitchhiker's book, although it seems to be following his
current trend of things where the books are quite strange and
eccentric, but rarely funny, if ever. (Now I'm not saying that's a
bad thing...I happen to like it, but many are expecting a really
funny book by the man and I think they're going to be
disappointed.)
>I agree about "Snow Crash", though I'm less enthusiastic about
>"Hitchiker's Guide" (and the rest). Have you tried Terry Pratchett? I
>find him funny in a way that is similar to Adams' but more interesting.
I really wonder how much of a role humor should really play in the
realm of SF. I think that Snow Crash is a novel that was long
overdue so far as the Cyberpunk genre is concerned, but it's very
rare for me to read an SF-related humor novel and laugh. I didn't
even smile when I read the first two Red Dwarf books....oh well.
But my humor tastes are quite different from those of others. (Now
fantasy humor seems easier for authors to pull off...)
C. Murphy
books being written these days that is causing your dissastisfaction, its
the quality of books available where you are shopping. I have been faced
with that situation myself. I was spoiled you see, I lived across the
street from the Science Fiction Book Shop in NYC for 5 years, then moved
out to the boonies where schlock, series and fast food bookstores
prevail, here are some suggestions to get past that:
If you can find an independant book shop in your area you will probably
be amazed at the choices you have. You will no doubt be confronted by
authors you have never heard of, many of whom are wonderful and have been
around for years. Try asking someone who works at the shop to reccomend
something, you may luck out. I have done this with great success. You
must of course be cautious to avoid asking people who really should have
KICK ME stamped on their heads.
I have lived in places where there is no good independant book shop and
have resorted to the following strategy:
1. Buying anthologies to look for new authors
2. Ordering all my new books from the Science Fiction Book Shop (in NYC)
mail order catalog. My selections being based on the authors I liked
in the anthologies and old favorites.
3. Buying alot of used books, lots and lots and lots of them, and if
I hated them, I was only out $1 in most cases.
Sometimes I have been fortunate enough to live in an area with a decent
library, usually I just picked anthologies there and then purchased
novels by mail (I like to own the books I like).
BookStar is the best chain book store I have found so far, so when I must
have a book NOW NOW NOW NOW in a place where I MUST shop at a chain store
thats where I go looking.
I've loved every new book I picked up in the last few months, so in my
opinion there is great stuff being written in the genre. Unfortunatly I
am not great at remembering names!
Jean-Louis Trudel
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew <aha...@clark.net: wrote:
:Chris Clayton (USFM...@ibmmail.com) wrote: [snip]
:> It's frightening to
:> are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.) SF readers and fans
:> are an abnormal subset of the population, self-selected by the
:> criterion of being actively and enjoyably literate. Since we hang out with
:> people who have the same tastes, we lose sight of the info-drought around
:> us.
:
:> It explains so MUCH about recent elections. :-)
:Um... Some of my friends are quite liberal, some are libertarian and some
:are rather conservative. All of them read tons of stuff. So far I have not
:been able to find any correlation between politics and the number of books
:one reads per [unit of time]. Has anybody?
:
:P.S. And let's limit ourselves to facts and perceived correlations, OK?
:Political flames --> e-mail.
Hmmm, just to be pedantic here, since U.S. politics is not my favourite
cup of tea...
Actually, considering that according to the first poster people who
haven't read a book since high school are the norm, then she is suggesting
there is a correlation between not reading and voting a certain way.
Thus, seeking a correlation between political views and the quantity N
(if N is greater than 0) of books read is irrelevant to the initial
assertion.
Jean-Louis Trudel
James Nicoll + Jasmine
Katherine Rossner <j...@netcom.com> wrote:
snip
>Other stuff that has made me laugh aloud, though it's less manic:
>
>Tom Holt, "Expecting Someone Taller"
>
>Elizabeth Scarborough's trilogy about a demonic plot against folk music--
>aack! I can't remember the titles, though I think one of them is
>"Picking the Ballad's Bones"...[can somebody else fill in here, please?]
Is Thorne Smith still in print? I remember enjoying _Night Life
of the Gods_ a fair bit back when Del Rey released six of his novels in
pb (1980ish, I think).
James Nicoll
--
"What happens if we lose?"
"We all die in screaming agony, like usual. The barbarian is puzzled
by your question."
Steven Clover
: >peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
: >I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
: >interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
: >up a book to see what it was like.
I was feeling a bit burned out on Fantasy recently, but just happened to
pick up a new book called "Wizard's First Rule" by Terry Goodkind. This
is his very first book, and it has cured me. I am about 250-300 pages
into it and I haven't wanted to do anything else, except read this book,
since page one. It is not an awesome book, but the author does a great
job at keeping your attention and making you really want to know what is
up. It is difficult to explain, but the story seems "new" even though it
is another "back-water boy finds out he is a stud and saves world" type
of book. Check it out, it worked for me.
-- Steve
Steven Clover
: All of this just MHO, of course. :)
IMHO, I thought "Snow Crash" was a great book, and I laughed hysterically
while reading the early part of the book, although I wish that the rest
of the book was funny. Oh well, I guess I haven't been the same since
finishing the Hitchhiker books by Adams... I have a terrible longing to
laugh that hard again! Anyone have any suggestions for funny SF/Fantasy
books, especially if you think the Hitchhiker books were damn funny?
-- Steve
Mike Scott
rcs...@minyos.xx.rmit.EDU.AU "Angus Y. Montgomery" writes:
>someone mentioned Tom Holt's "Expecting Someone Taller", which is
>very good, but stay away from the sequel(s?)
There are no sequels. He has written a number of other humourous
fantasy novels, none of which is in any way a sequel to _Expecting
Someone Taller_. They are of rather variable quality, but I can
recommend _Who's Afraid of Beowulf_ and _Flying Dutch_.
--
Mike Scott || Confabulation is the 1995 UK national SF convention
Mi...@moose.demon.co.uk || Mail Con...@moose.demon.co.uk for more details
Richard Treitel
|> But now I find myself wondering how many folks are out there that think of
|> books as disposable items?
|>
|> I love my paperbacks to death. It pains me to have to throw one out
|> (after I've replaced it with a new copy, of course). I even keep books I
|> don't like.
The paperback was first developed specifically so that books could
become disposable items (i.e. cheap enough that "most" people could
dispose of them without a shudder), thereby making it possible to read
books in places where you wouldn't want to risk a valuable hardback.
I too love my PBs, but when I notice that I'm keeping a book I don't
like and don't re-read, I sell it (or give it to the library) in the
hope that someone else *will* read it. IMHO books are for use, not
worship.
-- Richard doesn't keep a Bible
"Some magics *are* distinguishable from any advanced technology."
(If my employer holds these views, it hasn't told me.)
Elizabeth Willey
I prescribe a reading course fo 3 books by Trollope. It works for me
every time. It goes like this:
After book one: This is brilliant, why don't I read more of this stuff
After book two: Ok, but why is everyone obsessed with superficialities ?
After book three: Gimme some SF ! Now ! Now I tell you !
You're reading the wrong Trollope novels.
Try _The Eustace Diamonds_ (particularly funny to those who have read
_Vanity Fair_), _He Knew He Was Right_ (one of the nastiest custody
cases imaginable), and _The Warden_ (although _The Small House at
Allington_ would certainly be recommended by many---I don't think
there's a dud in the whole Barsetshire cycle, while the Palliser
political novels tend to be a little less evenly engrossing).
Elizabeth Willey
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> consider, but these people who haven't read a whole book since leaving school
> are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.) SF readers and fans
> are an abnormal subset of the population, self-selected by the
> criterion of being actively and enjoyably literate. Since we hang out with
> people who have the same tastes, we lose sight of the info-drought around us.
> It explains so MUCH about recent elections. :-)
Um... Some of my friends are quite liberal, some are libertarian and some
are rather conservative. All of them read tons of stuff. So far I have not
been able to find any correlation between politics and the number of books
one reads per [unit of time]. Has anybody?
P.S. And let's limit ourselves to facts and perceived correlations, OK?
Political flames --> e-mail.
--
Ahasuerus
http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer
(including books on writing SF, the Heinlein page and the alt.pulp FAQ)
ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/heinlein.faq
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> aha...@clark.net (Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew) writes: [snip]
> > Happens all the time, especially to college inmates :) But post-adolescent
> > cases have also been reported :) I suspect that root causes are different,
> > though. When a 20-something-year-old discovers that there is a literary
> > world outside science fiction and that Proust and Dostoyevsky are somewhat
> > better writers than van Vogt and even (heresy!) Asimov, he may 'burn out'
> > on SF the way David Bischoff so publisly did in ... oh, was it 1978?
> Wait a minute. Just how often does this actually happen?
Trust me, quite often. SF readers have been known to gafiate (=Get Away
From It All) after college (give or take 4-5 years) since the 30's... only
to degafiate a few years later in many cases.
> I, for one, had the "literary world outside SF" shoved down me for just
> long enough to make me quite sure I'll never go back.
I imagine that having *anything* 'shoved down me' would cause a similar
reaction. Give it time, you may still recover :)
> I dispute the judgment that Dostoyevsky
> is a better writer than Asimov; while I can't think of a single bit of
> Asimov's work that could reasonably be called "bad" [snip]
Well, unlike many other authors (both inside and outside SF), Asimov
maintained a fairly consistent standard of writing through most, if not
all, of his books. Dostoyevsky was arguably less consistent.
Nevertheless, I submit that he was a much better writer than Asimov,
especially when we compare their characterization.
OTOH, Asimov and Dostoyevsky had very different goals in their
professional life and Asimov was very good at what *he* was trying to
accomplish. Comparing the two may not be meaningful, which is exactly why
David Bischoff and Co were wrong to denounce genre science fiction in the
first place (IMO).
> I thought _Crime and Punishment_ was an
> unreadably dense, ultra-traditionalist, worthless mess, full of needless,
> "look-how-literary-I-am" symbolism and spiritualist idiocy. _Notes from
> Underground_ droned on, and on, and on... and didn't say much worth saying.
Needless to say, I disagree. I also suspect that we disagree on what is
"worth saying" :)
> If
> I were filling the databases of the colony ship that was leaving a dying Earth
> to restart the human race, and I could take the works of either Dostoyevsky or
> Asimov, but not both, I'd choose Asimov without hesitation. His work is a much
> more important part of the human tradition of intellectual thought than
> Dostoyevsky's will ever be. [snip]
Again, I think it's apples and oranges. Nevertheless, given the admittedly
unlikely choice, I would take Dostoyevsky. Asimov's books could be written
by any number of competent authors (given enough time etc.) Not so sure
about Dostoyevsky...
> Now, I am aware of just how few people agree with me on this. I doubt
> Asimov himself would have agreed with me. And, no, I'm not that old; I am, in
> fact, 16. (And I've been reading Asimov since I was about 4, so this isn't
> exactly a typical person's view). What worries me is the prospect that I may
> someday actually *accept* and *like* the vast flood of mainstream "literary"
> drivel and the contention that non-SF literature is somehow superior to SF.
Hm, most puzzling! Why would you worry about that? I probably disagree
with 90% of all humans (and most subsets of this pesky race) on a great
many issues. It is possible that one of these days I will see it their way
or v.v. Should I worry about the possibility of changing my mind at some
point in the future? I am sure I will have good reasons to do so if it
ever comes to pass. So why worry now? If I ever decide to join the
Communist Party (a *very* remore possibility, granted), I am sure I will
have some excellent reasons. We all change, don't we?
> End of exasperated rant which I've had to deliver too many times
> before.
But again, why rant at all? I respect Rob Furr's opinions, but we disagree
on Farmer's _A Feast Unknown_. Big deal. Lawrence Watt-Evans thought that
Ken Grimwood's _Replay_ was excellent and I was left less than satisfied
with it. Big deal. So you like Asimov and dislike Dostoyevsky. Think of
your role in preventing the impending shortage of oatmeal! :)
> Again, I realize the above views are pretty "heretical", and I don't
> know what to expect in response: politely veiled ways of saying "oh, you'll
> grow out of it", pretentious flames, inquiries as to whether I've ever read
> mainstream book X, or whatever.
All of the above, of course! :)
Chris Jones
> And, if it makes you any better, it appears that Adams is working on
> yet another Hitchhiker's book, although it seems to be following his
> current trend of things where the books are quite strange and
> eccentric, but rarely funny, if ever. (Now I'm not saying that's a
> bad thing...I happen to like it, but many are expecting a really
> funny book by the man and I think they're going to be
> disappointed.)
(Major spoiler)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but was not the point of _Mostly Harmless_
that _everybody_ died, in all possible universes, etc.? I'm not upset that
Adams is doing another Hitchhiker, quite the opposite, but it seemed to me
that he was making an extremely concerted effort to end the series once
and for all. Sure it's not a new _Dirk Gently_?
And I happened to find Adams' last few books extremely amusing.
_Harmless_ and _Last Chance to See_ were both extremely depressing, of
course, but I also popped a few blood vessels laughing so hard.
-coldjones
"I've lost my ability to distinguish between
what's cute and what's idiotic."
_The Critic
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew <aha...@clark.net: wrote:
> :Chris Clayton (USFM...@ibmmail.com) wrote: [snip]
> :> Since we hang out with people who have the same tastes, we lose sight of
> :> the info-drought around us.
> :
> :> It explains so MUCH about recent elections. :-)
> :
> :Um... Some of my friends are quite liberal, some are libertarian and some
> :are rather conservative. All of them read tons of stuff. So far I have not
> :been able to find any correlation between politics and the number of books
> Actually, considering that according to the first poster people who
> haven't read a book since high school are the norm, then she is suggesting
> there is a correlation between not reading and voting a certain way.
> Thus, seeking a correlation between political views and the quantity N
> (if N is greater than 0) of books read is irrelevant to the initial
> assertion.
Well, it *is* possible that there is a qualitative difference between N=0
and N>0, but it is still to be demonstrated. E.g., I know some people who
read no books (N=0) and whose political views are far from what Chris
seemed to imply.
More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
home. Any other examples?
[I am sure somebody can squeeze a PhD out of this :)]
David Bilek
>The only books I _do_ own, and am fairly sure I wouldn't miss are crap
>that I don't want to admit to owning. Not even for the few minutes it
>would take to unload them. These will most likely continue to reside in
>my parents' basement until such time as they either clean up (yeah,
>right...) or my kids (in the event that I ever _have_ kids...) find them
>and humiliate me...
>Later,
>OilCan
>("Dad? Why are there 14 Xanth books in Grandma's basement?")
Heh, right before I read that last line, I was thinking about the stash
of Piers Anthony crap I have hidden in an old dresser drawer in my parents
basement about 1000 miles away. Haven't seen the books in years, and I keep
telling myself it was just my youth and inexperience that caused me to pay for
that rubbish, but I still have pangs of guilt over adding to Anthony's
little nest-egg.
Anybody wan't to buy a couple pounds of Piers Anthony novels? No questions
asked, complete confidentiality assured.
David T. Bilek
ag...@merle.acns.nwu.edu
"No .sig today, .sig tomorrow. There is always a .sig tomorrow."
Matt Austern
> (The over-the-top name like "Duke of Omnium" are sometimes considered
> to distract from the stories' essential emotional authenticity.
> Trollope himself rather regretted some of them when he had to work
> with them again and again ("Omnium Gatherum," the Duke's seat, is
> funny once and never again).)
Not to mention the German philosopher Dr. Pessimist Anticant, and the
author Mr. Popular Sentiment, and the whole running joke with the
Jupiter.
But he was a great writer anyway, and many of the Barsetshire
characters are memorable characters and genuine people.
--
--matt
Angus Y. Montgomery
>laugh that hard again! Anyone have any suggestions for funny SF/Fantasy
National Lampoon have produced two excellent spoofs in:
"Doon" (the Dessert Planet, starring Pall Mauve'Bib, the Kumkwat Haagensdaaz)
and "Bored of the Rings".
someone mentioned Tom Holt's "Expecting Someone Taller", which is
very good, but stay away from the sequel(s?)
.angus.
Nancy Lebovitz
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew <aha...@clark.net> wrote:
>
>More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
>reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
>he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
>Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
>their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
>home. Any other examples?
>
in the general population, but I haven't noticed any other corelations.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
NEW EDITION of the calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
"First they came for the cigarettes, and I didn't speak up because I
didn't smoke. Then they came for the alcohol, and I didn't speak up
because I didn't drink. When they came for the chocolate, I reached
for my gun, and....oops!"
"Taxation WITH representation isn't so great, either!"
Frossie
Oh yes. Been there, done that.
I prescribe a reading course fo 3 books by Trollope. It works for me
every time. It goes like this:
After book one: This is brilliant, why don't I read more of this stuff
After book two: Ok, but why is everyone obsessed with superficialities ?
After book three: Gimme some SF ! Now ! Now I tell you !
I agree that a change of bookshop is also in order.
Frossie, having enough Trollope left for only two more crises
---
f...@roe.ac.uk/ QMW Physics Dept., London /Institute for Astronomy, Edinburgh
"$HOME is where your dotfiles are" - Gym Quirk
Mike Van Pelt
>> It's frightening to
>> consider, but these people who haven't read a whole book since leaving school
>> are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.)
>> It explains so MUCH about recent elections. :-)
>
>Um... Some of my friends are quite liberal, some are libertarian and some
>are rather conservative. All of them read tons of stuff. So far I have not
>been able to find any correlation between politics and the number of books
>one reads per [unit of time]. Has anybody?
Shhhhhh!! Don't let on. Let 'em just keep on sleepwalking,
dreaming their prejudices and remaining blind to reality.
They're mostly harmless that way.
How about that reading list for Newt's class? (Mind Extension
University on cable, 9:30-11:30 Saturday mornings.) Oy! Typical
University prof; seems to think his class is the only one you're
taking.
--
The more corrupt the state, Mike Van Pelt
the more numerous the laws. m...@netcom.com
-- Tacitus, Anals III 27 KE6BVH
Steven Clover
: >: of the book was funny. Oh well, I guess I haven't been the same since
: If the entire book read like the first chapter, it would have been a
: very poor novel unless you're the type of person who considers the
: Red Dwarf novelisations to be good literature.
I have never read the Red Dwarf books, but I would disagree that it would
have been a poor novel. Of course, that would depend on what you were
looking for when you read the book. Personally, I found the first half
of the book to be very amusing, and even though I enjoyed the rest of the
book, I might have enjoyed it more if it kept the same type of wit.
: Now everyone has their own opinions on what they thought of the
: second half of the book or so, but after a couple of reads, I came
: to find the humor in the second half almost more enjoyable because
: it wasn't so utterly in your face.
Sometimes I really enjoy humor that is in your face, and I can also
appreciate more subtle humor as well, but humor (of any kind) was few and
far between in the second half (IMHO). I don't tend to like Cyberpunk,
but since "Snow Crash" was not meant to be too serious, I enjoyed it, but
I enjoyed it most when it was being the least serious.
: And, if it makes you any better, it appears that Adams is working on
: yet another Hitchhiker's book, although it seems to be following his
: current trend of things where the books are quite strange and
: eccentric, but rarely funny, if ever. (Now I'm not saying that's a
: bad thing...I happen to like it, but many are expecting a really
: funny book by the man and I think they're going to be
: disappointed.)
I suppose I will buy the next Hitchhiker book if/when it comes out, but I
hope it is better than the last one. I was extremely disappointed with
"Mostly Harmless" because it just seemed to be lacking the humorous feel
of the previous Hitchhiker books. It was almost like Adams was trying
too hard to be funny, or perhaps he just wanted to try something
different...
: I really wonder how much of a role humor should really play in the
: realm of SF. I think that Snow Crash is a novel that was long
: overdue so far as the Cyberpunk genre is concerned, but it's very
: rare for me to read an SF-related humor novel and laugh. I didn't
: even smile when I read the first two Red Dwarf books....oh well.
: But my humor tastes are quite different from those of others. (Now
: fantasy humor seems easier for authors to pull off...)
Well, sense of humor really varies, and I have found that many people
(Americans) don't really appreciate english humor (such as Monty Python
and Adams' Hitchhiker stuff) quite the way I do, but, oh well...
-- Steve
Steven Clover
: the "literary world outside SF" shoved down me for just long enough to make me
: is a better writer than Asimov; while I can't think of a single bit of Asimov's
: novels, including all the Robots, Empire, and Foundation books, plus at least a
: hundred of his short stories), I thought _Crime and Punishment_ was an
: unreadably dense, ultra-traditionalist, worthless mess, full of needless,
: "look-how-literary-I-am" symbolism and spiritualist idiocy. _Notes from
: I were filling the databases of the colony ship that was leaving a dying Earth
: to restart the human race, and I could take the works of either Dostoyevsky or
: Asimov, but not both, I'd choose Asimov without hesitation. His work is a much
: more important part of the human tradition of intellectual thought than
: improbable that I wouldn't be able to take both, but that's another issue...)
: Now, I am aware of just how few people agree with me on this. I doubt
: Asimov himself would have agreed with me. And, no, I'm not that old; I am, in
: fact, 16. (And I've been reading Asimov since I was about 4, so this isn't
: exactly a typical person's view). What worries me is the prospect that I may
: someday actually *accept* and *like* the vast flood of mainstream "literary"
: drivel and the contention that non-SF literature is somehow superior to SF.
: End of exasperated rant which I've had to deliver too many times
: before. Again, I realize the above views are pretty "heretical", and I don't
: know what to expect in response: politely veiled ways of saying "oh, you'll grow
: out of it", pretentious flames, inquiries as to whether I've ever read
: mainstream book X, or whatever. Remember, of course, that this is all just MHO.
Well, I am not a big Asimov fan, but I agree with you completely. I've
got ten years on you and I still feel that authors like Tolkien are far
better than any of the writers of the "Classics" or "True Literature". I
too was subjected to endless boring, and sometimes sickening, hours
reading things like "Lord of the Flies", "Red Badge of Courage", and the
various works of Jack London and Poe. I honestly feel that these books
are extremely depressing, perverted, and not in the least bit
entertaining. Perhaps we aren't old enough, or cultured enough, to
understand the true greatness of these works... Or maybe, just maybe,
they really are poorly written trash. Should I not expect to be
entertained in some fashion by books that are purported to be the very
pinnacle of Literature? If a writer like Dostoyevsky is such the master,
then why can't he hold most peoples' attention? In my opinion, a good
writer is one that can catch you up in his/her imagination and carry you
through the whole tale showing you what they see and the real worth of
it, like a parent walking their child through a garden and lovingly
pointing out all of the beauty that lies in the flowers that grow there.
I certainly think that there is a place for the "Classics" that I
mentioned, but I think that too many people like to hold them up above
(and actually look down upon!) more current writings (especially genre
books, such as SF or Fantasy), as if they are somehow superior. Oh well,
the whole idea of "Literature" truly irks me, but I find it best to just
ignore its proponents and go on reading what you truly appreciate and
enjoy.
And, just to really bend some people out of shape, I would include
Old Bill Shakespeare(sp?) in the list of questionable "Literature"
authors. While I enjoyed some of his writings (Macbeth was decent), I
don't think that he (or any of the other "Literature" authors) could
possible hold a candle to authors like Tolkien.
Anyhow, just hang in there, and know that you are not alone.
-- Steve
Nancy Lebovitz
>
>: More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
>: reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
>: he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
>: Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
>: their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
>: home. Any other examples?
>
>: [I am sure somebody can squeeze a PhD out of this :)]
>
>
>i.e. those not fully comfortable in the validity of their beliefs must be
>wary of encountering anything that would contradict or disprove them.
>
Alternate theory, at least in re the anti-fantasy Christians: Many
people have a strong appetite for strangeness--there's plenty of
weirdness in the Bible, and some Christian sects try to make sure
that they're the only weirdness suppliers in their members' lives.
I've met one Christian who said that he wasn't allowed to read
fantasy because "there might be a demon in it". To be fair, I
don't think that sort of rule is typical of most Christian
groups.
Lori Coulson
It's frightening to consider, but these people who haven't read a whole
book since leaving school are the normal ones (in a statistical sense, anyway.)
SF readers and fans are an abnormal subset of the population, self-selected
by the criterion of being actively and enjoyably literate. Since we hang out
with people who have the same tastes, we lose sight of the info-drought around
us.
Just recently, my oathsister's mother said that Jan should "throw out all
of her books" *because they collect dust*
My oathsister has spent the last 10 years replacing the books she lost in
an appartment fire, and was flabbergasted that her mother (who says "I
only read my magazines") could even suggest disposing of them. BTW, this
woman is a house-cleaning freak from the word go.
It's bad enough that there are SO many people out there who don't read.
But now I find myself wondering how many folks are out there that think of
books as disposable items?
I love my paperbacks to death. It pains me to have to throw one out
(after I've replaced it with a new copy, of course). I even keep books I
don't like. Although with space at a premium, I guess some of the less
desirables will make the trip to Half-Price Books this Spring.
Lori Coulson
nwein...@mac.cc.macalstr.edu
> Bill Oliver (oli...@cs.unc.edu) wrote:
>
>> A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to peruse the
>> new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles, I suddenly came to
>> the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely interesting. I had
>> *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick up a book to see what it was like.
>
>> my self-definition. I have a thirty-year history of reading just about
>> everything that came on the market. My house is little more than a
>> book warehouse. Has anyone else suddenly gotten burned out on sf? Did
>> you get over it? How long did it last, if you did? [snip]
>
> Happens all the time, especially to college inmates :) But post-adolescent
> cases have also been reported :) I suspect that root causes are different,
> though. When a 20-something-year-old discovers that there is a literary
> world outside science fiction and that Proust and Dostoyevsky are somewhat
> better writers than van Vogt and even (heresy!) Asimov, he may 'burn out'
> on SF the way David Bischoff so publisly did in ... oh, was it 1978?
Wait a minute. Just how often does this actually happen? I, for one, had
Nicholas Weininger
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility toward every form of
tyranny over the mind of man." -Thomas Jefferson
Emma Pease
>Oh yes. Been there, done that.
>I prescribe a reading course fo 3 books by Trollope. It works for me
>every time. It goes like this:
>After book one: This is brilliant, why don't I read more of this stuff
>After book two: Ok, but why is everyone obsessed with superficialities ?
Depends on which book.
>After book three: Gimme some SF ! Now ! Now I tell you !
Depends on which book.
>Frossie, having enough Trollope left for only two more crises
How many crises have you gone through? At three books per crisis you
must have had 15 or so. I admit I'm about through with Trollope but
that is after 10 years of on again off again reading.
Emma
ps. Trollope did not write SF; however, he did create his own
imaginary county and some great characters (many of whom would pop up
again in later books as minor figures) and some great names (Dr.
Omicron Pi, Duke of Omnium). If you want to try him you can start
with 'The Warden' (his first bestseller) or with 'The Way We Live Now'
(for the cynics and those who like long books).
pps. When faced with a SF drought (or even when not) I tend to read
Trollope, mysteries, and history (working my way through the first 10
books of Livy [on the early history of Rome] at the moment). Those
with more lurid tastes might like Tacitus or Suetonius on the Roman
emperors.
ppps. Another good book that I've recently reread is Sikram Veth's 'A
Suitable Boy'. Again not SF but by the time you've finished a few
good books should have been released.
--
---------- /\~~/\
Emma Pease |__\/__|
em...@csli.stanford.edu | /\* |
Net spinster \/__\/
Rob Furr
> In article h...@ef2007.efhd.ford.com, USFM...@ibmmail.com (Chris
Clayton) writes:
>
> >As an educational exercise, try things that take you into random houses.
> >Real estate open houses are good. (Cat burglary is bad.) When I was buying
> >a house, I went through dozens of places still being lived in. Only
one or two
> >had bookshelves, most had no reading material at all.
That was one of the most frightening experiences I ever had as a child. I
visited a friend's house, and was shown into the living room. It was a
very nice living room; new carpet, matching furniture, walnut tables,
muted lighting, a nice knicknack or two ... and no reading material in
sight. None. Not even a magazine. This confused me; I had not previously
grasped the fact that there might be a room in someone's house that would
not logically have something to read in it. I looked around again...nope,
no books, no magazines, no newspapers. I looked up the hallway - nothing.
I looked in the bathroom - nothing. I was _really_ confused. Obviously,
the inhabitants of this house didn't _use_ this portion of the house -
there was no sign of reading material, thus, nobody was ever in here.
Eventually, it penetrated; they DID use that part of the house. I
couldn't _believe_ it for the longest time; there had to be another
explanation for the lack of reading matter.
There wasn't; those people didn't read for recreation.
I was really disturbed; I don't think I'd ever been _disturbed_ that much.
(Possibly the time when an associate of my mother's baby-sat me for an
afternoon, and explained, in gory detail, just who that person was in the
really badly-done painting over her piano was, and why he was wearing a
crown of thorns, rivals it. I dunno.)
> I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt - ok, maybe they keep their
> books in their bedrooms/attic/under-the-bed, but then I am an optimist.
> Maybe they read newspapers (another dying art). In a recent trip to the
> States I was amused by a TV ad for 45 minute versions of 100 Great Books
> on cassette with the slogan "Even at FOUR BOOKS A YEAR it would take you
> TWENTY-FIVE YEARS to actually read all these books !!".
Four books a YEAR? Yeah, right. Four books a _day_...
> <sigh>
> Frossie, slightly curious as to what _War And Peace_ is like in 45 minutes.
To quote Woody Allen: "It's about Russia."
--
Rob Furr - http://www.groucho.com/
Michael Rogero Brown (Sys Admin)
: In article <3jfuaa$a...@icmv.intellicorp.com>,
: Richard Treitel <tre...@intellicorp.com> wrote:
: >The paperback was first developed specifically so that books could
: >become disposable items (i.e. cheap enough that "most" people could
: >dispose of them without a shudder), thereby making it possible to read
: >books in places where you wouldn't want to risk a valuable hardback.
: >I too love my PBs, but when I notice that I'm keeping a book I don't
: >like and don't re-read, I sell it (or give it to the library) in the
: >hope that someone else *will* read it. IMHO books are for use, not
: >worship.
: Y'know, I've considered this a number of times (usually when deep in
: debt for some reason or another), and invariably I end up re-reading
: the books in question, just to find out why they were hanging around in
: the first place. And then I end up keeping them...
: The one time I _did_ unload some old paperbacks (gave 'em to some sort
: of charity drive or something), I ended up wanting to read one of them
: not two weeks later...
: The only books I _do_ own, and am fairly sure I wouldn't miss are crap
: that I don't want to admit to owning. Not even for the few minutes it
: would take to unload them. These will most likely continue to reside in
: my parents' basement until such time as they either clean up (yeah,
: right...) or my kids (in the event that I ever _have_ kids...) find them
: and humiliate me...
For myself, while there are some books I wouldn't mind getting rid of, there
are many I won't. Mainly because of the 'work' I've put into finding them.
Many books I want to read are out of print, forcing me to comb used bookstores.
It has taken me several years to complete several series of books, such as my
collection of Perry Rhodan (yes, I know its space opera at it worst :) ), Doc
Savage, etc. And you (or my mom) expects me to get rid of them after the effort
it took to get them in the first place???? Yeah, right. :)
--
----------All Opinions Expressed are MINE, not IBM's--------------
Michael Rogero Brown (uK Development System Administrator)
IBM (uK Development) TEL/TIE (407) 443-6400
Boca Raton, FL Internet: mi...@bocaraton.ibm.com
If you think I speak for IBM, then I've got some swamp land^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
real estate to sell you.
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
: reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
: he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
: Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
: their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
: home. Any other examples?
: [I am sure somebody can squeeze a PhD out of this :)]
I bet you're right. About squeezing the degree, anyway, altho one
might have a trick finding an institution to grant it.
About the devoutly xtian: yes, some are dead set against sf/f.
But then there are C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, George MacDonald
and I'm sure plenty of more recent ones. So I don't think you
can make that stick across the board.
I'm not sure I know any Trotsky-ites. But certainly socialism
and fantasy are or have been in the past compatible. L. Frank
Baum, and again Morris. Presumably, again, more recent
examples could be found.
I would _like_ to argue that fantasy/sf, as _escapism_ are not
tremendously compatible with deep political commitment, which
tends to require one, er, not escape, shall we say. But
this flies in the face of the use of fantasy/sf as allegory.
I imagine you could find statistical correlations, but what
you would probably turn up is that people with particular
leanings read particular sub-genres/authors, and people with
other leanings read other sub-genres/authors.
OTOH, you may find out something definite, but in an unexpected
direction. Say, that _all_ Wiccans read some sf/f?
--
Rebecca Allen standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
GSV I Meant to Do That
Chad R Orzel
>become disposable items (i.e. cheap enough that "most" people could
>dispose of them without a shudder), thereby making it possible to read
>books in places where you wouldn't want to risk a valuable hardback.
>I too love my PBs, but when I notice that I'm keeping a book I don't
>like and don't re-read, I sell it (or give it to the library) in the
>hope that someone else *will* read it. IMHO books are for use, not
>worship.
>
debt for some reason or another), and invariably I end up re-reading
the books in question, just to find out why they were hanging around in
the first place. And then I end up keeping them...
The one time I _did_ unload some old paperbacks (gave 'em to some sort
of charity drive or something), I ended up wanting to read one of them
not two weeks later...
The only books I _do_ own, and am fairly sure I wouldn't miss are crap
that I don't want to admit to owning. Not even for the few minutes it
would take to unload them. These will most likely continue to reside in
my parents' basement until such time as they either clean up (yeah,
right...) or my kids (in the event that I ever _have_ kids...) find them
and humiliate me...
Later,
Nancy Lebovitz
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley <rcro...@zso.dec.com> wrote:
>OTOH, you may find out something definite, but in an unexpected
>direction. Say, that _all_ Wiccans read some sf/f?
>
I doubt that it's a 100% correlation, but I do believe that
there's what I call the Great Fannish Braid of Subcultures,
and it includes sf fandom, neo-paganism, medievalism, fantasy
role-playing games, and possibly some other groups.
You'd have no hope of proving anything (except basic biological
stuff) about 100% of Wiccans--a lot of them are closeted/solitary.
John L Redford
>:are rather conservative. All of them read tons of stuff. So far I have not
>:been able to find any correlation between politics and the number of books
>:one reads per [unit of time]. Has anybody?
>:
>:P.S. And let's limit ourselves to facts and perceived correlations, OK?
>:Political flames --> e-mail.
Not that this has much to do with SF, but there is a strong
correlation between education level and propensity to vote. From the
1992 Statistical Abstract of the United States:
School years completed % reporting they voted in the 1990 election (a
non-Presidential year)
8 years or less 27.7%
High school:
1 to 3 years 30.9%
4 years 42.2%
College:
1 to 3 years 50%
4 years or more 62.5%
Overall average 45%
Now, I don't know the correlation between education level and the
amount people actually read, but it ought to be fairly high. If
that's true, then disagreeable election results can't be blamed on
illiterates.
--
/jlr (John Redford, j...@world.std.com)
David Librik
>In article <D52E0...@crash.cts.com> scl...@crash.cts.com (Steven Clover) writes:
>> And, just to really bend some people out of shape, I would include
>> Old Bill Shakespeare(sp?) in the list of questionable "Literature"
>> authors. While I enjoyed some of his writings (Macbeth was decent), I
>> don't think that he (or any of the other "Literature" authors) could
>> possible hold a candle to authors like Tolkien.
>Tolkien disagreed with that assessment. Perhaps he saw something
>in Shakespeare that you don't.
I doubt it. Tolkien says, in a letter to W.H. Auden (7 June 1955), that he
"disliked [Shakespeare] cordially," and in a letter to his son Christopher
on 28 July 1944, he talks about "the folly of reading Shakespeare (and
annotating him in the study), except as a concomitant of seeing one of
his plays acted." JRRT's opinions on Billy's "elves" is well-known and
not worth repeating here, as it would no doubt scorch my fingers as I
typed it.
- David Librik
lib...@cs.Berkeley.edu
have _Letters_, will travel
Brambrack
on just a little bit too long? Where i work I'm a freak 'cuz i don't
like/follow sports. Let's face it folks. THEY just don't like to do what
WE like to do with our time. We're no better than THEM. Let's stop all
this self congratulatory bs. You can find just as many nerdy narrow minded
little geeks who read quite a bit as those who don't. Bill
Elizabeth Willey
Emma Pease writes:
ps. Trollope did not write SF; however, he did create his own
imaginary county and some great characters (many of whom would pop up
again in later books as minor figures) and some great names (Dr.
Omicron Pi, Duke of Omnium). If you want to try him you can start
with 'The Warden' (his first bestseller) or with 'The Way We Live Now'
(for the cynics and those who like long books).
(The over-the-top name like "Duke of Omnium" are sometimes considered
to distract from the stories' essential emotional authenticity.
Trollope himself rather regretted some of them when he had to work
with them again and again ("Omnium Gatherum," the Duke's seat, is
funny once and never again).)
In fact, Trollope wrote one novel which would be filed with SF today:
_The Fixed Period_ (1882), about an Australasian society in 1980
in which John Neverbend, president of the Empire of the South Pacific,
decrees a policy of euthanasia for the aged, to save society the
expense of maintaining them and the aged from the pain of aging.
"First, it was dcided that sixty should be the end of the `fixed
period' of life; then sixty-five; then sixty-seve and a half was
finally decided upon. [...] The trouble was that the first man to
reach the significant age after the law was passed, a particularly
hale and hearty fellow, did not in the least want to be `deposited.'"
(quoted from Victoria Glendinning's _Anthony Trollope_)
I have not gotten to this one yet; however, the black humor of the
idea rather reminds me of Elias Canetti's _Die Befristeten_.
Elizabeth Willey
Richard Treitel
|> I think SF is a little harder for Christians to accept because it
|> doesn't admit the possibility of God.
Sounds as if somebody hasn't read Clarke's _The Nine Billion Names of
God_. Of course, the god in that story is not the God of Abraham.
IMHO most SF simply ignores the possibility of God -- which Christians
may well find *much* scarier than not admitting it. Perhaps scarier
yet are the stories that "explain" God in "natural" terms.
I saved a copy of a message posted to this group last June by one Greg
Slade, who identifies himself as a Christian and says, "one of the
reasons I like science fiction so much is *because* of my faith". I
wouldn't want to re-post it without his consent, though.
-- Richard, fairly devout unbeliever
"Some magics *are* distinguishable from any advanced technology."
(If my employer holds these views, it hasn't told me.)
Katherine Rossner
: Well, since I've never managed to get through the second book
: in Lord of the Rings (I don't know why. I jsut lose interest.) I can't
: really comment. However, since my english class just finished Macbeth,
: I'd like to point out that there is a dangling plot-line in Macbeth,
: in the weird sisters prophecy to Banquo about his sons holding the throne.
: At the end of Macbeth, Malcolm holds the throne, and there's no noticeable
: reason why he wouldn't have continued to do so... Just thought I'd
: mention it. :)
But this wasn't a dangling plot-line to Shakespeare's audience, who knew
that their king was a descendant of Banquo's. (At least, that's what I
was told in _my_ high-school English class...)
Katherine
--
Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge |
Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho | J.Katherine Rossner
That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge | j...@netcom.com
Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. -- Chaucer |
Katherine Rossner
: More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
: reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
: he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
: Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
: their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
: home. Any other examples?
Uh...this seems to imply that "Christian" is a specific political
category. Is it necessary to point out that there are Christians in--
well, maybe not every political category in the USA (and presumably
elsewhere), but quite a wide range thereof, "right-wing" and "left-wing"
and Green and libertarian and middle-of-the-road Democrats and
Republicans and ultra-conservatives and whatever...?
And similarly (to return to the main point), there are probably Christians
holding every possible view of sf/f. I've known fundamentalists who told
me reading the stuff was dangerous, and a Russian Orthodox friend who
helped me move was *very* solemn about the dangers in which my soul was
placed by the "demonic" works he saw on my bookshelves. On the other
hand, the organization Christian Fandom seemed to be mostly fundamentalist
when I encountered it; and most of my Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
friends read a wide range of fantasy and s.f. as well (as do I)--and I
know that at least one woman I see at daily Mass is a published fantasy
writer.
So...there may be a correlation between specific political views and
taste in f/sf, but I tend to doubt it.
Adam Miller
: More specifically, has anybody noticed that political views correlate with
: reading fantasy and science fiction? E.g., a Trtskyist once told me that
: he wouldn't consider reading 'this escapist drivel' and a devoutly
: Christian couple in their 70's seemed less than entirely comfortable with
: their (adult/married/with children) son having hundreds of sf/f books at
: home. Any other examples?
: [I am sure somebody can squeeze a PhD out of this :)]
I'll attempt a thesis at least: A weak house can bear no wind.
i.e. those not fully comfortable in the validity of their beliefs must be
wary of encountering anything that would contradict or disprove them.
Or in other words: APAGE SATANAS!
--Gedrus
peter huebner
>
> "First they came for the cigarettes, and I didn't speak up because I
> didn't smoke. Then they came for the alcohol, and I didn't speak up
> because I didn't drink. When they came for the chocolate, I reached
> for my gun, and....oops!"
>
Take one Niemoeller (R.I.P.), fit transmission belt and connect to
turbine main shaft . . .
;-) -P.
--------------------------------------------------------------
More cream pies for Holy Cows(tm)!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy Lebovitz
Richard Treitel <tre...@intellicorp.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.A32.3.91.950307...@tuba.aix.calpoly.edu>, "Karl Robert Loeffler (Robotect)" <kloe...@tuba.aix.calpoly.edu> writes:
>|> I think SF is a little harder for Christians to accept because it
>|> doesn't admit the possibility of God.
>
>Sounds as if somebody hasn't read Clarke's _The Nine Billion Names of
>God_. Of course, the god in that story is not the God of Abraham.
>IMHO most SF simply ignores the possibility of God -- which Christians
>may well find *much* scarier than not admitting it. Perhaps scarier
>yet are the stories that "explain" God in "natural" terms.
A lot of sf is not just non-religious, but anti-religious. AFAIK,
the typical protrayals of religion in sf are either of a cruel,
arbitrary, and corrupt Catholic hierarchy (possibly not called Catholicism)
or of ill-educated money-grabbing violent fundamentalism.
>
While I'm not denying the evils done in the name of religion, religion
is a much more complicated thing on both the personal and social level
than the version of it usually shown in sf.
Nancy "an agnostic Taoist of Jewish background with a taste for
neo-pagan ritual" Lebovitz
Nancy Lebovitz
Rob Furr <rf...@jazz.ncren.net> wrote:
>In article <D5318...@festival.ed.ac.uk>, f...@roe.ac.uk wrote:
>
>> In article h...@ef2007.efhd.ford.com, USFM...@ibmmail.com (Chris
>Clayton) writes:
>>
>> >As an educational exercise, try things that take you into random houses.
>> >Real estate open houses are good. (Cat burglary is bad.) When I was buying
>> >a house, I went through dozens of places still being lived in. Only
>one or two
>> >had bookshelves, most had no reading material at all.
>
Here's a variant on the horror--when I was a kid, I saw my father's
office--he's a CPA (certified public accountant)--and there was a
wall of nicely bound reference books (probably tax law and such)--
and nothing that anyone would conceivably read for pleasure.
Matt Austern
> And, just to really bend some people out of shape, I would include
> Old Bill Shakespeare(sp?) in the list of questionable "Literature"
> authors. While I enjoyed some of his writings (Macbeth was decent), I
> don't think that he (or any of the other "Literature" authors) could
> possible hold a candle to authors like Tolkien.
Tolkien disagreed with that assessment. Perhaps he saw something
in Shakespeare that you don't.
--
--matt
Karl Robert Loeffler (Robotect)
On 6 Mar 1995, Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley wrote:
> About the devoutly xtian: yes, some are dead set against sf/f.
> But then there are C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, George MacDonald
> and I'm sure plenty of more recent ones. So I don't think you
> can make that stick across the board.
Coming from a fundamentalist Christian background, I can say that most
_fundamentalist_ Christians are against SF. They usually have a little
problem with fantasy, too, but not that much if it can be seen as a
Christian allegory. Thus, Narnia, Prydain, Oz, Middle Earth are
acceptable, because there are recognizable and non charismatic evil
forces defeated by Good forces. Some of these are specifically Christian
allegories, others are accepted as such after the fact. And yes, I know
that there are some Christians who don't like Oz because of the Witches,
but there are plenty who like it, too.
I think SF is a little harder for Christians to accept because it
doesn't admit the possibility of God. This used to be a rule, but the New
Age has brought spiritualism in science into vogue. However, this New Age
Spiritualism is antithetical to most Christian's belief systems, so SF is
still not very accepted. The SF that is written from a Christian
perspective is inferior to the fantasy written from the Christian
perspective, which can often be quite good.
Let me illustrate this point: my mother thinks Narnia and Lewis'
other fiction is some of the best Christian fiction around. She also like
Oz, Tolkien, and Greek Mythology(western literary heritage) However, when
I once explained Brin's uplift series to her, she was appalled by the
concept of this imaginary universe in which the driving force behind the
whole mechanism of its organization was ongoing evolution. Even after I
explained the underlying mysticism prevalent in the series, the idea that
sometime in history there was some kind of god, she couldn't accept that
I could like the series. She asked me,"What do you do, suspend your
disbelief?"
> I'm not sure I know any Trotsky-ites. But certainly socialism
> and fantasy are or have been in the past compatible. L. Frank
> Baum, and again Morris. Presumably, again, more recent
> examples could be found.
If you read Baum, you might come up with the idea that he was a
socialist. If you read his bio, you'll find he was a busy capitalistic
entrepreneur. He had more get-rich-quick schemes than any other person
beside TA Edison, except that none of his worked for very long. I think
the socialist utopia portrayed in Oz was his dream; he wished he didn't
have to work so hard for everything he wanted.
Frossie
>As an educational exercise, try things that take you into random houses.
>Real estate open houses are good. (Cat burglary is bad.) When I was buying
>a house, I went through dozens of places still being lived in. Only one or two
>had bookshelves, most had no reading material at all.
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt - ok, maybe they keep their
books in their bedrooms/attic/under-the-bed, but then I am an optimist.
Maybe they read newspapers (another dying art). In a recent trip to the
States I was amused by a TV ad for 45 minute versions of 100 Great Books
on cassette with the slogan "Even at FOUR BOOKS A YEAR it would take you
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS to actually read all these books !!".
<sigh>
Frossie, slightly curious as to what _War And Peace_ is like in 45 minutes.
---
f...@roe.ac.uk/ QMW Physics Dept., London /Institute for Astronomy, Edinburgh
"$HOME is where your dotfiles are" - Gym Quirk
stephanides adam l
>still not very accepted. The SF that is written from a Christian
>perspective is inferior to the fantasy written from the Christian
>perspective, which can often be quite good.
I'm not sure what you're referring to (the SF published by evangelical
publishers, perhaps)? I can think of several counterexamples off the
bat: Walter Miller (I admit I have not read "Canticle for Liebowitz"
in a long time, but it certainly has "classic" status);
Anthony Boucher's "The Quest for St. Aquin"; Gene Wolfe (Both The
Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun are clearly written
from a Christian perspective); R. A. Lafferty (some of his explicitly
Christian stuff is inferior, but by no means all).
--Adam
John T. Dow
: : Wait a minute. Just how often does this actually happen? I, for one, had
: : the "literary world outside SF" shoved down me for just long enough to make me
: : quite sure I'll never go back. I dispute the judgment that Dostoyevsky
: : Asimov himself would have agreed with me. And, no, I'm not that old; I am, in
: : fact, 16. (And I've been reading Asimov since I was about 4, so this isn't
Just for the record, 15, and I've only read one or two Asimov
short stories...
: : End of exasperated rant which I've had to deliver too many times
: : before. Again, I realize the above views are pretty "heretical", and I don't
: : know what to expect in response: politely veiled ways of saying "oh, you'll grow
: : out of it", pretentious flames, inquiries as to whether I've ever read
Hm. I've NEVER had anyone even suggest to me that SF&F was something
I'd "grow out of"... Curious.
: Well, I am not a big Asimov fan, but I agree with you completely. I've
: got ten years on you and I still feel that authors like Tolkien are far
: better than any of the writers of the "Classics" or "True Literature". I
: too was subjected to endless boring, and sometimes sickening, hours
: reading things like "Lord of the Flies", "Red Badge of Courage", and the
: various works of Jack London and Poe. I honestly feel that these books
Actually, I think that the fact that we've been forced to read
this stuff is part of the reason it's reacted to so badly. Being forced to
read something, particularly if you're someone who likes to read (I would
assume everyone on this newsgroup does, to an extent, otherwise you wouldn't
be here) is one of the most aggrivating things a teacher (or anyone else,
for that matter) can do.
: are extremely depressing, perverted, and not in the least bit
: entertaining. Perhaps we aren't old enough, or cultured enough, to
: understand the true greatness of these works... Or maybe, just maybe,
: they really are poorly written trash. Should I not expect to be
Or maybe the reasons that the books are considered "great" have
been lost through the years... Why ARE some of these "great" books so
wonderful? I read "Red Badge of Courage", okay, it wasn't bad, but it's
certainly not the best writing I've ever read. What makes it so great?
(Is it just, in some cases, that the book was tremendously popular when
it first was published? I hope not, since that's not anyway to determine
the "greatness" of a book. Look at the books on the New York Times Fiction
Bestseller list. How many of them would you consider to be "great"?)
: entertained in some fashion by books that are purported to be the very
: pinnacle of Literature? If a writer like Dostoyevsky is such the master,
: then why can't he hold most peoples' attention? In my opinion, a good
The fact that people now seem to have a shorter attention span
MAY have soemthing to do with this... Also, a wider range of people are
reading the "classics" now than were originally, thanks to the fact that
most of the "classics" are taught in high school English classes.
I would imagine that there's a group of people who find Dostoyevsky
VERY interesting. You simply aren't part of that group. (So what makes
a book a "classic" then? It certainly can't be because someone thinks
that the book will have universal appeal, throughout the ages... WHo
determines which books are "classics" and which aren't?)
: writer is one that can catch you up in his/her imagination and carry you
: through the whole tale showing you what they see and the real worth of
: it, like a parent walking their child through a garden and lovingly
: pointing out all of the beauty that lies in the flowers that grow there.
Not necessarily... It depends partly on the writer's intention...
Some of the "classic" writers weren't very good plotters, but had skills
with description that made it worth it to suffer with a less-than-perfect
plot... (And there are still popular writers around today who do this,
and you've probably read some. Or instead of description, it's characters.
Different people have different strengths.) And the reason why it was
proclaimed a "classic". See earlier questions. :)
: I certainly think that there is a place for the "Classics" that I
: mentioned, but I think that too many people like to hold them up above
: (and actually look down upon!) more current writings (especially genre
: books, such as SF or Fantasy), as if they are somehow superior. Oh well,
I think the snobbery has to do with an opinion of genre writers
as the ones who couldn't hack it in the big time, or something. Which is
silly.
: the whole idea of "Literature" truly irks me, but I find it best to just
: ignore its proponents and go on reading what you truly appreciate and
: enjoy.
I don't think you can necessarily ignore "Litereature." You
just have to know why you're reading it. (Which, in most cases, is NOT
for the entertainment value. :)
: And, just to really bend some people out of shape, I would include
: Old Bill Shakespeare(sp?) in the list of questionable "Literature"
: authors. While I enjoyed some of his writings (Macbeth was decent), I
: don't think that he (or any of the other "Literature" authors) could
: possible hold a candle to authors like Tolkien.
Well, since I've never managed to get through the second book
in Lord of the Rings (I don't know why. I jsut lose interest.) I can't
really comment. However, since my english class just finished Macbeth,
I'd like to point out that there is a dangling plot-line in Macbeth,
in the weird sisters prophecy to Banquo about his sons holding the throne.
At the end of Macbeth, Malcolm holds the throne, and there's no noticeable
reason why he wouldn't have continued to do so... Just thought I'd
mention it. :)
-the quiet one
(Who apologises if some of this is a bit confusing. Cold medicene
does that to me. :)
(And who's personal pet peeve, in the "Literature" area, is
Coming of Age novels (tm). Can't stand them.)
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
> B. Waldencrown offers a wide variety of provocative and original
> works in the F/SF market segment. I particularly recommend nos.
> #11, #28, and #137 in the Muscular Swords series, as well as the
> sparklingly written, mold-breaking Future Empire decalogy (the
> first 1100 pages of Volume VII, _Space Battle_, are particularly
> gripping).
Juliana Pickrell reminds me of something Christian Weisgerber once
posted to this newsgroup:
"After you've read through a few hundred volumes | Bill Higgins
you'll find that it's okay as a space opera." | Fermilab
--Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber |
(na...@mips.ruessel.sub.org) | hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
on the 1670-book Perry Rhodan series | hig...@fnal.Bitnet
Steve Glover
> nan...@universe.digex.net "Nancy Lebovitz" writes:
>> I doubt that it's a 100% correlation, but I do believe that
>> there's what I call the Great Fannish Braid of Subcultures,
>> and it includes sf fandom, neo-paganism, medievalism, fantasy
>> role-playing games, and possibly some other groups.
>Hmmm. I recall someone who had a slightly different view of this. You
>see he was both a medieval and english civil-war re-creationist, a
>martial artist and a fan. His theory was that there simply weren't
>enough loonies to go around, so dedicated loonies had to rush around
>doing all of the things that 'normal' people would never dream of
>doing.
Right. Call for volunteers. How many people reading this (and coming
to Intersection) fall into more than one of these groups (plus, of
course, things like activism on the political fringes, CAMRA
membership, etc) and would like to be on a panel about this in Glasgow?
Steve, trying to remember who it was last year who offered fanzine
pieces on Thorne, EE, VM, L Neil or George O Smith...
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now soliciting for Spring 1995 issue of Etranger: topics include morality in
works of people called Smith or about people called Smith; net stuff of likely
interest to SF fans, art... Deadline 23-MAR-1995: steve_...@hicom.lut.ac.uk
Ernest S. Tomlinson
>National Lampoon have produced two excellent spoofs in:
>"Doon" (the Dessert Planet, starring Pall Mauve'Bib, the Kumkwat Haagensdaaz)
>and "Bored of the Rings".
Mmf. I've read both of these (I own _Doon_--a waste of money at $1.50 used)
and can't see what people like about them. The level of humor is something
below sophomoric--funny names and painful attempts to push the gag too
far (like that "peanut butter" thing in _Doon_. Yawn....) There's the
occasional excellent line ("Arruckus. Doon. Dessert Planet.") but not
enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. And the jokes are a bit
dated, which I suppose is to be expected of such topical humor.
(But not many parodies are successful. Cf. "Hardware Wars" and "Pork Lips
Now." "Hardware Wars" gets dull after about the third flying toaster;
but "Pork Lips Now" is almost as funny as _Apocalypse Now_ is deadly
serious.)
-et
--
Ernest S. Tomlinson
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Pin-striped crime, Lewis. Lies, and lawyers." - Chief Inspector E. Morse
"Inspector Clay is dead, murdered! And someone's responsible!" - from Plan 9
Karl Robert Loeffler
Go into a Christian Bookstore. There will be a section called "Christian
Fantasy." In this section you will find C.S. Lewis, Stephen Lawhead,
Calvin Miller, George MacDonald, and some less known authors. Most of the
books will be fantasy, but a few will be SF. Pick out any of the SF books
excluding Lewis, and read it. I am confident that you will find it to be
inferior, both to the fantasy works in the same section, and to the
larger genre of non-Christian SF.
The books you mention could not be called Christian SF. Walter Miller and
Boucher both write about The Church, not about God. In "St. Aquin," the
miracle that canonizes Aquin is that his dead body is sustained. It turns
out that Aquin was actually a robot. God was not evidenced by the
"miracle." In my opinion, and I know I am not alone on this, the whole
point of the story was to call into question the existence of God. The
faith of the investigator is shaken by his investigation into the
miracle.
Wolfe and also Orson Scott Card write eloquent SF allegories of
Judeo-Christian belief systems. However, they are published by mainstream
publishing houses instead of Christian publishing houses, and the
"message" contained in their works is correspondingly subtler than that
contained in SF or Fantasy published by Christian companies. If either
were as blatant with their symbolism as Christian SF/F writers are with
theirs, how big a following do youy think they would have outside of
Catholicism and Mormonism, respectively?
--
Anarchy Rules!
Debra Fran Baker
>Wolfe and also Orson Scott Card write eloquent SF allegories of
>Judeo-Christian belief systems. However, they are published by mainstream
>publishing houses instead of Christian publishing houses, and the
>"message" contained in their works is correspondingly subtler than that
>contained in SF or Fantasy published by Christian companies. If either
>were as blatant with their symbolism as Christian SF/F writers are with
>theirs, how big a following do youy think they would have outside of
>Catholicism and Mormonism, respectively?
Bit of a pet peeve - there is no such thing as "Judeo-Christian"
anything. It's a term made up (a long time ago) by people who wanted to
state the Christian party line (in either positive, or lately, negative,
ways) without seeming exclusive. Judaism and Christianity are very
different - drop by alt.messianic and you'll see that. But, even if the
term meant something, using it to refer to Orson Scott Card, who's brand
of Christianity is even further away from Judaism than most, is downright
silly.
BTW, science fiction reading seems to be as acceptable as any other kind
of non-religious reading (ie, perfectly fine, only for children or not
permitted at all, depending on the group) in Orthodox Judaism. I know a
number of Orthodox Jewish sf readers, and even some active fans. I'm one.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
* For its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace. *
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Debra Fran Baker dfb...@panix.com
Frank English
something. I am not alone... It is interesting I have always loved to read
books particularly SciFi/Fantasy. Most of my friends have read maybe 1 or
2 books ever. A few that do read for pleasure talk about the next book
they are getting for the summer reading season... I read a couple of a
week more if I had the time. I also can understand getting burnout. I have
even gotten burned out on 1 type of story.. For a while I couldn't read
another time travel story if you put a gun to my head. As for bookstores,
all we have in this area is Waldens and not a local one at that. I have
started ordering them through the mail using this newsgroup as a great
source for recommendations.
I'll stop rambling now...
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> Not that this has much to do with SF, but there is a strong
> correlation between education level and propensity to vote. From the
> 1992 Statistical Abstract of the United States:
> School years completed % reporting they voted in the 1990 election (a
> non-Presidential year)
> 8 years or less 27.7%
> High school:
> 1 to 3 years 30.9%
> 4 years 42.2%
> College:
> 1 to 3 years 50%
> 4 years or more 62.5%
> Overall average 45%
> Now, I don't know the correlation between education level and the
> amount people actually read, but it ought to be fairly high. If
> that's true, then disagreeable election results can't be blamed on
> illiterates.
Come to think of it, one analysis of the last election that I saw a few
weeks ago showed that the GOP (hm, I guess I should mention that "GOP" =
the Republican Party, i.e. the folks on the Right) scored big with the
BS/BA crowd, while the Democrats carried the PhDs and the rest of the pie.
Anybody got any data on reading habits vs. education?
--
Ahasuerus
http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer
(including books on writing SF, the Heinlein page and the alt.pulp FAQ)
ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/heinlein.faq
stephanides adam l
>In article <3jkj5e$3...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>stephanides adam l <aste...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>>"Karl Robert Loeffler (Robotect)" <kloe...@tuba.aix.calpoly.edu> writes:
>>
>>>still not very accepted. The SF that is written from a Christian
>>>perspective is inferior to the fantasy written from the Christian
>>>perspective, which can often be quite good.
>>
>>I'm not sure what you're referring to (the SF published by evangelical
>>publishers, perhaps)? I can think of several counterexamples off the
>>bat: Walter Miller (I admit I have not read "Canticle for Liebowitz"
>>in a long time, but it certainly has "classic" status);
>>Anthony Boucher's "The Quest for St. Aquin"; Gene Wolfe (Both The
>>Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun are clearly written
>>from a Christian perspective); R. A. Lafferty (some of his explicitly
>>Christian stuff is inferior, but by no means all).
[snip]
>The books you mention could not be called Christian SF. Walter Miller and
>Boucher both write about The Church, not about God. In "St. Aquin," the
>miracle that canonizes Aquin is that his dead body is sustained. It turns
>out that Aquin was actually a robot. God was not evidenced by the
>"miracle." In my opinion, and I know I am not alone on this, the whole
>point of the story was to call into question the existence of God. The
>faith of the investigator is shaken by his investigation into the
>miracle.
My recollection of the story, though, is that while his faith is at first
shaken, it is restored by the realization that this perfectly logical
intelligence was forced to acknowledge and proclaim the existence of
God. It is this, not the bogus miracle, which "evidences God" in the
story.
>Wolfe and also Orson Scott Card write eloquent SF allegories of
>Judeo-Christian belief systems. However, they are published by mainstream
>publishing houses instead of Christian publishing houses, and the
>"message" contained in their works is correspondingly subtler than that
>contained in SF or Fantasy published by Christian companies. If either
>were as blatant with their symbolism as Christian SF/F writers are with
>theirs, how big a following do youy think they would have outside of
>Catholicism and Mormonism, respectively?
I've never read Card, but I have to disagree on Wolfe. While the Christian
message in _Book of the New Sun_ per se is subtle, this is not true
of _Urth_, as the Conciliator's career almost exactly parallels Jesus's,
making it at least as explicit as the Narnia books. And _Book of the Long
Sun_ is even more explicit: the Outsider is clearly Jesus, and it is clear
that he is a true God and the other gods worshipped on the Whorl are false
gods.
I notice you didn't mention Lafferty at all. _Past Master_, and a number
of his short stories, are as blatant as they come.
--Adam
Reichert
: Steven Clover (scl...@crash.cts.com) wrote:
: I agree about "Snow Crash", though I'm less enthusiastic about
: "Hitchiker's Guide" (and the rest). Have you tried Terry Pratchett? I
: find him funny in a way that is similar to Adams' but more interesting.
Yes, especially "Good Omens". One of the funniest books I've ever
read.
Just my 2.5
Chris Jones
> In article <3jj90k$b...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
> Question 1: Which has been a primary repository of knowledge and
> learning for a significant portion of the history of the human race?
> A) Books and other written records
> B) Sports
>
> Question 2: Which can provide entertainment at any time desired, for any
> length of time desired, without requiring the participation of any other
> person, instruments or accessories other than possibly a light source?
> A) Books and other written records
> B) Sports
>
> Question 3: Which is the better way to comunicate your thoughts,
> feelings, and beliefs?
> A) Books and other written records
> B) Sports
>
> Okay, I'm being facetious, but I really don't think that the importance
> of following or participating in sports compares to the importance of
> reading.
>
> -- Emily
Very facetious. I know exactly where most of you are coming from; I
read all the time and don't pay much attention to sports myself. But
sports do do other things than "being a repository of knowledge", like
building group spirit and feelings of pride.
Yeah, it sounds like a complete fabrication to keep the masses in line
to me too, but millions, billions maybe _live_ by this stuff. Society
needs these people; hell, society _is_ these people.
I'd be willing to hypothesize that most people on this group and most
of the people we're identifying with (bookish and quiet, or maybe not so
quiet) are more caring and sensitive, intelligent and educated than 90
percent of the rest of the people out there, but I honestly don't think
that we could put together a functional society on our own. (Maybe the
occasional convention, but that might be tricky without an agricultural
base.)
We're just too individualistic by our nature. Of course, stick a few of
us on a football team (shudder), and we _might_ learn to shut up, take
orders, and accomplish something together.
IMHO, 'course. Big time.
-coldjones
"She pedals her beat-up bike through the awful Kansas weather and sees
these yuppies come by with these awful smarmy grins: hey we don't _have_
to invent our lives, our lives are _invented for us_ and boy does that
ever save a lot of soul-searching."
-Bruce Sterling
Adam Miller
: Nancy "an agnostic Taoist of Jewish background with a taste for
: neo-pagan ritual" Lebovitz
and, in a sense, aren't we all?
Religion: the ultimate hobby.
Adam Miller
: >> there's what I call the Great Fannish Braid of Subcultures,
: >> and it includes sf fandom, neo-paganism, medievalism, fantasy
: >> role-playing games, and possibly some other groups.
: >Hmmm. I recall someone who had a slightly different view of this. You
: >see he was both a medieval and english civil-war re-creationist, a
: >martial artist and a fan. His theory was that there simply weren't
: >enough loonies to go around, so dedicated loonies had to rush around
: >doing all of the things that 'normal' people would never dream of
: >doing.
: Right. Call for volunteers. How many people reading this (and coming
: to Intersection) fall into more than one of these groups (plus, of
: course, things like activism on the political fringes, CAMRA
: membership, etc) and would like to be on a panel about this in Glasgow?
I think this issue is more than a tangent. Its something I've
pondered for a long time now, but without much success. I use to use the
'fannish braid' as an intelligence test when meeting new people, but then I
found that there were very intelligent "mundanes" as well. It seems that
there exist two classes in society, and though all my friends are "fans",
I know of no "fans" who occupy positions of genuine power in society,
i.e. "No fans are Slans." But I don't know why, and its a rather sad fate.
---
Gedrus
Go beyond good and evil
Nietzche--Conrad to the heart of darkness within us all.
\ / The stranger who looks into the abyss
Camus can't avoid the fall.
Susan Groppi
"Good Omens", aside from being hysterical, gets points for being
co-authored by Neil Gaiman. But my favorite Pratchett book has got to be
"Witches Abroad". I had just about given up hope, because I hated the
book immediately preceding "Witches Abroad", but it was just such a
wonderful book...
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Susan M. Groppi -- gro...@fas.harvard.edu -- Class of 1998 --
-- Yes there IS a Radcliffe, dammit! -- Writers are liars, my dear --
-- an tu mo ghra, a stor? -- A model of decorum and tranquility --
------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan Groppi
Distribution: world
Tom Burke (T...@greenoak.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <3jj0nh$n...@clarknet.clark.net>
: aha...@clark.net "Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew" writes:
: [snip]
: > Anybody got any data on reading habits vs. education?
: There's got to be a danger, hasn't there, that a voracious reader might no
: as well at school/college as a not-so-voracious reader. Finding time betw
: novels, gigs, and bar opening hours was always my trouble.
Or getting motivated to do the sourcebook reading or the problem sets
rather than read the friendly book I just borrowed from a friend... right
now it's a war between studying for a physics midterm and reading "The
Name of the Rose". Last week it was the calc midterm and "The Robber
Bride". The week before, we had a conflict between Gaeligeori and Dan
Simmons. The contests are always so pathetically one-sided that I'm
surprised I haven't failed out yet.
Marketa Zvelebil
>In article <3it507$5...@baldhead.cs.unc.edu> oli...@cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) writes:
>>
>>A month or so ago, I wandered into my local B.WaldenCrown to
>>peruse the new SF/Fantasy paperbacks. As I scanned the titles,
>>I suddenly came to the realization that *nothing* there looked vaguely
>>interesting. I had *no* desire, whatsoever, to even pick
>>up a book to see what it was like.
>
> I know the feeling, but part of the problem might be
>that you are in the wrong bookstore. Even our local
>Borders, generally an excellent bookstore, has a weak
>saifai section with about 1/4 the shelving devoted to
>movie novelizations, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dragonlance,
>and so forth. However I found a local used bookstore
>that always has something interesting, and BookStar is
>pretty good. Even if you don't have a local specialist
>saifai bookstore, you might be able to find one with a
>good saifai section if you look around.
>
> Specific recommendations: Get _Snow Crash_ by
>Stephenson. Pick up a few short story collections
>by Bruce Sterling. Avoid anything that has recently
>won a Hugo or a Nebula.
>
>>Now, I find I enjoy mysteries more than sf.
>
> But after a while, when you are pretty much done
>with all the classic goodies like Rex Stout, Raymond
>Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, Ross MacDonald, Dashiell
>Hammett, Agatha Christie, and so forth, you will find
>yourself taking a long look at the current mysteries,
>and you will find that they have the same problem as
>saifai: good books are still being written, but every
>year they get harder to find amongst all the dreck.
>You will feel the same old frustration when you
>discover that all the new mysteries in the store seem
>to be written about cats.
>
As to mysteries add - Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Fay Kellerman
and her husband ...Kellerman.
As to SF - Not ALL StarTrek books are bad...
Marketa Zvelebil
Russ Allbery
>
> Yes, especially "Good Omens". One of the funniest books I've ever
>read.
Agreed, and possibly funnier than straight Pratchett. Gaiman certainly adds
a certain something. (Of course, I'm a huge Sandman fan, so I'm biased. :).
Which, BTW, is a good opportunity to plug Sandman, which tends to be better
than all but the best fantasy novels. Very deep, philosophical, and
thought-provoking. For those of you who only know comics from Superman /
Batman / Spiderman stuff (thankfully there are fewer and fewer people like
that these days), Sandman is proof that comic books are capable of all of
the depth of books.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@cs.stanford.edu) http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/
Russ Allbery
>
>A lot of sf is not just non-religious, but anti-religious. AFAIK, the
>typical protrayals of religion in sf are either of a cruel, arbitrary, and
>corrupt Catholic hierarchy (possibly not called Catholicism) or of
>ill-educated money-grabbing violent fundamentalism.
Unfortunately, this is often true, but there are always exceptions (and
rather excellent ones). A natural example is Orson Scott Card, who doesn't
seem to have many problems reconciling a strong religious faith with sf.
Oh, another sticking point for fundamentalist Christianity with sf, even
apart from the portrayal (or lack thereof) of God, is aliens. The existance
of non-human races causes no end of problems for a lot of Christian
philosophies. C.S. Lewis and Poul Anderson have both dealt with this
question extremely well, IMHO.
Some fundamentalists also have some rather bizarre views on some of the more
common sf motifs. I never fail to get a chuckle out of a Christian book on
astronomy I have which says, among other things, that UFO sitings are quite
possibly appearances by Satan or his demons to set up in advance a cover
story to explain away the Rapture (when it happens) as a mass UFO
kidnapping.