SF for the marching Morons?
Curtis Yarvin
>In the latest edition of the Wilson Quaerterly, there is a review of an
>article called "Big Ideas and Dead-End Thrills" by Thomas M. Disch in the
>Atlantic (2/92). Quoting:
>
>"In the early 1970's, Disch had complained that event then, the genre could
>be best understood as 'a branch of children's literature.' He deplored the
>limitations that resulted from the juvenile nature of the readership and
>favored 'an aesthetically and intellectually mature science fiction, written
>by grown-ups for grown-up tastes.' 'New Wave' writers such as Norman Spinrad
>and Disch himself tried to create such fiction.
We gnawed this cud a few months ago.
The consensus was that Disch gone grouchy 'cause no one reads his stuff any
more. I shouldn't wonder; he's written some pretty awful crap.
There's still plenty of high-caliber sf amid the sludge, and more of it was
written five years ago than twenty. But there's also a lot more sludge.
c
Jim Mann
> We gnawed this cud a few months ago.
>
> The consensus was that Disch gone grouchy 'cause no one reads his stuff
any
> more. I shouldn't wonder; he's written some pretty awful crap.
>
You define "consensus" rather interstingly. There was at least a strong
majority that thought Disch had the right idea, though had overstated
it a bit.
I also can't think of any "awful crap" Disch has written (though he
has written several minor pieces). He has written a number of very,
very good novels, including Camp Concentration and 334.
--
Jim Mann
jm...@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Stratus Computer
Nancy Lebovitz
>In the latest edition of the Wilson Quaerterly, there is a review of an
>article called "Big Ideas and Dead-End Thrills" by Thomas M. Disch in the
>Atlantic (2/92). Quoting:
>
>"In the early 1970's, Disch had complained that event then, the genre could
>be best understood as 'a branch of children's literature.' He deplored the
>limitations that resulted from the juvenile nature of the readership and
>favored 'an aesthetically and intellectually mature science fiction, written
>by grown-ups for grown-up tastes.' 'New Wave' writers such as Norman Spinrad
>and Disch himself tried to create such fiction.
>
>had a very different agenda, according to Disch. They saw 'an enormous
>untapped market. Del Rey and those who followed in her footsteps discovered
>and groomed writers like Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, and Piers Anthony,
>who could scale down [J. R. R.] Tolkein or [Isaac] Asimov from the seventh-
>or eight-grade reading levels of the overeducated [1950s] and create
>tetralogies suitable to tthe diminished reading skills of today's children.'
>Other publishers started issuing series of low-grade novels, such as the
>continuing Star Trek series, which could be produced by 'hack' writers
>rather than 'name' authors."
>
>Has anyone read the original article? What do you think of this assertion?
I read the article, but I couldn't find any particular examples of what
Disch meant by an adult idea or characterization. I don't know if this
is just something I'll understand when I grow up, Disch had something
in mind but couldn't/didn't put it into words, or Disch was just
indulging in invective.
I don't believe that Spinrad is an especially mature writer.
---Nancy Lebovitz
Curtis Yarvin
>In article <ts3h2...@stanley.cis.Brown.EDU> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis
>Yarvin) writes:
>>
>> The consensus was that Disch gone grouchy 'cause no one reads his stuff any
>> more. I shouldn't wonder; he's written some pretty awful crap.
>>
>
>majority that thought Disch had the right idea, though had overstated
>it a bit.
My impression was that a lot of people posted offended reactions in response
to the initial quote; after that, the people who stuck around to debate it
rationally were more in favor of Disch. More a majority than a consensus, I
suppose.
>I also can't think of any "awful crap" Disch has written (though he
>has written several minor pieces). He has written a number of very,
>very good novels, including Camp Concentration and 334.
Well, "awful crap" for me is a real subjective term; so take this with a
grain of salt.
The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist. The result is decent
literature, spattered with droppings of ponderously inane social commentary;
and the quality of the writing lends a certain fatal poignancy to this
sporadic foulness. Realizing how fine a book could be, were the author less
of a babbling drip, makes for no pleasant read. That's why I rank Disch
below authors like Bujold, who know they can't write worth squat and have
the good sense not to force the issue.
c
Mark Smith
dump ]
>
>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist. The result is decent
>literature, spattered with droppings of ponderously inane social commentary;
>and the quality of the writing lends a certain fatal poignancy to this
>sporadic foulness. Realizing how fine a book could be, were the author less
>of a babbling drip, makes for no pleasant read. That's why I rank Disch
>below authors like Bujold, who know they can't write worth squat and have
>the good sense not to force the issue.
>
indavidual rights rise to the top of the list. She's a very humorous
writer that doesn't get so wrapped up in what's amusing to point out the
horror in what's going on around the characters. In the midst of all
the carnage, her characters are still affected by what they see, except
for maybe Sgt. Bothari, but he's not much in the conscience department
anyway.
So why can't Bujold write worth squat? Personally I found Disch to be
extreemly pretentious in his works and quit even trying to gag through
his books. I couldn't empathize with his characters. While I found
Bujold to be thought provoking, amusing and disturbing.
Dragon Lord
Thomas Farmer
>In article <1992May1.1...@news.yale.edu> john_...@yccatsmtp.ycc.yale.edu (John Jachna) writes:
>>In the latest edition of the Wilson Quaerterly, there is a review of an
>>article called "Big Ideas and Dead-End Thrills" by Thomas M. Disch in the
>>Atlantic (2/92). Quoting:
>>
>>"In the early 1970's, Disch had complained that event then, the genre could
>>be best understood as 'a branch of children's literature.' He deplored the
>>limitations that resulted from the juvenile nature of the readership and
>>favored 'an aesthetically and intellectually mature science fiction, written
>>by grown-ups for grown-up tastes.' 'New Wave' writers such as Norman Spinrad
>>and Disch himself tried to create such fiction.
>>
>Disch meant by an adult idea or characterization. I don't know if this
>is just something I'll understand when I grow up, Disch had something
>in mind but couldn't/didn't put it into words, or Disch was just
>indulging in invective.
>
>I don't believe that Spinrad is an especially mature writer.
Spinrad has really written some rather crappy books. WHat was that
weak cyberpunk ripoff that he wrote?
--
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Rich Holmes
>"Del Rey and those who followed in her footsteps discovered
>and groomed writers like Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, and Piers Anthony,
>who could scale down [J. R. R.] Tolkein or [Isaac] Asimov from the seventh-
>or eight-grade reading levels of the overeducated [1950s] and create
>tetralogies suitable to tthe diminished reading skills of today's children.'
Anyone who thinks Donaldson's writing is aimed at elementary school
reading levels clearly hasn't read a word of his. Whether you like him
or hate him is beside the point: the vocabulary of, say, the Covenant
series is at least college level. Donaldson's style is substantially
harder to read than Tolkien's or Asimov's, not easier.
Given that bit of howling nonsense, I wouldn't take any of the rest of
Disch's article seriously.
--
- Rich Holmes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ri...@suhep.phy.syr.edu -
Disclaimer: This .sig does not refer to Kibo.
James Davis Nicoll
>>
>>I don't believe that Spinrad is an especially mature writer.
>
>Spinrad has really written some rather crappy books. WHat was that
>weak cyberpunk ripoff that he wrote?
If you mean the one about the self-righteous hippies taking on
the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil
music corporations, I think it was called 'Little Heroes'. I was cheering
for the EMC myself, because they spent the least amount of time talking
about how wonderful they were.
James Nicoll
Matthew Jude Brown
The thing is, writing novels that are primarily entertainment (as Bujold
does) is a different skill than writing heavyweight social commentary
novels that are more philosophy than story. (Neither is necessarily
easier, or better writing, despite what literary snobs might say).
Bujold is good at writing entertaining, intelligent and humourous stories.
Disch, on the other hand, has fallen for the Literary Snob disease, and
thinks that heavy social commentary splattered all over the place, even
at inappropriate places, is the only way. Problem is, he's not very good
at it, and he doesn't seem to realise that - or perhaps he'd rather be a
failed snob than a good entertainer. Bujold, on the other hand, realises
her limits and works within them - which makes her a better writer IMHO.
--
| Matthew J. Brown | Dept. of Computing | If God intended for us to go to |
| m...@doc.ic.ac.uk | Imperial College, | lectures He wouldn't have created |
| Morven on Lambda | 180 Queen's Gate | double-sided photocopiers. |
|__________________| LONDON SW7 2AZ | -IC RagMag 1991/92 |
Jim Mann
> The thing is, writing novels that are primarily entertainment (as
Bujold
> does) is a different skill than writing heavyweight social commentary
> novels that are more philosophy than story.
All works with literary merit are not "heavyweight social
commentary" unless you are using the term very loosely. Joyce, Faulkner,
and Dostoyevski, as examples, are major writers whose works I
would not characterize as "social commentary."
>(Neither is necessarily
> easier, or better writing, despite what literary snobs might say).
But I would contend that it is much harder to write novels that
are both entertaining and have lasting literary merit (that is,
aren't "just entertainment" but have something to say.
> Bujold is good at writing entertaining, intelligent and humourous
stories.
> Disch, on the other hand, has fallen for the Literary Snob disease, and
> thinks that heavy social commentary splattered all over the place, even
> at inappropriate places, is the only way.
Trying to write well and to say something important is not being a
"literary snob."
>Problem is, he's not very good
> at it, and he doesn't seem to realise that - or perhaps he'd rather be
a
> failed snob than a good entertainer.
Which Disch are you basing this on? 334? Camp Concentration? The
stories in Fundamental Disch? These are all very well written, and
are not failures.
>Bujold, on the other hand, realises
> her limits and works within them - which makes her a better writer
>IMHO.
By and large, I'd rather read the works of someone who tried something
ambitious and only made it 80 percent of the way there than someone
who tried very little but suceeded in what they tried.
I think a major test of any writer is not just how much you like the
book when you read it but a) how much it stays with you years later
and b) how much more you get out of it when you re-read it. I have
read and enjoyed many of Bujold's books, but (other than remembering
that they were a pleasant way of spending a couple of hours), little
about them has stayed with me. Disch had a much more lasting impact
(as did, for example, Sturgeon, Delany, Bester, Ellison, Dick,
Silverberg, and a few others). In many cases these were not the
authors who I enjoyed most when I first read them in my teens or
early twenties. But they are the authors who I have gone back to and
whose works have improved with age (thiers AND mine).
Matt Austern
> Anyone who thinks Donaldson's writing is aimed at elementary school
> reading levels clearly hasn't read a word of his. Whether you like him
> or hate him is beside the point: the vocabulary of, say, the Covenant
> series is at least college level.
The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
could be used interchangeably.
No, I think that Disch's characterization of these books is entirely
fair. (I do think, though, that Disch is unfairly harsh when
describing the genre as a whole. Yes, there are a great many hack
writers, and there are a great many books that are marketing-driven
mass-produced products, and there are a great many readers who don't
care about the quality of what they read. However, there are also a
great many careful writers and readers, and it is one-sided to ignore
them.)
--
Matthew Austern I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(510) 644-2618 of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
ma...@physics.berkeley.edu taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
aus...@theorm.lbl.gov multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
aus...@lbl.bitnet me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
Curtis Yarvin
>
>Yes, there are a great many hack writers, and there are a great many books
>that are marketing-driven mass-produced products, and there are a great many
>readers who don't care about the quality of what they read.
I dispute the latter.
One can imagine your Archetypal Moron marching up to the Sci-Fi section,
carefully adjusting her blindfold, and then picking out books by running her
fingers along the spines. "Hmm, this one feels nice and... warm."
But, realistically, I doubt she exists outside the fantasies she reads.
The Mass of Men (tm) may have different standards of quality than you and I;
it's ridiculous to suggest they have none at all.
c
Curtis Yarvin
>>That's why I rank Disch
>>below authors like Bujold, who know they can't write worth squat and have
>>the good sense not to force the issue.
>>
>Hmm, Bujold makes plenty of social commentaries in her stuff. Human and
>indavidual rights rise to the top of the list.
Somewhat. But she's nowhere near as forceful as Disch, and (most important)
she doesn't try to bend the rules of functional storytelling around them.
You can bend the rules if you know what you're doing; Disch does not.
Presumably neither does Bujold, but she knows her limits.
>So why can't Bujold write worth squat?
It's (obviously) a subjective thang; but Bujold doesn't give me things that
writers who I think "write worth squat" do. She excels at fast-moving,
high-grip plots, light humor; she avoids complex mood and tone, deep
characterization, and what I think of as "heavy" humor, which I doubt
I could define.
Since I've seen more writers who can do the former and not the latter, than
the latter and not the former, I tend to view the latter as requiring higher
skills. My assumption that Bujold doesn't have them is a guess.
c
Michael Qvortrup
>The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
>uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
>a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
>could be used interchangeably.
This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
les?
The use of 'ur-' in urvile and urlord is perfectly justified from my point
of view, but perhaps it requires at least a passing familiarity with ger-
manic languages to really appreciate. As somebody remarked, it can mean
proto. It can also connotate something very old or something which has
passed into legend. Examples from German could be 'Urwelt' (Welt=world),
'Urwald' (Wald=forest; rainforest) and 'Ureinwohner' (Einwohner=inhabitant;
original inhabitants of a place).
Donaldson at least did not succomb to a otherwise popular habit, which
annoys me very much in other works of fantasy. Some authors grab a word
from a foreign language, twist it somehow and then use it for their own
purposes. A common victim of this is nordic mythology and to some extent
the nordic languages. Harrison even had the gall to pass Danish off as an
alien language in one of his books (sorry, can't remember which). Tad
Williams' use of almost-latin words positively drives me up the wall,
examples here being the names of the months. He also mutilated nordic
mythology. If he means Odin (or Wotan), can't he just say that instead
of twisting it into some similar, but rather disgusting word? My impres-
sion from reading the first two volumes of _Memory,_Sorrow_and_Thorn_, was
that Williams needed some background mythology and religion, took two
wellknown ones (nordic mythology and early christianity) and twisted them.
If the books weren't that dull to read, I would have assumed they were a
parsiflage.
Greetings,
--Mike
--
#include <std-disclm.h>--"... and there is a small flaw in my character."---
Real Life: Michael Christian Heide Qvortrup A Dane ETH, Zuerich
e-mail : qvor...@inf.ethz.ch abroad Switzerland
Institut fuer wissenschaftliches Rechnen / Inst. of Scientific Computation
Ken Arromdee
>>The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
>>uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
>>a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
>>could be used interchangeably.
>> ...
>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
>by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
>les?
Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
--
This is a newer version of the memetic .signature infection. Now that's an
idea. Copy it into your .signature today!
Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
INTERNET: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Joseph Brenner
The last time around I was saying that that Disch's work was
very impressive in many ways, but often oddly sterile and
unengaging. I thought there was a connection between this
and the artistic nihilism he seemed to advocate in his
_Atlantic_ article.
Far from being innudated with believers in "Big Ideas",
I think SF is currently drowning in work that only plays
with ideas, without being serious about them. I would
prefer a few more didactic fanatics, myself.
Also, I don't understand Disch's revulsion at the idea that
someone would write ficition based on some form of
wish-fufillment. I'd say you should tap into any source of
energy you can find, and do what you can with it.
There's more to art than just realism.
By the way, there is very little "heavy social commentary"
in Disch's work. I might think it was more interesting if
there was.
And I don't know that I would call Disch a "snob" exactly,
but I'm pretty sure that if confronted with "Dragon Lord"
ranting about Bujold he would avoid arguing with him:
no point in trying to take away someone's "teddy bear".
Recommended Disch:
"Fun With Your New Head"
"Understanding Human Behavior"
CAMP CONCENTRATION
(If none of these impress you, go no further.)
Joseph Brenner
"The Brave Little Toaster".
Try reading that, and see if you think Disch doesn't
"understand the rules of functional story telling".
He understands them perfectly, he just thinks it's his duty
to mess around with them.
Laurent Amon
> In article <1992May5.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> qvor...@inf.ethz.ch
(Michael Qvortrup) writes:
> >> ...
> >This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
> >by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
> >les?
>
> Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
pole arm comes from the blade used, I think. But it is also a gladius,
a short, broad sword about 2 feet long. It was used by the Romans
(as any reader of Asterix will tell you) and according to my Webster
also refers to broadswords, which are about 8 inches longer. This is
what Donaldson means. My Compendium of Weapons, Armour and Castles
also agrees on the term.
Lga.
---
Laurent Amon | "Looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple
am...@cs.stanford.edu | of years, I think I can be fairly sure that the US
------------------------+ Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the
Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5." -- D.G.H.D.A.
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist.
O horrors! The man wants to actually do something more than entertain! How
dare he?
Yarvin, you anti-intellectual snob. . .
>The result is decent
>literature, spattered with droppings of ponderously inane social commentary;
>and the quality of the writing lends a certain fatal poignancy to this
>sporadic foulness.
Translation: "I don't like his politics."
As someone who can read and enjoy both Heinlein and Disch, I sneer at people
who throw books at the wall because of their political content. There are
cases -- Pournelle and the first-initial-middle-name Libertarian contingent
come to mind -- where the politics take over and the book gets lost, but Disch
has _never_ committed that particular fault. . . except in the eyes of those
who are incapable of separating themselves from their own, particular gored
ox.
You are trapped in that bright moment where you learned your doom.
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Todd Ellner
>>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
>>by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
>>les?
>Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
Or repeatedly calling the sky "cerulean" when the perfectly adequate
word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Ellner to...@reed.edu
"What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator Dr. Haldane?"
JBS Haldane:"I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."
Dani Zweig
>>The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
>>uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
>>a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
>>could be used interchangeably.
>
>by any good examples so far.
He refers to the Giantess's weapon as a broadsword, a glaive, and a halberd.
I think that at one point he calls it a falchion, but I could be confusing
that with a different book.
He also refers to the Giant ship as a dromond, and from what I remember
of it, it wasn't one.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine -- Edmund Spenser
Eric S. Raymond
> Given that bit of howling nonsense, I wouldn't take any of the rest of
> Disch's article seriously.
Nor should you have. Disch is pissed off at the world for not valuing his
favorite flavors of pretention, pomposity, and political correctness. The
most response his petulant whining deserves is a hearty horselaugh.
This is the same man who once lumped George R.R. Martin, Ed Bryant, and
several other excellent writers of the late 70s and early 80s into a
"Labor Day Mafia" on the alleged grounds that they were slanting their
work to win Hugos that should have gone to "more deserving" writers (like,
say, one Thomas Disch) and didn't care enough about the "deeper issues"
that writers should grapple with (translation: they were too accessible,
insufficiently leftist, and not depressing enough to suit Disch). Some
of the targets responded to this by having "Labor Day Mafia Bowling Team"
sweatshirts made and wearing them to the next Worldcon (I was there).
This is the same man who famously described RAH's Mobile Infantry characters
in _Starship_Troopers_ as "swaggering leather-strap boys", thus revealing
a complete lack of understanding of a) the secondary world of ST and b)
Heinlein's ethical and psychosexual biases. The weird tension surrounding
that insult became much funnier after the fact when Disch's gayness became
common knowledge; the poor boob probably lusts to be buggered by hunky,
clean-cut young studs just like Johnny Rico.
Personally, I like to read Disch's polemics for their camp-entertainment
value. He's such a perfect example of his type --- brain-dead politics,
decadent aesthetic values, and obsessive "outsider" sexuality all wrapped up in
a neat package that could be labelled "THE 20TH-CENTURY LITERARY INTELLECTUAL
IN TERMINAL DECLINE" and displayed in a museum somewhere. For preference,
right next to Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard...
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Karen Williams
>Donaldson's style is substantially
>harder to read than Tolkien's or Asimov's, not easier.
Yup. Purple prose is always harder to wade through than crisp, well-crafted
prose.
--
Karen Williams
bra...@cerebus.ras.amdahl.com
"Don't whine. Warrior women speak in a husky whisper."
-- Brat Pack #3
Paul S Secinaro
>He refers to the Giantess's weapon as a broadsword, a glaive, and a halberd.
>I think that at one point he calls it a falchion, but I could be confusing
>that with a different book.
I remember him using "falchion" also.
>He also refers to the Giant ship as a dromond, and from what I remember
>of it, it wasn't one.
Weren't these ships supposed to be made out of stone? I had a hard
time swallowing that one. Stone would be far too brittle to be
seaworthy, IMHO, even if you did manage to float it.
Paul
--
Paul Secinaro | Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Lab
ps...@kepler.unh.edu | Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire
Jim Mann
> Personally, I like to read Disch's polemics for their
camp-entertainment
> value. He's such a perfect example of his type --- brain-dead
politics,
> decadent aesthetic values, and obsessive "outsider" sexuality all
wrapped up in
> a neat package that could be labelled "THE 20TH-CENTURY LITERARY
INTELLECTUAL
> IN TERMINAL DECLINE" and displayed in a museum somewhere. For
preference,
> right next to Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard...
> --
Gee, it's nice to see that you can dismiss three of the best SF writers
of the past 20 or so years as belonging in a museum. Your
gross over-simplifications are also somewhat amusing. Brain-dead
politics? I'm probably farther away from Disch politically than
you are but I don't find his politics brain dead? "Decadent
aesthetic values"? You mean his views that fiction should be
more than just chases around the galaxy and shoot-'em-ups? What
do you mean by this statement? (And how does it apply to three
writers who are as different as Aldiss, Ballard, and Disch, who
are similar mostly in the ways that they've tried to stretch
the boundaries of SF?)
I must admit that, of the three, the one that puzzled me the most
to see on your list was Aldiss. I like both Disch and Ballard
quite a bit, but I can understand how some of their works might
not be to everyones tastes. (I don't find all of Ballard's works
to my taste.) Aldiss, on the other hand, has produced a wide
range of significant work. In addition, he has edited a number of
anthologies (and presumably something about his "aesthetic values"
would be reflected in the anthologies he edits), much on what
many SF fans would consider classic, mainstream SF (Galactic
Empires, Space Opera, The Astounding-Analog Reader, etc.). His work
had wide enough popular appeal (in addtion to its literary appeal) that
he won one Hugo (for Hothouse/The Long Afternoon of Earth) and was
nominated for at least one other (Heliconia Spring, I believe was
nominated).
Curtis Yarvin
>
>value. He's such a perfect example of his type --- brain-dead politics,
>decadent aesthetic values, and obsessive "outsider" sexuality all wrapped up in
>a neat package that could be labelled "THE 20TH-CENTURY LITERARY INTELLECTUAL
>IN TERMINAL DECLINE" and displayed in a museum somewhere. For preference,
>right next to Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard...
Oh, come off it, Eric.
Ballard can write. Aldiss... Aldiss... well, okay, okay, let's just move
Ballard a few meters away, right? You're offending my aesthetic
sensibilities.
Waaaah.
c
Curtis Yarvin
>I forgot something in my Recommended Disch list:
>"The Brave Little Toaster".
>
>Try reading that, and see if you think Disch doesn't
>"understand the rules of functional story telling".
Well, I'll have to admit that I haven't read "The Brave Little Toaster;" my
(admittedly hasty) conclusions came from reading "On Wings of Song." In this
perhaps-not-so-magnum opus, Disch displays his ability to carry a plot much
as a fish carries a football: nosing it forward now and then, but leaving it
all wet at the end. The book's consistency oscillates between drippy and
dry, like an unchanged bandage; the transitions salubrious, but the extremes
equally unpleasant. When I was done my eyeballs felt like wax.
Much as I admire Great Literature, I find it difficult to label this tale a
functional success.
My canonical example of sf which bends the rules and gets away with it is
Ian McDonald's _Desolation Road_. Its plot is at best a shambles, but
somehow one gets the impression that it was best left a shambles, and the
story ends up working perfectly, if owing Gabriel Garcia Marquez a wee much
of its inspiration.
>He understands them perfectly, he just thinks it's his duty
>to mess around with them.
And you don't think that's a problem?
c
Curtis Yarvin
|
|in _Starship_Troopers_ as "swaggering leather-strap boys", thus revealing
|a complete lack of understanding of a) the secondary world of ST and b)
|Heinlein's ethical and psychosexual biases. The weird tension surrounding
|that insult became much funnier after the fact when Disch's gayness became
|common knowledge; the poor boob probably lusts to be buggered by hunky,
|clean-cut young studs just like Johnny Rico.
Please. There's plenty of clean spits to kebab Disch on; we don't have to
get all homophobic about it.
c
Curtis Yarvin
>In article <1992May4.0...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>
>>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
>>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist.
>
>O horrors! The man wants to actually do something more than entertain!
Hmm. And what would that be? I never quite figured it out. If he wanted
to inform us, surely he'd write a nice informative text about politics or
sociology; I might even buy it. If he wanted to both inform and entertain
us, he'd probably do both separately; he's a smart man and must realize the
two mix like ketchup and watermelon. If he wanted to make a critical
impression, he'd just pay off the critics. Somebody help me out here...
>Yarvin, you anti-intellectual snob...
The only fit place in society, for a man of conviction, is that of the snob.
You be an intellectual snob; I'll be an anti-intellectual. If we knock each
other hard enough we might even convince someone normal to notice us. And
tell us we're boring and shut-the-fuck-up; but, ah, harsh but sweet is the
life of the snob!
>>The result is decent
>>literature, spattered with droppings of ponderously inane social commentary;
>>and the quality of the writing lends a certain fatal poignancy to this
>>sporadic foulness.
>
>Translation: "I don't like his politics."
>
>As someone who can read and enjoy both Heinlein and Disch, I sneer at people
>who throw books at the wall because of their political content.
Yeah, I do too; but... ("but I sneer at everyone?") but my tolerance is
lower than yours. I hit my limit when the writer starts to sacrifice the
principles of good writing on the altar of ideology. Thus I'll fiercely
defend the virtues of, say, Richard Grant, but I cannot stomach Disch. A
lack of intestinal fortitude, I suppose.
>There are cases -- Pournelle and the first-initial-middle-name Libertarian
>contingent come to mind -- where the politics take over and the book gets
>lost, but Disch has _never_ committed that particular fault...
This is true. Sneering at Disch doesn't mean I like Pournelle and his
Baenoid ilk; probably the most annoying story I've ever read was a
Liberartararian fable c.o. V. Vinge. Distilled dreck. But two wrongs do
not a right make.
>except in the eyes of those who are incapable of separating themselves from
>their own, particular gored ox.
Actually the one Disch I'll admit to having read, _On Wings of Song_, is
more anti-Fascist than anything else. While not a Libertarian I will admit
this matches my own beliefs perfectly. If only Disch didn't preach it like
a Unitarian minister smarming over Luvv...
c
DA...@licra.dn.mu.oz.au
derivations etc - deleted]
Just to raise the intellectual tone of this discussion a little....
I like them, so there!
Isn't that the only important thing in the end?
Ian Davis DA...@licr.dn.mu.oz.au
Mark Smith
>In article <1992May4.0...@serval.net.wsu.edu> msm...@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (Mark Smith) writes:
>[me writes:]
>>>That's why I rank Disch
>>>below authors like Bujold, who know they can't write worth squat and have
>>>the good sense not to force the issue.
>>>
>>Hmm, Bujold makes plenty of social commentaries in her stuff. Human and
>>indavidual rights rise to the top of the list.
>
>It's (obviously) a subjective thang; but Bujold doesn't give me things that
>writers who I think "write worth squat" do. She excels at fast-moving,
>high-grip plots, light humor; she avoids complex mood and tone, deep
>characterization, and what I think of as "heavy" humor, which I doubt
>I could define.
>
being hit in the head with a lead pipe. That seems to be Disch's
primary goal when he writes. The lead pipe being his own views and
prejudices. Disch is anything but subtle. It's been a LONG time since
I gaged one of his works down (and it seemed like he had to force
himself to write it) so I can no longer give examples. Maybe I'll try
his stuff some day when I feel like being abused.
Dragon Lord
Mark Smith
>but I'm pretty sure that if confronted with "Dragon Lord"
>ranting about Bujold he would avoid arguing with him:
>no point in trying to take away someone's "teddy bear".
>
best, the only, the greatest, etc., etc." I was merely stating that
Bujold and others like her are not necessarily fluff writers. They do
have their messages and views incorporated into their stories, they just
don't try to put so much message into a story that it becomes sappy.
As I said in a previous posting, it's been a while since I've read
Disch. Maybe my views have changed enough to enjoy his stuff, then,
maybe not. I'll just have to give it another go some day.
By the by, why is Bujold my teddy bear? Just because I said something
positive about her writing? And how can you be so sure how a person
(Disch) will react to a given situation when you don't know him?
Dragon Lord
Roger Crew
>>He refers to the Giantess's weapon as a broadsword, a glaive, and a halberd.
>>I think that at one point he calls it a falchion, but I could be confusing
>>that with a different book.
fal.chion \'f<o.>l-ch<e>n\ n (14c)
[ME fauchoun, fr. MF fauchon, fr. fauchier to mow, fr. (assumed) VL falcare,
fr. L falc-, falx]
1: a broad-bladed slightly curved sword of medieval times
2 archaic: SWORD
glaive \'gl<a^->v\ n (15c)
[ME, fr. MF, javelin, sword, modif. of L gladius sword] archaic
:SWORD; esp: BROADSWORD
I'll have to admit, I don't see the problem
In <1992May5.1...@nic.unh.edu> ps...@kepler.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro) writes:
>>He also refers to the Giant ship as a dromond, and from what I remember
>>of it, it wasn't one.
>
> Weren't these ships supposed to be made out of stone? I had a hard
> time swallowing that one. Stone would be far too brittle to be
> seaworthy, IMHO, even if you did manage to float it.
Ummm... if you're going to worry about things like that, you may as
well ask why it was that the Revelstone wasn't eroded or broken apart
by thousands of winters in which water from Glimmermere would seep down
into the cracks and freeze (I figure there was probably a whole staff of
gravelingases devoted to the job of keeping the place dry...
or how the ventilation worked (lomillialor fan blades?)
or why it was that the Soulsease River didn't simply go around Mt. Thunder
rather than through it (it is, after all, not a coincidence that this sort of
thing [a major surface river diving underground and re-emerging] never occurs
in the real world --- at least, not for long; think about how the geology would
have to work. Odd, Tolkien does this too [in the Silmarillion with the river
Sirion]...).
or how it is that gravelling can glow...
or how PitchWife's pitch worked...
I mean this is fantasy, right?
--
Roger Crew OBEY MARRY AND REPRODUCE CONSUME STAY ASLEEP
Usenet: {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!cs.stanford.edu!crew
Internet: cr...@CS.Stanford.EDU
M. Loughin
television commercial for an unnamed hotel chain . .
>Hmm. And what would that be? I never quite figured it out. If he wanted
>to inform us, surely he'd write a nice informative text about politics or
>sociology; I might even buy it. If he wanted to both inform and entertain
>us, he'd probably do both separately; he's a smart man and must realize the
>two mix like ketchup and watermelon. If he wanted to make a critical
>impression, he'd just pay off the critics. Somebody help me out here...
Gee, I feel sorry for someone who believes that entertainment
and information cannot come in the same package.
James Davis Nicoll
>
Literature Ate My Baby' Party Line, ending with a proposition that Disch
should be...
> [...] and displayed in a museum somewhere. For preference,
>right next to Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard...
Pardon me, but, imo, a value system which thinks the author of
'Empire of the Sun' should be in a museum is, heh heh, flawed.
James Nicoll
Dani Zweig
>I like them, so there!...
>Isn't that the only important thing in the end?
I liked the Covenant trilogies too, and yes, that's important, but it
isn't the only important thing. It's also interesting to understand
*why* something (a writing technique, a concept, a gimmick) works or
doesn't work.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
Roses red and violets blew
and all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew -- Edmund Spenser
M. Loughin
msm...@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (Mark Smith) writes:
>"heavy" humor? Does that mean ham handed? Personally, I don't like
>being hit in the head with a lead pipe. That seems to be Disch's
>primary goal when he writes. The lead pipe being his own views and
>prejudices. Disch is anything but subtle. It's been a LONG time since
>I gaged one of his works down (and it seemed like he had to force
>himself to write it) so I can no longer give examples. Maybe I'll try
>his stuff some day when I feel like being abused.
I have been following this conversation only loosely, so forgive me
if I repeat someone elses' comments.
It seems to me that if one wishes to write anything of substance,
i.e. anything reflecting/commenting on real life, then one is
forced to put forth one's own views and prejudices. Perhaps you
simply don't like Disch's particular brand, thereof.
The only Disch book I've read is _334_. I found it to be written
in an unusual and interesting style. I also found it to be
disturbing and thought-provoking. Disch seems (based on 334) to
have a rather dark view of the future of humanity, and not everyone
can stomach exposure to such a view-point. Perhaps I didn't
enjoy _334_, but the memory of it and the emotion it evoked has
stayed with me far longer than any remnant of more recently
read fantasy and space-opera. I guess I'd call that quality
writing.
Michael Qvortrup
>In article <1992May5.0...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>>In article <1992May5.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup) writes:
>>>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
>>>by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
>>>les?
>>Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
>
>Or repeatedly calling the sky "cerulean" when the perfectly adequate
>word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
No. Checking my electronic OED, I find the following entry for 'blue':
1 a The name of one of the colours of the spectrum; of the
colour of the sky and the deep sea; cerulean.
and looking for 'cerulean' gets me:
A adj. a Of the colour of the cloudless sky, pure deep blue, azure.
Chiefly poetic.
Nothing wrong in calling the sky cerulean, as far as I can see. Slightly
stuffed perhaps, but not wrong.
This example doesn't hold up. Any more?
Michael Qvortrup
>qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup):
>>>The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
>>>uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
>>>a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
>>>could be used interchangeably.
>>
>>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
>>by any good examples so far.
>
>He refers to the Giantess's weapon as a broadsword, a glaive, and a halberd.
>I think that at one point he calls it a falchion, but I could be confusing
>that with a different book.
>
I have grapped my trusty electronic OED again. Looking up 'glaive':
1 A name given at different periods to three distinct kinds of weapons,
viz. lance, bill, and sword.The second of these senses seems to be
peculiar to English, the others are derived from French; in a large
number of passages it is impossible to determine from the context which
weapon is intended, esp. in the case of later writers.
3 A sword; esp. a broadsword. arch. and poet.In early quots. possibly
repr. Gael. claidheamh; cf. glaymore = claymore.
A glaive certainly is a broadsword (re 3). Let us have a look at 'falchion':
1 A broad sword more or less curved with the edge on the convex side.
In later use and in poetry: A sword of any kind.
Seems to fit in with the broadsword too. Dani Zweig mentions that Donaldson
also uses 'halberd' for the Giantess' weapon. I can't remember that. Can
anybody say for sure? Halberd is not synonymous for any kind of sword, so
that use would be wrong (although looking up 'halberd' and 'bill' and
comparing with 'glaive' one sees that they are related).
>He also refers to the Giant ship as a dromond, and from what I remember
>of it, it wasn't one.
The entry for 'dromond' says:
A very large medi&ae.val ship; according to Jal, `a great vessel of
the class of long ships'. Used both in war and commerce. In more
ancient times it is said to have been `a ship with rowers, having a
single sail'.
Perhaps not the most perfect description of the Giants' ship, but it certainly
beats calling it a boat. I am not perfectly happy with the 'long ship' connec-
tion, but 'great vessel' does fit :-).
I think it is noteworthy to mention that most of the words used fall under
the poetic use or sense. This fits with my impression that Donaldson used
poetic language in the trilogies, which may give many people a 'stuffed'
impression, but is not wrong as such.
Rob Carriere
Secinaro) writes:
>Weren't these ships supposed to be made out of stone? I had a hard
>time swallowing that one. Stone would be far too brittle to be
>seaworthy, IMHO, even if you did manage to float it.
Well, for it's worth, TUE has a concrete canoe club...
I'll agree, though. that I'd prefer a different choice of materials for any
ships _I_ have to sail on. :-)
SR
---
Graham Wills
>In article <1992May5.1...@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djd...@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
>>In article <1992May4.0...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>>
>>>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
>>>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist.
>>
>>O horrors! The man wants to actually do something more than entertain!
>
>Hmm. And what would that be? I never quite figured it out. If he wanted
>to inform us, surely he'd write a nice informative text about politics or
>sociology; I might even buy it. If he wanted to both inform and entertain
>us, he'd probably do both separately; he's a smart man and must realize the
>two mix like ketchup and watermelon.
So much for Tolstoy.
So much for Victor Hugo.
So much for Shakespeare.
etc.
If you read classic mainstream literature, you'll find that a large proportion
of great authors mixed ketchup and watermelon. I find it makes a great dish.
-Graham Wills
TCD Ireland
Jim Mann
djd...@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
> >In article <1992May4.0...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu
(Curtis Yarvin) writes:
> >
> >>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think
he's a
> >>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist.
> >
> >O horrors! The man wants to actually do something more than
entertain!
>
> Hmm. And what would that be? I never quite figured it out. If he
wanted
> to inform us, surely he'd write a nice informative text about politics
or
> sociology; I might even buy it. If he wanted to both inform and
entertain
> us, he'd probably do both separately; he's a smart man and must realize
the
> two mix like ketchup and watermelon.
Sort of the way they mix so poorly for Dostoyevski, Dickens,
Tolstoy, Wells, Silverberg, et al (the list is long). Sometimes
the best way to "inform" us (though I don't think that's quite the
right word) is in fiction. The Brothers Karamazov says more
about human beings, how they interact, ethics, and many other things
than a series of essay could (and in some ways says it in a way that
affects us more directly). Dying Inside tells us more about the
pain of growing old and about the way communications between human
beings break down than any article could, because Silverberg makes us
feel it.
Joseph Brenner
> >He understands them perfectly, he just thinks it's his duty
> >to mess around with them.
>
> And you don't think that's a problem?
No, by itself it isn't necessarily a problem. It might be a virtue.
Anyway, my point is that you have to give Disch some credit:
the man isn't stupid, and he *does* know what he's doing.
I don't entirely agree with his approach toward things
either, but the Disch flaming that's going on here is
ridiculous.
Eric S. Raymond
> >Personally, I like to read Disch's polemics for their camp-entertainment
> >value. He's such a perfect example of his type --- brain-dead politics,
> >decadent aesthetic values, and obsessive "outsider" sexuality all wrapped up in
> >a neat package that could be labelled "THE 20TH-CENTURY LITERARY INTELLECTUAL
> >IN TERMINAL DECLINE" and displayed in a museum somewhere. For preference,
> >right next to Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard...
>
> Oh, come off it, Eric.
>
> Ballard can write.
The amount of malignant idiocy that's been excused with "But X can write" is
probably exceeded only by the amount excused with "But it's for the good
of society!"
Mr J J Trevor
I loved the covenant trilogies as well. I dont think they were
particularly badly written either compared to many authors at the
moment. I'll even admit to crying at the end of the last book.
Its not the words that matter its the overall feel of the book and the
way the books interact with you. If the precise nature of the vocab' is
distracting then, fair enough, this obviously spoils it. In Donaldsons
first 8 books I didnt find this the case, and clearly other people find
this also.
--
___________
|onathan Phone: +44 524 65201 x3793 Address:Department of Computing
'-'________ Fax: +44 524 381707 Lancaster University
E-mail: jona...@comp.lancs.ac.uk Lancaster, Lancashire
Eric S. Raymond
> Please. There's plenty of clean spits to kebab Disch on; we don't have to
> get all homophobic about it.
I'm not a homophobe; I don't really care whether Disch most enjoys sex with
men, women, sheep, or Ronald Reagan (uh, no, that's Ballard, isn't it?).
What I was really pointing out here, in an acidly-humorous way, is that much
of Disch's ideology is no more than a thin rationalization of resentment --
often, resentment of things there's reason to think he secretly desires.
The Disch article that started this thread, for example, condenses neatly
to "Nobody's buying my books, therefore SF has been taken over by a conspiracy
for Philistines and I don't really want to be popular anyway, nyaah, nyaah."
dem...@mdcbbs.com
> In article <1992May5.0...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>>In article <1992May5.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup) writes:
>>>les?
>>Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
>
> Or repeatedly calling the sky "cerulean" when the perfectly adequate
> word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
>
sky is pretty much redundant, don't you think? Or at least somewhat boring?
(Except in cases of grey, cloudy sky, or a flaming sunset, etc) "Cerulean"
is a very special color, and to me, "cerulean sky" conjures that special,
azure color of the sky on a clear day of beautiful weather; for example,
the day after a winter rainstorm, when the sky is clear of dust (and smog),
and you can see for miles and miles (which is rare enough nowadays).
I really don't think this is a good example at all.
-diane
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Todd Ellner to...@reed.edu
> "What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator Dr. Haldane?"
> JBS Haldane:"I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."
Ben Goodwin
>
>>He refers to the Giantess's weapon as a broadsword, a glaive, and a halberd.
>>I think that at one point he calls it a falchion, but I could be confusing
>>that with a different book.
>
>I remember him using "falchion" also.
I mean really, what kind of idiot calls a glaive a flachion? What is
he a moron? He should read the compleat history of arms.
>
>>He also refers to the Giant ship as a dromond, and from what I remember
>>of it, it wasn't one.
Hey, what is a dromond? I didn't care to look it up while reading the
book. Now, in retrospect, that mistake ruined the book for me. I'll
never read him again. :(
>
>Weren't these ships supposed to be made out of stone? I had a hard
>time swallowing that one. Stone would be far too brittle to be
>seaworthy, IMHO, even if you did manage to float it.
And another thing, that whole thing about magic and white gold being
magical. Everyone knows that its not. Where does he get off creating
a work of fantasy/fiction that doesn't jibe with reality.
And Tolkein also, I mean really, elves?
I like Donaldson. I would be willing to bet he's a better writer than
most if not all of the peopleflaming him. I also like the fact that his
heroes aren't perfect people etc... All these pseudo-intellectual
critiques are funny. Keep-em coming.
>Paul
For the obtuse, ;->
PetPeeve: stupid critics. :)
--
============================================================================
| uunet!orionsci!goodwin | you with your hair that's always combed,
| Ben Goodwin | your suit is always white, your car is
| Washington DC (703) 524-0504 | always clean. You I hate!!! -Great Race
============================================================================
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>The trouble being that Donaldson uses a lot of fancy words, but he
>uses them wrong. I get the impression, reading him, that he looked in
>a thesaurus, and made the mistake of thinking that the words he found
>could be used interchangeably.
Really?
Can you cite examples?
(Note: the most commonly cited example is his oft-repeated phrase "fey and
anile." His use of these words is precisely accurate. "Fey" is, in fact,
used punningly on two of its senses: "near death (as through fate)" and
"mad." For "anile," meaning at root "old-womanish," see John Ciardi's GOOD
WORDS TO YOU.)
>No, I think that Disch's characterization of these books is entirely
>fair.
I doubt it. Disch's attitude towards the entire field of SF/fantasy since
the late '70s has smacked of sour grapes. Yes, he's a damn good writer,
one of the short list of the best the field has ever had, but his genre
criticism is whining and self-serving.
You are trapped in that bright moment where you learned your doom.
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it proven
>>by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of examp-
>>les?
>
>Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
Well, if he's wrong, he's in good company.
My cute little American Heritage Dictionary defines "glaive" as "A sword, esp.
a broadsword. [ME < OFr. < Lat. gladius.]"
Alfvaen
> In article <1992May5.0...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
> >>This claim has come up several times, but I have not really seen it
proven
> >>by any good examples so far. Could somebody please post a couple of
examp-
> >>les?
> >Thinking a glaive is a sword, for one.
>
> word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
Maybe Donaldson was trying to attract some female readers(although if any
of them kept reading past the rape, I'd be surprised...). In my
experience, men are more likely to settle for general colours like red,
blue, green, etc. because they have little or no knowledge of the various
shades. I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc. (I can do mauve,
fuchsia, and indigo, but that's another story.) Most women I know >can<
distinguish between these colours, and are, perhaps, more likely to be
impressed by a male writer that can use such words effectively.
(Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to be sexist. I would love to be
able to name colours like that. I think men are sadly undereducated in
colour-names with respect to women, in my experience, even with women who
are not fashion-conscious clothes-horses.)
I admit, it is more likely Donaldson was just browsing in his thesaurus.
--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
You made my day--now you have to sleep in it.
Current Album--David Wilcox:Breakfast At The Circus
Dan'l DanehyOakes
have nothing to add except applause.
Curtis, you should look at the Subject: line. . . and then think
very, very hard.
Jim Mann
much
> of Disch's ideology is no more than a thin rationalization of
resentment --
> often, resentment of things there's reason to think he secretly
desires.
>
Sorry, Eric. I guess most of us just didn't notice the humor.
> The Disch article that started this thread, for example, condenses
neatly
> to "Nobody's buying my books, therefore SF has been taken over by a
conspiracy
> for Philistines and I don't really want to be popular anyway, nyaah,
nyaah."
If you don't read closely, perhaps. One of the rankest forms of
McCarthyism (in a form practiced by both the right and the left) is
to attempt to dismiss what someone is saying by attacking who they
are or their motives for saying it. "Well, I don't care what
the article said. It was published in the [take your pick of
Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Boston Globe, National Review,
etc.] and therefore must be wrong." In this case, it's
"Disch is just saying that because nobody buys his books."
While Disch overstates his point (and goes too far, as he has been
prone to do in his criticism), he also makes some very good
points (including the control Del Rey books had of the market,
and the way they simply churned out simple adventure books. Take a look
at what Ballantine published vs. what Del Rey published). Dismissing
this by saying "Oh, it's only sour grapes on Disch's point" is
unfair and silly. If you disagree with the points he makes, why
not state what you think is wrong with them rather than attacking
Disch and his motives.
Paul S Secinaro
>>Weren't these ships supposed to be made out of stone? I had a hard
>>time swallowing that one. Stone would be far too brittle to be
>>seaworthy, IMHO, even if you did manage to float it.
>
>And another thing, that whole thing about magic and white gold being
>magical. Everyone knows that its not. Where does he get off creating
>a work of fantasy/fiction that doesn't jibe with reality.
>And Tolkein also, I mean really, elves?
As I recall, there was nothing magical about the ships. As far as I
could tell, they were just stone ships. Period. As such, they should
obey the same physical laws as other non-magical objects within the
world that the author sets up. Even a fantasy novel should have an
internally consistent set of rules by which the world works (unless
it's specifically the author's intent to show that there are no
consistent rules). Obviously, Donaldson isn't a hard science-fiction
writer, so I don't expect three pages of equations justifying his plot
devices. I just thought it was a bit far fetched, that's all.
If it turns out that the ships were meant to be magical, or made of
some sort of "special" stone found only in The Land, or if I'm just
plain ignorant about how to build ships from stone, then that's a
different story.
Paul
--
Paul Secinaro | Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Lab
ps...@kepler.unh.edu | Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire
Curtis Yarvin
>
>In article <1992May5.2...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>
>> >He understands them perfectly, he just thinks it's his duty
>> >to mess around with them.
>>
>> And you don't think that's a problem?
>
>No, by itself it isn't necessarily a problem. It might be a virtue.
Decadence! Decadence! Let me take this here moment to let slip the dogs of
anti-intellectual snobbery and cry, Decadence!
I have a pretty serious problem with any writer who lets the literary fads
of the moment interfere with his tactical discretion. It's bad enough when
it's unconscious; making it an explicit policy is downright dunderheaded.
A writer should do what she thinks will work best; whether the techniques
are old or new, classical or original, shouldn't matter. Do otherwise and
you paint yourself into a corner, chasing the wild goose of innovation into
the quicksand of mediocrity. The NEA will cheer you on but the readers will
laugh as you sink; and justly so.
c
Curtis Yarvin
|In article <1992May5.2...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
|>In article <1992May5.1...@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djd...@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
|>>In article <1992May4.0...@cs.brown.edu> c...@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
|>>
|>>>The problem I have with Disch is not that he's a bad writer; I think he's a
|>>>damn good writer. But he fancies himself an Artist.
|>>
|>>O horrors! The man wants to actually do something more than entertain!
|>
|>Hmm. And what would that be? I never quite figured it out. If he wanted
|>to inform us, surely he'd write a nice informative text about politics or
|>sociology; I might even buy it. If he wanted to both inform and entertain
|>us, he'd probably do both separately; he's a smart man and must realize the
|>two mix like ketchup and watermelon.
|
|So much for Tolstoy.
|So much for Victor Hugo.
|So much for Shakespeare.
Feh.
Dead white males.
|If you read classic mainstream literature, you'll find that a large proportion
|of great authors mixed ketchup and watermelon. I find it makes a great dish.
I usually just scrape the ketchup off.
c
Dani Zweig
>fal.chion \'f<o.>l-ch<e>n\ n (14c)
> [ME fauchoun, fr. MF fauchon, fr. fauchier to mow, fr. (assumed) VL falcare,
>fr. L falc-, falx]
> 1: a broad-bladed slightly curved sword of medieval times
> 2 archaic: SWORD
>
>glaive \'gl<a^->v\ n (15c)
> [ME, fr. MF, javelin, sword, modif. of L gladius sword] archaic
> :SWORD; esp: BROADSWORD
>
>I'll have to admit, I don't see the problem
It's the old circular problem of dictionary definitions: If some people
use (or have used) 'scimitar' as a synonym for sword, then a dictionary
may/will include 'sword' as one of its definitions.
Consider, by way of analogy, a 30th-century dictionary which gives
'automobile' as one of the definitions of each of 'jeep', 'stationwagon',
and 'sports-car' -- and a 30th-century author who uses them inter-
changeably.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
"The death of God left the angels in a strange position."
--Internal documentation, programmer unknown
Laura Johnson
>
> Maybe Donaldson was trying to attract some female readers(although if any
> of them kept reading past the rape, I'd be surprised...).
Yeah, I did, but I wished I hadn't.
>In my
> experience, men are more likely to settle for general colours like red,
> blue, green, etc. because they have little or no knowledge of the various
> shades. I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
> and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc. (I can do mauve,
> fuchsia, and indigo, but that's another story.) Most women I know >can<
> distinguish between these colours, and are, perhaps, more likely to be
> impressed by a male writer that can use such words effectively.
Well, though I have pretty good color vision and could probably tell the
difference between teal, cerulean, and azure (actually teal and azure are
nothing alike, what you talking about?), I had to LOOK UP "cerulean" (and
I almost never have to look up words :-)) and was faintly annoyed to find
that it pretty much just meant blue. In fact I had to look up a LOT of
words in Donaldson (again, honestly, I'm NOT a moron, I average about one
look-up per five good books); and usually, once I knew what the word
meant, it didn't add anything to my understanding of the paragraph.
I think the theory that Donaldson went mad with a thesaurus is probably
correct.
--
l...@hpctdls.col.hp.com
Opinions expressed are my own, but may be licensed for a nominal fee.
Elizabeth Willey
> The Disch article that started this thread, for example, condenses neatly
> to "Nobody's buying my books, therefore SF has been taken over by a conspiracy
> for Philistines and I don't really want to be popular anyway, nyaah, nyaah."
Um. Reality check. Lots of people are buying Disch's books. Maybe
not your personal friends, but Disch sells, and he sells all kinds of
stuff, and (goshers!) he even writes poetry that gets REVIEWED and
BOUGHT instead of being pulped three months after publication (the
portion that doesn't go into his basement).
Then Jim Mann writes:
While Disch overstates his point (and goes too far, as he has been
prone to do in his criticism), he also makes some very good
points (including the control Del Rey books had of the market,
and the way they simply churned out simple adventure books. Take a look
at what Ballantine published vs. what Del Rey published). Dismissing
this by saying "Oh, it's only sour grapes on Disch's point" is
unfair and silly. If you disagree with the points he makes, why
not state what you think is wrong with them rather than attacking
Disch and his motives.
"Ad hominem argument." A semester of Freshman Logic would do Great
Things for the quality of discourse here, particularly in discussions
like this.
It is widely known what Del Rey Books did and why; in a way the
difference between the houses can be seen as that between Lester del
Rey and Lin Carter. (And it's important to point out that Ballantine's
Adult Fantasies sold, and have kept on selling after much of Del Rey's
stuff gets fed to the woodstove.) What remains to be seen is whether
the field has been so altered by the practices of Del Rey that it
cannot regain its self-respect.
In part the schizophrenic nature of current (post-Del Rey) fantasists
comes of this dual lineage; the outright powerhouse commercialism and
marketing of Del Rey crossed with (let's keep it neat, simple, and
condensed, shall we?) the taste and thought behind the Ballantine
Adult fantasy series---of course, Ballantine was later subsumed into
Del Rey. On the one hand, we (fantasists) have been exposed to a lot
of the Del Rey formulaic product; on the other, the paperbacked
classics Lin Carter collected and published slipped a few vitamins in
with the Captain Crunch. So E. R. Eddison dwells beside Piers Anthony
in our fevered brains as well as on the preposterous cover of the
reissued _Worm_, and god knows whom the offspring will resemble when
they mature.
However, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is losing its influence
steadily over time as the books either fall apart or are bought up by
avid readers who stockpile them. What will the next, post-baby-boom,
fantasists grow up on? Will their diet be straight Captain Crunch and
will they read and write junk-books as a result, unable to stomach
stronger meat such as Peake and Cabell? The time is now ripe for
another injection of "classicism"; possibly Tor's recent issuing of
(sometimes not-so-)older works paired with new stuff will get a few
young readers scrabbling in the used shelves. But even Tor was
reissuing stuff which is widely available in other anthologies, stuff
which most well-read aficionados can't help but encounter eventually
(modulo the Gene Wolfe bits and a few others). It will be interesting
to see if any of the publishers (my money would be on Tor to do it)
now chugging away will, in the next seven to ten years, reprint some
or most of the Ballantine books Carter selected, perhaps adding a few
(but not many) newer works.
One interesting side-effect of the field becoming so wide and
spread-out now is that it is no longer as possible for a single editor
to have a wide effect as del Rey and Carter did. Terri Windling
brought along a number of authors in the 80's, at Ace; she's not doing
enough with "new" writers now to (essentially) make a movement, though
the authors she has already influenced will continue to write. Ellen
Datlow, with the dollars _Omni_ pays behind her, as well as her
recognized good taste, has clout too, but her range is limited. When
these two collaborate on the _Year's Best_ anthologies is when their
effect is most likely to be seen, but even so that's going to be a
delayed, cumulative effect. David Hartwell could conceivably be the
field's helmsman, but as far as I know he doesn't do sufficient
quantity. Kristine Kathryn Rusch at F&SF is well-placed now (and was
at Pulphouse) for such influence, but I don't see anything I could
finger as "Rusch influence".
Elizabeth Willey
Laurent Amon
> In article <1992May06.160701.13734@orionsci> goo...@orionsci.UUCP (Ben
Goodwin) writes:
>
> As I recall, there was nothing magical about the ships. As far as I
> could tell, they were just stone ships. Period. As such, they should
> obey the same physical laws as other non-magical objects within the
> world that the author sets up. Even a fantasy novel should have an
> internally consistent set of rules by which the world works (unless
> it's specifically the author's intent to show that there are no
> consistent rules). Obviously, Donaldson isn't a hard science-fiction
> writer, so I don't expect three pages of equations justifying his plot
> devices. I just thought it was a bit far fetched, that's all.
>
> If it turns out that the ships were meant to be magical, or made of
> some sort of "special" stone found only in The Land, or if I'm just
> plain ignorant about how to build ships from stone, then that's a
> different story.
As somebody else pointed it out, we never really know if the
Land is real or a dream (at least, not before the end of the first
chronicles). But in any case, the whole of the Land, the whole of the
Creation is magic. And the White Gold is its crux.
The ships are made of stone because they are Giant's ships,
and there is a deep relation between Giants and Sea and Stone. I quote
from memory:
Stone and Sea are deep in life,
Two unalterable symbols of the world.
Permanence at rest, and permanence in motion,
Participants in the power that remains.
Now if you understand that stance, that there is the One Stone as
well as the One Tree, you understand how the ships float.
To make things clear, I think that the Land escapes the 'natural'
logic we're familiar with, and functions with a 'symbolic' logic.
Lga.
---
Laurent Amon | "Looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple
am...@cs.stanford.edu | of years, I think I can be fairly sure that the US
------------------------+ Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the
Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5." -- D.G.H.D.A.
Eric S. Raymond
> Standard Raymond 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil Leftist
> Literature Ate My Baby' Party Line,
No, no. In this case, especially, it's more like "Silllllly leftist literature
made me laugh my buns off". James, I understand your need to believe that I'm
motivated primarily by some kind of atavistic McCarthyite need to bash the
godless commies --- but it won't wash. The Cold War is over and I represent
something much *more* threatening --- the accelerating rejection of all the
shared assumptions that made the "left vs. right" conflict so comfortable
for all parties involved.
Disch and his mirror-images on the "right" (Jerry Pournelle, David Drake,
Daniel De La Cruz and numerous equally revolting et ceteras) are *all* doomed
to irrelevance. The only difference is that the "conservatives" don't know
it yet. Be patient. Their turn will come.
Rodrick Su
In article <1992May6.2...@morrow.stanford.edu> am...@cs.stanford.edu writes:
>> As I recall, there was nothing magical about the ships. As far as I
>> could tell, they were just stone ships. Period. As such, they should
>> obey the same physical laws as other non-magical objects within the
>> world that the author sets up.
Actually I don't see what the problem with a stone ship is. Bored
students in CSUN engineer department have demostrated that stone
ship floats and works by building one. Now, considered that the
Giants' favorite working material is stone, what else would they
build their ship with?
--
[ Rodrick Su ]<----------------------------------------------------]
[--------------------->[ `Belief is a concept that Ring does not believe in.']
[ r...@cats.ucsc.edu ]----------------------->[ ``Emerald Eyes'' ]
[ r...@ucscb.ucsc.edu ]----------------------->[ Danield Keys Moran ]
Joseph Brenner
here. I was trying to suggest that Disch understands
conventional story telling very well, but deviates from it
on purpose. But Curtis Yarvin was talking about "the rules
of functional story telling", and I guess all the phrase
means to him is "doing what works".
I'm arguing that Disch is weird on purpose, Yarvin is
arguing that he's bad on purpose.
This is looking like yet another disguised case of "How dare
he write something I don't like."
Curtis Yarvin brays:
>Decadence! Decadence! Let me take this here moment to let slip the dogs of
>anti-intellectual snobbery and cry, Decadence!
Uh, I tend to think of "Decadence" as "the elevation of
style over substance". I don't see how this applies to
Disch, his literary style seems pretty straight forward to
me. Do you mean something else?
>I have a pretty serious problem with any writer who lets the literary fads
>of the moment interfere
And what fad is it you're talking about exactly?
(Are sure you're not chasing some fads of your own?)
>A writer should do what she thinks will work best;
All of this depends on what one is trying to do, no?
I think you're trying to dictate ends, not means.
>The NEA will cheer you on but the readers will
>laugh as you sink; and justly so.
Yeah, I find it very amusing that books like Delany's
_Dhalgren_ are always such dismal commercial failures.
John Farrell
>If it turns out that the ships were meant to be magical, or made of
>some sort of "special" stone found only in The Land, or if I'm just
>plain ignorant about how to build ships from stone, then that's a
>different story.
I assumed that the ships were manufactured by the magical stoneworking
process demonstrated in the stoneworkers' village sometime in the first
series. Remember there were stoneworkers and woodworkers? And they seemed to
have magical control over their respective materials? I figured once you could
get liquid Earthblood (?), anything was possible really :-).
Friendless
John Farrell
>I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
>and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc.
Nor, it seems, can my dictionary. There is no such word as "cerulean",
nor "dromond", nor "glaive", nor "falchion", and "teal" is a duck. I wonder if
I wrote to Donaldson would he send me his dictionary? Or maybe he doesn't have
one, which could explain all this...
Friendless
Mike Van Pelt
>Given that bit of howling nonsense, I wouldn't take any of
>the rest of Disch's article seriously.
Given that Disch is the character who claimed that the "swaggering
leather-boys" in _Starship Troopers_ proved that Heinlein was a
"closet queen" (as if [a] that were any of Disch's business, and
[b] as if it were of any significance whatsoever even if it were
true) I don't have any respect for Disch's opinion on anything.
--
"A people who expect to be ignorant Mike Van Pelt
and free expect what never will, Headland Technology/Video 7
and never can, be." m...@hsv3.lsil.com
-- Thomas Jefferson sun!indetech!hsv3!mvp
Tom Christiansen
Then you have a remarkably impoverished dictionary. Mine certainly has
all those words, and the only one I couldn't myself give the definition to
without recourse to it was "dromond".
--tom
Ron
>Friendless
Friendless, buy a bigger dictionary.
Or stop reading Donaldson. Or don't complain.
Curtis Yarvin
>
>I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
>and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc.
This probably means you should be spending more time with your J. Crew
catalog.
c
(:-)
Ron
>> Or repeatedly calling the sky "cerulean" when the perfectly adequate
>> word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
>>
>Ah, but this only reveals your ignorance of things artistic. To say "blue"
>sky is pretty much redundant, don't you think? Or at least somewhat boring?
>(Except in cases of grey, cloudy sky, or a flaming sunset, etc) "Cerulean"
>is a very special color, and to me, "cerulean sky" conjures that special,
>azure color of the sky on a clear day of beautiful weather; for example,
>the day after a winter rainstorm, when the sky is clear of dust (and smog),
>and you can see for miles and miles (which is rare enough nowadays).
I agree. Words are an author's only tool to get across the vibrancy of
experiences. 'Cerulean' is an example of why a large vocabulary is a
worthy thing to have. I don't think Donaldson was just skimming through
a Thesaurus. The connotations of the words he chooses mesh with the image
he is attempting to convey to well.
Sand gorgons ... now there's a powerful image!
If you are going to contest Donaldson do it on the basis of his depiction
of Lord Foul. The man/god was defeated because of his 'character' but
couldn't evil be inconsistent?
- Ron
Doug Palmer
>In <1992May5....@cs.brown.edu> Curtis Yarvin wrote (replying to me):
>> Ballard can write.
>The amount of malignant idiocy that's been excused with "But X can write" is
>probably exceeded only by the amount excused with "But it's for the good
>of society!"
What else is a writer supposed to do except write?
Could you supply a couple of examples of Ballard's "malignant
idiocy"? Depressing, yes. Nasty, sometimes (e.g. "Crash").
But idiotic?
- Dug
Mark Smith
>
>Disch and his mirror-images on the "right" (Jerry Pournelle, David Drake,
>it yet. Be patient. Their turn will come.
>--
and found it fairly apolitical. Actually, the primary political types are
the greedy imperialist blah blah, who hire the Slammers to put down the
opposition. His characters don't really care about left and right or up
and down, just getting the job done and staying alive. They even come
out and say "it don't mean nothing". Now the "General" series is a
different story, but also coauthored.
Dragon Lord
Nancy Lebovitz
>> In article <1992May5.0...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
>arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>> >In article <1992May5.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
>qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup) writes:
>Maybe Donaldson was trying to attract some female readers(although if any
>of them kept reading past the rape, I'd be surprised...). In my
>experience, men are more likely to settle for general colours like red,
>blue, green, etc. because they have little or no knowledge of the various
>shades. I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
>and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc. (I can do mauve,
>fuchsia, and indigo, but that's another story.) Most women I know >can<
>distinguish between these colours, and are, perhaps, more likely to be
>impressed by a male writer that can use such words effectively.
>(Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to be sexist. I would love to be
>able to name colours like that. I think men are sadly undereducated in
>colour-names with respect to women, in my experience, even with women who
>are not fashion-conscious clothes-horses.)
>I admit, it is more likely Donaldson was just browsing in his thesaurus.
Here are a few thoughts from a female reader who read all six of the
Covenant books but lost interest in the Mirror books. I somewhat let
the rape slip because Covenant had very good reason to think he was
hallucinating. He didn't revel in it either.
Of course, I have no idea what Donaldson's reason for his word choices
was, but I don't think a large color vocabulary attracts _me_ to a book.
I found the odd words (rugose and anile come to mind immediately) ir-
ritating because their meanings weren't apparent from context. Does rugose
meant red or scaley? Anile is obviously an insult, but _which one_?
I _did_ like his use of color, but not for its subtlety. It was for the
heraldic simplicity of very bright colors turning up again and again.
I'm not sure why men tend to have smaller color vocabularies than women.
(At least in this culture--is it true for Japan?) My tentative theories
are that it's either a result of believing that to know color names is
unmasculine (in which case you can learn them if you're willing to
step out of character) or that mild color blindness is really common.
----Nancy Lebovitz
Todd Ellner
>cr...@CS.Stanford.EDU (Roger Crew):
>>fal.chion \'f<o.>l-ch<e>n\ n (14c)
>>glaive \'gl<a^->v\ n (15c)
>>I'll have to admit, I don't see the problem
Mr/Ms(?) Zweig is right. A falchion, for instance, is a
specific kind of sword, just like a dromond is a specific
kind of ship and a glaive is a certain sort of edged weapon.
They are not generic names.
If I were to write a fantasy about computers it would not be
correct to blithely use ENIAC, NeXT, Cray, or Sinclair whenever
I was referring to a computer.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Ellner to...@reed.edu
"What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator Dr. Haldane?"
JBS Haldane:"I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."
Chris Waters
>is a very special color, and to me, "cerulean sky" conjures that special,
>azure color of the sky on a clear day of beautiful weather; for example,
Excuse me? The word "cerulean" conjures the image of "azure" in your
mind??? Then why have two words? :-) :-)
Disclaimer: I haven't read any Donaldson, but I still couldn't let this
one pass. Sorry. ;-)
--
Chris Waters | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xt...@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
jerry cullingford
>
>Or repeatedly calling the sky "cerulean" when the perfectly adequate
>word "blue" would have worked better and probably more accurately.
I assumed that this was a deliberate thing, not just overusing the thesaurus.
In the Land, Covenant was perceiving things with a greater depth,
freshness and immediacy than normal.
Using alternative names for colours seemed to me, anyway, to be a tactic to
try and emphasise this for the reader in a way which using everyday names
wouldn't have.
Isn't there a section where this gets mentioned explicitly.. something about
"Ebon, Ichor, Incarnadine, Viridian....." ?
Personally, I think it worked reasonably well; using everyday names would
have reduced the impact considerably, and reduced the "different",
or "hallucinatory" feel.
Technically, it's probably a neat move; When you start reading, it stands
out as unusual, and as you go on, you get used to it, and it begins to seem
more normal, but still stays there in the background. A nice touch for a
situation that starts out as a dream and gradually moves to a limited level
of acceptance.
You can make a similar argument for the other alternative word choices.
Since (as far as I can remember) this sort of thing doesn't happen in the
"real world" scenes, I'd put it down to deliberate - and fairly successful -
craftmanship. While it's obviously irritated some people, I think it's a
perfectly good technique, _given the setting_.
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Jerry Cullingford #include <std.disclaimer> +44 442 230000 | ,-|--
| j...@crosfield.co.uk (was j...@cel.co.uk) or j...@cel.uucp x3868 | \_|__
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ \___/
Matt Telles
>
>In article <1992May6.2...@morrow.stanford.edu> am...@cs.stanford.edu writes:
>>> As I recall, there was nothing magical about the ships. As far as I
>>> could tell, they were just stone ships. Period. As such, they should
>>> obey the same physical laws as other non-magical objects within the
>>> world that the author sets up.
>
> Actually I don't see what the problem with a stone ship is. Bored
> students in CSUN engineer department have demostrated that stone
> ship floats and works by building one. Now, considered that the
> Giants' favorite working material is stone, what else would they
> build their ship with?
>--
Yeah, I was starting to wonder about you folk as well. I mean, you have no
problem with a *steel* or *iron* ship, why not stone? The principles of water
displacement don't change, you know. The ships would need to be large, wide, and
flat-bottomed, which I believe they were.
Oh, one other point to drown the fire with gasoline :). What, pray tell, is wrong
with using big words? I don't mind them. In fact, I found that I enjoyed the
story more for expanding my vocabulary. And, as Donaldson regularly used the
words in fashions that defined them (the cerulean sky -- I mean, what *other*
color could it be?) what is the problem?
Matt
--
==============================================================================
Matt Telles mat...@auto-trol.COM
{...}ncar!ico!auto-trol!mattel
Auto-trol Technology 12500 N Washington Denver, CO 80241-2404 (303)252-2874
Johan Larson
Much of this altercation seems to boil down to different expectations
of stories and books, and in particular of sf novels.
When I read a novel, and especially when I read an SF novel,
I expect a rousing adventure story. You see, my life,
though interesting and comfortable, is not exciting.
I read sf to vicariously experience situations,
settings, and characters which provide excitement.
I would not want to live the kind of life I like to read about;
to tell you the truth, I would be scared
stiff if thrust into the situations described in my favourite books.
However, there is more to literature than excitement. The qualities
mentioned above, if properly attended to, can make a book good,
but they can't make it great. For me, a great book should
include some food for thought. It should include something
for me to think about, after I have finished the story.
I can give you an example of a book I consider good, but not great.
I recently read "Heir to the Empire" by Timothy Zahn, and I consider
it a well-crafted work. The characters are plausible, the settings are
interesting, and the plot is smooth as silk. However, the book lacks that
crucial element of excellence: insight. It is good entertainment, it is skilled
entertainment, I might even go so far as to call it great entertainment,
but it is only entertainment. Thus, I consider the book good,
rather than great.
Because of these preferences, I am prepared to listen to an author's message
in a work of fiction. In fact, I prefer the existence of a message to its absence.
However, a novel which is nothing but message is not a novel,
it is a heavy-handed sermon. I refuse to spend time and money on a tirade.
--
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Johan Larson
There may be no salvation in the future,
but there is certainly none in the past.
Ben Goodwin
Is that the name of the author or of a book? Is it currently available
in book stores? That's right. I want to read it or him or her or whatever.
HAH! (How about e-mailing me the info please)
--
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| uunet!orionsci!goodwin | you with your hair that's always combed,
| Ben Goodwin | your suit is always white, your car is
| Washington DC (703) 524-0504 | always clean. You I hate!!! -Great Race
============================================================================
Tomas W Nonnenmacher
Maybe we could all write a letter to Donaldson asking him to reword the
entire series. A sample could go like this:
The big lady with the big sword jumped off the big boat and hacked at
the bad ugly thing. It died, and there was red blood all over her
big hands and big sword. Then she climbed back on the big boat and
they sailed away across the blue sea.
Too bad Donaldson couldn't write more like that. :-)
--Tomas
Joel Plutchak
>Its not the words that matter its the overall feel of the book and the
>way the books interact with you. If the precise nature of the vocab' is
>distracting then, fair enough, this obviously spoils it. In Donaldsons
>first 8 books I didnt find this the case, and clearly other people find
>this also.
Concisely and well-stated. I enjoyed the books, but was definitely
distracted by the atypical vocabulary, so I have mixed feelings on the
subject. I got the impression that Donaldson used a word processor,
and hit the "thesaurus" button whenever he felt he was overusing a word.
Perhaps I'll read the books again, just to confirm my opinion.
Incidentally, I had the same problem, though to a much smaller
extent, with Tolkien-- not so much with vocabulary, but with the way
sentences and paragraphs were structured (no flames on my own lack of
writing skills-- I'm not a professional author; and no flames on my
heretical view of Tolkiens writing-- I've read the epic about six
times, since he's a great *storyteller*).
As for other authors who use words in bizarre ways, my "Summary:"
lines says it all.
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst, plut...@porter.geo.brown.edu
Favorite sci.meteorology quote: "Joel dissipated over China on 7 September."
Gavin Steyn
stuff in libraries than bookstores. _Camp Concentration_ is generally
considered to be one of his best works. Personally, I really like
_The Brave Little Toaster_
Gavin Steyn
st...@cs.rochester.edu
"There are times, Jeeves, when one wonders, 'Do pants really matter?'"
Claudia Zornow
>>harder to read than Tolkien's or Asimov's, not easier.
> Yup. Purple prose is always harder to wade through than crisp, well-crafted
> prose.
Yes, but...
I read the Donaldson trilogies after a long spell of reading nothing
but "workmanlike" prose. The rhythms of the sentences, as well as the
unusual vocabulary, were a pleasant change of pace.
Claudia
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>Given that Disch is the character who claimed that the "swaggering
>leather-boys" in _Starship Troopers_ proved that Heinlein was a
>"closet queen" (as if [a] that were any of Disch's business, and
>[b] as if it were of any significance whatsoever even if it were
>true) I don't have any respect for Disch's opinion on anything.
Mike. . . this is the sort of thing I expect from Yarvin. I expected
better from you.
I take it you haven't ever actually _read_ the article "The
Embarrassments of Science Fiction," which is what gives rise to this
claim.
I have, Mike, and Disch most assuredly does _not_ claim that RAH was
a closet queen.
Or did he do so elsewhere?
And if so, where?
You are trapped in that bright moment where you learned your doom.
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
(and fan of both RAH and TMD)
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Andrew C. Plotkin
words (was .. Paul S Secinaro@kepler.u (1567)
> As I recall, there was nothing magical about the ships. As far as I
> could tell, they were just stone ships. Period.
Sigh. Go back to the book. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but it
was something like "The hull was not mere granite -- it had the slight
but necessary flexibility of bone."
This gives me the impression of a tough, non-brittle material like steel
(and, of course, steel ships work just fine.) Probably a materials
scientist could come in and blather about Young's modulus and the
difference between tensile strength and toughness, but I'll just assume
that Covenant wasn't an engineer and didn't phrase it accurately.
For the record, my position is that Donaldson did in fact get a big
thesaurus and use it incompetently -- however, he's such a powerful
*storyteller* that I don't care that he's a bad *writer*.
(Please substitute your own terminology as necessary.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Alfvaen
> >In my
> > experience, men are more likely to settle for general colours like red,
> > blue, green, etc. because they have little or no knowledge of the
various
> > shades. I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
> > and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc. (I can do mauve,
> > fuchsia, and indigo, but that's another story.) Most women I know >can<
> > distinguish between these colours, and are, perhaps, more likely to be
> > impressed by a male writer that can use such words effectively.
>
> difference between teal, cerulean, and azure (actually teal and azure are
> nothing alike, what you talking about?), I had to LOOK UP "cerulean" (and
> I almost never have to look up words :-)) and was faintly annoyed to find
> that it pretty much just meant blue. In fact I had to look up a LOT of
> words in Donaldson (again, honestly, I'm NOT a moron, I average about one
> look-up per five good books); and usually, once I knew what the word
> meant, it didn't add anything to my understanding of the paragraph.
My point was >precisely< that I, and probably many other males, have >no
idea< what teal or azure are, or how they differ. My mind files them both
under "shades of blue", and I can't say any more about them because I never
learned anything about it.
> I think the theory that Donaldson went mad with a thesaurus is probably
> correct.
I can't help but remember that while Donaldson gets flak for using words
like glaive and falchion(which have been, to my satisfaction, established as
being perfectly justified to be used as no more than synonyms for "sword")
and dromond, and ineluctable(one that hasn't been mentioned, but the one
expansion to my vocabulary that I remember from Donaldson), Gene Wolfe is
equally free with them, although in his case it looks like he at least knows
what they are. Two words I remember from the first two "New Sun" books(all
I've read)are athame, which I'm told is a silver dagger used by mages, and
fuligin, which is the darker-than-black totally light-absorbing colour of
Severian's cloak. Neither of those were in my dictionary--athame I only
learned a few days ago, and fuligin I extrapolated from "fuliginous", which
is in the dictionary, and direct mention in the novel itself.
I would tend to say Wolfe is a better writer than Donaldson, though, but
certainly use of "fancy" words where simpler ones will do isnt the problem.
--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
You made my day--now you have to sleep in it.
Current Album--George Michael:Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1
David J Stucki
Concisely and well-stated. I enjoyed the books, but was definitely
distracted by the atypical vocabulary, so I have mixed feelings on the
subject. I got the impression that Donaldson used a word processor,
and hit the "thesaurus" button whenever he felt he was overusing a word.
Perhaps I'll read the books again, just to confirm my opinion.
I'd like to know what "word processors" you think were even available to
people like authors before 1977, much less ones with a built-in thesaurus!
dave...
David J Stucki /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ c/o Dept. Computer and
537 Harley Dr. #6 / \ / \ / \ / \ / Information Science
Columbus, OH 43202 \/ \ / \ / \ / 2036 Neil Ave.
stu...@cis.ohio-state.edu ~ \/ ~~ \/ ~~ \/ Columbus, OH 43210
There is no place in science for ideas,
there is no place in epistemology for knowledge,
and there is no place in semantics for meanings. -- W.V. Quine
Ryk E Spoor
[discussion of problem with stone ships, and people pointing out
rightly that if the Giants LIKE to work stone, what else would they be
making ships from? The comment that they are not magical... well, it always
seemed to ME that they most certainly WERE magical. The Giants were a
magical race and at the very least I figured their stonework was gifted
with special abilities in the same way that the Dwarven craftsmanship
often is in other series.
>Yeah, I was starting to wonder about you folk as well. I mean, you have no
>problem with a *steel* or *iron* ship, why not stone? The principles of water
>displacement don't change, you know. The ships would need to be large, wide, and
>flat-bottomed, which I believe they were.
Correct. Moreover, most of the time that METAL, as in refined metal,
occurs in the series, it is involved in heavily magical doings (the Ring, the
heels of the Staff of Law, Kasreyn's ocular and larger lab setup, and
of course the Rukhs and Master Rukh of the Clave of Revelstone) and generally
does not show up in huge amounts often AT ALL. And since chopping down
trees to make ships would be horrible... stone shaping seems the only
reasonable way to build ships.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Ron
>>Todd Ellner writes
>>> In article <1992May5.0...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
>>arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>>> >In article <1992May5.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
>>qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup) writes:
>>Maybe Donaldson was trying to attract some female readers(although if any
>>of them kept reading past the rape, I'd be surprised...). In my
>>experience, men are more likely to settle for general colours like red,
>>blue, green, etc. because they have little or no knowledge of the various
>>shades. I, personally, couldn't tell you the difference between crimson
>>and scarlet, between teal, cerulean, and azure, etc. (I can do mauve,
>>fuchsia, and indigo, but that's another story.) Most women I know >can<
>>distinguish between these colours, and are, perhaps, more likely to be
>>impressed by a male writer that can use such words effectively.
>>(Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to be sexist. I would love to be
>>able to name colours like that. I think men are sadly undereducated in
>>colour-names with respect to women, in my experience, even with women who
>>are not fashion-conscious clothes-horses.)
>>I admit, it is more likely Donaldson was just browsing in his thesaurus.
>Here are a few thoughts from a female reader who read all six of the
>Covenant books but lost interest in the Mirror books. I somewhat let
>the rape slip because Covenant had very good reason to think he was
>hallucinating. He didn't revel in it either.
I think Donaldson was trying to make thematic point by the rape,e; if
you understand *what* he is saying than I don't think you would find it
offensive.
Covenant rapes women. Thinks it is a dream. Turns out to be reality.
The importance of this is that things we'd do in a dream we wouldn't
condone in reality. The point is, in his quest to perfect himself and
rid himself of Despair, Covenant realized that even though he's in a
dream he has to respect it as much as reality.
The consequences of the initial rape (the rape was initiated for short
term desires and to satisfy newfound feelings of potence) were a recurring
theme throughout the books. Covenant had to deal with the guilt later.
What would you rather have, the importance of what he's saying ignored?
Or not understood?
- Ron
Ron
>In article <ubiiu...@stanley.cis.Brown.EDU> plut...@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak) writes:
> Concisely and well-stated. I enjoyed the books, but was definitely
> distracted by the atypical vocabulary, so I have mixed feelings on the
> subject. I got the impression that Donaldson used a word processor,
> and hit the "thesaurus" button whenever he felt he was overusing a word.
> Perhaps I'll read the books again, just to confirm my opinion.
>I'd like to know what "word processors" you think were even available to
>people like authors before 1977, much less ones with a built-in thesaurus!
Good point. And what word processor *thesaurus* has words like
'dromond'?
- Ron
Helios project lab account
>
>I take it you haven't ever actually _read_ the article "The
>Embarrassments of Science Fiction," which is what gives rise to this
>claim.
>
>I have, Mike, and Disch most assuredly does _not_ claim that RAH was
>a closet queen.
>
I don't remember if it was in that article or elsewhere, but I sure as
hell remember the event. He did not use the phrase "closet queen" of
course but it certainly amounted to the same thing. The implication
was there.
I also lost interest in TD at that point.
Then again, I don't have much use for those who choose to make
a living as professional critics.
Johan Larson
>I'm not sure why men tend to have smaller color vocabularies than women.
>(At least in this culture--is it true for Japan?) My tentative theories
>are that it's either a result of believing that to know color names is
>unmasculine (in which case you can learn them if you're willing to
>step out of character) or that mild color blindness is really common.
The only time I've encountered a large colour vocabulary was when
I bought paint. Women buy paint (for faces) rather often;
men buy paint (for houses) rather seldom.
I think it's a matter of exposure to the vocabulary.
Rolando Vinluan
I guess it's cultural. It's not that men don't *want* to
learn new color words, it's that *most* (not all of course,
no flames please) don't concern themselves with
the things like fashion, decorating, etc. where the immediate
feedback of "this is teal, this is fuschia..." makes them truly
remember which word fits what color. As a once-budding writer,
I recognized this limitation in my vocabulary a few years ago,
and thus (like some poster said) started reading J. Crew catalogs and
Vogue and Harper's just to know which is which. The thesaurus
is also useful, but some visual memory of what is puce,
or taupe or peridion or whatever is essential. My girlfriend
thinks this is cute.
Maybe I should start reading Donaldson again. Unlike that
other poster who complained of reading such a simple word as
"cerulean," I like having my vocabulary expanded. So what is
rugose? or anile?
Dani Zweig
>What, pray tell, is wrong with using big words?
If they distract the reader from the story -- so we find ourselves paying
more attention to the words than to what they are supposed to be saying
and/or connoting -- then they're not doing their job.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine -- Edmund Spenser
Scott E Berry
This is a realy stupid thread. Except for geting waterproof joints
stone would make fine boats. It is not unheard of for modern boats to be
made of concrete. Go to a library and get a book on boat construction before.
Il Hwan Oh
> Of course, I have no idea what Donaldson's reason for his word choices
> was, but I don't think a large color vocabulary attracts _me_ to a book.
There is more to words than meanings alone. Words have what I like to
call emotional baggage. The sound of a word evokes certain atmosphere.
Some people misuse this effect. I believe Donaldson is a master at the
use of this effect. Using big words just to use them is wrong. He uses
the big words (I had to look up about 10-15 words per book) appropriately
to enhance his work, IMHO.
> I found the odd words (rugose and anile come to mind immediately) ir-
> ritating because their meanings weren't apparent from context. Does rugose
> meant red or scaley? Anile is obviously an insult, but _which one_?
Isn't that what a dictionary is for? Rugose is rough, wrinkled, or
ridged. Anile is like an old woman.
--
Il Hwan Oh | "A university is a place where people pay
Computer Facilities Manager | high prices for goods which they then
Univ. of Washington, Tacoma | proceed to leave on the counter when
i...@cac.washington.edu | they go out of the store." -- Loren Eisley
Il Hwan Oh
> Incidentally, I had the same problem, though to a much smaller
> extent, with Tolkien-- not so much with vocabulary, but with the way
> sentences and paragraphs were structured (no flames on my own lack of
> writing skills-- I'm not a professional author; and no flames on my
> heretical view of Tolkiens writing-- I've read the epic about six
> times, since he's a great *storyteller*).
You should try Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Gavin Steyn
>mat...@auto-trol.com (Matt Telles):
>>What, pray tell, is wrong with using big words?
>If they distract the reader from the story -- so we find ourselves paying
>more attention to the words than to what they are supposed to be saying
>and/or connoting -- then they're not doing their job.
I don't know if that's the problem. Many people who dislike Donaldson's
use of English also rhapsodize over _The Book of the New Sun_. (FWIW,
I like both, although I much prefer Wolfe's writing).
Elizabeth Willey
[...]
Covenant rapes women. Thinks it is a dream. Turns out to be reality.
The importance of this is that things we'd do in a dream we wouldn't
condone in reality. The point is, in his quest to perfect himself and
rid himself of Despair, Covenant realized that even though he's in a
dream he has to respect it as much as reality.
This is all very well, and I respect the taste of people who enjoyed
and grappled with these books, but I can't resist noting (as this
discussion makes its annual circuit) that Calderon said it sooner and
better than Donaldson---and in just as accessible and enjoyable a
form, albeit far more concise. Not that there's no point in saying
things more than once---far from it---but (dangerously edging onto the
limb here) for my money Calderon is the better writer and thinker.
I suppose I'm a bluestockinged snob for advocating thinking before
writing, but there it is.
Elizabeth Willey
Nick Haines
[about Stephen Donaldson]
Oh, one other point to drown the fire with gasoline :). What, pray
tell, is wrong with using big words? I don't mind them. In fact,
I found that I enjoyed the story more for expanding my vocabulary.
And, as Donaldson regularly used the words in fashions that defined
them (the cerulean sky -- I mean, what *other* color could it be?)
what is the problem?
Nothing's wrong with using big words. Gene Wolfe does it all the time,
and some of his books are among my favourite SF writings. I certainly
have no problem with `cerulean'. But Donaldson (whose stories I enjoy)
frequently used words that had _no_ meaning for his audience (or, I
suspect, for him). The different words for `sword' is one example. My
favourite is `chrysoprastic'. I mean, when was the last time _you_ saw
a chrysoprase? Do you remember what colour it was? There are _lots_ of
words for green, even for sickly green. Why that one? How about using
`emerald' instead---it still has the `gem' association, and everyone
knows what an emerald looks like.
Also he uses some words far too frequently. Anyone out there play the
`clench' game? And he's prone to using some bizarre `saidisms'.
Has anyone read the stuff he's written since the `Mirror' books? I
liked those more than Covenant.
Nick Haines ni...@cs.cmu.edu