"Howard Brazee" <howard at brazee.net> writes: > David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> "bonham15" <bonham15 at cox.net> writes: >> >> That's an attitude that continues to catch me by surprise -- that you >> expect new stories to be *better* than old stories. I expect exactly >> the reverse; we're living with the cream skimmed off a few thousand >> years of literary history, and the best stuff from that much time is >> mostly incomparably better than nearly anything created this year. It >> takes something really fantastic like _A Fire Upon the Deep_, say, to >> even look like a *candidate* for that sort of status in the long run. > > I disagree. Sturgeon's law worked then and it works now - but now there > are tremendously more educated writers. Even applying Sturgeon's law to > the 10% gives us an elite 1% that is vastly larger than the 10% of the past. Not by my standards. And when I looked at the 2003 novels and such nominated for the retro-hugo, it was *amazing* how much first-rate stuff was published in 1953. > The main advantage in looking at great works of the past is that it is > easier to find the cream. Yeah, I think that's what I meant when I said "the cream skimmed off" above. > Nowadays one of the best way of finding the cream is to notice what > kind of blurbs Steve gives for Gene Wolfe. > > I wonder how many people have been turned onto literary works by > Mr. Brust. > > I also wonder - what authors do you (David Dyer-Bennet) recommend, > that we might have missed? Good -- Egan, MacLeod, Vinge. Bujold. I doubt anything's too surprising there. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>