--- bonham15 <bonham15 at cox.net> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b at dd-b.net> > To: <dragaera at dragaera.info> > Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 2:04 PM > Subject: Re: From Neil Gaiman's journal > > > > "bonham15" <bonham15 at cox.net> writes: > > > > > i actually came to lord of light rather late. i think last year it > was > that > > > i picked it up for something like fifty cents from a used book > store. > it > > > has held up amazingly well for a 40 year old story, as good ones > will imho I agree. For the record, though, it's not the best sf novel of the '60s. Zelazny's _The Dream Master_ is better, as are _Stand on Zanzibar_ and _Dune_ and _The Left Hand of Darkness_. To quote a guy named Michael West in alt.usage.english, "In matters of personal taste, I hasten to add, I am never wrong." > > 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. Sf had a long history of improving. Much as I liked some pre-1950 sf when I was a teenager (in the '70s), if I read it now I have to make an effort to overlook its faults. Those people were mostly scientists and engineers, and it took them a long time to learn to write. As you might guess, I think sf reached maturity in the '60s. But I think you, DD-B, like real stf more than I do. I didn't like E. E. Smith even when I was a teenager, and I had to force myself through _A Fire Upon the Deep_, although it had good parts. > > -- > ahhh. allow me to clarify my thoughts/opinions on this one. there is a > ton > of crap that gets put out every year since mass printing became viable. > in > the 1800's you had the dread penny stuff, early 1900's brought us a lot > of > serial type stories, and novels became more numerous. then god help us, > danielle steele descends in the late 1900s. an absolute TON of crap > gets > put out each and every year and has for more than our lifetimes. the > ones > that stick around, like lord of light, or raymond chandler's incredibly > written and paced detective novels are the best of that time and do hold > up. > > there are great songs from the 50's, 60's and 70's that still get played > every day, but much of the utter trash and crap recorded has faded by > the > wayside, leaving us to go, 'man, music was better then, not at all like > this crap we have now'. All it takes is a few hours listening to oldies stations to cure us of that delusion. > imho, its very easy for science fiction type stories to feel dated > rather > quickly, especially if they are poorly written. For one thing, they act as if the political and social issues of their time are universal. Poster child: I'm not sure what RAH was saying about black people in "Jerry [ahem] Was a Man", but I'm pretty sure it doesn't need saying any more, still less in the future when ape-men can be made. Or "The Midas Plague". What Pohl was caricaturing still exists to some extent, but we'd still far rather have those problems than the ones we've got. (If I'm thinking of the right story--you work so you don't have to consume.) > some *never* will i think (neuromancer anyone?). I'll take some, but much as I like that book, I thought it felt dated within a few years. All those people wearing black, the Asiophilia, the references to '70s music--by 1990 I felt like it was trapped in the '80s. > some concepts become dated, some outpaced by > events and then become quaint... Yep. > good lord, i'm tangenting. i'm leaving now, too tired for coherent > thought. > i'll let everyone else dice me up on this, especially as i know this > isn't very well thought out. How'd I do? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/