Re: what fantasy or sci-fi wrters do you have trouble connecting with?
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 16 June, 2021 10:26PM
John Shirley Wrote:
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> At this time in my life I have trouble connecting
> with Merritt because of a certain pulp haste and
> clumsiness that creeps in, when he runs out of
> inspiration, and because of some egregious ethnic
> stereotypes. I tried to re-read him and couldn't.
> I tried to re-read Dune by Herbert--whom I knew,
> he was a teacher of mine at Clarion, for a
> week--but found the dialogue oppressive.
> Nevertheless, it is chockful of great ideas and is
> a marvelous vision. I do appreciate it. I find
> Asimov both likable, now, in a way, but rather an
> awkward writer, in his fiction anyway. He got
> better in later works.
>
> I still connect very well with the best of Jack
> Vance, his Dying Earth stories, his Lyonesse
> tales, his classic sf adventure like The Demon
> Princes...I knew him too, corresponded with him,
> saw him at conventions...quite a character. Sadly,
> rather racist though. But that only shows in one
> of his books. HPL--well, we know his issues with
> that, but L Sprague de Camp said that HPL was
> changing his mind about race, letting racism go,
> as he got older. If he'd only lived longer...
>
> I love Machen and most of his contemporaries. I
> have trouble with many modern horror and fantasy
> writers. Most of them seem sloppy, overly
> concerned with a kind of social faddishness (and
> I'm a progressive, too),
Quite all right, John. We pride ourselves on our tolerance here at ED, no matter what...
;^)
> and they seem like they
> spend more time on facebook and twitter and
> instagram than writing novels. They watched a lot
> of anime, which is good stuff but...you don't have
> to write novels that way. I don't choose to name
> any of them.
>
> I like Tim Powers' fantasy novels a lot. He's a
> good friend of mine, though I don't agree with his
> politics or rather medieval theology.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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