From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #277 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Monday, October 22 2001 Volume 01 : Number 277 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting [Richard Gagnon ] Re: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting [Stewart Mason ] [loud-fans] hello again again! ["me" ] Re: [loud-fans] hello again again! [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] hello again again! [Cardinal007@aol.com] [loud-fans] Harry Potter/Steve Jobs:Separated at Birth? (one cryogenically frozen) [Vivebon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 03:13:33 -0400 From: Richard Gagnon Subject: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting Tim writes, of various less savory strains of science fiction: >But these, as you say, are just subgenres. I don't like "classic" >locked-room puzzler mysteries that much, but that doesn't mean I >don't like mysteries. Oh, I'm not dismissing the genre altogether. I know there's a lot of good stuff out there, it's just that there's other stuff I'm more interested in. >I think part of our disagreement (aside from taste differences) is >that I don't separate SF from fantasy as much as you do, at least in >the pulp period. You're probably right; frankly, I don't think it's much of a disagreement. I mostly wanted to reassure you that I'm not unaware of the gold in them thar hills, it's just that I can't be bothered to dig it up. > The two genres were, to a large extent, written and read by the >same people, and Hugos and Nebulas were awarded to both. It's only >since the success of Tolkien that the two have started to drift >apart. Since most of my favorite stuff (Wolfe, Crowley, Disch) has >elements of both, I tend to focus on what they have in common more >than on their differences. And I tend to focus on what I like, not that I'm all that narrow-minded. Also, I have to admit I'm biased in favor of older writing. It's not as bad as what happened to French, perhaps, but I find that English language, and writing as a result, infuriatingly dumbed down these past few decades (well, not David Foster Wallace, bless his fevered brain). There's still plenty of modern stuff to read, but I like to wallow in yellowed pages and old editions without all that embossed, gold-foiled lettering and artwork. A cranky old coot at 36, that's me. >I don't believe for a microsecond that either Leiber or Sturgeon wrote SF just >to make a living. For starters, at that time there was hardly more >living to be made in the style you don't like than in the style you >do. Yeah, but it's like they say about bisexuality: it doubles your chances of a date on Saturday night, or in this case, of a sale and a paycheck at the end of the month. >If anything, the >opposite; writers like John Collier and Ray Bradbury were able to sell to the >slicks. Collier, like, say, Roald Dahl, wrote blackly humorous material for the slicks but said slicks also published science fiction. But is that strictly dependent on genre, or does it have as much to do with editorial preference, the writer's skills or his agent's. Playboy,as an example, published a bit of everything. >My recollection is that when Sturgeon needed money, he wrote >pornography, and the same is true of a lot of SF authors. So did Lawrence Block (not that this is germane to the argument). Once again, an additional market to make ends meet. I'm by no means saying that science fiction was the economic Promised Land, only that most writers have to plant a lot of seed for anything to grow. By the sixties, the paperback science fiction had slowed its expansion, and most of the pulps were dead. > Some (Bester, Asimov) abandoned the genre for greener pastures. Better that than having to read pornography by Asimov!:) >I can understand your preferences--and even agree, somewhat, in the case of >Leiber, although he did write the outstanding and completely SFnal "Ship of >Shadows"--but I think you'll agree that MORE THAN HUMAN and THE WANDERER are >about people, not machines or ciphers. Absolutely. Great writers, but the topics leave me lukewarm at best. >And we're still talking about fifty-year-old stuff. It's as if we were >evaluating rock without listening to anything later than Chuck Berry. Yeah, but there's what, one or two years of rock preceding Chuck Berry. Science fiction goes a lot further back and we get a more significant sampling than we would in rock music if we stopped counting in 1955. >There are quite a few more exceptions than that, but I'd be the last to deny >that contemporary fantasy has more than its share of formulaic crap. Sturgeon's Law again! >I love this stuff too. I just don't see it as anywhere near as >separate a genre as you do. That's the trouble with genres; they tend to bleed into one another. Joe Landsdale's horror westerns, for instance. Then you come across time-traveling detectives, barbarians in spaceships, engineer unicorns, transsexual gun-slinging hobbits... >I assume you've read Robert Aickman. Yeah, he's hard to miss. Apologies to all the people we've bored with this pedantic turbo-geekery. ;) Rick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 01:41:22 -0600 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting At 03:13 AM 10/21/01 -0400, Richard Gagnon wrote: >> Some (Bester, Asimov) abandoned the genre for greener pastures. > >Better that than having to read pornography by Asimov!:) I, SEXY ROBOT was a classic of the genre. S ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:41:29 -0400 From: Michael Bowen Subject: Re: [loud-fans] comic mysteries At 05:55 PM 10/20/2001 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >Didn't someone write a novel in which Richard Nixon is a football player >instead of becoming president? "Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears?", by Robert Coover. I'll take Literary Trivia for $800, Alex... MB http://www.savemonroe.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 14:51:04 -0700 From: "me" Subject: [loud-fans] hello again again! well, i hope all the bets were in. here's the new e-mail addy. i can still be reached thru bbradley@namesecure.com / brianna@namesecure.com, but there's no telling for how long. please let me know if any of you gubment types get flak for this e-mail and i'll find a way to rectify it. - -- brianna me@justanotherfuckin.com Imagine that every girlie that looks your way is doing a reverse DNS on you. Is she getting www.hi-im-friendly-and-nice.com or fuck-you-bitch.die.die.die.net? *no ascii art* - -- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 17:13:30 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] hello again again! On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, me wrote: > please let me know if any of you gubment types get flak for this e-mail and > i'll find a way to rectify it. I'm pretty sure that most government offices strictly prohibit any on-site "rectifying." - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous...got me? __Captain Beefheart__ np: The Twigs (I forget the title - Norwegian band) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 15:20:01 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: [loud-fans] Chat? I'm at irc.DAL.net #loudfans and will remain there for an hour or so, looking for fellow travelers. No se rma por favor de la imagen de la muchacha pobre que fue educada por los palos, Andy "You who call yourself William Shatner, do you really know Daniel the Younger? Who are you? A succubus? An incubus? What do you know about Daniel and me? Morton, you say it was the girl in the photo who attacked you. Was it Jasmine? And Sophia, Im sorry if youre a succubus wanting to become human again, because the prognosis is not too good. Somebody obviously didn t explain everything to you when he made you a succubus. You become a succubus when an incubus has sex with you at the very moment of your death. The only way for a succubus to become human again is to regain her virginity. And we all know how impossible that is. If you really are that rarity, a succubus with a conscience, I suggest you find some way to abstain from sex (maybe clamp on a chastity belt or something), and just die." - --from www.succubushunter.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 23:46:06 EDT From: Cardinal007@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] hello again again! In a message dated 10/21/01 6:14:23 PM, jenor@csd.uwm.edu writes: >I'm pretty sure that most government offices strictly prohibit any on-site >"rectifying." Yes, they do -- technically. I find, though, that the west stairwell [on the landing between three and two] conceals almost all activities.... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 02:54:08 EDT From: Vivebonpop@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Harry Potter/Steve Jobs:Separated at Birth? (one cryogenically frozen) Is it just me or does the kid that plays Harry Potter look like a miniature version of Mr. Macintosh? Mark np Paula Carino's Aquacade ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #277 *******************************