When SF eats worms and dies, then everyone will be sorry

[james_davis_nicoll]

Are James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald holding SF down while Ernest Hemingway kicks it in the ribs?

If I wasn't so consumed with lassitude, I'd looking for a recent matching "The problem with modern SF is that it is too literary, what with all the homosexuals and girls writing it" essay. I'm sure one exists, though.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

osc? i'm certain he thinks that, although am not sure if he's bothered to write it up.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I linked this last time, but I don't care.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Someone owes me a dolllaaaaar!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously underwhelmed that the Booker judges only look at what the publishers send them. Don't they read anything for their own pleasure during the year? Don't they notice whether any of it impresses them?

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

..and not enough big space guns and battles included...

[wrenn.livejournal.com]

All I'm currently reminded of, is Andrew Eldritch continually harping that his band and music wasn't goth...

Just curious...

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

So, is there a pecking order to writer genre's like there is for geeks?

Such that somewhere somebody is saying "Yes, it's shameful that I write bodice-ripper romances but at least I'm not writing Sci-Fi!" just as some geeks say "Yes I like to go to Sci-Fi conventions, but at least I'm not a Trekkie or worse, a Furry!"

- krin

*honestly curious, not trying to cause a flame thread this time. Really!*

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

If SF ever becomes like the combined output of James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, I will flee the genre in horror and never, ever come back.

I say this as someone who has essentially an undergraduate degree and a significant chunk of a Master's degree in English literature; if James were trying to hit my particular Unholy Trinity of writers I particularly loathe, he's done a damned good job. (I may be the only person with advanced education in English literature who thinks ole Ernie Hemmy should have gotten friendly with that shotgun sooner.)