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   During a recession, should college presidents face the same pay cuts as CEOs?
 Forty years of writing from Taylor Branch, James Fallows, Katherine Boo, Marjorie Williams, Joshua Micah Marshall, and more.
 With help from Washington, the for-profit college industry is loading up millions of low-income students with debt they'll never pay off.
 The best recent memoir from republican Washington is a hoax. That should tell you something.
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August 27, 2006
By: I'M BACK....Many thanks to Laura Rozen and Suzanne Nossel for filling in for me this weekend while I was ignoring the news and hanging out with science fiction geeks at the World Science Fiction Convention. If you liked their stuff, you can find Laura at War and Piece and Suzanne at Democracy Arsenal. They're both great sites. Before the weekend slips completely away, though, and we return to weightier subjects, I'm sure you're all wondering how things went at the WorldCon. The answer is: it was lots of fun and the panels went fine. The 2007 con is in Yokohama, so I don't think I'll be going again next year, but 2008 will be in Denver. Maybe I'll give it another go then. And who did I meet? Aside from fellow panelists, I got to meet Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden in the flesh for the first time, which was cool, and via the Tor party I also met John Scalzi, who went on to win the John Campbell award for best new writer (as well as third place in the Hugo voting for his novel Old Man's War); James Patrick Kelly, who took third place in the novella category for "Burn"; Cory Doctorow, who took second place in the novelette category for "I, Robot"; and Kim Stanley Robinson, who wasn't up for anything this year but has won plenty of Hugos in the past. For those who are interested, here's the complete list of Hugo winners this year:
That's it for science fiction for the moment though if anyone happens to know why Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys was withdrawn from consideration in the novel category, I'd be interested in hearing the story. I'll be back Monday morning with the usual serious stuff. See you then. —Kevin Drum 11:54 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (106)Comments
Per Mr. Gaiman's online journal, he said he pulled it for a couple reasons. One...since he has a few Hugos, he wanted to move out of the way to make room for other people to be listed. Two....since it was more fantasy than SF, he felt it was easy to say no thanks. Go here to get the description directly from da Man... http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/ Posted by: TANSTAAFL on August 28, 2006 at 12:05 AM | PERMALINKOh ferchrissake. I bet that Doctorow and Kelley went out of their way to inform you of their 2nd and 3rd places. But there's a more common term for guys like that: losers. You either win the Hugo or you don't, there's no second and third place. Posted by: charlie don't surf on August 28, 2006 at 12:06 AM | PERMALINKCan everyone who has the urge to use this thread to promote some pet project that's completely unrelated to the subject of the post, please stop? Thank you. Posted by: Kevin Drum on August 28, 2006 at 12:09 AM | PERMALINKCharlie: Don't be an asshole. I learned the results the same way everyone else did: via a flyer handed out after the Hugo ceremony was over. Posted by: Kevin Drum on August 28, 2006 at 12:11 AM | PERMALINKWell ... gee whiz. I have absolutely nothing to offer on threads like these save my own agenda-driven extrapolations. *suking in corner* Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:12 AM | PERMALINKI love the idea of literature-as-competition. Especially in a mass-market field, where at the end of the day all you are are your sales figures, anyway. I think they should hold, like, duels in the parking lot. Award-winners get an extra shot :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:19 AM | PERMALINK"Two....since it was more fantasy than SF, he felt it was easy to say no thanks." I've frequently heard people say that William Gibson's novels (particularly the Sprawl trilogy) technically aren't sci-fi, but instead are fantasy. What distinguishes the two genres? Posted by: carl on August 28, 2006 at 12:19 AM | PERMALINKKevin, how you first learned of the "runner up" status isn't my point. Doctorow (in particular) has been pandering for a Hugo for years, I assure you that at this very moment he is writing up another self-promoting, triumphant blog post about his almost-award. But please notice they didn't announce the also-rans DURING the award ceremony. Posted by: charlie don't surf on August 28, 2006 at 12:19 AM | PERMALINKcarl: That's a very good question. Some of it depends on reliance on science and/or technology to frame the story as opposed to magical and/or mystical concepts, like other realms. Fantasy doesn't have as much a need to explain the unique features of its worlds in a way that makes them sound plausible, given our current state of knowledge. As for why Gibson would be considered fantasy rather than sci-fi -- I haven't the tiniest clue. I thought he was an author singularly obsessed with how technology is changing society ... but then again, I've never heard of the Sprawl series, either. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:26 AM | PERMALINKI have the sneaking suspicion that I'm just feeding a troll, but here goes... There's room for several excellent authors at the top of the science fiction food chain. Second place doesn't mean first loser; rather, it's a confirmation that the author in question is one of the best. Charlie, you can bash Doctorow and Kelley all you want, but the fact remains that their work is among the most respected in the field. Also, I want to say that I'm very glad "Spin" won for best novel. Also glad that "Accelerando", which I loved for entirely different reasons, came in second. Well, *that's* a way to generate a discussion on a fairly esoteric topic that happens to be a favorite of the blogissimo's: 1) Delete the usual benign non-trolls who pop by to promote some unrelated leftist cause and snap at them for it. and ... 2) Snark really hard at one of the few posters who *was* staying on topic. Thereby covering both ends of the spectrum :) Kevin ... I think you need to get some beauty rest. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:49 AM | PERMALINK"but then again, I've never heard of the Sprawl series, either." The Sprawl trilogy is the unofficial name for Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Given your description of fantasy v. SF, I'm even more confused why anyone would describe Gibson as fantasy. Maybe some other folks will weigh in. Thanks for the nutshell explanation. Posted by: carl on August 28, 2006 at 12:51 AM | PERMALINKMatt: Well the idea that *any* second or third-placer is a "loser" in the field of literature (not horseshoes) is kind of prima facie absurd in itself. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:53 AM | PERMALINKcarl: Really? I'm just as shocked as you are. I'd think Neuromancer is as bona-fide sci fi as anything by, say, Philip K. Dick. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 12:54 AM | PERMALINKcarl: I hate using Wikipedia in discussions like this (real fans use their memories), but indeed Neuromancer won sci-fi's "triple crown: A Hugo, a Nebula and a Philip K. Dick award. Somebody calling this book "more fantasy than science fiction" was apparently only expressing an individual opinion. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 1:07 AM | PERMALINKBob- Good point, I think I recall reading that at one point. So, yeah, at this point, I think I came across an errant datapoint that stuck out in my mind for some reason. Now if anyone wants to argue that Gibson's novels are, in fact, fantasy, I certainly be willing to hear why you think that's the case ;) Posted by: carl on August 28, 2006 at 1:11 AM | PERMALINKThe Sprawl trilogy is also called the First Cyberpunk trilogy. The Second Cyberpunk trilogy, also by William Gibson, is Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties. Not quite as groundbreaking as the first three, nor quite as good. However, the difference between "groundbreaking" and "not quite as groundbreaking" is, when talking about the godfather of the cyberpunk genre, minute at best. And as to why Gibson is considered fantasy, all I can say is www.WTF.org. He is about as much of a fantasy writer as Shakespeare was a libertarian philosopher, particularly seeing as how his books are all set either in the near future or very near future. And that, really, is the nutshell distinction between the two. Sci-fi is set in future times, whether along this portion of the time-space continuum or somewhere else, shown by advancements in technology that we modern Terrans do not possess at the time of publication. (Hence why the Star Wars series is sci-fi even though it was "a long long time ago".) Fantasy is generally set in pre-industrial societies where other technological routes have been explored, such as sorcery for the most typical example. "but 2008 will be in Denver. Maybe I'll give it another go then." Kevin, should you do so, be certain to look up some of us local bloggers. (Myself, Andrew Oh-Willike of Colorado Confidential, Jeralynn of Talk Left, Walter In Denver and so on, plus the righties of Resurrection Song and Libercontrarian are also pretty damn fun to be around.) We all know how to have a good time. And know the best places at which to have them. Just stay away from Casa de Goldstein, particularly while he's on camera for Hot Air, and you'll do fine. Posted by: Off Colfax on August 28, 2006 at 1:11 AM | PERMALINKHey Kevin, Good to have you back. The guest bloggers were interesting, but it's just not the same without you here. See you tomorrow! -- This is a promotion free post. Isn't that awesome? Posted by: American Hawk on August 28, 2006 at 1:11 AM | PERMALINKSpin? Are you kidding me? By the way, about the Hugos, isn't it kind of strange that the 'Short Form' award went to a two part Doctor Who episode, and the 'Long Form' went to Serenity? Both are great pieces of science fiction, of course, but the two episodes stacked together are almost as long as Serenity, if not longer... Posted by: American Hawk on August 28, 2006 at 1:13 AM | PERMALINKI think Gibson's recent novel was his best. I can't remember the title, but it was about the woman with a special talent for recognizing effective branding and advertising. Posted by: marky on August 28, 2006 at 1:14 AM | PERMALINKOff Colfax: Well, I'm going to have to dissent a bit to your otherwise well-taken distinction between sci-fi and fantasy. First, while fantasy novels most often appear to "harken back" as you say to preindustrial worlds, they don't have to be, strictly speaking, set in the past. Case in point: the Narnia trilogy. Secondly, I would argue vociferously that Star Wars is fantasy, not science fiction, primarily because its science and technology is all entirely window dressing. (Note that I'd probably argue this for Flash Gordon radio serials as well -- though I don't know atm if I'd say the same thing about Buck Rodgers). There's nothing about it set in the future that has any meaning to the plot. No science concepts are explored or are in any way necessary to the story. The plot is as mined from archetypical folkloric roots as is The Lord of the Rings ... Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 1:23 AM | PERMALINKaren't sci-fi, but instead are fantasy. What distinguishes the two genres? There's a lot out there that's called "sci-fi" that just isn't (IMNSHO). The Gibson stuff is among that. That's just me though. (Having grown up reading Asimov, Lem, Clarke, Niven, etc.) I tend to think there's a vast grey area between classical "fantasy" and "hard-sci-fi". It can be pidgeonholed either way, depending on the criteria of the pidgeonholer. Anyway, Hugo's just a popularity contest anymore. Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on August 28, 2006 at 1:36 AM | PERMALINKGibson`s best stuff is in the collection "Burning Chrome" (The Hinterlands & the title story ROCK) All the rest is, at best, second rate (not bad but not up to the quality of the stories in "Burning Chrome") Most of his recent stuff is social commentary dressed up as "science" fiction Maybe he should just stick to short pieces... "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet." - William Gibson Posted by: daCascadian on August 28, 2006 at 1:37 AM | PERMALINKOBF: Well, I certainly understand a hardcore sci-fi fan's unwillingness to classify a lotta scifi as "true" scifi -- although, as you say, the *particular* criteria is undoubtedly subjective for each fan. So let me ask you, then: Do you consider Ursula K LeGuin's mature work, especially The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, to be "true" sci-fi? And if not, then why not? I surely do -- but I'm interested in your view. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 1:41 AM | PERMALINKdeCascadian: Isn't the best sci-fi *always* to a degree interspersed with social commentary? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 1:45 AM | PERMALINKThere's very little science and technology in any science fiction movie; the technology is simply assumed rather than explained, much like the magick in fantasies. SF movies can be fun but they're no more science based than a Flash Gordon comic or a "Doc" Smith space opera. Personally, I wish the Cons would ignore them, but their legion of viewers constitute too large a portion of the current fan base. Posted by: fyreflye on August 28, 2006 at 1:47 AM | PERMALINKDo you consider Ursula K LeGuin's mature work, especially The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, to be "true" sci-fi? And if not, then why not? I can't remember which book(s) of hers I've read, so long ago. Her work, in general, wasn't very "Science-y" - I live a life of toil and labor. And if I could just kick the blog habit, I could probably read a few sci-fi books again, like I used to. Or maybe I'll retire someday. I signed up for 3 classes this Semester, and I'm working full time but I'll try to check out those titles. My wife's reading a lot more lately (mostly kid's books, she checks them out before letting the kids read them). Don't get me wrong - when I say, the Hugo's a popularity contest, that doesn't mean that I don't think Gaiman deserves it - he's clearly a very popular guy in scifi circles. And he's also a really great writer - (just re-read the whole Sandman graphic novel series last year). Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on August 28, 2006 at 1:49 AM | PERMALINKFWIW... If it's an extrapolation, it's probably SF. If it's orthogonal, it's probably fantasy. However, it's not a bright line, and the distinction does not have anything to do with the quality of the plot, characters, etc. Posted by: has407 on August 28, 2006 at 1:51 AM | PERMALINKfyreflye: You apparently don't remember 2001: A Space Oddysey -- the movie that ruined me forevermore on zapping noises and red jet thrusts in the vaccuum of space :) OBF: The Dispossessed is a particularly good novel, and it makes use of Zeno's Paradox to an imaginative extent -- also FTL communication, although that was a little more plot-devicey. What the book did was to compare and contrast a spartan, Soviet (or Israeli kibbutz)-like existence on a barren but habitable moon with the decadent opulence of the mother planet. The chapter chronology was also fascinating, as it alternated between on the moon (where the main character was born) and the mother planet (where he travels to and makes a science and then political career). You can read all the alternating moon chapters and then go back and read all the alternating mother planet chapters and you'd have the real timeline of the story. has407: Can you flesh out this "orthogonal" (heh, a cmdicely word :) vs "extrapolation" distinction and give examples? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 2:02 AM | PERMALINKrmck1 (AKA Bob)>"Isn't the best sci-fi *always* to a degree interspersed with social commentary?" I agree but my point (badly made obviously) about Gibson is that aside from most of the Burning Chrome stories (I don`t care for them all) & Neuromancer there is TOO MUCH social commentary & too little good story in his writing (too many "tricks" if you will); I have found his later stuff very unsatisfying while I continue to go back and reread the Burning Chrome stuff & continue to believe it is his best work Having been a reader of "Sci-Fi" since the mid 50`s, I find most of what is published now VERY BORING & waaaay too formulaic (and I don`t read nearly the quantity I use to because of that) Maybe I`m just not hip enough (but I don`t think so...) "All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door." - John Kenneth Galbraith "Gibson`s best stuff is in the collection "Burning Chrome" (The Hinterlands & the title story ROCK)" I like most of Gibson's stuff, but the Hinterlands is ... something special. I don't even know how else to describe it, but it sticks with you. I happened to be thinking about that story earlier tonight, even before Kevin's post got us thinking about the various degrees and facets of SF. Posted by: carl on August 28, 2006 at 2:15 AM | PERMALINKBob, are you sulking in the corner or sucking the corner? Typos can be so open-ended. Personally, I consider UKL's mature work to be SF -- albeit in the Orwell/Huxley sense. They might be speculative fiction, but they have come to represent sicience fiction to millions of otherwise uninterested parties. Who would ordinarily be sulking in the corner. Posted by: Kenji on August 28, 2006 at 2:18 AM | PERMALINKKenji: Typos can also be Freudian :) I was just busting Kevin's chops a little for immediately coming back with an uncharacteristic set of Dolph Lundgren moves on the blog ... I think LeGuin makes it into scifi because she has a reasonable respect for technology and the natural facets of the worlds she creates, and tries hard to avoid plot-devicey "magic technology" (though, as I mentioned, she kinda blew it a little there with the ansible in The Dispossessed). Because her books are so grounded in naturalism, that's why I'd call her definitely more on the side of sci-fi than a fantasy writer like, say, Anne McCaffrey. As for the "Orwell/Huxley sense" -- I've always preferred strictly unclassifiable modern speculative fiction like Thomas Pynchon or David Foster Wallace -- though his magnum opus Infinite Jest severely blew it by setting a near-future dystopia written in the mid-90s at the milliennium and getting a whole ton of technological predictions just flat-out wrong ... I'd still call IJ for all its manifest flaws (Quebecois separatist terrorists in wheelchairs, anyone?) one of the best books of this decade. Pynchon's strategy of setting his mind-bogglingly imaginative speculative extrapolations of technology and social forces in the near-distant *past* -- like Dante did in the Commedia. Gravity's Rainbow is *still* the all-time American novel to beat, for my money. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 2:38 AM | PERMALINKBob -- Sorry, the missing phrase is "with respect to our knowledge, understanding and technology". The best SF provides a credible extrapolation based on our knowledge, understanding and technology. Asimov, Niven and Heinlein come to mind. The best fantasy defines its own basis with little or no regard for our current knowledge, understanding and technology (and sometimes anti-technology as its basis). Norton comes to mind. Posted by: has407 on August 28, 2006 at 2:41 AM | PERMALINKWelcome back, Kevin. Glad you had a good time, and better you than me. I'll wait to attend the The Harold Robbins Memorial Cheesy Pulp Novel You Just Can't Put Down Convention, thank you very much. But my favorite science fiction film is Blade Runner: The Director's Cut. Posted by: Donald from Hawaii on August 28, 2006 at 2:43 AM | PERMALINKhas407: I'll go with that definition, yes. Donald from Hawaii: OMG, I had to read Harold Robbins for my American Studies major. Sidney Sheldon, too. Oh and a "rape fiction" romance novel by a Patricia sombody. Can't forget rape fiction :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 2:47 AM | PERMALINKcarl >"...the Hinterlands is ... something special. I don't even know how else to describe it, but it sticks with you..." Oh Yea ! "When Hiro hit the switch, I was dreaming of Paris, dreaming of wet, dark streets in winter. The pain came oscillating up from the floor of my skull, exploding behind my eyes in a wall of blue neon; I jackknifed up out of the mesh hammock, screaming. I always scream; I make a point of it. Feedback raged in my skull. The pain switch is an auxiliary circuit in the bonephone implant, patched directly into the pain centers, just the thing for cutting through a surrogate`s barbiturate fog. It took a few seconds for my life to fall together, icebergs of biography looming through the fog: who I was, where I was, what I was doing there, who was waking me. Hiro`s voice came crackling into my head through the bone-conduction implant. "Damn, Toby. Know what it does to my ears, you scream like that ?" "Know how much I care about your ears, Dr. Nagashima ? I care about them as much as-" VERY special & VERY sticky indeed Also VERY DEEP "space is the moral equivalent of war for earth" - moi http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/moral.html or Kevin, could you please put up a little CAPTCHA? Posted by: james on August 28, 2006 at 2:52 AM | PERMALINKjames: Well, since I run a pure-text interface, that'd just me right out :( Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 3:03 AM | PERMALINKOf course Hugos are a popularity contest. Members of the convention vote for them, i.e. fans. Nebulas are voted for by other SF authors, and some consider them superior. I think more along an apples/oranges line. Kind of like Golden Globes and Oscars. Posted by: Gernsback on August 28, 2006 at 3:35 AM | PERMALINKThe interesting thing about the Hugos is that they use preferential voting, which changes the winner-loser dynamic considerably. Posted by: arthurd on August 28, 2006 at 4:09 AM | PERMALINKbarbie & comment master-baiter: Go fuck yourselves. In both eye sockets. With the dullest power tool in your toolboxes. Driven by an overcharged lithium ion battery. Just for the ... added cinematic effect. NOW. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 5:08 AM | PERMALINKBob, I was going to respond you your Narnia reference. Something about while the character's backgrounds come from a modern time, the world that the bulk of the plot was in was definitely of the fantasy motif. And also something about Star Wars being a fantasy series simply due to the Force is similar to saying that the movie Pearl Harbor was about the sinking of the USS Arizona. But then some damn spambot had to come along and ruin my state of mind completely by scrolling the screen twice as long as all the actual human-written comments to date. Oiks. Every single one of them. Could someone talk to the Shi'a and Sunni leaders and get them to declare a fatwa against all spambots and their creators? That might even get the LGF guys saying "Meh. Guess those Islamofascists have their uses on occasion. They can live a while longer." Then again... Maybe that is just simple fiction and fairy-tale thinking. Posted by: Off Colfax on August 28, 2006 at 5:16 AM | PERMALINKOff Colfax: I know. I think every one of us hates us some spambots. Anyway ... remember I'm not disagreeing with the general thrust of your distinction. I think it's approporate to say as a general rule that sci-fi is concerned about the technological future while fantasy is concerned about the pre-industrial past. I also like has407's distinction regarding the scope of our current knowledge. Sci-fi references and honors it, while in fantasy it's MOL irrelevant. As for Narnia -- well of course. The realm is a pseudo-medieval kingdom and science need not apply. That's more a trivial distinction, only to say that it's the worlds of fantasy themselves, and not strictly-speaking their chronology, that set them apart. Many fantasy stories are set in a "timeless" realm, anyway -- or one that wouldn't necessarily map onto earth-time. As for Star Wars -- I'd defend that point more vigorously. There are *no* scientific concepts in that story; everything about the gleamy-beepy technology is all entirely for show. All of it. And this is, I think, something which even separates it from almost-non sci-fi like Star Trek. Look, do you remember all those Red Scare-inspired B-grade "horror" movies from the 50s? As ludicrous as some of their premises were, they were at least *attempting* to incorporate scientific concepts. Not just Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, Forbidden Planet, The Day The Earth Stood Still, but scads of even cheesier ones like X -- The Unknown, about some radiation weapon. Lots of post-Manhattan Project rhetoric in that one. Or that other goofy one I loved about some huge bird from outer space protected by a force field. They had to take care of it with an airborne particle accelerator that shot it with mu mesons. Star Wars doesn't even try to reach *these* levels ... Which isn't to say, of course, that there isn't a Cheese Scale by which you can make meaningful distinctions. For instance, I think Battlestar Galactica rates higher in respect for science than Star Trek TNG. But that's me; YMMV. "Now cheepnis has nothing to do with the budget of the film -- although it helps." --Frank Zappa Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 AM | PERMALINKGernsback, Where is Kevin's finger on the detlete buttoin when we need it? Sleep is no excuse! ;) Posted by: troglodyte on August 28, 2006 at 7:53 AM | PERMALINKI used to read loads of science fiction and other genre writing, but last night after reading a dozen pages by a popular modern mystery writer, I remembered why lately I have restricted my reading to non-fiction. Everybody on the damn planet thinks he or she can write a novel. Almost all of those people are wrong. Poorly paced, poorly structured, poorly written and hopelessly edited, most modern science fiction simply isn't very good. That's ok, because in all those ways science fiction is no worse than any other genre. Are there any writers working these days? Posted by: Ron Byers on August 28, 2006 at 8:11 AM | PERMALINKOK, the Sprawl trilogy: near future (1980s +30 to +60 years), check; technological extrapolation, check; near Earth orbit travel, check; human - machine interface, check; What Does It All Mean To Be Human (see Runner, Blade), check. Star Wars: "Long, long ago.."; "We're here to rescue the Princess"; the heroic farm boy on a Quest; the motley companions recruited along the way (Wizard of Oz)? We're not talking fantasy here, we're talking a fairy story. Ursula Le Guin writes comfortably in both genres (IMO), with Earthsea being beautifully controlled fantasy and the Dispossessed and the Left Hand of Darkness classic genre sci fi. The "what does it mean to be human" question runs strongly through her work: what does it mean to know you will die, what does it mean to be a person of one sex, what does it mean to "have" power. Posted by: Andrew on August 28, 2006 at 8:28 AM | PERMALINKAndrew: Really nice post. Got what I had tried to say for the whole damn thread in three very neatly-written, concise paragraphs. Kudos :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 8:33 AM | PERMALINKAh, the assholes - A couple of post deletions in order? Posted by: Bob Maurus on August 28, 2006 at 8:36 AM | PERMALINKHow like the Washington Monthly to be all about competence and smart government when kibitzing about things completely beyond their control, but within their own tiny actual area of control hosting the trashiest, junkiest, slummiest comment line on these internets (and that's saying a lot). I'm sure an intern would be glad to do housekeeping for free, but the WM is unembarassed by the net equivalent of a front yard full of old fast food wrappers and broken down appliances. Posted by: John Emerson on August 28, 2006 at 8:46 AM | PERMALINKThe Hugos have a far better track record than the Nebulas of picking works that are STILL considered important works ten, twenty, thirty years later. That's at least in part because the culture surrounding Hugo voting discourages campaigning for a Hugo, while the culture and process surrounding the Nebulas encourages vote-trading. While the exact boundary between sf and fantasy is unavoidably fuzzy, my definitions have nothing to do with past settings vs. future settings. It's a question of what kinds of rules govern the working of the universe: If the underlying assumption of the story is that the scientific laws of nature apply, then it's sf, even if the author makes significant mistakes (e.g., McCaffrey's Dragonrider books, where there are serious problems with the dragons flying). If the underlying assumption of the story is that the laws of magic (the laws of sympathy and contagion, for instance) apply, then it's fantasy (e.g., Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner, even though there's no actual magic anywhere in the book.) Sometimes which is operative isn't immediately apparent from the "feel" of the story; Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun sequence has an underlying skiffy structure, despite its fantasy feel, while Walter Jon Williams' Metropolitan and its sequel have a hard-sf feel, but the "technology" is geomancy--definitely fantasy. It's a definition and means of distinction that works for me; I'm confident that everyone else will continue to use whatever definitions and distinctions work for them. Posted by: Lis Carey on August 28, 2006 at 9:14 AM | PERMALINKWelcome back, Mr. Drum. [Why might Gibson's Sprawl series be called fantasy rather than science fiction?] I'll take a shot at this, though the original assertion seems to have just been a misunderstanding. On the most obvious level, both Firefly/Serenity and the Sprawl stories are science fiction, because they are set in the future and deal with technologies beyond ours. But on another level Firefly is clearly a Western, because so many of its characters, plots, and themes would fit so easily into a Western setting. By the same reasoning, Star Wars is epic fantasy and much of Dick's work is horror, though both have spacecraft. The Sprawl stories are about computer hacking, a topic that Gibson himself famously knew almost nothing about when he wrote the books. (His image of the hacker "jacked in" to a computer system came from watching teenagers play video games.) One might argue that the stories fit into the classic fantasy genre of humans dealing with the spirit world, risking their minds and souls in the process, and encountering supernatural beings -- benevolent, malevolent, and with unknowable agendas. (Contrast this with Stephenson's Snow Crash, where an author who knows quite a lot about computing uses a science-fiction future setting to tell both a comic-book story and a social satire.) Of course Gibson is also writing about being an outsider in mass society, writing about the present through extrapolation. In this sense he's doing social science fiction, and I think he's doing it well. Bob: I think every one of us hates us some spambots. Not so much as the vanitybots. Speaking just for myself, I was surprised that Beagle won for "Two Hearts". It didn't seem like it was up to the standard of his prior work at all; must've been a VERY weak year in the category. Posted by: Vlad on August 28, 2006 at 9:51 AM | PERMALINKHmm, this showed me I'm really out of touch with the SF scene nowadays. I recognized only four names, Robinson, Wilson, Wilhelm and Gaiman. Who are the others? I should buy some good anthologies soon... "There's a lot out there that's called "sci-fi" that just isn't (IMNSHO)." Hmm, REAL SF fans never say 's**-f*'. Did that attitude change in the last decade? :-/ Posted by: Gray on August 28, 2006 at 9:56 AM | PERMALINKLis Carey: Another really nice definition. Completely agree that underneath everything, it's the fundamental way (physics vs metaphysics) the world(s) work. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 10:04 AM | PERMALINKDaveMB: Interesting. So you'd base the case for Sprawl being fantasy on Gibson's lack of technical fluency with the future world he's describing -- instead using cyberspace as a more generalized mythical/archetypical (spirit world) space? How would you imagine the way his technical infelicities might degrade the story for someone today who hasn't read any of the books? I've not read Neuromancer, and I've always been kind of half-attracted / half-repelled by what I've heard about it. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 10:13 AM | PERMALINKBob: Very few reading experiences for me (47 today! Ta-da!) compare with the delight I had with "Neuromancer", first opened in 1988. He had me at the Turing Police... FWIW, not quite so much since then. Some of the Sprawl stories in "Burning Chrome", particularly "New Rose Hotel". "Count Zero" has fantastic moments, but doesn't resolve quite as well, and by "Mona Lisa Overdrive" that tank is almost empty. Comparable moments of delight: "The Northern Lights" by Phillip Pullman; "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke; "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. Posted by: Andrew on August 28, 2006 at 10:32 AM | PERMALINKCharlie: Don't be an asshole. Shouldn't there be a macro for that string? Posted by: just sayin' on August 28, 2006 at 10:35 AM | PERMALINKBob, I am so glad to see that we finally agree on something. I loved Neuromancer when it was first published and recently re-read it, and I still loved it. One of the things I had forgotten was that Gibson created a new word to describe a biological CPU that could be plugged into one's head for enhancement purposes: he called it a "microsoft." Well, I guess in 1981 that word wasn't quite so widely known. Happy trails. Posted by: DBL on August 28, 2006 at 10:35 AM | PERMALINKMore signs of success in Iraq: "BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bombing and clashes between Shiite militia and Iraqi security forces left at least 50 people dead Monday in a brutal contradiction of the prime minister's claim that bloodshed was decreasing. The deaths followed bombings and shootings Sunday that killed more than 60 people across the country, from the northern city of Kirkuk to Baghdad and Basra in the south. The dead included eight American soldiers, one of the U.S. military's deadliest weekends in months." DaveMB: I think you're right - who (or what) has a soul, and what happens when you come up against a spirit or soulless one, and how you save (or attain) your own soul - these are threads running through the Sprawl trilogy. I think we both think these are expressed through the medium of science fiction constructs, albeit in a (then) fresh and very interesting way. The mashing together of genres is a fun exercise when it comes off. Many people have compared Gibson to Chandler, although you might also think of Hitchcock - many of the quest objects are McGuffins if ever I saw them. And speaking of genre mash ups, what's with the vampire romance detective / faerie romance detective stuff overrunning Barnes and Noble these days? Sheesh. Posted by: Andrew on August 28, 2006 at 10:42 AM | PERMALINKDBL: Well I surely don't want to disturb a moment of comity between us, but as I said I actually haven't read Gibson yet. I'm basically trawling in this thread for reasons to consider it ... Andrew or DaveMB: Either of you read any Thomas Pynchon? One of my big trepidations with sci fi is that it's hard to come to it after reading a novel that persuasively likes the V-2 rocket program with the sexual subconscious of the German male -- and does it with a mind-boggling degree of historical verismilitude. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 10:53 AM | PERMALINKAndrew: Somebody smelled a pot of money somewhere :) Ann Rice has codified the vapire genre. Countless others have perfected the detective genre. Romance novels are legion. Three great formulas, each easy to learn yet dull to write on their ownsomes, as it's all been done. So ... mix 'em up ! ... and you don't need a shred more writing talent than you already have to produce something original and provocative ! At least for like, the first three or so installments of your series ... Next up: Chick lit vampire romance detective spy novels ! Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 10:57 AM | PERMALINKHey Kevin: Even after corrections, Suzanne's post still contains references to Baghdad instead of Tehran. With so-called foreign policy pundits like this, no wonder we invaded the wrong country. Posted by: gregor on August 28, 2006 at 11:00 AM | PERMALINKI'd recommend going to Yokohama. The whole experience is going to be a lot more interesting that Denver. And the fans are more rabid over there. (See "the whole experience".) Posted by: DC1974 on August 28, 2006 at 11:18 AM | PERMALINKSort of like the early 90s Osaka "math rock" scene. Hate to evoke WW2 imagery on our good and true friends in Nippon (seriously), but nobody does "rabid fanatic" quite like the Japanese :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 11:27 AM | PERMALINKMy take on the SF/Fantasy divide: 1) Science Fiction requires believable science grounded in modern theory and research. You can have great characters and any kind of story that you want, but if you pull the science out of a true science fiction story, the story would fall apart completely. Some "true" science fiction writers are: Joe Haldeman, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Jack McDevitt and Ben Bova. It's hard to find a true science fiction story nowadays because editorial standards aren't quite as rigorous as they once were. Most contemporary "science fiction" does contain some fantasy elements, even if it's fantasy pretending to be pseudo science. 2) Fantasy is any kind of fiction that contains a magical or supernatural element, or anything that could not theoretically "happen" in the real world. Most people think of fantasy as the "High Fantasy" subgenre: ie. dwarves, hobbits, elves, swords, sorcery, princesses, etc. But it could also be Kelly Link writing about a family haunted by rabbit ghosts, Neil Gaiman writing about old gods walking the streets of contemporary America, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez writing about flowers falling from the sky like rain. A lot literary types like to claim that fantasy with a literary bent is "magical realism," but that's just obscuring what it really is. As for William Gibson, he's more of a social science fiction writer than a hard science fiction writer, but there's very little in his books that I would consider explainable outside the realm of scientific theory. And now since science as caught up to his cyberpunk novels in many respects, he just says that he's a contemporary novelist, and not necessarily writing science fiction anymore. "Pattern Recognition" has the virtue of being a cyberpunk novel that uses real existing technology to tell its story instead of making anything up. Well, making much up. Posted by: Jeff Barrus on August 28, 2006 at 11:30 AM | PERMALINKJeff Barrus: I think the distinction with magic realism is that the departures from "reality" are episodic and primarly poetic or used to evoke internal states, and not as a basis of the novel's coherence as a whole. Rushdie's The Satanic Verses had a few decidedly magic realist passages, but at the end of the day it was straight modernist fiction. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 11:37 AM | PERMALINKNext up: Chick lit vampire romance detective spy novels ! Jonathan Lethem's "Gun, with Occasional Music". it sets a traditional hard-boiled detective story in the a future where everyone is addicted to drugs and half the cast is made up of genetically-engineered people or talking animals. a good book. Posted by: cleek on August 28, 2006 at 11:43 AM | PERMALINKEither of you read any Thomas Pynchon? one of his lesser-known books, The Crying of Lot 49. It was "required reading" for true appreciation of the pulpy Robert Anton Wilson series. Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on August 28, 2006 at 11:56 AM | PERMALINKHey Kevin (or anyone else), have you read the new Connie Willis? I don't know anyone else whose work is so uneven--either wonderful or embarrassingly bad--but at her best she is not to be missed. So how is this one? Grandma Posted by: Grandma on August 28, 2006 at 12:55 PM | PERMALINKBob, While you're at it, read "Snowcrash" and "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. I love SF of all kinds, hard, soft, cyberpunk, fantasy-tinged, everything from Asimov to Wolfe. Some of it transcends the genre, much like Chandler did to hard-boiled detective fiction with the "Big Sleep," and I would put Gibson's and Stephenson's early works in that category. Posted by: DBL on August 28, 2006 at 1:22 PM | PERMALINKOBF: The Crying of Lot 49 holds up pretty well, actually -- and yes, it's a true cornerstone of "paranoid fiction." You know what else is good if you wanna get into all that Knights Templars and Adam Wiesenhaupt stuff from an *African-American* perspective -- check out Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo. There are parts in Lot 49 that have made me laugh so hard the tears came uncrontrollably. "Hi! I'm ARNOLD SNARB, and I'm looking for a good time!" And the freakin' Jacobean revenge play: "Act III ended in a refreshingly simple mass stabbing." Our the advertising executive, about to do the Buddhist monk thing, suit soaked in gasoline, on the living room rug -- when he hears his wife come in, tittering with the efficiency expert she was about to cuckold him with. "You took that long to decide to commit suicide? You know how long it would have taken the IBM 1407? Twelve microseconds. No *wonder* you were replaced!" I love that fucking book ... Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 28, 2006 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINKBob and Andrew: Thanks for the insightful comments. Bob, I would recommend that you read Neuromancer -- the technical problems don't get in the way of what is still a good story and an interesting world to visit (a world that has also been very influential within the genre). Andrew, I read V, was very impressed (I agree that Pynchon is a greater talent than nearly everyone working in SF these days), but still never felt compelled to move on to other Pynchon. Drawing a line between science fiction and fantasy is harder, and less rewarding, than just noting the aspects of each genre in a given work. And mixing up two or more genres can be quite rewarding, particularly the first few times a given idea is tried. One metric I find important is how seriously the science fiction is taken by a writer who is "slumming" in that genre. Gibson was winging it with the computers but took the social extrapolation very seriously. Lucas wanted science fiction tropes only for the imagery of the setting and cared nothing about addressing the real world, which is why people who take science fiction seriously tend to dismiss the science fiction aspects of his work. My favorite science fiction writer of the last decade has been Bujold, who is basically a romance writer in many ways. But her Miles Vorkosigan books took the science seriously and has done better than most in suggesting the kind of strange situations that advances in biology are going to bring us. She's turned to epic fantasy in her last few books, which I would recommend to science fiction readers who don't like epic fantasy. Like Gibson, they deal with human's interactions with "the gods" in a serious way, in a more traditional fantasy setting, but the fact that Bujold is the daughter of an engineer never seems to be too far away. Posted by: DaveMB on August 28, 2006 at 2:01 PM | PERMALINKrmck1 >"...as I said I actually haven't read Gibson yet. I'm basically trawling in this thread for reasons to consider it ..." For a good overview, the Burning Chrome collection for short pieces & Neuromancer for the novel If you choose to do Burning Chrome be sure & read the Hinterlands & Burning Chrome stories "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." - Voltaire Posted by: daCascadian on August 28, 2006 at 4:25 PM | PERMALINKfyreflye: You apparently don't remember 2001: A Space Oddysey -- the movie that ruined me forevermore on zapping noises and red jet thrusts in the vaccuum of space :) I remember 2001 all too well as the movie in which Kubrick devoted so much footage to displaying his technical achievements that he nearly put me to sleep. That said, 2001 was one of the few sf movies that could stand comparison thematically with some of the best written sci fi. Posted by: fyreflye on August 28, 2006 at 5:05 PM | PERMALINKBob, You're not going to find anything in genre SF to compare with Gravity's Rainbow but that's no reason to not read the Stephenson titles mentioned. Interesting trivia: GR won the Nebula for that year, but most genre SF fans wouldn't go near the damn thing. If it's been published as genre SF it would have probably set off something like the "New Wave" wars of the 60's and 70's. Posted by: mister pedantic on August 28, 2006 at 5:10 PM | PERMALINKAnother one that seems to ride the line is Barbara Hambley; her books all seem to have magic in them, but most of her magicians sound a lot like they're just about the cross the line from alchemy to chemistry, and given the "alternate worlds have alternate characteristics" dodge, even some of her most fantastical series have a rather SF feel. Posted by: sherrold on August 28, 2006 at 8:26 PM | PERMALINKanswers to questions Kevin, Did you meet Jim Frenkel at the Tor party? Now there's an editor! Posted by: Geo on August 28, 2006 at 10:27 PM | PERMALINKMore apparent comment spam from one "andrew2000" just above. Now that you've met Patrick and Teresa, Kevin, you can probably get some good advice about how to deal with these morons. 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I loathed it with a passion. Kind of the anti reaction to all the wonderful reading experiences mentioned earlier. YMMV. For science in science fiction, Gregory Benford's "Timescape" is hard to beat. His depiction of the way scientists think is nuanced and his characters are beautifully drawn. A lovely short story which straddles the fantasy/sf genre is "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson. Haunting, kind and spare - Hemingway crossed with Silverberg. Posted by: Andrew on August 28, 2006 at 11:26 PM | PERMALINKmister pedantic: > You're not going to find anything in genre SF to compare Well, my resistance to Stephenson has more to do with a handful of Kind of a Rand / Heinlein reaction. Doubtless completely unfair > Interesting trivia: GR won the Nebula for that year, No shit, really? A piece of Pynchon trivia of which I wasn't He didn't, of course, attend the award ceremony. His publisher sent Rejecting the Nebula would be a piece Delightful story I tell every time Kevin fires up a skiffy > but most genre SF fans wouldn't go near the damn thing. Well that's a terrible shame (although understandable), He did this with an incredible degree of historical research And there's also a quintessentially sci fi invention -- the > If it's been published as genre SF it would have probably set Oh, Pynchon's had his hands quite full enough setting off wars Andrew: > I was once assigned "V" in a graduate communications class. A communications class, really? Sheesh, I'd think they'd assign V. is a sprawling, picaresque, audaciously ambitious first > I loathed it with a passion. Kind of the anti reaction to all Well, all apologetics aside for a moment, Pynchon is, as they say, Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 29, 2006 at 2:55 AM | PERMALINKKevin Drum asked: ...if anyone happens to know why Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys was withdrawn from consideration in the novel category, I'd be interested in hearing the story. TANSTAAFL relayed Gaiman's explanation: One...since he has a few Hugos, he wanted to move out of the way to make room for other people to be listed. Two....since it was more fantasy than SF, he felt it was easy to say no thanks. Just to avoid having anyone who reads that interpret it as saying Hugos only go to hard SF: Gaiman's American Gods got the 2002 Best Novel Hugo, and it was just as much fantasy as Anansi Boys. The 2001 winner was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Obviously fantasy is not an excluded category. Three... some people who'd read Peter Straub's 1999 novel Mr. X may have noticed that its central plot-and-character premise (magically split doppelganger-brothers) was just as magically replicated in Anansi Boys -- though since Gaiman did thank Straub by name in the credits, this borrowing presumably had Straub's permission. Readers of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser novel Rime Isle may also have noticed that the devious scheme of Odin and Loki therein has likewise reappeared in American Gods. This much recycling is not considered plagiarism; otherwise J.K. Rowling would owe some royalties to Gaiman for Harry Potter's resemblance to Timothy Hunter (The Books of Magic, including the glasses and owl) -- and a share to Jane Yolen for Ron Weasley's resemblance to Thornmallow (Wizard's Hall, from their magical schools right down to their smudged noses). Ideas can't be copyrighted. (Characters can be, viz. "Angela" et al. in Gaiman v. McFarlane -- but in that case the characters retained the exact same names and descriptions within the same story-series.) Still, it can be dangerous to borrow characters. In Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, a lazy author is captured and put on trial by all the characters he has taken from other writers' books to use in his own. Posted by: Raven on August 29, 2006 at 4:11 AM | PERMALINKAndrew: I was once assigned "V" in a graduate communications class.How could you resist the temptation to review the TV series about the ravenous lizard-aliens disguised as friendly humanoid Visitors? You could have expounded at length on the communications-related theme of distrusting propaganda. Posted by: Raven on August 29, 2006 at 4:17 AM | PERMALINK Raven: "V" the TV series has absolutely nothing to do with Thomas Pynchon's first novel "V.", which was written in 1963 and set from the late 19th century through 1955. There are a couple interesting steampunk devices in there (a Victorian lady wired with a switch, various automaton tropes) and the novel's ending is apocalyptic -- it couldn't be considered, strictly speaking, science fiction. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 29, 2006 at 4:46 AM | PERMALINKThe distinction between science fiction and fantasy is an endless topic of argument in any forum where people discuss these things. Fans of engineering-oriented hard science fiction frequently use the term "fantasy" as an insult and assign it pejoratively to any SF work in which they detect an error of scientific plausibility: e.g. I've seen people insist that any novel with a faster-than-light star drive is a fantasy novel. (There are also some who invoke an old rule that you get exactly one free assumption, and everything else has to be rigorously derived from that: any more and you fall into the dread pit of Fantasy.) I suspect something similar is going on with the person who called Gibson's Sprawl novels fantasy. Few other people use the term in this way. Personally, I find that if I were to define the terms that way I would have to conclude that almost no science fiction has ever been written; even in the works traditionally deemed ultra-hard I can usually find multiple errors or loose assumptions. There are also double standards. Fan arbiters of Hard SF are often very strict about physics and engineering mistakes but lenient about biological implausibilities, because physics and engineering are what they know. In practice, the unsatisfying answer is that "science fiction" and "fantasy", like other genre labels, are mostly marketing categories. There are always going to be a lot of borderline works that seem wrongly categorized to any given reader. Are Charlie Stross's Laundry stories fantasy or science fiction (or are they horror, or are they just spy thrillers)? They freely incorporate magic and Lovecraftian Elder Gods, but they're written with a science-fiction sensibility; the magic works like technology and the Elder Gods act like science-fiction aliens. They are what they are. I am sorry I did not go to any of Kevin's panels. The ones I attended were all very good. In fact my husband observed that the panels just on Sunday would have been the highlights of any other con. Ursula K. Le Guin flatly wrote that "the admitted presence of magic in a story makes that story fantasy". After this she had some difficulty defining science fiction. Science fiction uses the consequences of science and scientific thinking, but also relies on its own set of myths and tropes. I have just read the winning David Levine story. Many of the elements were nothing you haven't seen before. But it was written so as to be the most entertaining of the five nominees and you were willing to believe that the people were more complex than he let on. I have read all the Hugo nominees since about 2000 and have been very satisfied at least with the nominees for Best Novel, although I am glad I did not tell Robert J. Sawyer in the elevator that I thought his Hugo-winning novel was the weakest that year and only won because the con was in Toronto. I also have enough computer science background that I can tell what authors such as Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson are trying to do. I have not read anything of Gibson's yet. The recommendation of Gravity's Rainbow is worth thinking over. Posted by: 4jkb4ia on August 29, 2006 at 2:33 PM | PERMALINK4jkb4ia: Speaking as a hardcore fan of Gravity's Rainbow who's read it through a dozen times and has many passages nearly memorized -- if you're going to attempt to read GR, expect to spend nearly a year on it. Expect high degrees of exasperation and frustration; GR is doubtless the novel most picked up and not finished since Joyce's Ulysses. One reason is sheer intimidation: Pynchon is a polyglot polymath (multimath?) who appears to know literally everything about everything -- and much of it extremely arcane, like the sociology of psychical research in wartime Britian. No author I can think of has woven carefully researched historical fact into fictions with results light-years removed in originality from the historical novel. Pynchon uses the past to make you see the present in a different (and terrifying) way. And in many ways, GR, published in '73 and set in the waning months of WW2 is a roman a clef about the Vietnam war and the ultimately ineffectual countercultural opposition to the military-industrial complex. Another reason is Pynchon's anarcho-leftie affinity for the lost voices of history (as well as his love for the techniques of cinema), which causes him to mix literary modes and continually shift the tone of his narrative voice, often on a dime. He can go from elegaic, academic-Germanish passages of historical detail and philosophical discourse right into crude WW2 slang, juvenile sexual 'n' bathroom humor and pop culture references. Pynchon has mastered High Culture but his heart belongs to (and with) the Low. This, needless to say, has always bugged a certain type of middle-class reader who values decorum. Then there are the modernist narrative devices: stream-of-consciousness, paraphresis, synedoche, analepsis. It's often difficult at first to locate the narrative POV in a scene, and when it's discovered it can shift to another character or bounce between them. Given the large amount of drug abuse throughout the book, it's reasonable to speculate whether some of the more fanciful scenes aren't literal hallucinations of shell-shocked characters lying in some military nut ward. But patience and careful reading pays off; what seems at first like a deliberate attack on narrative linearity begins to condense into a concrete timeline, and the concerns of all the multifarous and more-or-less vaguely conspiratorial subplots take on a direction as Tyrone Slothrop skitters arcoss the German Zone like a planchette on a Ouija board ... There are some excellent online guides and readers' companions to GR -- and the amount of academic Pynchon literature is literally staggering. He's doubtless generated more doc dissertations than any postwar American novelist. You have to sift through the academic lit to find useful stuff (the postmodern stuff from about the mid-80s onward is pretty useless, IMHO), but Douglas Fowler and Steven Weisenberg have both written great companions. Levine & Leverenz's collection of earlier Pynchon essays, Mindful Pleaures, is a fantastic place to start. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 29, 2006 at 4:07 PM | PERMALINKAndrew had written: I was once assigned "V" in a graduate communications class.Raven replied: How could you resist the temptation to review the TV series...?Now Bob objects: "V" the TV series has absolutely nothing to do with Thomas Pynchon's first novel "V."Bob, perhaps I should have added smileys to warn "humor present," but I thought the plain words sufficient. I expect that Andrew did write about Pynchon's "V." What I asked was how he could resist the temptation to write about the TV series of the same title instead. Somewhat of a snark, I admit, but since Pynchon's book is filled with multiple referents for "V," people and places sharing that initial, adding one more referent (the TV series) seems quite fitting, perhaps even a bit Pynchonesque. Posted by: Raven on August 30, 2006 at 1:57 AM | PERMALINKBob: No author I can think of has woven carefully researched historical fact into fictions with results light-years removed in originality from the historical novel.You might enjoy some other writers (not as famous in the general lit'rary world, but still well known in SF) who've worked along the same lines: Tim Powers: The Drawing of the Dark. The Anubis Gates. The Stress of Her Regard. On Stranger Tides. Declare. R.A. Lafferty: The Devil is Dead. The Flame is Green. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea: The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Sequels/prequels (sort of) by Wilson alone: The Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy, The Illuminatus Papers, The Historical Illuminatus Trilogy. That last trilogy very much reminds me of Lafferty's The Flame is Green, and anticipates Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code -- since Wilson and Brown both borrowed the premise of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Obligatory political comment: "Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites." -- Lafferty, The Flame is Green.Posted by: Raven on August 30, 2006 at 2:31 AM | PERMALINK 上海耐博泵阀向大家推荐：阀门电磁阀调节阀球阀蝶阀闸阀隔膜泵离心泵水泵电动阀门气动阀门电动阀煤气电磁阀不锈钢电磁阀水用电磁阀防爆电磁阀电动调节阀气动调节阀衬氟调节阀波纹管调节阀电动精小型调节阀电动球阀气动球阀三通球阀电动调节球阀气动蝶阀电动蝶阀电动调节蝶阀电动截止阀电动闸阀电动隔膜泵气动隔膜泵管道离心泵排污泵磁力泵 酷站推荐:想要了解包装机吗？请到中国包装机网来寻找包装机的信息。想要了解包装机械吗？请到中国包装机械网来寻找包装机械的信息。想要了解标记机/打标机吗？请到中国标记机/打标机网来寻找标记机/打标机的信息。您要想寻找彩瓦机械信息请到彩瓦机械网站，各种彩瓦机械信息应有尽有。您要想寻找叉车信息请到叉车网站，各种叉车信息应有尽有。您要想寻找缠绕机/包装机械信息请到缠绕机/包装机械网站，各种缠绕机/包装机械信息应有尽有。北京超声波清洗机厂向广大客户提供超声波清洗机产品及超声波清洗机服务。北京抽湿机厂向广大客户提供抽湿机产品及抽湿机服务。想要了解除湿机吗？请到中国除湿机网来寻找除湿机的信息。您要想寻找传动机械信息请到传动机械网站，各种传动机械信息应有尽有。上海二手挖机厂向客户提供二手挖机产品及二手挖机服务。您要想寻找二手挖掘机信息请到二手挖掘机网站，各种二手挖掘机信息应有尽有。二手挖掘机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的二手挖掘机,丰富的二手挖掘机行业资讯助您成交。上海二手挖掘机厂向客户提供二手挖掘机产品及二手挖掘机服务。二手挖掘机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的二手挖掘机,丰富的二手挖掘机行业资讯助您成交。二手挖掘机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的二手挖掘机,丰富的二手挖掘机行业资讯助您成交。上海粉碎机厂向客户提供粉碎机产品及粉碎机服务。北京高频机厂向广大客户提供高频机产品及高频机服务。中国工程机械网，打造工程机械领域专业搜索平台，提供全球工程机械产品展示。想要了解光端机吗？请到中国光端机网来寻找光端机的信息。想要了解化工机械吗？请到中国化工机械网来寻找化工机械的信息。北京减速机厂向广大客户提供减速机产品及减速机服务。想要了解减速机吗？请到中国减速机网来寻找减速机的信息。想要了解减速机吗？请到中国减速机网来寻找减速机的信息。您要想寻找减速机信息请到减速机网站，各种减速机信息应有尽有。上海减速机厂生产的减速机产品质量过关，欢迎选购减速机。北京太越减速机厂向广大客户提供太越减速机产品及太越减速机服务。上海减速机厂向客户提供减速机产品及减速机服务。中国离心机网，打造离心机领域专业搜索平台，提供全球离心机产品展示。想要了解离心机吗？请到中国离心机网来寻找离心机的信息。中国离心机网，打造离心机领域专业搜索平台，提供全球离心机产品展示。中国离心机网，打造离心机领域专业搜索平台，提供全球离心机产品展示。想要了解沥青搅拌机吗？请到中国沥青搅拌机网来寻找沥青搅拌机的信息。中国喷码机网，打造喷码机领域专业搜索平台，提供全球喷码机产品展示。想要了解平衡机吗？请到中国平衡机网来寻找平衡机的信息。汽车吊网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的汽车吊,丰富的汽车吊行业资讯助您成交。您要想寻找清洗机信息请到清洗机网站，各种清洗机信息应有尽有。上海升降机厂向客户提供升降机产品及升降机服务。升降机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的升降机,丰富的升降机行业资讯助您成交。二手挖掘机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的二手挖掘机,丰富的二手挖掘机行业资讯助您成交。上海挖掘机厂向客户提供挖掘机产品及挖掘机服务。压力校验仪网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的压力校验仪,丰富的压力校验仪行业资讯助您成交。上海压滤机厂向客户提供压滤机产品及压滤机服务。压路机网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的压路机,丰富的压路机行业资讯助您成交。 酷站推荐:上海磁力泵厂向客户提供磁力泵产品及磁力泵服务。中国磁力泵网，打造磁力泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球磁力泵产品展示。您要想寻找电磁阀信息请到电磁阀网站，各种电磁阀信息应有尽有。北京电磁阀厂向广大客户提供电磁阀产品及电磁阀服务。上海调节阀厂生产的调节阀产品质量过关，欢迎选购调节阀。上海阀门厂向客户提供阀门产品及阀门服务。想要了解高压泵吗？请到中国高压泵网来寻找高压泵的信息。高压泵网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的高压泵,丰富的高压泵行业资讯助您成交。北京高压清洗机厂向广大客户提供高压清洗机产品及高压清洗机服务。您要想寻找高压柱塞泵信息请到高压柱塞泵网站，各种高压柱塞泵信息应有尽有。北京隔膜泵厂向广大客户提供隔膜泵产品及隔膜泵服务。化工泵网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的化工泵,丰富的化工泵行业资讯助您成交。您要想寻找化工泵信息请到化工泵网站，各种化工泵信息应有尽有。您要想寻找离心泵信息请到离心泵网站，各种离心泵信息应有尽有。中国螺杆泵网，打造螺杆泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球螺杆泵产品展示。中国螺杆泵网，打造螺杆泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球螺杆泵产品展示。想要了解排污泵吗？请到中国排污泵网来寻找排污泵的信息。试压泵网上市场，为您提供质优价廉的试压泵,丰富的试压泵行业资讯助您成交。中国水泵网，打造水泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球水泵产品展示。上海水泵厂生产的水泵产品质量过关，欢迎选购水泵。北京水泵厂向广大客户提供水泵产品及水泵服务。上海水泵厂生产的水泵产品质量过关，欢迎选购水泵。北京往复泵厂向广大客户提供往复泵产品及往复泵服务。中国油泵网，打造油泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球油泵产品展示。中国闸阀网，打造闸阀领域专业搜索平台，提供全球闸阀产品展示。中国真空泵网，打造真空泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球真空泵产品展示。上海真空泵厂向客户提供真空泵产品及真空泵服务。中国真空泵网，打造真空泵领域专业搜索平台，提供全球真空泵产品展示。上海自吸泵厂生产的自吸泵产品质量过关，欢迎选购自吸泵。 Posted by: d on August 30, 2006 at 3:42 AM | PERMALINKd: 您是非常粗魯的。 請停止這裡書寫。 And don't come back. 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Because otherwise, given Speaking of, you know, being snarky :) > I expect that Andrew did write about Pynchon's "V." What Gee, I dunno -- how could anyone resist all that juicy Speaking as a former American Studies major who's plowed > Somewhat of a snark, I admit, Somewhat? I'm sure I'm not the only Pynchon fan whose first reaction > but since Pynchon's book is filled with multiple referents Except that the referents in V. are things like Veronica Except that the Overlords are ... ravenous shape-shifting {Can you tell that I'm not really a sci-fi *qua* sci-fi fan?} > You might enjoy some other writers (not as famous Except that what it means to "work along the same lines" as Thomas This aversion's also a two-way street. As someone who's spent whole The first is that Pynchon is not about creating alternate universes, The second lacunae involves the formal limitations of genre fiction. The priorities of Pynchonian fiction, his first stories published Sitting down with a Pynchon novel isn't like sitting down with a > Tim Powers: The Drawing of the Dark. The Anubis Gates. > R.A. Lafferty: The Devil is Dead. The Flame is Green. Umm ... I dunno. Those titles don't sound terribly inviting ... > Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea: The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Of course as a Pynchophile I'm familiar with this -- and some of the Having recently read the Wikipedia entries on The Illuminatus > That last trilogy very much reminds me of Lafferty's Ummm ... I still need to get to Foucault's Pendulum. That Dan Brown stuff to me is just really annoying. > Obligatory political comment: > "Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the Gosh, that's silly. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 30, 2006 at 3:18 PM | PERMALINKBob: Raven:I'm surprised that, as a Pynchon fan, you wouldn't have considered the possibility of 3) a play on words (or letters, or titles). > I expect that Andrew did write about Pynchon's "V." WhatIf the assignment had been on a novel coincidentally titled "JonBenet," there might have been some such temptation to switch referents. You'd look at the TV series V in a cultural studies class. In a communications class, you might be probing for something a little deeper.If you were being entirely serious in the first place. > Somewhat of a snark, I admit,One can't copyright a title at all. Raising Hell (1983), by David Weir and Dan Noyes; > but since Pynchon's book is filled with multiple referentsOh, yes, and that distinguishes it from science fiction, right? Not pop-cultural flotsam.Right, pop-culture never heard of Tik-Tok the Clockwork Soldier (Oz's "army of one") or the robot girl in Metropolis, or of Lost Worlds in inaccessible places such as Mysterious Islands, let alone Antarctica (viz. Poe's Edwin Drood). The TV series V isn't merely derivative of Pynchon's title, but it appears to have stolen its premise from Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.Really? I would have thought Damon Knight's "To Serve Man" a more obvious source, especially since that too had appeared on television (adapted into a Twilight Zone episode by Rod Serling). Clarke's innovation was adding one more twist: the friendly aliens, later revealed to be "devils" (the originals of the archetypal image) here to see Earth destroyed, are actually helping humanity's descendant species. Except that the Overlords are ... ravenous shape-shifting lizard creatures. How utterly ... innovative.Shape-shifting lizards had just been done to death, had they? {Can you tell that I'm not really a sci-fi *qua* sci-fi fan?}Using the term "sci-fi" might be a hint in itself. ... Pynchon is thus more a child of Orwell's 1984Tim Powers's The Drawing of the Dark takes place during the Turkish siege of Vienna, and mixes in Arthurian themes including the Fisher King. The Anubis Gates goes from present day to the time of Coleridge and Byron. The Stress of Her Regard spends more time with Byron and the Shelleys in Europe, and suggests a terrible link between their famed horror-story competition and Greco-Roman mythology. On Stranger Tides is set during the life of Blackbeard, whose notorious "smoking beard" might indicate his sharing a certain practice then (and now) present in the Caribbean -- besides piracy. Declare is a Cold War novel, steeped in the genuine biography of traitor Kim Philby (and his notable Arabist father St. John Philby); here's a bit more about it. Lafferty's The Devil is Dead is island-hopping in the present-day (when it was written), but among other things suggests a very simple solution to the mystery of the Mary Celeste. The Flame is Green goes from 1845 Ireland across the Continent, involving two opposed revolutions, the Red and the Green. (The passage I quoted is from a speech by a possibly mad revolutionary priest in the wilderness.) The second lacunae involves the formal limitations of genre fiction. The alpha and omega of genre fiction is telling a good story. All your neat scientific and social ideas have to be subordinated to that end. ...Yet Wikipedia remarks, "Little of Lafferty's writing is considered typical of the genre. ... his writings, both topically and stylistically, are not easy to categorize. Plot is frequently secondary to anything else Lafferty does in his stories, which has caused him to have a loyal cult following, but caused other readers to have given up attempting to read his work." In discussing The Flame is Green, J.J. Reilly comments, "One does not read Lafferty books for quite the reasons one reads other fiction." ... Pynchon dug the formal intricacies of Nabakov (one of his teachers)It's "Nabokov." My mother used to play chess with him, and with Norbert Weiner (whom you also mention). Weiner she could beat regularly, but Nabokov consistently won (with, she said, a "cat-and-mouse" manner). ... [re the booklist] ...My goodness, what was inviting about the title "V"? You judge books, not even by the whole cover, but just the title? I'd thought you favored serious literary considerations. But apparently not. Posted by: Raven on August 30, 2006 at 6:11 PM | PERMALINKcsHi. May be this is BAD, but is something different: stockings anal|http://pantyhosebang.pornoszones.com/stockings-anal.html Raven: Very well-parried response. Thanks for putting up with all the snark and defensive dismissiveness on behalf of my fiercely protective love for the P-man. Couple quick points: The V business: I am endlessly ticked off that some pedestrian sci-fi TV series would have the temerity to cop the title V., and it indeed has permanently robbed me of all my sense of humor about it. Childhood's End was a favorite novel in my adolescence. "To Serve Man," however, sounds more fit for a Simpsons parody than a comparison to that story. As for ravenous shape-shifting lizard-creatures -- never been my cuppa Columbian Supremo; hey, what can I say? I apologize to the estimable Mr. Vladimir Nabokov -- and the estimable Mr. "Ishamael" Reed likewise -- for typoing their names. Needless to say, I'm very impressed with your mom's chess abilities :) A point about the novel V: I'd call the naturalistic aporias in that novel closer to magic realism than either SF or fantasy, although truthfully it's been a decade or so since I've (re)read that book. Generally though, even the magic in fantasy submits to some kind of rules or is part of a grand scheme (hence some earlier comments about an overtly fantasy novel that's structured like SF; the Elder Gods serve as powerful aliens, the magic serves as technology). When you have just ... weird things popping up, without any kind of framework to fit them into (Vehissu, the waterspout, all the stars going out) -- I'd call the intent closer to metaphoric -- or just flatly inexplicable. As for my title dismissiveness: Well, you can't judge a romance novel by all that milk-white cleavage on the cover, I suppose :) I guess what I meant to say is that all those titles just shrieked genre fiction -- and I'm really not interested in checking out SF and/or fantasy novels that partake of Pynchonian themes or concerns. I am, however, interested in literary fiction that mines some of that terrain. One of the great pleasures of Pynchon is positively virtuosic writing. This is why despite the manifest links between Pynchon and Robert Anton Wilson, Wilson's stuff (quite "pulpy" by everything I've heard) has never interested me. Thanks for the links on those two authors. I followed one on Lafferty to a short story and started to read it, but then stopped. I see where he's coming from, and can understand the cult appeal. Dunno if I'd quite call it Pynchonian, though. Anyway, Raven, as you can see I'm a hopeless Thomas Pynchon monomaniac and insufferable literary elitist. I will stop writing now before I get myself into further hot water :( Bob Posted by: rmck1 on August 30, 2006 at 10:00 PM | PERMALINKcsHi. This is my links. http://panty.uppup.com/free-xxx-pantyhose-video-porn.html 
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