{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3455", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3455, "subject": "Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "messages": 7, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-09-09T18:11:16+00:00", "last": "2002-09-11T04:30:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-09-09T20:21:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hartshorn and Nutria have been talking about Cordwainer Smith and the\npuzzling mystery of \"How can Wolfe not know Smith's work?\" and seeming\nconvergent evolution between Wolfe and Smith.\n\nI don't want to rain on the parade here, but I have a new card to lay on\nthe table.\n\nI, too, was puzzled by this strange Smith-gap in Gene Wolfe's reading, so a\nfew years ago I went so far as to send him an old paperback collection (in\nmint condition!) of Smith stories (fwiw it contained my favorite: \"Alpha\nRalpha Boulevard\"). He never said a word about it, by which I believe that\nhe did not much like it and did not read more than a fraction of it.\n\nIf it had been something that he enjoyed as much as he enjoys Tolkien, or\neven as much as he enjoys Dodie Smith's (ah, another _Smith_!) I CAPTURE\nTHE CASTLE, he would tell people . . . at WorldCon he told me about I\nCAPTURE THE CASTLE (but I already knew he had it, heh-heh) and he mentioned\nit to the audience at least one time when he was on a panel at WorldCon.\n\n(Trivia: Dodie Smith is most famous for 101 DALMATIONS.)\n\nSo there is, I believe, a strong likelihood that he doesn't really enjoy\nCordwainer Smith. As odd as that might seem to us. I readily admit I've\nnever asked him point-blank, so if anyone would like to do that at a\nconvention, feel free to do so.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2002-09-09T20:54:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, stylistically Smith is quite unlike Wolfe. So he may not really \ngroove on him.\n\nNutria" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 03:21 PM 9/9/2002, you wrote:\nHartshorn and Nutria have been talking about Cordwainer Smith and the\npuzzling mystery of \"How can Wolfe not know Smith's work?\" and seeming\nconvergent evolution between Wolfe and Smith.\n\nI don't want to rain on the parade here, but I have a new card to lay on\nthe table.\n\nI, too, was puzzled by this strange Smith-gap in Gene Wolfe's reading, so a\nfew years ago I went so far as to send him an old paperback collection (in\nmint condition!) of Smith stories (fwiw it contained my favorite: \"Alpha\nRalpha Boulevard\"). He never said a word about it, by which I believe that\nhe did not much like it and did not read more than a fraction of it.\n\nIf it had been something that he enjoyed as much as he enjoys Tolkien, or\neven as much as he enjoys Dodie Smith's (ah, another _Smith_!) I CAPTURE\nTHE CASTLE, he would tell people . . . at WorldCon he told me about I\nCAPTURE THE CASTLE (but I already knew he had it, heh-heh) and he mentioned\nit to the audience at least one time when he was on a panel at WorldCon.\n\n(Trivia: Dodie Smith is most famous for 101 DALMATIONS.)\n\nSo there is, I believe, a strong likelihood that he doesn't really enjoy\nCordwainer Smith. As odd as that might seem to us. I readily admit I've\nnever asked him point-blank, so if anyone would like to do that at a\nconvention, feel free to do so.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-09-09T18:11:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \n\nI, too, was puzzled by this strange Smith-gap in Gene Wolfe's reading, so\na\nfew years ago I went so far as to send him an old paperback collection (in\nmint condition!) of Smith stories (fwiw it contained my favorite: \"Alpha\nRalpha Boulevard\"). He never said a word about it, by which I believe\nthat\nhe did not much like it and did not read more than a fraction of it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmmm.\n\nActually I can see that he might not like the religious themes involved.\nThey are powerful and fundamental to the science fiction, but they are not\nparticularly conventionally Catholic: more Teilard de Chardan.\n\nIgnorance is one thing, blasphemy another, particularly when it is blasphemy\nin a voice as skilled and beautiful as your own.\n\nAlso, Smith is *such* a powerful writer that another writer might\ninstinctively reject him as a matter of defence: to avoid being\noverwhelmed.\n\nThere is no accounting for taste, but I cannot believe that Wolfe simply\nread Smith and forgot to mention the fact.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2002-09-09T22:23:37+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 01:11 PM 9/9/2002, you wrote:\nHmmm.\n\nActually I can see that he might not like the religious themes involved.\nThey are powerful and fundamental to the science fiction, but they are not\nparticularly conventionally Catholic: more Teilard de Chardan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's often said, but I'm not at all sure of it. My impression is that \nthis notion started up out of people who were not much aware of Teilhard, \nand found him kind of like Smith, etc. I've never read that Linebarger \nactually read Teilhard de Chardin.\n Smith is pretty orthodox, allowing for SF conventions, IMO. If \nWolfe doesn't groove on Smith, it is likely stylistic.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-10T15:25:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Count me as another one who doesn't see much connection between Wolfe and\nSmith.\n\nThey have some similar interests, both address them from a Christian\nperspective, and they are perhaps equally distant from the SF mainstream,\nbut, I think, distant in different directions.\n\nI think Wolfe's prose is the most beautiful in SF; Smith strikes me as\noverly mannered -- effective in some cases, particularly the Crime and\nGlory of Cmd Suzal (my favorite Smith story -- the bit where he is rescued\nsent a shiver up my spine; just a couple sentences that slowly exploded in\nmy head into a vast, amazing story -- but not in a way that would\nnecessarily remind me of Wolfe, I've had parallel experiences with Greg\nEgan, Vernor Vinge, Brian Moriarty, and others) -- but more often I find\nit distancing.\n\nWolfe is sort of post-mainstream-SF, playing with, subverting, reworking\nSF ideas and conventions; Smith almost seems to be re-inventing SF from\nscratch, more like Stanislaw Lem than Wolfe (but not in the sense of some\nnon-SF writers who try to write SF without much knowledge of the field and\nend up reproducing old cliches).\n\nWolfe is more of a hard science fiction writer, with an interest in\ntechnological details -- much of it may actually be magic (or miracle),\nbut he plays the game of trying to convince you that there is real science\nin there; Smith seems to take much more of a handwaving approach to\ntechnology, with more of an interest in the wild things the technology can\ndo than in producing any illusion that you have a sense of how it works.\n\nBut for me, the main difference is that I love Wolfe but don't care much\nfor Smith.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-09-11T01:47:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rostrum rote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe is more of a hard science fiction writer, with an interest in\ntechnological details -- much of it may actually be magic (or miracle),\nbut he plays the game of trying to convince you that there is real science\nin there; Smith seems to take much more of a handwaving approach to\ntechnology, with more of an interest in the wild things the technology can\ndo than in producing any illusion that you have a sense of how it works." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm. Considering when he wrote (he died in 1966), I've always thought that\nSmith had a far better grasp of computers than any of his contemporaries.\nRod McBan's Norstrillian antique still seems plausible: what has changed is\nthat in a story written today everyone would have a computer--that wouldn't\nhave flown in the 50s--and Rod today would have to have a custom program\nlike no other. The little computer powered by a mouse-brain in \"Think Blue,\nCount Two\" still seems like a niftily possible biotech gadget, and so does\nthe dead Lady Panc-Ash in \"Clown Town.\" The computer hack that Lord\nJestacost and C'mell run is pretty sophisticated too. I remember reading a\n60s magazine story by Pohl, I think, certainly a tech-minded writer, that\nbleated on and on about computer technology--completely outdated by the 80s,\nof course. But Smith's stories aren't. Even the \"Alpha-Ralpha\"\nfortune-telling machine is not out of date if you think of it as primarilly\nan entertainment device, and the same would be true of the items at the\nMusuem of Heart's Desire. And there are computerized devices run by Mother\nHitton and T'ruth and somethingorother on the Sand Planet, and other places\nthat I don't remember.\n\nFurthermore, no other writer but Stapledon actually charted developments in\nspace travel. Yes, they're handwaving, but they are also thought out--again,\nremember when he was writing. Space travel began with the scanners\n(cranching), moved on to the oyster ships and pinlighting, then to sail\nships with their oblivious passengers, then to planoforming, then space3.\n(I've probably got some of this wrong--I'm not going to go back to read it\nall again just to make a point.) Smith's future was dynamic, evolving as he\nlearned more or imagined new techniques. And though you can chart this in\nWolfe too (LS is full of his delight in his new knowlege of computer\nuploading and downloading), Smith was way ahead of him.\n\nHe also seemed (and seems) to me to be more sophisticated about drugs,\nmedical techniques and their future applications than most of his peers;\nthis turns up more than once, but I am thinking of \"Shayol.\" And there's\nstroon, of course, which is a debatable long-life potion, but surely an sf\nallowable, especially as it is treated politically and economically.\n\nI also think that he is quite sophisticated politically, given that he is\nusing the old pulp device of a galactic empire, or Instrumentality as he\ncalls it. His model is 19th century China (I know this because, like him, I\ngrew up partly in China and have done some reading) with its huge\nbureaucracy, mostly conservative, but sometimes surprisingly open. Wolfe's\nbureaucracies, in all three series, are simplistic by comparison." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But for me, the main difference is that I love Wolfe but don't care much\nfor Smith." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now there I cannot argue. What you probably don't like is the tone, which is\nconsciously romantic and fabulous, and which undercuts the tech\nsophistication. I like it myself--but then I'm not a techie. And I was the\nright age when I got to him.\n\ncheers,\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-09-11T04:30:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Does Gene Wolfe read Cordwainer Smith?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Alice K. Turner\" \n\nHmm. Considering when he wrote (he died in 1966), I've always thought that\nSmith had a far better grasp of computers than any of his contemporaries." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suppose we had better be careful not to make this a debate on the merits\nof Smith vs Wolfe. However I will remark that they are indeed stylstic\nopposites - Smith has an almost Biblical laconicism which has served him\nvery well. I love them both.\n\n hartshorn" } ] } ] }