{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3966", "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": 3966, "subject": "...uhh...a bit more Stranger...", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2003-04-22T10:40:20+00:00", "last": "2003-04-22T10:40:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus", "address": "zibethicus at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-04-22T10:40:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) ...uhh...a bit more Stranger...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "MEH:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Edgar Rice Burroughs was dead and buried by 1951." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(sigh...) OK, OK...I left myself _wide_ open for that one...fair enuff..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "William burroughs i really wouldn't consider as a science fiction \nwriter..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here we enter interesting territory; just _who is_ a science fiction writer? \n And what is _science fiction_?\n\nand, further, Blattid thus:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I say \"sort of\" for Burroughs because he's writing outside the SF >genre, \nusing tropes from the SF/F toolbox ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find this thread to be of particular interest. I cannot and will not \npurport to be an expert in 'SF', but the above comments from you both have \ngiven me pause for thought last coupla days, roughly to the effect of what \n_is_ science fiction, anyway?\n\nIs it a story which depends on a scientific construct for its plot?\n\nIs it a story which could not be told without the existence of a particular \nsciento-technical structure?\n\nMy dictionary: \"a form of fiction which draws imaginatively on scientific \nknowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc.\" (Macquarie, 1st \nEdn.)\n\nNow, this is a very broad definition - so broad that I would tentatively \nsuggest that much of Mr. Burroughs's (William Seward henceforth unless \nstipulated otherwise) work could be called SF in this sense; as his \nmetamorphosing creatures are (partly) based on biological instances, to give \njust one example of what I mean. (Not to mention the psychological - or \npop-psychological, if you prefer - basis of his studies of control \naddiction...)\n\n(In fact, it just occurred to me, by the above definition Ambrose Bierce's \n'The Damned Thing' could also be defined as an SF story, as could many \nothers not normally included in this canon.)\n\nAnd, if Burroughs is not a SF writer in these terms, is this being said \nbecause his work also attempts to meet other objectives? And, if so, it is \npossible for a work to be SF but also _more_ than SF?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In fact, his SF owes more to Edgar Rice Burroughs than to modern SF," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, to be sure! But if the images are employed by a 'modern' writer such as \nWSB in a different context, might they not take on a contemporary value of \ntheir own?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but even he uses the strategic-deployment-of-details riffs Heinlein \npioneered (especially, but not solely, in NOVA EXPRESS)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm afraid I haven't read enough Heinlein to really understand what you mean \nby this pioneering." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of the three you mention, Le Guin is actually the easiest to demonstrate \nthe point for; read the first few pages of THE DISPOSSESSED. The technique \nused there, to establish the border and contrast between two worlds, is \npure Heinlein; what's pure Le Guin is the repurposing of that technique to \nput the two societies in a meaningful [juxta|op]position." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, sieur, you may very well be right - I've disqualified myself already \nfrom passing specific judgement - but, surely, by the same standard, the \ninvention of another world to comment on this one (Ballard's words, BTW) is \nhardly original to Mr. Heinlein, is it?\n\nBrings us back to the question of defining SF...I'm thinking of all the \nmoon-voyages throughout history...starting, perhaps, with Lucian...\n\nAs far as I can understand (admittedly not very), it could just as well be \nsaid that Heinlein's world-juxtaOPposition (beautiful portmanteau!) is very \nLucianian..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ballard is the toughest one, because so much of his SF is in a deliberate \nrejection of Campbell-Heinlein SF/F;" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would guess, once again, that it might be more of a matter of an expansion \nbeyond these parameters rather than a rejection of them per se; I believe \nthat Mr. Ballard has cited Celine as a primary influence, and he certainly \nwears Jarry enough on his sleeve to paraphrase 'The Passion Considered as an \nUphill Bicycle Race' as the last chapter of 'The Atrocity Exhibition'.\n\nYet, many of his early short stories are conventionally set off-world..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Some years ago I suggested in a review that THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION, CRASH, \netc., are what happens if you write \"hard SF,\" but do your speculating in \nabnormal psychology instead of physics or chemistry." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"In fact, I believe that if it were possible to scrap the whole of existing \nliterature, and be forced to begin again without any knowledge of the past, \nall writers would find themselves inevitably producing something very close \nto science fiction...[w]e live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in \nparticular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional \ncontent of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is \nto invent the reality.\"\n\n- from the introduction to 'Crash'\n\nI do agree with your contention that Ballard has used rhetorical and \nthematic devices which were employed by Heinlein and his contemporaries, \nespecially in his earlier work, as you say...although ultimately to a very \ndifferent end. (I find it interesting, BTW, that Ballard's status as an SF \nwriter seems to be unquestioned, in contrast to that of WSB.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which isn't about sex at all (as the feminist movement spent many years \ninforming us), but is nonetheless boneheaded." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Unfortunately for your understanding, the whole business about Manson \nbasing his religion on STRANGER turns out to be a sort of STFnal urban \nlegend; he had never even read the book before going to jail. Oh well, \nit's a good story anyway." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "General remarks: firstly, I do apologise to any Heinlein fans whose feathers \nor feelers I may have ruffled. I am sure that he deserves his stature, but \nunfortunately, I didn't read much Golden Age stuff in my vanished youth, and \nthe passage in 'Stranger' I've cited has pretty much put me off re-examining \nhim for the present. Vita brevis - and in the event of having the \nhypothetical spare time, I'd probably rather spend it in re-reading \nCordwainer Smith...just a question of personal taste...\n\nRe. Manson, please forgive my offhand remarks if they caused offense; \nnevertheless, I am a trifle confused about your correction. I was under \nthe impression that Mr. Manson had read 'Stranger' well before his release \nfrom Terminal Island in 1967. At any rate, as I already observed, he was \nwell-misversed enough in the text to name his son Michael Valentine \nManson...or are you saying that this did not happen?\n\nIn any case, I'm sure that 'Stranger' bears as little responsibility for the \nevents precipitated by Mr. Manson as the other influences to which he was \nexposed, _allegedly_ including Scientology and LaVeyesque Satanism, and I'm \nsure that Mr. Heinlein didn't intend the work to be used in that manner _if_ \nit did happen...but the abuse is suggestive, given the nature of the \ntext...it was also alleged that the Family referred to some of their murders \nas 'discorporations', despite their all-too-tangible and messy nature...\n\nThis is about all I know of the matter, and I may very well be mistaken. In \nany case, as I have already said, I am probably disqualified from passing \njudgement on 'Stranger', as it is my mother-in-law's favourite book...\n\nSolemnly,\n\n->Zx<-\n\nPS: _Every SF writer?_\n\nLem?\n\nThe Russians?\n\n____________________________________________________________\n\nThe Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in \nit. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe in \nit on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't.\n\n- The Honest Book of Truth, The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1\n____________________________________________________________" } ] } ] }