{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4254",
    "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": 4254,
    "subject": "Gaiman, Mieville, Pullman, etc.",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2004-11-30T20:29:53+00:00",
    "last": "2004-12-01T09:43:04+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<01f201c4d75e$61830290$d27cae44@akt>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice K. Turner",
        "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com"
      },
      "date": "2004-11-30T20:29:53+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Gaiman, Mieville, Pullman, etc.",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've been off this list for quite a long time, just rejoined, and feel I \nshould add some <g> support to Hmpf (though that is a distinctly non-vegetal \nname). Wow, pretty busy on this list. First, I have not read \"The Problem of \nSusan\" (is that actually the name of the story?), though I would very much \nlike to as I have never, never forgiven Lewis (and we are going back to my \nearly teens here) for what he did to Susan. Where can I find it?\n\nSecond, for Lexicon Urthus, try siriusfiction.com. Technically it is out of \nprint, but you never know.\n\nThird, I believe the Poughkeepsie ref goes back to Harlan Ellison who once \nreplied sarcastically to the eternal fan question at a convention, \"Where do \nyou get your ideas?\" \"Poughkeepsie.\" It's an old factory town in upstate New \nYork. If it wasn't Ellison, it was someone else; perhaps someone more \nconversant with SF history can set the record straight.\n\nFourth, I agree with the person who said that of Gaiman, Mieville and \nPullman, Pullman is far the most important writer. Gaiman is a charmer, and \na sort of god to the graphics-novel-manga crowd, and has done some really \ngood straight-prose work too, off and on. Mieville, I have to agree, is a \nhack, and a clumsy writer too, though I will hand him the Armada, a \nwonderfully visual idea--also I sort of liked his B-movie mosquito women. \nBut his soul is in pulp horror and doesn't extend much beyond it--certainly \nnot to decent characterization or plots that make sense. I own his third \nbook, but I'll have to have run out of everything else to read before I \ntackle it beyond the first three tedious chapters.\n\nBut Pullman has acheived a classic, which people will be reading many \ndecades from now. Like a number of other people, including someone on this \nlist (forgive me, I've been catching up with a bunch of digests and can't \nfollow who-said-what), I have tended to scorn the third book as unworthy, \nand I still think the mulefa sequence was a mistake (the London theatrical \nverson left it out, and if I were scripting the movie(s), I'd do the same). \nBut I found myself recently passionately defending the \"world of the dead\" \nsequence, and I'd do the same again. It is so right and so inclusive in its \ndescriptions (I'm speaking historically, and can make a case; I particularly \nlike the use of the harpies) and so beautiful in its fervent Buddhist(ic) \nconclusion. Also, I found myself defending the sex-as-redemption ending, \nthough I have sneered at the concept in other books, particularly a dreadful \none of Sephen King's that I have thankfully forgotten the title of. (Mind \nyou, I think King has written a few pretty good books too.) But here--oh, I \ndon't know. \"Spyglass\" is a lumpy book, but I'll take those lumps and defend \nthem. Or so it seems. The first book of the trilogy is simply perfect. Or so \nthink I.\n\nFifth (as an aside), it seems to me that Tolkien presents a perfectly \nworkable agrarian-feudal society. It may be a little mysterious how the \ndwarves and orcs and elves arrange for dinner (other than pillaging), but \nnot in the case of the men or hobbits. If anyone gets seriously exercised \nabout that aspect of the novels, I'd suggest half an hour's jogging followed \nby a shower.\n\n-alga "
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<1f76173704120109425e87bcf5@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "danldo at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2004-12-01T09:43:04+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Gaiman, Mieville, Pullman, etc.",
      "in_reply_to": "<01f201c4d75e$61830290$d27cae44@akt>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Alga,\n\nWelcome back! You've been missed."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "First, I have not read \"The Problem of\nSusan\" (is that actually the name of the story?), though I would very much\nlike to as I have never, never forgiven Lewis (and we are going back to my\nearly teens here) for what he did to Susan. Where can I find it?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's in Al Sarrantino's new antho, \"Flights.\" It got onto this list partly\nbecause there's a longish GW story in there."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Third, I believe the Poughkeepsie ref goes back to Harlan Ellison who once\nreplied sarcastically to the eternal fan question at a convention, \"Where do\nyou get your ideas?\" \"Poughkeepsie.\" It's an old factory town in upstate New\nYork. If it wasn't Ellison, it was someone else; perhaps someone more\nconversant with SF history can set the record straight."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "That story does come from Harlan, but it was Schenectady he used."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "But Pullman has acheived a classic, which people will be reading many\ndecades from now. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, two thirds of a classic ... grumble mumble. _TAS_ was, simply\ntoo long by a third. The Mulefa stuff, yes, could easily have gone, \nand so could a couple of other things. And as for the ending - sorry,\nbut it was as irrritating to me as the kid-porn ending in _IT_ (a book\nthat was too long by about two thirds, written at the peak of Stevie's\n\"bloated\" period ... but endings have usually been King's week point,\nfrom the \"and everyone gets killed!\" ending of _Carrie_ to the recent \nwet fart that concluded the up to that point simply brilliant _Dark \nTower_ sequence); I can see what he was trying to do there and it\ncould have been done well, but he simply failed to prepare the\nground for it, and so when it happens it's out of left field and (to\nmy mind) unjustified. \n\n--Blattid but really Dan'l"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n     -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}