Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n047

From: Richard Horton <rrhorton at prodigy.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 03:12:32 +0000

On Tue, 9 Nov 1999 07:10:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote:

>Different tastes.  I like that sentence.  Some of the others are
>overblown, but I think that one works just fine.
>

That sort of sentence is very characteristic of Clute.  It's just his
style.

By the way, if anyone wants to read a novel more confusing (though,
alas, less rewarding) than Wolfe at his most opaque, they could do
worse than trying Clute's one novel, _The Disinheriting Party_.

>As I said before, my main beef with the review is that it contains way too
>many spoilers for the other series (or other novels, to use Clute's term)
>for an interview claiming to be fore a newcomer to Wolfe ("You can start
>here").

Clute is the most spoiler prone reviewer/critic I have ever read.  I
really like his reviews, but sometimes he just forgets that his
putative reader probably hasn't read the book yet.

And to be honest I think that while one =could= start with _On Blue's
Waters_ and enjoy =it=, it is very much a spoiler for _The Book of the
Long Sun_.  Even knowing that the narrator of _On Blue's Waters_ wrote
_The Book of the Long Sun_ is a spoiler.

-- 
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton at sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)

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---

From: Alastair Reynolds <areynold at estsa2.estec.esa.nl>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 08:34:09 +0000

> worse than trying Clute's one novel, _The Disinheriting Party_.

He's supposed to have a new novel out sometime - the last I heard
was that it was to be called Appleseed.

The thing with Clute is (for me anyway), just when I'm ready to throw
one of his reviews across the room, he comes out with something 
brilliantly perceptive. If he has a review column in Interzone, it's
always the first thing I turn to.

Al, just got his copy of OBW...