Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun (Spoilers possible)

Heiny.henr · 24 Mar 1986, 15:42 · from sf-lovers.1986.mbox

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From: Heiny.henr at Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun (Spoilers possible)
Date: 24 Mar 86 10:42:34 EST (Monday)
Message-ID: <sflovers-v11-54-10 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V11 #54
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-11

"This was an outstandingly bad novel. ...every year or so the
Wulf[sic]-cultists must issue forth ... to demonstrate why there's
such a large ... market for so much bad SF."

And every year the people who didn't like the books come out and
insult those who do.  This happens with just about every author:
Wolfe, Moorcock, Heinlein & Laumer are the ones who come to mind as
recent examples.

It seems like every conversation on SFL degenerates to "I liked this
book." - "I didn't, so there." - "Oh, yeah? Well, I did." - "I
didn't, nyah nyah nyah." - "Did." - "Didn't" - "Did." - "Didn't" -
"DidDidDidDid." - "Didn'tDidn'tDidn'tDidn't"....  No participant in
this part of the conversation bothers to tell us WHY they did or
didn't like it.  It's as if their opinion was an invariable fact,
culmination of some mathematical proof (which is intuitively obvious
and left as an exercise to the student).

Without an explanation of why a book is so flawed or so wonderful or
so average, any messages such as the one quoted above are as
meaningful as "Reagan Sucks" graffiti.  Messages that simply parrot
an opinion stated in another have even less meaning [why do do you
agree?  Is it fashionable?  Do you feel guilty if you say no?  Are
your reasons similar, or was it for some other cause?].

Another thing to recall is that SFL (like most similar lists) can be
divided into two groups: The Permanents (people with a steady, long
term access, such as myself - I've been reading it for some years
now) and The Transients (people who may have access only briefly or
intermittently, such as students, part time employees, consultants,
etc).  What may be old hat to the Permanents could be brand new to
the Transients (witness the regular recurrence of discussions such
as Music in SF, Dune, Star Trek Inconsistencies, and the Book of the
New Sun) [there's thesis material for someone in here...].  It would
be nice if the Permanents could let the Transients have their say
without ridiculing them: "Oh THAT - that was said in V2#47.  It's
OLD stuff."  Surely you have occasionally said something that has
been said before - it would be nice if the Transients had the same
privilege.

It comes down to this: If you aren't willing to tell us why you feel
the way you do and you aren't willing to let others speak without
insulting them, then your message is only slightly more meaningful
than random bits.

Chris Heiny

PS This was not directed solely to the author of the message above
that message was simply a stellar example of the problem.

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