Unhappiness with fantasy writing

Transentient · 15 Jun 2006, 18:12 · from 2006-June.txt.gz

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From: transentient at gmail.com (Transentient)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:12:42 -0400
Subject: (urth) Unhappiness with fantasy writing
In-Reply-To: <W931436781213201150393542@webmail4>
References: <W931436781213201150393542@webmail4>
Message-ID: <08527679-E154-44FD-BCEE-9B99882B7E29 at gmail.com>


On Jun 15, 2006, at 1:45 PM, Rob Thornton wrote:

>
>
>> And to try to keep things on-topic for the group at large, I'm  
>> surprised I
>> haven't heard mention of either David Herter or Alexander  
>> Jablokov, both of
>> whom strike me as being quite favorably Wolfean in their style,  
>> erudition,
>> and recurrent bouts of playfully deliberate obscurity....
>>
>
> Did someone say Alexander Jablokov? I strongly recommend his first  
> novel "Carve the Sky" and now that Wolfe is invoked, I can see some  
> connections. For example,  "Sky" has a very involving worldscape  
> and Jablokov takes some relish in tossing you in medias res and  
> continously stirring in information rather than habitually using  
> SFnal "infodumps."
>
> Unfortunately, none of his later efforts really matched "Carve the  
> Sky" but I strongly recommend "Sky"
>
> Now who is this Herter fellow? Actually, I haven't heard of him....

I rather thought _A Deeper Sea_ and _Nimbus_ were quite excellent.  
The former was a fun little story on the surface, but carried an  
allegory to the fall of the ancient world through it which  
continually jumped back up in surprising new forms, and the latter I  
thought was just an excellent, edgy sf-mystery-thriller.

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