Van Vogt. (Was: Re: I Claudius)

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 08 Sep 2006, 01:53 · from 2006-September.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 18:53:16 -0700
Subject: (urth) Van Vogt. (Was: Re: I Claudius)
In-Reply-To: <450030F3.1070200 at gmail.com>
References: <000a01c6d213$4eda51a0$a98bd8cf@rw9s6no3t0dhzd>
	<E1GLEdu-000COX-VL at oceanus.uk.clara.net> <450030F3.1070200 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370609071853j7c2c89f5i6e0f5e8b0628c72f at mail.gmail.com>

On 9/7/06, Jesper Svedberg <jsvedberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> (of course, Van Vogt isn't as good a
> writer as Wolfe, but I think he's better than his reputation and better
> than many of his more famous contemporaries).

He was a half-good writer. On the level of sentences, his writing
was probably better than Asimov's, maybe even Heinlein's, but
not up to Simak's or Merrill's. But his plotting was atrocious, and
his characters ... wellllll, they're about as deep and well-rounded
as Clarke's, but (unlike Clarke) he depended on character to propel
his story, which only adds to the jerryrigged plotting.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
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