"Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

James Wynn · 01 May 2011, 05:11 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sun, 01 May 2011 00:11:01 -0500
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <4DBCE3B3.2000004 at io.com>
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>>
>> "Lasars" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. "ST" is at its core a
>> fictionalized military service memoir.
>
> That's awfully kind of you; I would say it's a persuasive essay on the 
> supremacy of patriotic duty dramatized as a war memoir.

Okay. But starting from Wolfe's view of Realism vs SF, was there actual 
value in telling it as a SF story?

>> Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV
>> of what I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The
>> counter-argument could be "Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a
>> Crime Thriller with a supernatural killer", or "Star Wars is just King
>> Arthur with extra shiny swords".
>
> You're doing the bogus details as part of the dismissive character, 
> right?

I'm not planting a flag. I'm just exploring Wolfe's argument. 
Personally, I've never read anything on Oprah's list, so if a publisher 
wanted to get me to read that sort of story, he'd package it as a 
different genre.

J

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