George R. R. Martin on Gene Wolfe

Nick Lee · 28 Apr 2015, 15:30 · from 2015-April.txt.gz

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From: starwaterstrain at gmail.com (Nick Lee)
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 10:30:58 -0500
Subject: (urth) George R. R. Martin on Gene Wolfe
Message-ID: <CAMwAopRKzmGf5Z4uTzjND29zwyBXET9gwpL-KWgFQTOsRLrOWQ at mail.gmail.com>

http://grrm.livejournal.com/424135.html

Martin had a few kind words to say about Wolfe and the New Yorker piece. He
also brought up the Hugos and the Puppies again. There's some irony in
that, isn't there? The Puppies, both breeds, argue that conservative,
religious authors don't have a chance with the Hugos because they've been
"taken over" by a left-leaning, atheist conspiracy.

They never bring up Wolfe, from what I've seen, and you would think he's
the perfect example. He's obviously Catholic and conservative, to a degree.
See arguments about this in the past of the List and recently on Reddit.
He's never won a Hugo despite numerous other accolades. You would think
he'd be their most damning evidence. So what gives?

I could make a snide comment here about how the Puppies probably couldn't
understand Wolfe anyway, but despite the snark I think there's some truth
in the idea. A corollary to the Puppy argument is that more traditional SF,
adventure stories essentially, are not winning awards anymore. On one hand,
Wolfe does write stories with adventure: knights, wizards, secret agents,
etc. He's also been writing for a long time. He doesn't write simple
stories, though, and while he pays frequent homage to the classics of the
genre does not write in their style.

And what about those accolades? Wolfe has won numerous other awards; he's a
Grand Master; other writers laud him frequently. In an interview from some
time back, China Mi?ville noted Wolfe's talent while acknowledging a
difference in political opinion.

The reason Wolfe has never won a Hugo has nothing to do with his ideology
and everything to do with the fact that he's a difficult writer. The fans
vote for the Hugos, and they vote for what they're reading, most of which
is more traditional and less literary than Wolfe's output.

Wolfe is an embarrassing example for the Puppies because he doesn't fit
into their narrative. I don't think he would play ball with them either
because as Martin notes, he's "a class act."
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