tolkien's successors

Maru · 30 Nov 2004, 18:32 · from 2004-November.txt.gz

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From: marudubshinki at yahoo.com (Maru)
Date: Tue Nov 30 18:32:35 2004
Subject: (urth) tolkien's successors
In-Reply-To: <1f761737041130144145839297 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20041201023233.36311.qmail at web14721.mail.yahoo.com>

He was mining Kevin Kelly's book 'Out of Control'. It's a bit
dated, but still well-worth the read.  So he is not completely
originating all this, but his job of integrating and warping it
all is still marvelous.  It is a shame that his Hyperion universe
is so small- aside from the 'Amoiete Helix' it contains his best
short stories (the short story in 'Prayers to broken stones' is
on par with Wolfe, IMHO) and books. None of his other stuff
matches up.
It seems to be a common tragedy to SF that some of its best
authors produce one, and only one, really good work.
Anyone know why?
~Maru
I'd put Wolfe in the above category too. I haven't noticed the
richness of tBotNS in the long sun, short sun, wizard-knight or
cerberus novels at all.
--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dan Simmons, at least in his "Hyperion Cantos," mines a future 
> quite as rich as that of Wolfe's Briah cycle. I've only read
> the
> set of four books once and don't feel qualified to say much
> more,
> but I think that he's operating in Tolkien-ish territory here -
> and
> in Tim Powers territory in _Carrion Comfort_. (Simmons is not
> as 
> good a writer as Tolkien, Wolfe, or Powers, though; I was
> turned 
> off by one of his novels in just a few pages, because the
> narrator 
> kept telling us that he could tell how bad a place Calcutta was
> the 
> minute he set foot there, thus reducing the book to an idiot
> plot - 
> "If you know it's so bad, schmendrick, why don't you just hop
> the 
> next flight out?")
>


		
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