ILB Argues About Who is the Greatest Science Fiction Author

Like I was writing this memoir recently, and I did try to describe the look of things that seemed to require it, *if* and only if I truly (?) remembered---but also, the little old man was always just "the little old man": I think I remember just what he looked like, but yadda-yadda. I'd already said that this was in the early-mid-80s, and he was old, so yes he was wearing what looked like polyester slacks or suit pants, as you might (as) well suppose.

you're writing your memoirs? i'd read that.

I prefer descriptions that characterize rather than list what they see. I don't like it when they get into specifics that don't matter.

"what about that part where there's secretly an elite cadre of super-smart people running the galaxy. Lacks fascism's appeal to populism but it's definitely a rationalist future, one where the optimal course for society is determined and achieved through the application of mathematical models"

sounds almost randian, doesn't it?

Nah, Rand would be the Mule

Aimless: how about giving us a list of, say, 5 non-SF books you love, perhaps as different from each other as possible, and I/we will try to give you some SF titles that you might enjoy as a progression from them, if that makes sense.

Getting the distinct impression aimless is not reading his thread

there are no, strikethrough, great, end strikethrough, sci fi authors

idk if dick's ideas are 'transcendent', or that asimov's ideas have to be good qua ideas for him to be interesting to read -- it seems more like the argument ppl are making is 'dick's books smell of a worldview that is more appealing to me than asimov's' -- which is fine, me too

i mean also all the unexamined talk about 'literary qualities' is just kinda baffling

w/e. sf rules aimless drools

it's not a matter of "appealing". dick's worlds are ones where everything is on the verge of collapse, where nothing makes sense, where everybody is paranoid and/or high and somewhere out there the roman empire is still going around crucifying people. asimov's world is one wherein clever robots solve locked-room mysteries. i feel like dick describes the world we live in a lot better than asimov does.

what is baffling you about the talk about literary qualities? i feel like at this point "literary fiction" is a pretty well-defined thing and discussion of literary qualities shouldn't need much explanation.

It's def true that some of the worst science fiction prose comes when the author aspires to 'fine writing' - something Chandler latched onto in his parody of SF. Dick's sentences are often clunky and ill-formed - in his manic hurry, he can be amazingly crude and cloth-eared at times, the very opposite of sophistication - but he doesn't often slip into the purple-poetic, and he's got a slangy ear for speech and observation that within the terms of science fiction feels like a modernist advance on pulp cliche.

you're talking about stuff like "eye of argon", right? to me that school of writing is more a holdover from reh and lovecraft than anything to do with "literary writing".

i love that dick was a huge fan of van vogt, possibly the strangest prose stylist in all of SF.

I had never read any van vogt until recently and was struck by how bad he is at basic things like plot construction, narrative, characters, etc., which is contrasted by how good he is with establishing this unreal atmosphere where literally everything is potentially illusory or threatening or unexpected. PKD def similar to him in both ways, altho I consider Dick far superior, something about Van Vogt's writing and interests just make his stuff more alienating/impenetrable.

Getting the distinct impression aimless is not reading his thread

au contraire! I am reading it with interest.

all the unexamined talk about 'literary qualities' is just kinda baffling

Most readers just distinguish only between more enjoyable and less enjoyable books. This is only normal, right and natural. They have no need of detecting 'literary qualities', but only their degree of enjoyment.

Having aspired to authorship myself, the things I notice as I read books are most likely different than the things noticed by those who have never suffered under this painful delusion. Unfortunately, having misshapen my mind in this manner I cannot revert to the simpler enjoyments of the casual reader.

What I would call 'literary qualities' consist of the varying degrees to which an author has command over all the tools at their disposal. The more skillfully and knowingly an author uses these tools, the better the author's material and the reader are served. I notice these qualities as I read and they directly affect my enjoyment.

are you gonna answer James' request?

Aimless: how about giving us a list of, say, 5 non-SF books you love, perhaps as different from each other as possible, and I/we will try to give you some SF titles that you might enjoy as a progression from them, if that makes sense.

I'll think about it. No promises.

SFR: Do you find it personally challenging to write science fiction?

VAN VOGT: Yes, very much so. When I write my eight-hundred-word scenes, I must work at a very slow pace, much slower than even the reader, who must solve the hang-ups as he goes along. In my science fiction, the reader is required to do an incredible job. Not only must he read the story, but he must also make a creative contribution in order to understand it. My readers are extremely bright people. They must create much of the story as they go along, largely out of their own imagination, because of the various hang-ups which are built in. Once a person has read any science fiction of mine, his brain will no longer be the same. Hopefully, he will be changed for the better.

http://www.angelfire.com/art/megathink/vanvogt/vanvogt_interview.html

degrees to which an author has command over all the tools at their disposal

in this respect, the only way in which sci-fi authors differ from other types of authors is that the tools at their disposal include genre conventions

xp

xps

My ulterior purpose in starting this thread wasn't to flush out a covey of sf authors I should be reading (which would not be such a bad outcome after all), so much as to see ilb readers of sf discuss the sources of their appreciation for various sf authors, as opposed to discussing the fact of their appreciation. Because this sort of discussion in regard to sci-fi seems to me to be rare, compared to such discussions about 'literary' authors and books.

tbf, there is an equal lack of in-depth appreciation out there when it comes to authors like John Grisham or Michael Crichton.

discussion in regard to sci-fi seems to me to be rare

lol gtfo

the only way in which sci-fi authors differ from other types of authors is that the tools at their disposal include genre conventions

which is probably true, but so vague and general as to be unrevealing. that is why getting down to cases of individual authors, who differ greatly from one another in their choice of material and how they approach it, and of particular books, where the application of those tools is specifically made, is a much more revealing ground for discussion.

scholarly, critical discussions of sci-fi are all over the place, some of the best ones are even written by sf authors (Lem, Malzberg, Disch, etc.)

xp

here's a good example: http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm

lol gtfo

sure, I could be wrong. then it ought to be simple for you to show your appreciation at this level here in this thread. which is why I am reading it with interest.

My readers are extremely bright people.

I don't doubt it. This has been so well acknowledged as to become a stereotype. But extremely bright people don't always demand the same sorts of pleasure from their reading as requires great literary skill or execution from an author. This doesn't prevent an author from deploying such skill, but their are plenty of extremely bright people upon such skills are lost.

Again, this is NOT to say all sf authors or readers fit such lol stereotypes.

upon whom

can you maybe grasp why your request is being met with derision/dismissal? If it isn't clear it mostly has to do with you requesting that we reproduce/rehash a bunch of readily available critical viewpoints while refusing to do any investigations of your own. Like, why should we waste our time? You can easily search this stuff out yourself. Or just read through any of the other threads I linked previously...

words to live by from van Vogt: "When I opened a book in a library to see whether I would borrow it or not, if the paragraphs were too long, I didn't borrow it."

I guess he never made it through Finnegan's Wake

requesting that we reproduce/rehash a bunch of readily available critical viewpoints

I was asking, rather politely, for the critical viewpoints of ilbers. which may or may not reproduce the critical viewpoints of various academics you might point me towards. If you were to enthusiastically endorse the linked article as thoroughly reflecting your own pov, I'd be more likely to read it. Linking just to prove that some publish-or-perish journal jockey has solemnly dissected some sf author's oeuvre is essentially of little interest to me, just as much as reading their unreadable articles on Henry James or James Joyce.

some publish-or-perish journal jockey has solemnly dissected some sf author's oeuvre

DUDE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lemv

Lem doesn't need my personal validation, he is a critical voice worth paying attention to because of the breadth of his knowledge and the precision of his writing, for which he is widely acknowledged.

goddamit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem

Your validation, however valuable, does not ascend to necessity. For example, you seem reluctant to accept that my desire to hear directly from ILBers about what they find to appreciate in various authors has much validity and that I ought to be satisfied with the knowledge that various sf authors deserve plaudits for their literary merits, have received many of them, and they can discuss their craft at length and in depth. But it does not satisfy me and I still think my request was valid on its own terms, even if you do not wish to answer in those terms and choose not to.

I am familiar with ilb and ilbers and the discourse here is very valuable to me in part because of this sociable familiarity. I just want to know what you think about your favorite authors, when you inspect the sources of your pleasure. No one says you have to tell me, but I'd still like to hear.

aimless, you know that just because we read sci-fi doesn't necessarily put us on the spectrum, right?

yup.

Lol. This whole thread is actually starting to feel like some kind of Lem/Dick/Sheckley story about a single autistic robot from one corner of the galaxy asking for but, due to programming differences exacerbated by vast intersstellar distances, refusing to accept a brain dump from a band of robots from the other end of the galaxy,

haha

btw, in re: JRatB's rumination regarding my public library's copy of M. John Harrison's Things That Never Happen:

Wonder if your copy will have the Iain Banks intro.

Nope. It has China Mieville's introduction, and it was dreadful.

Dick's response to Lem's praise is nutty as hell.

I've heard some compelling recommendations of Van Vogt. Unfortunately wild and unique imaginations don't always have the best prose to communicate with.

I just want to know what you think about your favorite authors, when you inspect the sources of your pleasure

all well and good. review previous threads for this, as noted.

can't spell "lab rats" without "ilbers"

"Unfortunately wild and unique imaginations don't always have the best prose to communicate with."

he's beyond good and bad. he left good and bad in the dust.

best quote ever:

In assessing Van Vogt's career, Barry Malzberg has observed: "So much of his work, reread after many years, seems to work in terms which are sub or trans-literary; so much of his power seems to come not from sophisticated technique and/or pyrotechnic style as from his ability to tap archetypal power, archetypal 'them,' and open up veins of awe or bedazzlement that otherwise are found in love or dreams."

his books have sub-literary appeal! but it's true. that's the weird part. trance fiction disguised as pulp.

haha where did you grab that from? I was trying to find some of Malzberg's crit to post, he is v v good for that.

JE: Given the tremendous emphasis you place on logic, how important is imagination in the context of your writing?

VV: Writing science fiction has been a major cause for the development of both my imagination and my sense of logic. Everything I wrote, or studied in connection with writing, expanded my consciousness. Studies that I made which began as imagination often ended up as systematic thoughts, by which I subsequently handled my life and my associations with other people. There has been a continual feedback between imagination and reality. And I believe this also happens to people who read science fiction.

sci-fi can change your life!

what a weirdo