I disagree with a lot of what this guy has to say (no surprise there), but . . . the cover of one of his books features a cigar-smoking monkey wearing an aviator's helmet and brandishing a six-gun. So maybe his heart is in the right place. (I'm going to have to buy that book now.)
Certainly the comment fray is easy enough to jump into:
Todd Mason says: December 5, 2013 at 9:38 am
Aside from the Golden Age for sf ranging from 10-14 depending on who’s pontificating (when all the better written work one might encounter blow one’s mind, as being a bit more sophisticated than the STAR TREK or TWILIGHT ZONE or even DOCTOR WHO episodes one might’ve seen by then), the “Golden Age” of sf fixed in common time varies enormously as well, with a lot of nostalgic readers reaching for the early John Campbell era at his magazines ASTOUNDING and the fantasy companion UNKNOWN (later, UNKNOWN WORLDS), not hardly all the way up to the innovations encouraged by John Carnell, Cele Goldsmith/Lalli, Avram Davidson, Frederik Pohl, and particularly Michael Moorcock, Harry Harrison, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Keith Roberts and the rest of the crew at their magazines in the 1960s, but usually wrapping up after Campbell’s attempts to instill a new literacy as well as conceptual rigor in sf and fantasy had borne significant fruit, and the other magazines in the field, very much including THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION (never afraid of and usually encouraging good prose, since 1949) were likewise doing at least as well, on balance–even two of the most common loci for ridiculous if sometimes well-written and often entertaining adventure fiction, space opera and otherwise, had taken on a new sophistication by the late 1940s: the Standard Group of STARTLING STORIES/THRILLING WONDER STORIES/etc, and PLANET STORIES. Damien, if you genuinely think no one “could actually write” before the 1990s, you are dire need of a refresher course in writers ranging from Fritz Leiber through Joanna Russ back to Leigh Brackett or Kurt Vonnegut and forward in time again to, say, Karen Joy Fowler; the Avram Davidson work closest to his heart that you’ve clearly missed should keep you busy for a while–and that leaves aside such folks as Karel Capek and this obscure H. G. Wells fellow who were not nurtured by the sf magazines themselves, though Wells was a regular contributor to some of their key generalist predecessors.
2 comments:
I disagree with a lot of what this guy has to say (no surprise there), but . . . the cover of one of his books features a cigar-smoking monkey wearing an aviator's helmet and brandishing a six-gun. So maybe his heart is in the right place. (I'm going to have to buy that book now.)
Certainly the comment fray is easy enough to jump into:
Todd Mason says:
December 5, 2013 at 9:38 am
Aside from the Golden Age for sf ranging from 10-14 depending on who’s pontificating (when all the better written work one might encounter blow one’s mind, as being a bit more sophisticated than the STAR TREK or TWILIGHT ZONE or even DOCTOR WHO episodes one might’ve seen by then), the “Golden Age” of sf fixed in common time varies enormously as well, with a lot of nostalgic readers reaching for the early John Campbell era at his magazines ASTOUNDING and the fantasy companion UNKNOWN (later, UNKNOWN WORLDS), not hardly all the way up to the innovations encouraged by John Carnell, Cele Goldsmith/Lalli, Avram Davidson, Frederik Pohl, and particularly Michael Moorcock, Harry Harrison, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Keith Roberts and the rest of the crew at their magazines in the 1960s, but usually wrapping up after Campbell’s attempts to instill a new literacy as well as conceptual rigor in sf and fantasy had borne significant fruit, and the other magazines in the field, very much including THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION (never afraid of and usually encouraging good prose, since 1949) were likewise doing at least as well, on balance–even two of the most common loci for ridiculous if sometimes well-written and often entertaining adventure fiction, space opera and otherwise, had taken on a new sophistication by the late 1940s: the Standard Group of STARTLING STORIES/THRILLING WONDER STORIES/etc, and PLANET STORIES. Damien, if you genuinely think no one “could actually write” before the 1990s, you are dire need of a refresher course in writers ranging from Fritz Leiber through Joanna Russ back to Leigh Brackett or Kurt Vonnegut and forward in time again to, say, Karen Joy Fowler; the Avram Davidson work closest to his heart that you’ve clearly missed should keep you busy for a while–and that leaves aside such folks as Karel Capek and this obscure H. G. Wells fellow who were not nurtured by the sf magazines themselves, though Wells was a regular contributor to some of their key generalist predecessors.
Post a Comment