Semi-Daily Journal

I make it a point to NEVER read sf books recommended by SF/Fantasy editors. That goes double for recommenders that think they're living in the book. Follow my sage advice and you'll save a lot of time reading the SF equivalent of Harlequin Romance novels.

Charles is a little unfair to MacLeod, whose books have a tad more literary merit than the average Harlequin Romance novel.

Charles clearly doesn't know much about Patrick Nielsen Hayden, either, or he'd have gotten the joke.

Oh yeah it's one freakin hilarious in-joke haw haw. Editors recommend their friends that recommend their books. It's no wonder I haven't found a good new SF book in about 15 years, the whole scene is one big circle-jerk. It wasn't always this way, I remember when SF was subversive and innovative, but now it's just another Brand Name, only interested in cranking out more franchised products.
Ya know, I might actually have respect for book recommendations if people actually recommended BOOKS instead of AUTHORS.

"Ya know, I might actually have respect for book recommendations if people actually recommended BOOKS instead of AUTHORS."

But Charles, (1) if you re-read Hayden's comments, you see he DID recommend specific books, and (2) there are many instances in which it is perfectly appropriate to recommend authors, at least, where the quality of the author's work is not radically uneven.

No, the cited quotation recommends the author's entire output. That's recommending an author, or more correctly, endorsing a franchise. Here's how you tell the difference:

"You should read all his books" = franchise endorsement

"You should read book X by Mr Y" = book endorsement

Any author whose works aren't "uneven" is merely writing pulp trash. You've got to take risks, and fail occasionally, to be a real artist. I'd much rather read a good book by an uneven author, than all the books by a mediocre franchise author.

Okay, which novels by Jane Austen are the ones which aren't worth reading, Charles?

Having a few hostility issues, are we, Charles?

Despite being one of the best damn editors in the business, PNH is still a fan first, editor second. The paragraph in question was clearly written wearing his fan hat. You're perfectly entitled to disagree; that's your privilege as a fellow fan. I'm not too crazy about MacLeod's books either -- I've read them, they were interesting, but they're not on my list to re-read. That's fine, because nobody's required to like everything.

Me, I recommend authors who have individual, enjoyable voices. Even if some of their works may be better than others, their style carries through in all their writing. Jane Austen was mentioned... for a lighter example, just about any book by Terry Pratchett will contain enough examples of his verbal dexterity to make it well worth reading, for them as likes that stuff (which I do). Though if you ask me about individual books, I'll still tell you that in my opinion _Small Gods_ is considerably superior to _Lords and Ladies_.

What sort of SF are you looking for? If you go to rec.arts.sf.written and name some books you did like, I'm sure someone there will be able to point you in the direction of some current work that would satisfy the same itch.

Though maybe your problem is that the world is catching up to SF. The old stuff doesn't work any more, and you don't feel comfortable with the new stuff written about today's future. I remember running into that phenomenon with the "New Wave".

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk//nonfiction/kensf.htm

If that's the case, something will give. You will stop reading SF, or learn a new mode of reading, or the world will change again and you'll find you like the next iteration.

"It wasn't always this way, I remember when SF was subversive and innovative"...

What was the Golden Age of SF?
Fourteen.

Some scattered responses:
1. The golden age of SF was over when Star Trek first broadcast. Nothing subversive can survive the mainstream.
2. The only Jane Austen books worth reading are published by Cliff's Notes.
3. Yes, I do have some hostility issues about the kind of "incestuous amplification" I see constantly from the crappy, pompous authors who recommend each other's books, even though the authors works are all indistinguishable from each other. The more they praise each other, the more indistinguishable they become, and their books all end up alike. There's a famous quote from Nabokov, "there are no great writers, only great readers." This is an oblique way of saying that in order to write well, you must read great books, and learn what these authors are teaching you about writing. But these SF authors only read each other's books, which are mostly crap. They think they're on the right track because everything they read is just like what they write. They're delusional.
4. Yes, Hayden was most definitely wearing his Comic Book Guy hat when he wrote that.
5. No, the problem is not that the future has caught up with SF. The problem is that modern writers haven't even advanced as far as the Hugo Gernsback era. Modern writers just can't write well. I blame TV. My family never owned a TV until I was about 10 years old, I read for entertainment. I keep thinking about an interview I saw with a famous nonfiction author who was dying of cancer. He was asked what he thought as his life came to an end, I was shocked by the question, but more shocked by his response, "When I die, all that reading will go to waste." Life is short, why waste it reading crap?

"Modern writers just can't write well."
"The only Jane Austen books worth reading are published by Cliff's Notes."
"Shakespeare was a hack"

Oops, made that last one up myself. But really, guy, you have an awfully negative attitude. Are there any authors and/or books you do like? Maybe we could find you some others you might find interesting if you would help us out a little. And Hugo Gernsback published an awful lot of crap, believe me.

There's no arguing with Jane Austen fanatics, it's like arguing with a brick wall. Austen, Shakespeare, Dickens, and all the other moldy old "classics" are about as relevant to me as Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Right now I'm mostly reading Meiji-era Japanese fiction (in Japanese, I might add) which has far more of a postmodernist sensibility than any of the current Western SF lit. I did read that macLeod essay, it is always amazing to see someone so intensely misunderstand postmodernism. I was also amused to see the last wave of SF I liked, Hard SF, dismissed so easily as obsolete.

Well, Charles, you are large, you contain multitudes. Recommending a particular author rather than an individual gbook is unacceptable, but dismissing a particular author like Austen or Shakespeare is okay, and you can recommend a whole period--like Meiji-era Japanese fiction . . .

Nothing wrong with "hard" SF in the hands of an author who cares about character and plot as well as gagetry, however . . .