the drive-by back up or Adventures in SF/Fantasy Ignorance.

[Sean Dwyer]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 07:26:07PM +0000, Barry Arrowsmith wrote:
> First, an admission -  I'm not a fan of Neil Gaiman, so ' in a class 
> of his own' probably wouldn't mean the same thing on my list as on 
> yours. Ah well. Takes all sorts. 

As in 'never read anything like him' class-of-his-own. But how can you not
like Neverwhere? 

> Gibson, Stephenson - you mean early Stephenson as in 'Snowcrash' - 
> techno-cyber-hard science whatever-it-is? Or maybe the softer Gibson as 
> in 'All Tomorrow's Parties'? It's a bugger when they change styles on 
> you. 

Yeah sorry, ok, the harder Gibson and the funny Stephenson then. I don't
_think_ anyone's attacking Cryptonomicon-type material yet?! I guess I fall
into the category of Near-Fi SF fandom; I don't think I ever recovered from
the Phillip K. Dick vision. There's something I like about dirty technology
and global warming :)

> A  couple I enjoy are Neil Asher and Richard Morgan - they fall 
> somewhere near the middle of Gibsons spectrum so far as hardware is 
> concerned, though Asher has his fun in alien environments.  

Scribble, scribble.

> I do like a writer that builds a believable background and maintains it 
> over a series. C. Cherryh with 'Foreigner' or Shogun in Space as it's 
> detractors refer to it; Michael Flynn with his 'Star' - 'Rogue Star', 
> 'Fire Star' etc. series (pretty much todays world with todays problems 
> - and a driven woman with  a real-world fear as lead character -  
> nicely constructed). Since you're a Gaiman  fan you'll have been 
> introduced to China Mieville, weird but compulsive. 

Actually my Gaiman fandom is limited to two books. The other is American Gods.
It takes a lot to get me to go for a series now. Robert Jordan will tend to do
that to one, and even Terry Pratchett became ho-hum after the 20th hilarious
episode.

> To be honest, I find it more and  more difficult to classify some of 
> these writers into neat sub-genres - it's only the military 
> weapons-wonks (Tom Clancy clones like John Ringo) that seem to stand 
> still long enough. 

I think it's hard enough to find someone with an authentic voice. If the voice
is right, the genre will follow. I admit to being very biased about Gibson,
however. To maintain the pretence of any kind of on-topicness, what Gibson
suffered after he went 'soft' is nothing to what's likely in store for JKR.

> Anyway, I  thought you were doing OK  down there with the likes of Sean 
> McMullen doing the business? 

Witness my complete ignorance. So he's written a million books. And I've never
*seen* them in Dymocks (my local) but they list them all on their website.
Grrr.


-- 
When all you have are foxes, everything looks like a henhouse.