new novels and why they suck and whatever

Would Gibson need to set Neuromancer in a fantastic setting if he wrote it today?

speaks more to the failings of the imaginations of modern sci-fi writers than anything else (Gibson himself has already conceded the fact, no longer feels writing about the future is "necessary" etc. But he's been shit for like 25 years now anyway so who cares)

We don't have a Rolling Contemporary Literary Fiction thread, do we? Would people be interested in that? I would. If anyone else would too, I'll start one on ILB.

I think Gibson's gotten better at writing, but his novels have gotten worse, if that makes any sense. But if it's a collective failure of imagination, that failure stretches back pretty far then -- which great genre works cannot be re-written as realist novels today?

not that I think accurate prognostication is what makes sci-fi interesting (it isn't), and it's a given and well-worn truism that all science fiction is actually about the present anyway - but to me one of the most enduringly fascinating things about science fiction is this creation of other worlds, whether they're in the future or on other planets or other dimensions or whatever. These "what if?" scenarios that are fired by speculation and imagination seem so much more engaging to me, they encourage the reader to shift perspectives and see things, real world things, in a new light. Sci-fi writers like Lethem or Gibson essentially abandoning this tool altogether in favor of realism just seems like a weak capitulation. Their books suffer for it.

xp

Boom: Rolling Contemporary Literary Fiction

I used to love that Ben Marcus book pictured up above when I was in college, and I recently tried to re-read it and decided it was bullshit

I'd agree that Lethem suffers for it, in that he's more adept at pure invention in the fantasy realm, versus say, places he happened to have lived in, but Gibson's schtick was always more pastiche, when the source realism could be rendered in just as perspective-shifting and exotic a fashion as necessary.

But even Lethem with some effort could translate a lot of his genre stuff no-problem. The fact that some characters are kangaroos in Gun With Occasional Music isn't particularly crucial. Michael Jordan shoes could be reformulated as a story about Moneyball-type statistics-based changes affecting basketball. Amnesia Moon could be morphed into a more Oliver Sacksian story.

There might be some stories that are just pure philosophical thought experiments that have no easy analog in realism, but even then, I feel a writer with enough will and skill could make it happen.

I disagree that Gibson's fiction has gotten worse. Pattern Recognition is one of his best novels. None of his books hold up very well plotwise and never have; all of them have been pretty contrived. It was one of the lesser contrived ones. But I do think the Difference Engine was his most interesting book. No idea how much of it he wrote.

Someone give me a compelling writing prompt and I'll go and save literature

there once was a message board,

Pride and Prejudice and Bearotaurs?

Someone give me a compelling writing prompt and I'll go and save literature

Provincial academic sees a cat being run over which prompts a sudden realisation that his life is empty, that results in him staying exactly where he is and gradually watching his life is unravelled, that's before a mysterious stranger turns up on his door with an unusual proposition...

Then aliens land in massive shiny spaceships and blast them all to shit.

not that I think accurate prognostication is what makes sci-fi interesting (it isn't), and it's a given and well-worn truism that all science fiction is actually about the present anyway - but to me one of the most enduringly fascinating things about science fiction is this creation of other worlds, whether they're in the future or on other planets or other dimensions or whatever. These "what if?" scenarios that are fired by speculation and imagination seem so much more engaging to me, they encourage the reader to shift perspectives and see things, real world things, in a new light. Sci-fi writers like Lethem or Gibson essentially abandoning this tool altogether in favor of realism just seems like a weak capitulation. Their books suffer for it.

xp

― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, July 9, 2010 1:26 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is just nuts to me, assuming im reading you right

Anyway, Bolano Warhammer isn't enough inspiration for you? xpost

These "what if?" scenarios that are fired by speculation and imagination seem so much more engaging to me, they encourage the reader to shift perspectives and see things, real world things, in a new light.

this is what all books do, or are supposed to do, and if woolf or carver or... whoever were trashing here arent doing that to you im inclined to think its your fault

but i also have a pet peeve with people who are demanding toward their books/music/art i.e. "why isnt this thing doing what i want it to do"

this is what all books do, or are supposed to do, and if woolf or carver or... whoever were trashing here arent doing that to you im inclined to think its your fault

nah I like Woolf and Carver - the people I'm explicitly trashing are sci-fi writers who transition to more conventional realist novels and as a consequence have their work suffer for it

harry potter and the sea

oh well i dunno. motherless brooklyn is my favorite lethem book and its his most 'realist' isnt it? no flying kids or anything.

harry potter is sci fi right

Never particularly happy with that 'this is what all books are supposed to do' argument tbh. Novels can do what they damn well please - it's the freedom of what can happen between the pages that fascinates me, the enjoyment to be had in reading, rather than any real world relevance (<---ugh).

There's no doubt that the seeing things anew thing has happened with some of the best things I've read, but equally it's not a thing with an awful lot of other stuff that I like. I'll settle for 'it made me laugh' quite a lot of the time. Or spaceships.

"world-building" happens in p much all fiction although theres a specific kind of world-building that gets done in spec fic that i can see finding more compelling than "literary realism"

but im just like "..." over warhammer 2666K

lethem's a hack there I posted it

oh well i dunno. motherless brooklyn is my favorite lethem book and its his most 'realist' isnt it? no flying kids or anything.

I dunno if I would call it realist - it's a pretty obvious noir homage, more than anything. Probably the last decent thing he did imho

the last sci fi book I read was the first book of the new sun when I was a teen, I saw an old dude reading it in a diner a month ago and kind of nodded at him but he was reading and didn't see me

book of the new sun is terrible, there i posted it

Never particularly happy with that 'this is what all books are supposed to do' argument tbh.

I hope this isn't how I'm coming across - I pretty directly disputed this above somewhere iirc

Wolfe is great there I said it. altho I wouldn't recommend everything of his (the amnesiac greco-roman soldier stuff got kinda tiresome)

Never particularly happy with that 'this is what all books are supposed to do' argument tbh. Novels can do what they damn well please - it's the freedom of what can happen between the pages that fascinates me, the enjoyment to be had in reading, rather than any real world relevance (<---ugh).

ok fine but "books are supposed to shift perspective and help you see things in a different light" isnt a very precise restriction is it? i mean its vague enough to be sort of meaningless which i guess is my point. having aliens and shit in your book doesnt make it better at shifting perspective than have a particularly acute way of talking about emotions or something

yeah I kind of skipped around it but there are still some cool scenes I remember like when people were sitting at a dinner table in a forest and tripping out on some sci fi fantasy drug and eating that dude's gf

I dunno if I would call it realist - it's a pretty obvious noir homage, more than anything. Probably the last decent thing he did imho

― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, July 9, 2010 2:03 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

noir isnt realist!? but those guys are all hemingway stans!

postman always rings twice is one of my fav books I think

Anyone who thinks Gibson has ben shit for 25 years has not read Pattern Recognition

I flipped through a Star Wars novel that appeared to be 90% concerned with architectural and political considerations on building a large public-works project like the Death Star, and was thinking did they dig up an old novel about the Panama Canal and just search/replace on proper names?

re: motherless brooklyn -- is this the one with the guy with asperger superpowers? that seemed like a book that is ambiguous as to its being set in the real world or not.

anyway i sort of thought we had established that shakeys real problem with books isnt books its that hes too lazy to seek out books he wants to read

yeah it was that

no noir is not realist

xposts "books are supposed to shift perspective and help you see things in a different light" isnt a very precise restriction is it

No, no, not at all, it's a fine achievement when it's done (no matter how its achieved), I just wouldn't personally use it as a blanket for everything that I've liked. The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (to take an example), doesn't really make me look at the world in a new way, but when I'm reading it, I'm like 'Yeah! This is great!'

hes too lazy to seek out books he wants to read

dude I'm reading 4 different books right now (Horace satires, Process Church of the Final Judgment bio, Disch short story collection, Riddley Walker) so um fuck you

also not exactly helpful to blow up my very specific criticism of a couple of sci-fi writers into a LAW OF FICTION WRITING but thx for the strawmanning well done

but shakey how many of those books have aliens in them?

SORRY FOR MISUNDERSTANDING YOU I BASICALLY ASSUMED YOU WERE CONTINUING YOUR DUMB CRITIQUE OF ALL LITERARY FICTION NOT JUST WILLIAM GIBSON MY BAD DOGG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_c_L6wtZ6XJA/Sut19E2jMcI/AAAAAAAABHo/OqgCQgHQzaQ/s400/Signs_alien.jpg

like I said a few posts back my dumb literary critique boils down to = modern realist novels, I hate them

yeah

*shrugs*

i wonder if there are books that have both emotions and aliens, that i cld recommend to shakey mo

shakey have you read stanley crawford stuff

i wonder if there are books that have both emotions and aliens, that i cld recommend to shakey mo

The Forever War!

did you ever read forever free? that one is *mind*blowing*