See, snotty punk rock criticism can be fun!
** PUBLIC SHUDDERS AT "BEST OF THE YEAR" **
It can't be the editors' fault. Can it? Terry Carr has as much taste as any editor in the field has ever had. Donald Wollheim may be a tough old shark, a snuff-snorting roue' of the ancien regime, but he Knows What People Like.
How to explain, then, the painful dullness of these two collections? (THE 1983 WORLD'S BEST SF, Donald A. Wollheim, Ed., DAW, $2.95; THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR #12, Terry Carr, ed., Timescape, $3.95.) Is SF suffering from intellectual exhaustion? Perhaps it takes itself too seriously and has lost the careless vigor it had when it was mere pop crap. One might easily conclude this after perusing the vapid "Letter From the Clearys," the pompous and bloodless "Sur," or the Abbess-phone-home fakery of "Souls." But even these clumps of parasitic literary mistletoe have more to recommend them than the clunky obsolescence of James White's "The Scourge" or Timothy Zahn's laughable "Pawn's Gambit."
"Twee" sounds so derogatory when people use it.
That's because... it is? I mean, when I call something "twee" usually I mean it belongs in a Miss Marple mystery. Not in a good way.
See, snotty punk rock criticism can be fun!
Or just... snotty. As you know, Bob, my foot resides in the asses of people who get shirty with the general public for being the general public.
One might easily conclude this after perusing the vapid "Letter From the Clearys," the pompous and bloodless "Sur," or the Abbess-phone-home fakery of "Souls."
Ironically, at least two of these three are not just award-winners -- and by female authors --, but they're the two SF short stories I can think of most commonly anthologized in non-SF collections. ("Sur" is in the Norton Anthology of Women's Fiction, e.g.) But the fact this writer goes out of his way to call out two of the more highly-regarded female authors (Le Guin and Willis; I don't know who wrote "Souls") -- a bit suspect, right there on its face.
Suddenly, perhaps out of sheer frustration, fantasy has movement and color again.
Uh huh. I think I have a new social axiom: Any literary movement that requires a manifesto receives my foot in its ass.
Contrary to popular misconception
This (my whole misunderdstanding of cyberpunk, not the above statement) is one of those examples where I start to think I'm smart and well-read and urbane, and then I wander amongst the Buffistae and realize that no, I'm really just a brain stem in a jar.
t edit
Suddenly I can't even remember what "urbane" means! Maybe it wasn't the word I wanted to use after all!
[begin brain stem communication]
blink...breathe...blink...breathe...blink...breathe....
I think "urbane" is right. I THINK.
I join you in brainstemness, Tep.
insect-eating SCA freaks
Gosh, thanks, I love being sneered at by people on a "my intelligentsia is hipper than yours" kick.
Any literary movement that requires a manifesto receives my foot in its ass.
I'm with Nutty.
What? No love for vituperation and poison pens? How oppressively moderate.
What? No love for vituperation and poison pens? How oppressively moderate.
I have some love, but I think that The Manifesto veered too far into "Goddamn, we are hipper and smarter than you, nyah-nyah nyah-nyah" posturing.
How oppressively moderate
How self-consciously avant garde.
