An addendum to that last post on books
Once I started thinking of books, I read some comments on another blog wondering what works in science fiction would qualify as Literature (evidently with the capital L). Lots of people said Heinlein - I wouldn't. Certainly not Starship Troopers or Stranger in a Strange Land. For one thing, how could the same author write both books and believe in the message of both? For another Heinlein, who was a good story teller, suffered from a certain emotional immaturity that marred his work. Poul Anderson, who I loved to read once upon a time, suffers from the same problem.
Several mentioned Isaac Asimov, another author I once loved. On the trip down here to the port city, my wife and I started listening to I, Robot. When I was a teenager I read it, and almost everything else Asimov wrote but as we listened to it I was genuinely taken aback. The stories were emotionally and technologically ... well, immature to use that word again. The characters are always yelling, balling up their fists, gulping, and threatening to beat their robots into submission or to turn them into junk heaps. As for the technology - it is startling to realize that Asimov never saw the computer age coming. Computers, other than the positronic brain used in the robots and which is never explained, make no appearance. His mathmaticians use pencil and paper for complex calculations - in the year 2040! Even in The Foundation Trilogy the most sophisticated machine used by the psycohistorians is a glorified calculator of the sort Texas Instruments quit making decades ago.
Time to get back to Gene Wolfe. Or Edward Gibbon!
posted by Clemens @ 11:52 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I'm definitely with you on Heinlein's weird schizophrenia on those two books. John C. Wright thinks Heinlein's best work is on his juvenile SF.
I also agree with you on Anderson and especially Asimov. Great literature they ain't. A friend of mine finally got around to reading Asimov and then asked me what all the fuss was about. I suppose it was original at the time. But the man wrote something every time his ego burped or he needed a check so the over-all quality is pretty low.
Yeah, Asimov must have cranked out 3 or 4 books a year. Said he typed 90 words a minute and had a perfect memory. But at the time, esp if you were a teenager, he was golden.
And there was always something a bit half-baked about Heinlein that got worse as he aged. I think some of your readers called him a dirty old man. I just saw him as a cranky old retired military guy with some talent and imagination.
btw - your blog has suddenly decided to accept my comments.
Dude - even Tolkien, author of the Book of the 20th Century, has shallow characters in it (I'm thinking of you, Tom B). Would you seriously consider not classifying "The Lord Of The Rings" as good literature?
You have to remember that Asimov - like a lot of sci-fi writers at that time - was written in periocals. Hence the episodic nature of the first 2 books (and yes, some fairly low-brow quality). However, 40 years later, these books are still read and have influenced thousands.
I'm not saying that Asimov is a fantastic author but he has written some decent material and credit should be given for that
Yes Murty - credit should be given. Asimov wrote classic sci-fi and as I said, I once read through everything he wrote. And yes indeed, people still read him and he is still in print.
But nothing like LOTR which is a phenomenal success. Tolkien wrote at about the same time Asimov was getting cranked up. I think A was very young when he first started writing. His work matured over the years, but nothing matched the original Foundation trilogy or the Robot stories.
I just don't think his work has held up as well.
A Canticle for Liebowitz.
Yep - Canticle. First given to me by our priest back in 68, I think. I loved it. I've read it at least once since then and probably ought to reread it.
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