Arthur C Clarke a hack?

[Hobbit]

I've just found this article by Robert Silverberg. From the outset he admits he's not a fan.

Either you get it or you don't, I guess. For the defense, I am a fan of Clarke's and Silverberg's writing, but totally accept they are different types of writers.

Personally I think it's very disappointing that an author of Silverberg's standard feels the need to write such an article. I'm sure similar comments could be made about some of the older writers: Olaf Stapledon, Poul Anderson, Frederik Pohl...?

And it also must be noticed that Silverberg has waited until ACC's dead before writing such an article.

Whilst aware of ACC's limitations, I just think this articles reads of sour grapes.

Am I being too precious or has Silverberg got it right?

Mark

 

[owlcroft]

Actually, it's mild.

I think you're overstating the severity of Silverberg's criticism. Note that (although it may just be for politeness' sake) the review ends with the statement that "Against the Fall of Night and most of Clarke’s later work [is] compelling to us despite all its literary shortcomings." Not exactly a savaging.

And there is certainly no doubt whatever that Clarke's work does have really serious literary shortcomings--from weak (to put it mildly) plotting to pedestrian (to put it very mildly) prose to blandoid (to the point of non-existence) character portrayal, much less character development.

What Clarke offered was one thing: tech stuff. He had all kinds of ideas, and understood the science behind them. But even there, his ideas were limited to reasonable, near-future extensions of what we already know. As Silverberg penetratingly points out, Clarke's vision (granted, in fairness, a very youthful Clarke's vision) of the world of six or seven centuries hence is almost comically naive.

In short, Clarke's work is almost the paradigmatic example of the apothegm that The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 13.

 

[suciul]

The only thing I have to say is that as long as sf will exist, people will remember AC Clarke, while Silverberg will be long forgotten; one is a giant of sf, the other a prolific and overrated follower...

 

[owlcroft]

Let us define your terms . . . .

[A]s long as sf will exist, people will remember AC Clarke, while Silverberg will be long forgotten; one is a giant of sf, the other a prolific and overrated follower...

Some questions arise.

1. Is it your position that an author's fame is a sure measure of his or her quality?
2. What makes an author a "giant"? Quality? Sales? Anthologization? Critical opinion?
3. How do you feel Silverberg is "rated", and why do you feel that that is an "over-rating"?

We only ask because we want to know . . . .

 

[suciul]

Some questions arise.

1. Is it your position that an author's fame is a sure measure of his or her quality?
2. What makes an author a "giant"? Quality? Sales? Anthologization? Critical opinion?
3. How do you feel Silverberg is "rated", and why do you feel that that is an "over-rating"?

We only ask because we want to know . . . .

1. AC Clarke is one of the 3 giants of modern sf and many days I have a feeling that in content - note that style changed because of the new wave movement - all contemporary sf is a mixture of Heinlein (the most influential), Clarke (second) and Asimov (third); I do not disagree that ACC prose was more stilted than literary, but so what...

2. See the above - an author is a giant because of influence on a field, explicit or implicit

3. Of the top of my head the only Silverberg I remember are the Valentine fantasies, the alt-Rome stories and the novelization of Asimov's Nightfall; I would like to know a famous, influential Silverberg work on ACC level (note that ACC has quite a few influential works Rama, Space Odyssey, Childhood, the near space series like Imperial Earth, the far future ones; not to speak of quotes, prizes named after him...).

A paragraph like this:

"The merits of most of the science fiction of Arthur C. Clarke have largely escaped me. There is no denying the overwhelming visionary fertility of his imagination—he exceeds all others in his ability to show us the wonders of the as yet uncharted realms of space and time—and some of his short stories are superb. But the big, bland novels that repeatedly put him on the best-seller lists—the Rendezvous with Rama books, Imperial Earth, 2001 and its various sequels, et cetera, have always struck me, despite their passages of great conceptual inventiveness, as dull, slow, and passionless. That they should have enjoyed such great commercial success and gobbled up so many Hugo and Nebula awards left me baffled."

reminds one of RK Morgan thrashing of Tolkien and evokes the same feeling - a good, maybe first rate author (though as mentioned I really do not remember anything written by Silverberg that well and I read a lot of works by him, while many of ACC's novels are still with me) baffled by genius and putting the onus of his failings to measure up to it on the "public", "pop culture", whatever...

Sometimes genius is being first in a field, opening it, fertilizing it, however more technically accomplished are the lesser followers...

I also some days think that without the 3 authors mentioned above, today there would be no genre sf just the "mainstream fantastic" works that have been around since whenever since the New Wave that absorbed sf stylistically, would have absorbed it content-wise without the deep trenches dug by Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov in the public's imagination; again some may have welcomed that and who knows we may yet get there if Mark Newton and others of the sf is dying crowd are right

 

[Zeratul]

I expected much worse criticism given the thread title, the article is actually mild. Only the end of the first paragraph could be read as a more scathing attack, but it's still a reasonable criticsm which is hardly uncommon. I haven't read that much of Clarke, but I found Silverberg's comments right on the money. I think it's pretty inarguable that Clarke was far from a master of the literary technique, especially compared to the best in the genre in that regard like Le Guin, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Wolfe, Silverberg himself, etc. The ending of the article is spot on about the value of Clarke's work and why he was so successful.

I admit to being biased though, since for me Silverberg is one of the giants of the field but I've never been a fan of Clarke. Not one of Clarke's work has affected me even half as much as Dying inside, Sundance or The Book of skulls.

 

[owlcroft]

It is well to know whereof one speaks.

AC Clarke is one of the 3 giants of modern sf . . . . That is not responsive to the corresponding question of whether an author's fame is a sure measure of his or her quality; no one is arguing that Clarke was not or is not hugely famous. (But so was Moe Howard.)

[A]n author is a giant because of influence on a field, explicit or implicit . . . . Well, it at least answers the question. But saying, or implying, that Clarke had a great influence on sf has a certain ipse dixit flavor to it. That he much helped to popularize it is probably true (though whether the man makes the times or the times make the man is an open question); but whether many authors other than some contemporaries tried much to imitate him is, I at least would say, yet to be shown here.

I would like to know a famous, influential Silverberg work on ACC level . . . . Hm; try this. But I don't think it's "ACC level"--rather, it's a deal higher. Silverberg was an astoundingly prolific writer--probably no sf writer but Asimov outdoes him for sheer productivity. And a lot of his work, most notably his mid-period work, is of high quality. This essay might give you a better handle on who he was and is.

Note that Silverberg has won the Hugo and the Nebula five times each, plus the Jupiter, the Prix Apollo, and a Grandmaster Award from the SFWA. Paul di Filippo, who has some right to an opinion, remarked earlier this year that "There is a strong case to be made that SFWA Grand Master Robert Silverberg is the living, beating heart at the center of science fiction."

There's no point in turning this into a pissing war over who's the better author, though my views are plain enough. The point is that Silverberg certainly has sufficient stature that a critique by him cannot be brushed off by dismissive handwaving.

 

[Hobbit]

Thanks all. Entertaining read as ever.

I think my objections to it is that there is that tone that Owlcroft mentions throughout: ACC was good at X, BUT awful at A, B, C and D.

I think ACC himself would himself comment that his style was never particularly novel or original; yet to accuse him of amateurism or clumsy writing is wrong IMO. The article does little to look at his later work, but instead concentrates on Clarke's earlier work, some of which Clarke himself looked back at with amusement, if not to say embarrassment.

To me, it's rather like looking at a writer's school essays and damning their whole adult career on what's read there.

Whatever its shortcomings, Clarke had a style that, by the end, was clearly his own. I remember reading some of his last work thinking that it was a particular style not used by others. Even the Frederik Pohl collaboration and the Stephen Baxter collaborations have that element of Clarke in them.

Some of the older writers could have similar accusations made of them: they are a product of their time. I just think Silverberg seems to be sniping here, and that's a shame.

Mark

 

[Zeratul]

I didn't get the impression Silverberg's judging Clarke based only on his earliest works, it's just that he had just reread those and used them as examples. he noted several times Clarke's later works were significantly better, but still shared some of the principal flaws and strenghts, which is hardly unreasonable.

Certainly Silverberg would be the last person I'd expect to judge a fellow writer based only on his earliest works no matter how poor they are, given that Silverberg's early works, by his own admission, are competent hackwork and nothing more.

 

[crewman no7]

I think you're overstating the severity of Silverberg's criticism. Note that (although it may just be for politeness' sake) the review ends with the statement that "Against the Fall of Night and most of Clarke’s later work [is] compelling to us despite all its literary shortcomings." Not exactly a savaging.

And there is certainly no doubt whatever that Clarke's work does have really serious literary shortcomings--from weak (to put it mildly) plotting to pedestrian (to put it very mildly) prose to blandoid (to the point of non-existence) character portrayal, much less character development.

What Clarke offered was one thing: tech stuff. He had all kinds of ideas, and understood the science behind them. But even there, his ideas were limited to reasonable, near-future extensions of what we already know. As Silverberg penetratingly points out, Clarke's vision (granted, in fairness, a very youthful Clarke's vision) of the world of six or seven centuries hence is almost comically naive.

In short, Clarke's work is almost the paradigmatic example of the apothegm that The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 13.

I must admit although i love clarks writing i do prefer to read others as clark's centers way to much on the science that said i have not long read the space odyssey back to back for me these books will never get old.

the comments above " his ideas where limited to reasonable, near future extensions of what we already know ".
How can you say that A C Clarks vision brought us the satalite he was writing about them decade's before they where invented his very stories & science fact gave berth to them without his vision they where still 20-30 years away! in fact he predicted them with such precision that when they did get around to puting his idea's into practice they couldn't patten them.

in short your very wifi link,bluetooth,sky tv,global communications as we know it today is thanks to this man and his vision not to mention the micro electronics that came with the satalite that would give berth to the very pc you used to write that cheap shot.
A hack! he was so far from it.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I think this brings up the entire issue of what good sci-fi is really about versus fantasy or other literature and Silverberg hints at it in that essay.

I see what stirred me about “The Lion of Comarre” back in 1949, when my primary concern as an uncritical reader was to extract visions of the unknowable future from a story, rather than to be carried along by a swiftly unfolding plot.

Schools teach people to concentrate on and make a big deal of unimportant crap in the process of becoming CRITICAL. All of this critical thinking that we hear about these days is hilarious.

No child had been born in Diaspar for seven thousand years until the coming of Clarke’s protagonist, the boy Alvin, who has the hungry curiosity of youth.

...tricks of the storytelling trade, the array of technical devices that professional writers use to draw readers into a story and hold them there. I think that’s true of Clarke: from beginning to end of his career, he told his stories quietly, simply, relying entirely on the strength of his ideas and the steady, gentle tone of his voice to keep readers interested. For the most part, it worked.

Most of the people using the tricks of the storytelling trade don't have any ideas.

How much does a ten year old care about writing style. Writing style is for old people that have taken courses in English literature. Young kids are about getting ideas and information into their heads because most of the adults around them aren't saying jack about anything important or even pretending stuff is important when it really IS NOT. Trying to program them with the DUMB CULTURE.

The story and the writing are two different things but of course the writing is necessary to tell the story. Arthur C. Clarke put better ideas and information into his stories even if Silverberg may have been a better writer. I don't particularly care who is the better writer because I care more about the story than the writing.

Aficionado is the perfect word to describe this. I have met enough people trying to tell me the difference between a "good" wine and a mediocre one. I don't care. I don't like wine. I can tell the difference but I don't like either one and I am not about to memorize the jargon they use for describing wines. I had enough of that kind of nonsense with audiophiles and I like music and used to find hi-fi very interesting.

But the effect that "good" sci-fi can have on a young brain versus what people with old brains think of it is what the issue of judging the quality and relevance of sci-fi is about. I remind myself while reading Owlcraft's posts that he must be using a computer to make them. Does that have anything to do with SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY?

Are computers sufficiently advanced technology to be indistinguishable from ...?

Is that why so many people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between fantasy and REAL Science fiction these days. Computers are MAGIC!

We have passed the Clarke Event Horizon. We are falling into the Clarke Singularity.

psik

PS - Does that mean VISTA is from the Dark Side?

PS2 - OK, I admit it. I had to look up apothegm.

PS3 - Has anyone noticed that the laws of physics are incapable of giving a damn about Greek or Latin or any culture, even alien ones.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19445/19445-h/19445-h.htm

 

[PeterWilliam]

This is purely speculative, but from Silverberg's post, I get a sense that he's envious of Clarke. It is my supposition that Silverberg sees his own writing as being superior to Clarke's, in many different ways. How Clarke enjoyed such fame and recognition baffles Silverberg. Silverberg, as previously stated, did wait to write this until after Clarke had passed, but I think that just shows that Silverberg's chagrin lies with 'the culture' for making Clarke popular and famous and, simultaneously, failing to recognize how much better his own works were.

Again, this is sheer speculation on my part, but were I to bet on the situation, it sounds to me like Silverberg looks back on the course of Clarke's writing career, compares with his own and is stunned with disbelief that there would be such a comparative gap between he and Clarke, especially in Clarke's favor.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Again, this is sheer speculation on my part, but were I to bet on the situation, it sounds to me like Silverberg looks back on the course of Clarke's writing career, compares with his own and is stunned with disbelief that there would be such a comparative gap between he and Clarke, especially in Clarke's favor.

How much was Clarke's career affected by the fact that he wrote a NON-FICTION article about communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits in 1945.

A. C. Clarke, "Extra-Terrestrial Relays," Wireless World, Vol. 51, No. 10, pp. 305-308, 1945
http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/

I get the impression that he was mostly ridiculed at the time. But 12 years later we had Sputnik and a lot of people had egg on their faces. There is nothing Silverberg could do to overcome the reputation that would give someone outside of sci-fi writing circles. And how many sci-fi readers in the 50s and 60s cared more about science than writing? The space race and the cold war were going and the government was promoting hard science.

It doesn't surprise me at all that science people who write aren't as good at writing as writers who do science fiction. They both would take significant time and effort so one probably has to lose. It is just a question of how many readers prefer what. But the science and technology still go on and affect society so I think in the long run scientific realism wins. As a society we will still have to decide what to do with genetic engineering but if most people don't have a clue about science how good can the decisions be? Look at our global warming fiasco.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058273530743771382#

Yeah, 2001 makes a good Clarke Event Horizon.

psik

 

[KatG]

I don't think Silverberg means it as sour grapes, though he is a crusty fellow, but he knew Clarke and the lions who came before him and I think his intent here is to honestly assess a writer who doesn't speak to him like others do. Silverberg is part of the New Wave, and so his gripes about Clarke here seem to be in general the gripes that movement had of earlier writers. While I myself prefer LeGuin and Bradbury to Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke in terms of writing, I don't agree with Silverberg's musing on Clarke as an amateur, in either sense of the word as presented. Clarke was a powerful storyteller, but he told a particular type of story and in a voice that was, usually, formal and effecting. Combine that with the man's ability to portray great scope of vision with his scientific knowledge therein, and Clarke's works are indeed going to be lasting.

I think Silverberg's works will last for a good while too. He was most definitely in that "second" tier of major SFF writers, along with Frederick Pohl, etc., and his explorations of identity are very striking. But writers have a tendency to over-emphasize the time period in which they wrote when they want to make one point and ignore the aspects of time period when they want to make another sort of point. And I feel that this is what Silverberg is doing in his column a bit.

 

[Werthead]

Why is Clarke so well-known? It's fairly simple.

First off, he had a huge impact through his writing of the movie 2001, which was a big deal back in 1968. Through that movie and the related interviews, he became the media's 'go-to' guy for quotes and discussions about the space programme, and was one of the main commentators in the USA during the Apollo 11 landings. He was SF's biggest name and most visible novelist from the late 1960s right through to the mid-1980s, and his TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World was a huge success as well. In effect, Clarke may have been seen as a bit of a 'celebrity' SF writer, a concept that Silverberg probably is not a fan of.

Secondly, most of Clarke's solo novels (with the possible exception of Imperial Earth, and that is only down to a few mild sexual references) are perfectly readable by children. I read the Odyssey Trilogy (as it was then) at the age of 10, followed by Childhood's End, The Ghost from the Grand Banks, A Fall of Moondust etc. Whilst some of Silverberg's stuff is okay, a lot of his novels, including arguably his most famous, Dying Inside, are strictly adults-only and thus have a more limited reader base.

I'd say finally, Clarke, like Asimov, was a 'pure' SF writer who liked to use the novel form to transmit sometimes complex scientific ideas and concepts to the audience, and to that end was not interested in developing complex characterisation, obtuse prose or sophisticated literary themes. He was an ideas man (with a self-admitted weakness for great last lines and sometimes ambiguous endings), not a poet, and admitted that freely. Silverberg is indeed a more sophisticated writer, but that extra level of sophistication (although Silverberg isn't exactly Wolfe or Aldiss here) sometimes gets in the way of connecting straight with the audience's "Ooh, wow!" reactions that Clarke seemingly effortlessly tapped into at will.

I think this is what it comes down to. In the essay Silverberg comments on the sheer majesty of some of Clarke's ideas, but never really seems to 'get' them. That's stuff that Silverberg probably isn't that interested in, but it's also those elements that resonate strongly with the general SF audience, especially back in those days.

 

[suciul]

That's stuff that Silverberg probably isn't that interested in, but it's also those elements that resonate strongly with the general SF audience, especially back in those days.

And today too

I completely agree with the above - sf is sf because of writers like ACC not because of works like Dying Inside however good they may be as literature since if I want to read good literature I can (and do) read Nobel prize winners, Booker prize winners and so on; sf is about world-building and sense of wonder first and foremost, about strange societies, the whys of the universe and the whole "big questions" thing... All through a "natural philosophy" lens of course and sometimes through a concrete, how can we do it attitude...

And here ACC excelled and why he will remain for a long time a giant of sf...

 

[owlcroft]

Bits and pieces:

the comments above " his ideas where limited to reasonable, near future extensions of what we already know ".
How can you say that A C Clarks vision brought us the satalite he was writing about them decade's before they where invented his very stories & science fact gave berth to them without his vision they where still 20-30 years away!

"Near future" is not an exact term, but a span of decades lies well within its scope. Projecting centuries, much less millennia or eons, is another matter. An Earth 1.5 billion years in the future with humans essentially identical--physically, mentally, emotionally--to today's, even with the excuse of "stagnation", seems something beyond risible. Even six centuries seemed to produce a vision little better than the then-contemporary world with some fancy gadgets. (Also, the ability to foresee or imagine the technology of the near future well--an ability no one denies that Clarke possessed in excelsis--has close to zero correspondence with being a good writer of fiction; it would make an excellent writer of science-fact articles and books, but that's not what we're talking about.)

How much does a ten year old care about writing style.

If you or I were 10 years old, that would be an interesting and meaningful question; but Clarke is not typically classed as a writer of children's lit. If one wants to discuss him on that basis, that's fine, but all is altered.

It doesn't surprise me at all that science people who write aren't as good at writing as writers who do science fiction.

Actually, many eminent scientists are excellent writers, because the essence of good writing is intelligence (it's not all of it, but it's a lot). Some such writers--for example, Lewis Thomas, or perhaps Loren Eisley--produce works worth reading for the sheer pleasure of the writing, in which the science is just a plus.

Silverberg is part of the New Wave . . . .

I'm inclined to disagree there. In the L.A. Times article I linked upthread, the writer says "Silverberg was too old to be part of the New Wave, exactly. 'He was very much a bridging figure,' [Jonathan] Lethem says. 'He was the youngest of the elders, and an elder to the New Wave. He was a little too wise and knowing to buy the countercultural dreams of the New Wave, and saw it at a distance.'"

sf is sf because of writers like ACC not because of works like Dying Inside however good they may be as literature since if I want to read good literature I can (and do) read Nobel prize winners, Booker prize winners and so on; sf is about world-building and sense of wonder first and foremost, about strange societies, the whys of the universe and the whole "big questions" thing... All through a "natural philosophy" lens of course and sometimes through a concrete, how can we do it attitude...

Well, I reckon we've all been there, done that, and brought home the T-shirt. But do you understand just what it is that you are saying?

"Science fiction doesn't have to be any good--it can be pure crap--but it's Great And Wonderful because, by Jingo, it's got science in it!" I guess science is the literary philospher's stone (oops, sorceror's stone): its touch turns crap to gold. For sf, it's as the old saying goes: I can protect myself from my enemies, but only God can save me from my friends.

 

[suciul]

"Science fiction doesn't have to be any good--it can be pure crap--but it's Great And Wonderful because, by Jingo, it's got science in it!" I guess science is the literary philospher's stone (oops, sorceror's stone): its touch turns crap to gold. For sf, it's as the old saying goes: I can protect myself from my enemies, but only God can save me from my friends.

As it happens I did not claim that, just that sf can be ok as writing goes and great as sf, while "literature" has to be great as itself - the difference lies in world building/ideas by and large; just to be concrete a writer like Greg Egan who is ok as style goes - not crap by any means, but not a contender for a Booker either - is a great sf writer and one of the best Clarke inheritors; Stephen Baxter who is overall even an worse stylist imho is another pretty good sf writer; and I can continue; as I mentioned in my original response, the books by Silverberg that I remember are all core-sff (fantasy like Valentine, alt-hist like the Rome stories, novelizations like Nightfall) since that's what interests me from his work; his more mainstream stuff like Dying Inside is of very little interest for me since frankly I do not read sf for that; for that i read the real deal so to speak, so Nabokov, Borges....

The straddle between sf and mainstream is something I rarely read from "sf authors" but I read all the time from "mainstream authors"; there are exceptions like Dan Simmons but overall I find that sff authors do sff best so to speak - and again that's in the spirit of the recent James Enge (a classicist by training and fantasy author by passion) quote that got spread all over from our interview with him at FBc - "I believe that the greatest danger to genre fiction nowadays is not the denial of respect from some notional group of literary tastemakers but the very real likelihood that sf/f may become respectable. Those who thirst for the foamy gray poison of respectability should consider the fate of jazz, once a popular medium, now respectable, ossified and ignored."

SFF and especially sf needs to stay there ahead of the curve rather than respond to it and that may be another reason why ACC is a giant of the field btw

 

[owlcroft]

I think not.

Sorry, but if I want to read good literature . . . rather clearly implies that most sf is not good literature, but you want to read it anyway.

Part of the problem here, I suspect, is the unstated but implied proposition that "literature" or "literary" has some special meaning other than "well-conceived and well-crafted fiction"; it doesn't. That is a silly concept that academia has foisted off on the unsuspecting, who don't know The Emperor's New Clothes when they don't see them.

"Literate" sf is not written in some esoteric or purple-plush prose, or concerned with esoteric or purple-plush philosophies, either. It means work written in prose that at the least does not make one wince at its grammar or its woodeness, it means work that tells about people one can really believe could exist, and puts those people into situations that seem realistically trying for them (consider the ideas in try), and tells us convincingly how they think and feel in those situations.

An awful lot of sf doesn't do all of that, and too much of it doesn't do any of that. Now that is equally true of all other sorts of fiction, but the difference is that (at least by and large) no one claims it's good stuff anyway just because it's got this or that genre hook in it.

 

[Zeratul]

reminds one of RK Morgan thrashing of Tolkien and evokes the same feeling - a good, maybe first rate author (though as mentioned I really do not remember anything written by Silverberg that well and I read a lot of works by him, while many of ACC's novels are still with me) baffled by genius and putting the onus of his failings to measure up to it on the "public", "pop culture", whatever...

Not really comparable cases. Morgan's popularity is a tiny fraction of Tolkien's. On the other hand, there were times in the late 60s and 70s when Silverberg was something like 4th or 5th most popular writer in the field, he's won all kinds of awards plenty of times (IIRC he has quite a few more Hugo and nebulas than Clarke). Given Silverberg's prodigious output, he could well have sold more books than Clarke too. Or at least he's not far behind.

Anyway, I fully agree with owlcroft. I will never agree with the intentional lowering of standards when it comes to science fiction. If someone can't write good fiction but he has a good scientific ideas, he should stick to non-fiction as far as I am concerned.