Overrated authors

[peadarog]

But neither are they writers that our imagined literate reader without a special weak spot for buzz-and-zap would add to her or his library.

An interesting post and it's always nice to meet another fan of the lamented Grumpy Old Bookman.

I think you are underestimating the value of 'buzz-and-zap' as a contributing factor to greatness. If our "imagined literate reader" is too parochial to appreciate the vertiginous, spirit-crushing time-spans that Aldiss provides in his great Helliconia series, then the lack is in him or her.

Worldbuilding and 'sensawunda' and good old speculation are as precious and important as anything you might find in the kitchen sink

 

[owlcroft]

Truth is stranger than fiction, and more exciting, too.

I think you are underestimating the value of 'buzz-and-zap' as a contributing factor to greatness. If our "imagined literate reader" is too parochial to appreciate the vertiginous, spirit-crushing time-spans that Aldiss provides in his great Helliconia series, then the lack is in him or her.

Worldbuilding and 'sensawunda' and good old speculation are as precious and important as anything you might find in the kitchen sink

"Vertiginous, spirit-crushing time-spans" do not in themselves make greatness in a work, and the proof is the number of other books, many rather awful, that have such an ingredient. It is how a given author works with his or her ideas that makes greatness: a master can make a moving and memorable tale from the most ordinary of events (as, say, with Joyce's Ulysses), while a hack cannot be rescued by any number of wild concepts (as witness the piles of slop from the pulps--not all pulp material was slop, I'm not saying that, but a very great deal was).

Nor, I would say, do worldbuilding or speculation inherently make for greatness in fiction. Worldbuilding can be literally wonderful, as with a Jack Vance--or it can be mind-numbingly boring, however carefully worked out and "correct". As to "speculation", and, for that matter, "sensawunder", I at least find sheerly factual non-fiction works--those of folk like Brian Greene or Lee Smolin or Michio Kaku--to be far more appealing, chiefly because they speculate on what may well be exactly true, which is drastically more exciting than invented things. The value of invented things, of whatever an sf writer uses that makes the s for the f, is the extent to which they allow that writer to better shine light into whatever aspect of the human condition that he or she wants to explore with us.

In short, greatness lies in the author, not the subject or its setting. If a great author writes sf, it will (usually) be great sf; if a mediocre author writes sf, it will be mediocre sf. Conversely, a truly great sf author could (almost certainly) write great non-sf fiction, while a mediocre sf author is not likely to ever write any but mediocre non-sf fiction.

We can disagree about whether Brian Aldiss is great, but whichever it is--great or not-great--is not owing to his subject matter.

 

[Chuffalump]

,

6. I have a degree in english lit (good for nothing or gee, you can do anything: take your preferred definition of a liberal arts degree) and spent many years (about 8) learning how to read and write critically. I now read for fun and am extremely uncritical; I may notice a plot flaw, a character who's motivations make no sense, a technological mistake, but I just gloss right over them. Maybe, if sufficiently motivated, I may try to come up with a plausible explanation for why the error was there, but for the most part I just enjoy the little world created by the author, assume that what I think of as flaws are just quirks of that universe, and move on.

Oh thank ***. I was starting to worry...... all this deep analysis (interesting as it may be) and in depth discussion was making me panic. Should I be thinking like this? Why don't I think like this? Why can't I get to a thread where I want to reply before it moves on to some other topic?

RimWorlder has perfectly encapsulated my reading life. I accept the world created by the author as a given, then read the story against that background. In this way I have enjoyed many a piece of trash. The only things to stop me from finishing a book are - childish style, extended waffle (loved 'Dune' but there was a bit of waffle in it. SIASL was full of it), new age mystical theory taken seriously (except in a fantasy/magic situation) and the American author writing about a cockney woman 'detective' who thought the word 'w*nk' meant to throw up. Oh... and the guy who thought having his hero save the world with a basic knowledge of MSDOS was clever.

See... so bad I can't even remember their names.

Hmmm... probably find there are hundreds of other 'put offs' too, making me just as picky as everyone else. Oh well.

 

[peadarog]

"Vertiginous, spirit-crushing time-spans" do not in themselves make greatness in a work,

Anybody can include such things in a book, but not everybody can make you feel them. That's where the greatness of Helliconia comes from. It's why I used the word 'vertiginous'.

Nor, I would say, do worldbuilding or speculation inherently make for greatness in fiction. Worldbuilding can be literally wonderful, as with a Jack Vance--or it can be mind-numbingly boring, however carefully worked out and "correct".

Absolutely, and when it is great, it is Great. Even though there are no kitchen sinks to be found anywhere in Jack Vance. He stimulates the imaginations of his readers. That's what Great SF is about -- it pushes our thoughts outwards as well as just in. Neal Stevenson's latest Great work, Anathem does both of those things at once.

As to "speculation", and, for that matter, "sensawunder", I at least find sheerly factual non-fiction works--those of folk like Brian Greene or Lee Smolin or Michio Kaku--to be far more appealing, chiefly because they speculate on what may well be exactly true, which is drastically more exciting than invented things.

I'm glad those things are drastically more exciting to you. Some authors express their genius by plumbing the depths of the human spirit, others express it other ways. The world is as much as set of possibilities and might-have-beens, as it is a set of facts.

The value of invented things, of whatever an sf writer uses that makes the s for the f, is the extent to which they allow that writer to better shine light into whatever aspect of the human condition that he or she wants to explore with us.

IMHO, that is a value. A wonderful value, but not the only one.

In short, greatness lies in the author, not the subject or its setting. If a great author writes sf, it will (usually) be great sf; if a mediocre author writes sf, it will be mediocre sf. Conversely, a truly great sf author could (almost certainly) write great non-sf fiction, while a mediocre sf author is not likely to ever write any but mediocre non-sf fiction.

I can't even agree with that (what's wrong with me today?) Not all Great authors write great dialogue, for example. Therefore, not all great authors would make Great playwrights. A number have tried and failed. The nobel-prize winning dramatist Pirandello was nowhere near as good at writing novels as he was with shorter forms. Switching medium, even from one type of novel to another, doesn't always work. Each medium has a toolset that needs to be mastered, but because our imaginations don't all function in the same way, some writers have better luck with certain media compared to others. Thus, a kitchen sink author might write a good introspective SF novel, such as the fabulous "Flowers for Algernon", but only if he or she had a mind capable of the necessary imaginative leap that makes such a book possible. It's far, far more than just having a Martian stare into a dusty sink worrying about his upcoming divorce. But I'm sure you know that.

 

[owlcroft]

So where's the beef?

Anybody can include such things in a book, but not everybody can make you feel them.

Well, yes, that's rather the point I was trying to make: quality in fiction derives from quality in the author: good author, good fiction; bad author, bad fiction; and the particular tropes being used are immaterial to those simple truths (which are in fact tautologies).

I'm glad those things [cosmological speculations by eminent cosmologists] are drastically more exciting [than fiction] to you.

To whom would they not be, I wonder? It's not as if the ideas being put forth by leading physicists are some how mundane and boring, tedium to be relieved by fictioneers. The real physics ideas are at least as (and usually more) "wow factor" as anything authors--who necessarily derive their concepts from the work of actual physicists anyway--are setting forth.

Some authors express their genius by plumbing the depths of the human spirit, others express it other ways.

What other ways? Can anyone sanely refer to an "author of genius" who does not much deal with the human spirit? If, in a fiction, how the characters are feeling and thinking is not of much importance save perhaps as devices to forward the plot, I think an awful lot of readers are going to think that fiction stinks. I'd be puzzled by any who do not, unless Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe is their idea of literate fiction (which fact would pose a different puzzle).

(Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and things like it, can be eminently entertaining--I enjoy it--but that is irrelevant to a discussion of authors and work of literate quality--or "genius", the term used above.)​

The world is as much as set of possibilities and might-have-beens, as it is a set of facts.

Um, what might that be when it's at home with its feet up?

 

[ArthurFrayn]

If Isaac Asimov is the paradigm of the remark that The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12, Kurt Vonnegut is the paradigm of "collegiate profundity". He wields The Great Hammer of Obviousness more often than any thud-and-blunder hero does his magic sword. Nothing Vonnegut has to say about Life, the Universe, and Everything is a novelty to anyone into adulthood

I have to take exception to this. This is the easy critique of Vonnegut, that is just as shallow as his writing is supposed to be. I'll grant that there's a glibness and even a laziness to his writing after Breakfast of Champions, but Cat's Cradle is one of the great satiric novels of SF. Name a better one. And I defy you to give reasons as to how your evaluation of his work in your above last sentence applies to a novel like Mother Night. Novelty is not necessarily what one looks for or gets in a successful author's ruminations on life. Recognition is more important. And by that, I do not mean making comfortable evaluations that everyone finds it easy to agree with. I mean recognition that has the potential of revelation.

And I wont challenge your evaluation of Dick in quite the same manner, except to say that some have taken a little more from their reading of The Man in the High Castle than apparently you did. Sorry it didn't have any toe-tapping tunes for you.

And Vonnegut is obviously a better writer than Ellison. Ellison's shortcomings are entirely well known even by people who like some of his work. One need only read something like Memos From Purgatory (which he still defiantly vaunts) to completely recover from any inordinately high estimation of his oeuvre. I don't know anyone who would put Ellison and Vonnegut in the same league, except Ellison, and Good Gosh, Ellison thinks he's as good as Borges.

 

[extanis1961]

I must admit that i struggled through the first half of the first book of Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy as well, and considering the book is more than 1000 pages, it was quite a struggle. But it was one of the few times that i was happy that i didn't give up, it just got so much better later and grew to one of the best SF series i ever read.
Often though, you struggle through a book, and it doesn't really get better, so it's a gamble...

I have to agree with you on this series. If you hang in there, the reward is well worth it. Though, I have to admit, the ending did come off like, click your heels three times and wish real hard, "There's no place like home....there's no...", well, you get the picture. His next two books, "Pandora's Star" and "Judas Unchained", showed he can write a great series.

 

[nquixote]

One problem with labeling authors "overrated" is that, if you don't like an author, you probably don't read enough of his/her stuff to get a good overall picture of what he/she is about. For example, I really disliked Revelation Space and was bored by Consider Phlebas, but I wouldn't say that Reynolds or Banks is overrated without giving them at least one more try.

Sometimes the first thing you read by an author biases your opinion. I read Ringworld when I was 13 and thought it was kind of corny, so I avoided Niven until last year, when I read The Mote in God's Eye and Protector, both of which turned out to be awesome.

That said, I'm going to have to go with Orson Scott Card.

 

[suciul]

One problem with labeling authors "overrated" is that, if you don't like an author, you probably don't read enough of his/her stuff to get a good overall picture of what he/she is about. For example, I really disliked Revelation Space and was bored by Consider Phlebas, but I wouldn't say that Reynolds or Banks is overrated without giving them at least one more try.

Sometimes the first thing you read by an author biases your opinion. I read Ringworld when I was 13 and thought it was kind of corny, so I avoided Niven until last year, when I read The Mote in God's Eye and Protector, both of which turned out to be awesome.

That said, I'm going to have to go with Orson Scott Card.

It's funny how opinions differ since I found The Mote in God's Eye one of the worst sf books ever that still managed to entertain me enough, but I was laughing all the way at the characters and their pomposity (Lady this, sir that) The sequel though is as bad as it gets imho, while OSC was never for me, would not say bad or overrated in the way Niven is, just not for me.

On the other hand Consider Phlebas is one of the best sf novels ever imho while RS is excellent though not as well written as Reynolds later stuff, but it is the core of his series and has sense of wonder in spades.

 

[psikeyhackr]

It's funny how opinions differ since I found The Mote in God's Eye one of the worst sf books ever that still managed to entertain me

On the other hand Consider Phlebas is one of the best sf novels ever imho while RS is excellent

This is why we need some kind of psychological analysis of sci-fi and literature in general so people can figure out what stuff suits their personality type before they spend money and then waste time trying to read it.

I couldn't stand Revelation Space though I liked Mote in God's Eye.

I am not even tempted to try another book by Reynolds.

psik

 

[suciul]

This is why we need some kind of psychological analysis of sci-fi and literature in general so people can figure out what stuff suits their personality type before they spend money and then waste time trying to read it.

I couldn't stand Revelation Space though I liked Mote in God's Eye.

I am not even tempted to try another book by Reynolds.

psik

Extracts and bookstore browsing; not that they are always possible or even conclusive, but...

 

[weirdside]

I've read close to half a dozen Johnathan Letham stories and found them all to be mightily boring. This is doubly true for Octavia Butler. Funny how they both won the McArthur fellowship but still put out contrived, amaturish drivel.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I've read close to half a dozen Johnathan Letham stories and found them all to be mightily boring. This is doubly true for Octavia Butler. Funny how they both won the McArthur fellowship but still put out contrived, amaturish drivel.

If a book can't interest me in 50 pages I usually quit. Butler's Wild Seed was very good (in my opinion) about 3 other books of hers I tried was merely OK. So I have given up on her. The characters in Wild Seed were interesting but she isn't sciency enough for me.

psik

 

[nquixote]

Hey, since I'm the Village Grump around here (well, one of them, at any rate), I thought I'd post a link to my Listmania list of overrated sf/f novels!

(Keep in mind that my griping is always a bit tongue-in-cheek...)

 

[owlcroft]

Good ratio . . . .

I for one would pretty much agree with 8 out of the 10, which all in all is a pretty good ratio. (I disagree on Perdidio Street Station, which is flawed by excess, but still decent, and Consider Phlebas, which also is flawed but still rather good.)

 

[psikeyhackr]

"I'm told the rest of Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels are better than this early attempt, and I certainly hope so. 500 pages of unlikeable characters lurching from one action-packed but totally pointless adventure to the next just wore me out. Perhaps Banks was trying to write a subtle, cynical treatise on human futility. If so, the readers are the butt of the joke."

That is exactly my reaction!!! I gave up 2/3rds of the way through and only went that far because so many people say it is good. There is definitely something wrong with THEM.



Of course you are all wet about Red Mars. No wait, you can't get wet until Blue Mars.

psik

 

[Patrick Sanders]

I'm inclined to say the Big Three are overrated - Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein. Not bad in any sense; but Asimov and Clarke cared more about ideas than stories, and Heinlein became a political wonk far too soon.

 

[nquixote]

I'm always reluctant to say old stuff is overrated unless I have other, similar, better but less-recognized old stuff to compare it to (e.g. Fahrenheit 451, Narnia). It's difficult to find writers from Asimov's and Heinlein's generation who were doing things better than they were.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I'm inclined to say the Big Three are overrated - Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein. Not bad in any sense; but Asimov and Clarke cared more about ideas than stories, and Heinlein became a political wonk far too soon.

OH NO! Could it be that that is what REAL SCIENCE Fiction is truly about?

Some people want to drag SCIENCE Fiction down to the level of MERE literature.

psik

 

[Werthead]

I've seen Orson Scott Card mentioned a couple of times. How so? Consensus (as much as it can be gauged) seems to be that Ender's Game is great, Speaker for the Dead is okay-if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing and everything else he has ever written is either mediocre or utter crap.

Ender's Game itself has probably reached the point of being overrated, but if you come to it fresh as a young reader with no preconceptions, I still think it would be a pretty decent book.