5 Responses so far

1. 1. gabe chouinard on Feb 7th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

   This and even moreso this is my contribution to the discussion.

2. 2. Dave Klecha on Feb 7th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

   Heh.

   It sounds like a “craft” conversation that has been had many, many times in many, many venues.

   Which is better, the over-large infodump or the telling details? The consensus among writers, lately, seems to be that sketching in details is the way to go, eschewing chapter-long infodumps. William Goldman, a million years ago, even satirized people who satirize the infodump in his “annotations” to S. Morgenstern’s The Princess Bride.

   I think Harrison is just piling on the drama and engaging in a little controversy, myself. But that’s what gets play.

3. 3. Steve Buchheit on Feb 7th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

   Damn, I’m starting to get punch drunk from all the “Art” vs “Craft” vs “Entertainment” arguments in the past three months. It’s like watching a certain wing of the political establishment start cranking out their homespun highly word/image managed emails (send it to everybody). But this for people who do “High Art.”

   I went to Art School. You want a dialectic about Art, I can spin them out faster that most people can think. It’s no problem. Once you know the words, it all gels. But, it’s all crap. It really is. Ever listen to art historians discuss individual pieces of art? At the Cleveland Museum of Art, I took on one of their curators while they were giving a tour because I recognized that what they said was completely wrong (it was actually about Hellenistic Greece, but she also made a bad comparison to Eutruscan Art as well which tipped me over).

   It all comes down to the individual writer and reader, and the work they’re discussing. And it all has the feeling of “justification.”

   (Said in the voice of Thurston Howell) “Sure they sell more than us. But, Lovey, what we do is Art.”

   Or, when someone made the comment to me when Dan Brown was all the controversy when I made the comment about just how many books he had sold, “But he’s a hack.”

   Oh, Lord. May I be such a hack. Or like Stephen King, your choice.

4. 4. Dave Klecha on Feb 8th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

   I think I’d prefer King’s hackery. He’s way more prolific.

   Brown’s genius hackery is looking more and more like a one-off.

5. 5. tobias s buckell on Feb 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

   I’ll take King’s hackery. May I be such a hack indeed.

   Yeah, this is a bit of craft v. art again, otoh, as much as I like Harrison, I do have to point out that the reason I like SF, and the way in which it is predefined different than regular fiction, is that the worldbuilding is a part of its otaku and why we enjoy reading it (Schroeder’s Sun of Suns gets huge kudos for hugely cool worldbuilding, go Karl) and why we’re a different genre, so losing love and primacy of those aspects that stand us apart are okay, but you have to understand that a lot of readers are looking for those odd lumps in their porridge.