![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Placeholder: Books
Just a reminder to myself to do a post about two new books I got out from the library.
And because I may never get around to actually writing that post, here it is in brief:
Larry Niven's Fleet of Worlds is a welcome reversion. Niven's work had become rather weak in the past ten to fifteen years; it seemed that like so many writers, age was robbing him of his abilities and voice.
His many co-authors didn't help, either. None of them were that good, and they brought him down. At his best, Niven used beautifully clear, diamond-like prose to convey startling hard-science concepts and speculation; his fantasy was equally clever and imaginative.
Compared to his best works, his many recent novels plodded. They were better than a lot of the crap that's coming out under the SF label lately, but they were disappointing nonetheless.
While Fleet of Worlds doesn't attain the heights of Niven's best work, it is a quite respectable book and definitely worthy of Niven's literary legacy. It ties in to plot elements from previous Known Space stories without exploiting or ruining those stories, and without being annoying. All in all, it works. I haven't heard of the co-author, Edward M. Lerner, before, but so far I'd rate him the best co-author Niven has worked with. Although some of his work with Pournelle was also quite good.
I can't be anywhere near as positive about The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson. Although I'm only 100 pages into it (and it's a behemoth like so many modern crap-SF novels), I knew I was in for a rough ride right on the first page. I don't have the book with me, so I can't tell you exactly what elements set off my mental stink-bomb alert, but I'll see if I can dig them up later.
Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. Actually, as modern SF goes, I've certainly seen worse. But reading it gave me an insight into why I hate the vast majority of modern science fiction so passionately: it's stupid.
It seems to me that the current generation of SF editors and publishers came into the field after the Golden Age - in most cases, post-1970s. Lots of people working in the business now wouldn't know Roger Zelazny or Fredric Brown if they leaped out of their graves and bit them on the ass.
And I believe they think of science fiction as "childish" literature, for immature, adolescent minds.
Which, of course, it has often been from the very first. But there were always exceptional authors - the cream that rose to the top - who wrote truly intelligent, imaginative, and adult science fiction (and fantasy, of course; I'm not making a distinction right now).
The problem is that back then, there were at least some editors and publishers who could recognize greatness. Now, those perceptive and mature people in the SF publishing industry seem to be gone - probably, I suspect, because the whole industry is far more commercialized than it used to be, far more integrated into the craptastic Hollywood culture that dominates American society. They're all looking so hard for the next Harry Potter that they would not only MISS the next Cordwainer Smith - he wouldn't even be able to get in their door.
I fear that the same must be said for fans. It may be that the vast majority of younger fans simply don't know what good writing is, because they've never seen it.
There are still a few good writers out there, of course, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
Like Hercule Poirot, I'm not going to pretend that I'm stupid. I'm more intelligent than the average reader, even the average SF reader. So maybe that makes me more sensitive to having my intelligence insulted. I can tell when I'm reading something written by someone who is dumber than I am, to put it crudely, and I'd say that 97% of everything new being published these days is either written by a relatively dim person, or deliberately slanted for an audience that the producers of the product consider to be - there's no other word for it - idiots.
And even so, the people producing this crap are not bright. If they were, even their dumbed-down writing would show it - and it doesn't. Typos, logical failures, unbelievable characters, the same tired old cliches again and again and again...lord! I'm so sick of it!
And because I may never get around to actually writing that post, here it is in brief:
Larry Niven's Fleet of Worlds is a welcome reversion. Niven's work had become rather weak in the past ten to fifteen years; it seemed that like so many writers, age was robbing him of his abilities and voice.
His many co-authors didn't help, either. None of them were that good, and they brought him down. At his best, Niven used beautifully clear, diamond-like prose to convey startling hard-science concepts and speculation; his fantasy was equally clever and imaginative.
Compared to his best works, his many recent novels plodded. They were better than a lot of the crap that's coming out under the SF label lately, but they were disappointing nonetheless.
While Fleet of Worlds doesn't attain the heights of Niven's best work, it is a quite respectable book and definitely worthy of Niven's literary legacy. It ties in to plot elements from previous Known Space stories without exploiting or ruining those stories, and without being annoying. All in all, it works. I haven't heard of the co-author, Edward M. Lerner, before, but so far I'd rate him the best co-author Niven has worked with. Although some of his work with Pournelle was also quite good.
I can't be anywhere near as positive about The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson. Although I'm only 100 pages into it (and it's a behemoth like so many modern crap-SF novels), I knew I was in for a rough ride right on the first page. I don't have the book with me, so I can't tell you exactly what elements set off my mental stink-bomb alert, but I'll see if I can dig them up later.
Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. Actually, as modern SF goes, I've certainly seen worse. But reading it gave me an insight into why I hate the vast majority of modern science fiction so passionately: it's stupid.
It seems to me that the current generation of SF editors and publishers came into the field after the Golden Age - in most cases, post-1970s. Lots of people working in the business now wouldn't know Roger Zelazny or Fredric Brown if they leaped out of their graves and bit them on the ass.
And I believe they think of science fiction as "childish" literature, for immature, adolescent minds.
Which, of course, it has often been from the very first. But there were always exceptional authors - the cream that rose to the top - who wrote truly intelligent, imaginative, and adult science fiction (and fantasy, of course; I'm not making a distinction right now).
The problem is that back then, there were at least some editors and publishers who could recognize greatness. Now, those perceptive and mature people in the SF publishing industry seem to be gone - probably, I suspect, because the whole industry is far more commercialized than it used to be, far more integrated into the craptastic Hollywood culture that dominates American society. They're all looking so hard for the next Harry Potter that they would not only MISS the next Cordwainer Smith - he wouldn't even be able to get in their door.
I fear that the same must be said for fans. It may be that the vast majority of younger fans simply don't know what good writing is, because they've never seen it.
There are still a few good writers out there, of course, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
Like Hercule Poirot, I'm not going to pretend that I'm stupid. I'm more intelligent than the average reader, even the average SF reader. So maybe that makes me more sensitive to having my intelligence insulted. I can tell when I'm reading something written by someone who is dumber than I am, to put it crudely, and I'd say that 97% of everything new being published these days is either written by a relatively dim person, or deliberately slanted for an audience that the producers of the product consider to be - there's no other word for it - idiots.
And even so, the people producing this crap are not bright. If they were, even their dumbed-down writing would show it - and it doesn't. Typos, logical failures, unbelievable characters, the same tired old cliches again and again and again...lord! I'm so sick of it!