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Carregando... The Issue at Handde James Blish
   Nenhum(a) Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.  Arbieroo | Jul 17, 2020 |   James Blish discussed this mapping of SF stories into other kinds somewhere in "The Issue At Hand". He called it the "smeerp" method: you call a rabbit a smeerp, put it on Mars, and presto it's science fiction. I don't know if I would call the alien culture story an exclusive preserve of SF. As Philip Farmer pointed out at one of the Worldcon's panels, you can meet a dozen aliens by walking down the streets of your town. The bestseller "Shogun", about an English sailor ship-wrecked in Japan in the 1700's, deals with a confrontation between cultures more different than many in SF. Where SF wins is in its power to change more than just language and tradition, to change a race's biology and environment. No mainstream novel could talk about historical cycles in as direct a way as "The Mote In God's Eye" did because they couldn't conjure up a race that could build itself up from nothing in a matter of generations the way the Moties could. I don't think I buy the idea that a truly alien culture would be incomprehensible either. At the minimum we would share physics and chemistry and certain parts of biology (everything eats, for instance). Their actions would seem random only because we didn't know enough about their motives. This comes up a lot in the novels of C. J. Cherryh. The human characters are constantly baffled by the actions of the alien ones, but the reader can listen to the omniscient author to find out what's going on. Why are the last pair of mri in "Kesrith: the Faded Sun" so intent on going up this valley to commit suicide? Duncan Sten is in the dark, but the reader knows that the valley is the ancient burying place of the mri. It may well be that if we ever did meet aliens we would be unable to communicate well enough to figure out why they did what they did. This is a matter of a lack of data, though, and not an inherent problem. There may be fundamental limits to understanding in something like physics, but I can't see them in the higher order sciences. SF = Speculative Fiction. (  ) antao | Nov 11, 2018 | sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
From 1952 to 1963 the most penetrating critic of the field of magazine science fiction was known as William Atheling, Jr. Guessing his real identity was not easy, because his dissection did not spare even his other ego, noted s-f author James Blish. Shedding his protective covering, Mr. Blish assembled many of the Atheling papers and edited them into this book. It is virtually a text for would-be writers of science fiction. Nor is its value limited to that genre; the rules of good writing are universal, and Atheling's critiques are not restricted to the peculiarities and special interests of science fiction. These essays take aspiring authors and editors by the hand and lead them painstakingly through the dense forests of said-bookism, the treacherous moors of repetitive phrasing, and other forbidden territories. And even old hands will find cause to wonder and reflect, and perhaps even to re-evaluate professional skills too long taken for granted. No subject is too sacred or taboo for Atheling's shredding typewriter; from sex to God, from religion to satirical poetry. No author is spared the bloody mark of his relentless lash; from Anderson to Heinlein to Zirul. No editor or publisher is spared his--or its--due share of responsibility. But most importantly, The Issue at Hand is not just--or even primarily--a textbook for students of writing. It is a vastly entertaining collection in its own right, affording many hours of pleasant informative reading and re-reading, urging the reader ahead with the wry comments, unexpected humor, and undeviating attention to standards that were the hallmarks of William Atheling, Jr. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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 Google Books — Carregando...GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)809.3876Literature By Topic History, description and criticism of more than two literatures Fiction Genre Fiction Mystery and Speculative Fiction Speculative FictionClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia: (3.69)
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He adopted it in order to write reviews of SF magazines in a fanzine. The reviews are technical in nature and brutal. They are also a useful lesson for beginner writers in What Not To Do. The harsh style is hilarious and it is notable that those who come in for the most severe criticism are not familiar names to the SF readers who came to the genre after the era of the pulp magazines. Readers of the column actually complained when Blish praised some material instead of simply dipping his pen in the vitriol bottle every time, but this further illustrates that no matter how acerbic the criticisms are, they are not indiscriminate.
The book is as easily read as any of Blish's fiction and as entertaining. (