Unexpected
Apr. 25th, 2003 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentThe following just appeared in the guestbook on my website:
I have no idea if this is real; the domain certainly checks out, although the email address he left doesn't seem to be listed there. It certainly sounds real enough; I guess the only reason I have to doubt it is the fact that it seems ever so slightly unlikely that M John Harrison has been reading my website. Still, if he has then I guess it puts me one up on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snowking...
The comment refers to an earlier journal entry of mine, now archived on my website, in which I wrote:
I wasn't necessarily suggesting that the book would be incomprehensible to SF virgins, merely wondering whether it might be. Interesting (and gratifying) to find that, in fact, the opposite seems to be true.
Name: M John Harrison
Date: 2003-04-25, 16:57
Comment:
Hi. Interested by Niall Harrison's comment about Light being "unreadable" to non-sf readers. It's a logical assumption from his & Gwyneth's argument. Unfortunately, the book has found many of its most delighted readers among complete and total sf virgins, including the literary editors of major broadsheets & literary magazines who might be the most likely to suffer from the syndrome Gwyneth & Niall describe; plus a motley crew of people in Arts management, radio producing, etc. Many of them are women, and most of them were utterly surprised to find themselves being able to read it, let alone enjoy it. Bit of a problem, that. Probably need a new theory, all of us, both sides of the fence, after this.
I have no idea if this is real; the domain certainly checks out, although the email address he left doesn't seem to be listed there. It certainly sounds real enough; I guess the only reason I have to doubt it is the fact that it seems ever so slightly unlikely that M John Harrison has been reading my website. Still, if he has then I guess it puts me one up on
snowking...The comment refers to an earlier journal entry of mine, now archived on my website, in which I wrote:
[Light] is a novel, though, that is so obviously steeped in the traditions and history of sf - so thoroughly and comprehensively a genre book - that I genuinely wonder if it would make sense to a reader coming to it cold. Not necessarily in terms of plot (heck, I'm still working out exactly what the ending means myself) but simply in terms of the conceptual architecture. Light makes no apologies for its nature. It just expects you to cope.
I wasn't necessarily suggesting that the book would be incomprehensible to SF virgins, merely wondering whether it might be. Interesting (and gratifying) to find that, in fact, the opposite seems to be true.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-25 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-25 10:31 am (UTC)Too many Harrisons!
Date: 2003-04-25 11:48 am (UTC)----
Re: Too many Harrisons!
Date: 2003-04-26 03:43 pm (UTC)HTH. HAND.
Rawk.
Date: 2003-04-25 12:42 pm (UTC);o)
no subject
Date: 2003-04-25 03:17 pm (UTC)Jocelyn
LNpRbpVDLPHT
Date: 2013-03-24 10:27 pm (UTC)