Marginalia

[coalescent]

The introduction to Gary K. Wolfe's Hugo-nominated collection of reviews, Soundings. Why review?

Furthermore, I'd long admired the stylistic freedom of reviewers both in and out of the field, ranging from Pauline Kael and Edmund Wilson to Budrys and Clute. Not only were such writers simply enjoyable to read, but they demonstrated a fierce engagement with their subjects in a manner that frankly is hard to bring off in the constrained formalities of academic writing. And a constantly churning field such as SF seemed to invite such engagement.

Guardian review of Geoff Ryman's latest, The King's Last Song, not entirely complimentary:

Mundane science fiction is an intriguing idea. Whether there'll be any takers for mundane historical fiction is a different matter.

A four-part discussion about Black Swan Green.

This can't go well.

"Goths are like masons," I have been told. "They're everywhere."

An essay about 'The Heat Death of the Universe.'

And finally: 'Spot in Space'

See Spot
gazing out the porthole
of his space capsule, looking
down at Dick and Jane
who are waving good-bye
to him,

Comments

[storme]

Goths and ex-goths everywhere?

Naaaah.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Now you're just freaking me out.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

'This can't go well' is a great hook. But if they do manage to make it well, wouldn't it be simply wunnerful?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The phrase "From the Producer of Doom" doesn't strike fear into your heart?

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what Doom is...

[applez.livejournal.com]

Blood-and-guts videogame (first-person shooter) become film...which I still haven't seen, but have some nostalgia-curiosity. Stars The Rock in a role that was never particularly well-defined in the game.

Incidentally, is the game the convenience-store clerk is playing at the arcade console in the comedy-film Grosse Point Blank.

[nuttyxander.livejournal.com]

I'm considering taking the novelisation on reading week...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

...

[nuttyxander.livejournal.com]

It has got a great cover...



but the original novelisation of the game is a better book...



and even better is the Doom Comic.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

It's only a matter of time before they cast The Rock. (Or Vin Diesel.)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Mundane science fiction is an intriguing idea.

First reference to Mundane SF in a newspaper? Kill it, kill it now!

I've always found Hickling a bit of a dodge reviewer. Five star review from rozk in Time Out this week.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Kill it, kill it now!

But how can you kill that which does not live?

(Zombie movement!)

I've always found Hickling a bit of a dodge reviewer.

I'm not terribly impressed with it as a review. Here's another positive one.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

The review is actually rather racist and can be summarised as:

Ryman should have kept the white man in view as main character because no one else is real;
Cambodian names are too long;
Cambodian history is too complicated;
The west shouldn't presume to criticise.
There is only one view of an eastern country and it's in the tourist book.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Ryman should have kept the white man in view as main character because no one else is real;

This strikes me as a little unfair--it seems to me his point is more "none of the characters, including the white man, are real." But yeah, your other criticisms are spot-on. The names thing annoyed me particularly, since it just seemed lazy.

[(Anonymous)]

This strikes me as a little unfair--it seems to me his point is more "none of the characters, including the white man, are real."

Except that what I think he means as real is "they have to exist in relationship to the west" so by disappearing Luc fails to be "real" in terms of western ideologies of the hero. And of course (and its just struck me) what Ryman has writen is an anti-Heart of Darkness.

Tiger, Tiger done badly...

[applez.livejournal.com]

Why do I get the sense that they're going to glom on the blink-rapists more than the very science-fictional concepts of a blinking society overall?

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

*is completely traumatised by Spot In Space*