From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF and the Bestseller Lists
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 15:50:28 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	If you are performing a bona fide service to the self annointed,
decadent elitists on ordinary terms and conditions, then you may accept
their lucre provided that you do not also accept their bankrupt philosophy
of nihilism and moral depravity.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Walsh [mailto:MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 2:23 PM
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF and the Bestseller Lists

Hey, wait a minute! Those elitists help pay my salary!

mjw
>>> StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL 05/09/02 01:19PM >>>
	I agree, but with some reservations.  I don't consider what Steve =
is
talking about to be genuinely **popular**, but largely produced by self
absorbed elitists who are writing-drawing-producing for themselves and
others like them.  The National Endowment for the Arts considers science
fictional art to be too **realistic** to be "Art."  Not really
representative of the average American and therefore not really popular.
	I'm not sure what Erica's former mother-in-law meant by "popular
books."  Shakespeare's work was very popular with the masses of his time,
which is why it has endured and become "classic literature."  In a couple
hundred years, snobs will be using Edgar Rice Burroughs and George Lucas =
as
the standards of excellence for the same reason.

-----Original Message-----
From: Erica VD Ginter [mailto:eginter at klgai.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 12:58 PM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF and the Bestseller Lists

Oh, I agree completely! My ex-husband's mother was in charge of acqusitions=

at the local public library, and she always grumbled about the money
"wasted" on popular books. She had even suggested for such works a little
sticker like those rocket ships the put on the SF, but depicting a garbage
can. She had a point, except one must realize that the public pays for the
public library!

Speaking of my ex-mother-in-law, I beleive I am the only woman in the =
world
to have married two men who each had two PhD chemists for parents, and =
whose
mother later in life gravitated toward library science. Correct me if I'm
wrong!

Erica
who likes the second set of chemists much better

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Smith [mailto:sgs at aginc.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 12:25 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF and the Bestseller Lists

Erica VD Ginter wrote:
>
> Oh, this is going to be fun to watch! Recently, Post columnist Bob Levey
did
> a column about Oprah Winfrey's book club, saying he'd been wrong to put =
it
> down. You see, he had looked over the list of her picks and found only
> worthwhile books, no trash, including no science fiction. I was going to
> write a letter, but what's the point? You know all SF is is that space
opera
> shit and people running around in rubber pointed ears!

I always love this.  What is "trash"?  Well, my definition is "art that
tells you what to think and what to feel".  Good art lets you make your
own conclusions.  Note -- no "genre" touchstones.

There's also "popular art", with the purpose of "reinforcing the
conventional morality".  See prime time television for far too many
examples.

I gave up long ago on "mainstream fiction".  It has acquired its own
structure, which to me looks just like bad storytelling with boring
characters.  The structure of "mainstream fiction" seems to be a mixture
of "Marxist art", whose purpose is too "demonstrate the decadence of the
bourgeoisie", existentialism ("All is ugliness, futility, and despair",
"Hell is other people"), and utter contempt for anything resembling
action.

The book version of "The Princess Bride" is, among other things, a
satire on some of the gimmicks of mainstream fiction.  Only in
"mainstream fiction" would you cut away from a major fight scene to have
a thirty page flashback to a character's childhood ...

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."