From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Subtle Thoughts
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 10:37:34 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	My attempts have certainly not always been appreciated, he said
modestly.
	Subtlety in science fiction and literature generally is an
interesting subject (to me anyway).  On several occasions, I have read a
review of a science fictional work in which the reviewer states that the
author introduces a concept subtlely.  Then, I read the work itself and find
that the author is pretty explicit about the concept.  Where's the subtlety,
I wonder?  Never having questioned a reviewer about why he or she considered
the basic work to be subtle, I am left wondering.  My outstanding example of
this perceived subtlety versus author's actual statement occured in one of
Gene Wolfe's Torturer/New Sun books in which a cyborg's "replacement parts"
are revealed to be his fleshy parts, not his metallic parts.  Wolfe had his
cyborg character state this explicitly, so I am left wondering why the
reviewer -- whose name I have totally forgotten -- found this to be subtle.

-----Original Message-----
From: Barry L. Newton [mailto:bnewton at ashcomp.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 9:41 AM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: quotations down through the ages

Interestingly, Strong, Lee said:
>         A subtle wit... delicately flavored... best appreciated by the
true
>expert.

Yeah, must be nice.  Most of my attempts at subtlety seem to end up on the
Night Train.

Barry