Pynchon & SciFI
David Foster
dfoster at panix.com
Sat Aug 5 23:33:18 CDT 1995
To bring this conversation down to the mundane (with a
rather crashing thud, I'm afraid):
I used to work at a large used book store, and I remember that
new employees used to always stock GR in the SF section. Why?
Because it looks like SF. First, of course, the title. But then
the sunburst/rocket flare on the cover, and just, well, the
orangeness of it. And the only words on the back cover of the
paperback were "a screaming comes across the sky...". It just
looks like an "aliens invade earth" book.
Now I don't know how much control TRP had over the packaging
of GR, but I would say that it was definitely marketed perhaps
not as SF, but definitely to SF fans. Notice how now that TRP is
a somewhat well-known author (and GR and well-known book), the
cover of the penguin paperback looks a bit more like a classic
movie ending or something.
My point here is that the confusion of TRP as SF (and I definitely
think it's a confusion), is to large degree simply due to the fact
that a) GR deals with science fairly heavily, and b) to a degree,
it was marketed as SF. Viking must have been very aware of this.
Does anyone know how much the original press kit hinted at the
"GR is SF" message.
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