Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales

[Joe Allonby]

I think that is the nature of why we are on the P-list.

The whole idea of what is high literature and pulp fiction? How is the
3/4 of dead Europeans funded by monarchies superior to Thelonius Monk?
Was Miles Davis an Uncle Tom for not sufficiently rejecting European
musical forms? deBussy?

How many dickheaded "serious" writers were contemporaneous to P K DicK?

How is it that the lesser work of some third rate Romantic is
considered superior to "Gimme Shelter"?

Genre means nothing.,

Did you get the job done? Did you communicate? Did you create
something of beauty or even comment on the nature of beauty by
creating its opposite?

I learned to write a sonnet in the 10th grade. I can write one right
now. This is what children should be taught.

Now you move.





On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I, too, think The Demolished Man is a wonderful novel. However, I 'ain't too
> read in
> science fiction like so many on this list. Because, usually, it is just
> science fiction.
>
> So, i ask, what science fiction, what other genre fiction if you care to
> play along is
> LITERATURE in your mind?  (I can not forget howlong Dickens wasn't
> Literature...and
> it was as if Shakespeare was just "popular culture"......)
>
> I also hate labels in general; especially hate them about books..so-called
> genres, etc. When I learned me
> some Aristotle back in the day, against the current day, I never forgot that
> his good Poetics was
> admittedly a philosophical gloss, pattern-finding based on Attic plays,
> Greek Tragedy, etc.
>
> After. Works always first...Then the world started to use the patterns to
> judge (almost) ideologically, pre-judge,
> with preconceptions aforethought.....See all the Candlebrow types, with or
> without a degree, who spent a shame
> of words condemning Shakespeare for violating the unities. & He is just a
> leading example.
>
> So, to start, if not a fight, then a discussion, I ask:
>
> Is Ovid 'science fiction"...what is mythology but?
> What is Gulliver's Travels? Surely it is 'science fiction'?..or just
> fantasy?
>
> Why is it science fiction, generally, if it is not ranked highly enough to
> be "literature"?
> What is 1984? What is Animal Farm?
>
> Somebody once wrote that Invasions of the Body Snatchers was one of the few
> genuinely
> new 'myths' created in the 20th Century. Discuss.
>
> From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> To: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
> Cc: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>; pynchon -l
> <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2012 1:56 AM
> Subject: Re: Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales
>
> These compilation ist much much better than the last list of 100 best
> SF novels. Much better. For example it has Brunner, Stephenson,
> Simmons. The only book I miss is The Demolished Man.
>
> 2012/6/21 Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>:
>> Actually a nice list. I rarely find these interesting. I saw a woman
>> reading "Windup Girl" on the train this morning. "The City and the
>> City" was something a friend recommended that turned out to be really
>> fun.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 6:05 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
>>>
>>>
>>> http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2012/01/david-brins-list-of-greatest-science.html
>
>