Planet of the Complete Bloody Psychopaths, conclusion

[bellatrys]

Foreword to the ebook edition of Tarnsman of Gor, Copyright © 1966 by John Lange
Published by e-reads, New York, ISBN 1-58586-224-X

Warning! Warning! Please put away all cats, coffee and other beverages, fasten your seatbelts and return your tray tables to the upright position - we have Author Sign!

Comments

[dryaunda]

[L]et liberals retire to their laboratories to design a better dog or cat[.]

Y'know what, Mr. Lange? I think we will. After that, the design of a better dog and cat, we'll get to work improving humans. No, it won't be any One True Master Race sort of thing; we'll create a variety of improved humans.

(Self-promotion on the topic of lab rats reigning over cats and dogs; I've been doing derisive reviews of my own of Oryx and Crake and am starving for comments.)

Silly fanperson! Don't you know

[bellatrys]

that we mere lowly members of the Caste of Readers are not *allowed* to laugh at our professional betters of the Caste of Published Writers, that we don't have the *right* to point out their too-frequent tropes, literary faux-pas, and apparent obsessions, but are merely supposed to accept the Gifts they bestow on us with chants of praise?

--I was really disappointed with Atwood when she made so *very* clear that *she* was not one of us cromulent denizens of the Genre Ghetto, oh, no - I still think Handmaid's Tale is a very prescient and revelatory book, and refer to it as often as I need, but her insistence on not being one of us unwashed fen really made me lose respect for her.

Re: Silly fanperson! Don't you know

[dryaunda]

I was really disappointed with Atwood when she made so *very* clear that *she* was not one of us cromulent denizens of the Genre Ghetto, oh, no[.]

I forgot to ask; which one of her quotes said this?

it was a couple years ago, and it was sort of protracted

[bellatrys]

Here's a rundown at Emerald City which covers some of the highlights - the most infamous was when she referred to SF as being about "talking squid in outer space" and this became something of a running joke (google Ansible Atwood squid and you'll see what I mean) at the time.

Albeit, I have to take exception with EC on this:
No experienced modern SF writer would assume that a video game that is popular with the characters when they were 14 will still be around ten years later.

--given that this sort of thing happens in, eg, Sturgeon Award Winner Bacigalupi's story in F&SF, and the whole genre is riddled with "It's 200/2000 years in the Future but we're all still speaking recognizable 20th c. English" (not "Basic" or "Standard" mind you) and most props/costumes/buildings as well as societal tropes are the same as now (not I'm rendering these future things in familiar equivalent terms for you guys) and getting jokey ObRefs to 20th C TV shows! - it's something I just have to take my Disbelief gently by the hand and lead it to a

and here's an even better rundown

[bellatrys]

by ninebelow with all the quotes and sources:

"Giant Squids in Spaaaace"

Atwood becomes even quite incoherent trying to distance herself from the Genre Zombie:

Oryx and Crake is not science fiction. It is fact within fiction. Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals. Speculative fiction is when you have all the materials to actually do it.

Last I knew, we *had* rockets and chemicals...

Re: and here's an even better rundown

[dryaunda]

Yeah, that's the quote I thought you were referring to.