Comments | wombat_socho: Patton Oswalt's "pop culture apocalypse"

wombat_socho

Patton Oswalt's "pop culture apocalypse"

Dec 29, 2010 20:04

chebutykin posted this link from Wired over at FB, and while I think Bob Subiaga did a good job ripping Oswalt's glaring stupidity to shreds, there were a couple of things I wanted to expand on.
( Would you like to know more? )

the bush of fandom

Comments 1

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wombat_socho December 30 2010, 02:04:08 UTC

I'm going to disagree with you on what may seem a small point but in fact is crucial to the argument. Back when all there was to read was books and pulps, the bar to entry was pretty low - you actually didn't have to know that much, because it could be damned hard to get your hands on anything NOT written by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and the handful of other authors whose work was consistently in print. You could, at least in theory, up until the mid-1970s, develop a comprehensive knowledge of science fiction and fantasy works.

That's just not possible any more. There's too much stuff. I gave up a long time ago trying to stay on top of just the combat SF subgenre, because there are just too many authors cranking out books (and games, and TV shows, and movies...) in that part of the city, and you can multiply my experience by a million. Vampire novels? From Bram Stoker through Sheridan LeFanu up to Laurell K. Hamilton, there's got to be a few thousand books, and then there's all the Hollywood and Hammer vampire films, and, and, and... ( ... )