You know, it's always so interesting to read this point of view, Sherwood, since my background is in SF&F and the sciences (from anthropology to astrophysics), and my idea of the Classics are such things like Three Hearts and Three Lions and A Spell for Chameleon and, well, anything by Andre Norton or any of the old DoubleDay double-novels (and of course Wells and Verne).
As such, it was a wide swing for me to delve into the "Leet-er-a-ture" genre and read that (awful, horrible) novel about a certain white whale (and its ilk), and a surprise to find that I like the Little Women novels. Imagine my surprise to find that I liked Sense and Sensibility movies! Lol.
Anyway, I've never thought that SF&F, or any other of the variations of speculative fiction for that matter, were or should or could be prevented from doing just what Jo said: excellent characterization within a sf-al setting. Turns out, some of my favourite stories are just like that (even in the so-called "Hard SF" novels, like Ben Bova's EonIn fact, that's why I write that
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Oh, yes, I've started watching MiddleMarch on Netflix, since it's one of the instant-watch choices. One must raise the volume a bit, though, to hear all the dialogue (bad transition to digital?).
Since I read SF (but not F) purely for the Razzle Dazzle, I don't mind when character is shunted aside in favor of shiny brightness. In F, however, I deplore it.
Walton's take on Middlemarch reminds me of my own take on LOTR and Trollope. Hobbiton is Barchester, in that both places are the writer's idealized vision of English country life. I've been pushing the idea as a panel topic at several cons, but have had no takers so far (except folks who want to be panelists).
I have to admit, I couldn't care less about a concept book. Well, that's a little stronger than I mean to come off. I enjoy concept books to a point, but in the end I'm all about characters. If the characters don't feel real to me, I'm probably not going to finish the book (Can we say Brisingr?). Sometimes I think I'm defective, because I don't understand what the point of writing fiction is if it's not about bringing me into a world and helping me understand it. Not only the world, but how and why the people in it do what they do.
Well, some readers love razzle-dazzle tech, or ideas, lightly clothed in fiction (Platonic Dialogues, anyone?) but I' with you, there's gotta be character.
Doesn't this really go back to Sturgeon's definition? "A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content" seems to say that you have to have both the characters and the high tech. Not that some wheels don't need to be reinvented
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That makes excellent sense. I've seen otherwise good critics turn themselves inside out trying to make a fantastical setting into a Freudian or Jungian symbol, or to mean something like proletarian disenfranchisement, which can all be good tools, but fit ill over the sort of work to which you refer.
This was my reaction to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:
I can't believe it. Someone has responded to Bronte's critique of Austen and written a fantasy novel the size of Middlemarch!
I don't know about characterization in that one, but its scope made me hope for other people to do similar things, take similar freedoms. (Mary is my favorite character in the story--she just stands up off the page as soon as Eliot introduces her, and she goes on doing things the way a real person like her would. With wit and grace and savvy.)
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As such, it was a wide swing for me to delve into the "Leet-er-a-ture" genre and read that (awful, horrible) novel about a certain white whale (and its ilk), and a surprise to find that I like the Little Women novels. Imagine my surprise to find that I liked Sense and Sensibility movies! Lol.
Anyway, I've never thought that SF&F, or any other of the variations of speculative fiction for that matter, were or should or could be prevented from doing just what Jo said: excellent characterization within a sf-al setting. Turns out, some of my favourite stories are just like that (even in the so-called "Hard SF" novels, like Ben Bova's EonIn fact, that's why I write that ( ... )
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And . . . write on!
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Walton's take on Middlemarch reminds me of my own take on LOTR and Trollope. Hobbiton is Barchester, in that both places are the writer's idealized vision of English country life. I've been pushing the idea as a panel topic at several cons, but have had no takers so far (except folks who want to be panelists).
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I can't believe it. Someone has responded to Bronte's critique of Austen and written a fantasy novel the size of Middlemarch!
I don't know about characterization in that one, but its scope made me hope for other people to do similar things, take similar freedoms.
(Mary is my favorite character in the story--she just stands up off the page as soon as Eliot introduces her, and she goes on doing things the way a real person like her would. With wit and grace and savvy.)
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