Midcentury science-fiction has a sense of play that's hard to find in works from earlier or later eras. Writers in the genre didn't take themselves too seriously, yet they were creative and erudite in the extreme. You could say they lacked self-consciousness. Why did the culture of science-fiction writing become so self-conscious, and so joyless and solemn?
>>25082246Modernism was in full swing, people actually had faith that science and technology would better the human condition. Oh how naive we were.
>>25082246>>25082256This and also times were good enough and there was enough funding for the arts that people could just write pulpy shit and chill like Vance himself who lived on a house boat.The mass market genre audience was big enough to support a good amount of creatives willing to live cheaply.A similar state exists for manga in Japan.
What is the best dying earth novel (other than the Book of the New Sun obviously)? I'm reading The Night Land but the stuff of almost a diary in how clinical it is, written in a language that resembles English.
>>25082246There was still a large and healthy market for short and serialized science fiction in the form of the monthly digests, so there was a lot of room for variety, experimentation and competition. Once that whole thing declined and the genre reoriented itself entirely around the hardcover novel, it was a completely different ballgame.
>>25084377IMO the two Cugel books Vance wrote. They're among my favorite novels ever. Black comedy of the highest order.
>>25084377>What is the best dying earth novel (other than the Book of the New Sun obviously)? I'm reading The Night Land but the stuff of almost a diary in how clinical it is, written in a language that resembles English.fuck off wolfefag
>>25082246Could it be that... they were all on drugs? Or is that just a (Julian) Cope (song)?
>>25084848>>25084849Holy filtered
>>25085101Says the manchild filtered by Hodgson, Vance and Smith.
>>25084848>>25084849absolument filtré
>>25084377I don't know about best, but Viriconium is good and worth reading if you like Dying Earth stuff.
>>25085318See >>25085251
>>25082246Vancian magic and its consequences have been disastrous for dungeons and dragons
Vance was explicitly influenced by Jonathan Swift and Homer since he makes unmistakable allusions to them in the Cugel books. There are a number of other works I believe influenced him, just as Journey to the West, but I won't list them because that's more speculative. So in many ways it's a continuation of Rabelaisian fantasy. Vance was very widely read and influenced by both obscure science fiction pulp and high literature. Science fiction today has no anchor in pioneer science fiction pulp, let alone classic literature
>>25085494I like how DCC treats Vancian magic. Still fire and forget but you fail often and often unpredictably. Thus wizards hide under their robes their past magical mistakes like chicken feet nipples, beard made of worms etc.
>>25084848>>25084849muy filtrado
>>25085494Many ideas were disastrous for Dungeons and Dragons, and by extension, RPGs in general.
>>25084849I had the same experience.
Well, George Stewart's "Earth Abides" was published in 1949 and you can't find a more self-absorbed, holier-than-thou piece of science fiction.
>>25085519Trvke
>>25084848>>25084849filtrissimo
>>25084849Wait, so the dude went in expecting to read action-oriented pulp and was disappointed he didn't get it?
Thoughts on the Zothique Cycle by Clark Ashton Smith? How does it compare to Vance?
>>25086929And that you have to read "le problematic book" more than once.
>>25086956It's very good. Surprising that Clark doesn't get more appreciation on /lit/ considering how closely he matches its tastes.
>>25086956>>25082246>>25086284Is there anything Christian/Catholic about these, like BotNS?
>>25087078Not that I could tell.
>>25086562See >>25085251>>25086929BOTNs is action oriented pulp. It has less literary value than hodgson, vance and smith but its fans pretend its on the level of joyce and proust. absolutely pathetic>>25086956Wolfefags like >>25087078 get filtered by it because it's not written by a BASED TRVE TRAD CATHOLIC
>>25087365Anon I don't even like BotNS, I was just asking
>>25086956The cover that saved /sffg/Also really really good stuff
>>25086956>how does it compare to VanceIts similar in some ways, both have excellent prose (Smith was a poet, foremost). Smith lacks to overt humour that Vance has in his best fantasy (Dying Earth, Lyonesse) and overall Smith's world itself feels more bleak and pessimistic. I love both though.
>>25087365Are you some epic atheist or something? You seem fixated on the Catholic stuff. Just admit you were filtered because you detest religion.
>>25087461Seconding Smith's prose. He would memorize obscure words and it gave him a lot of expressive range. Here's a story by him if you want a taste.http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/250/xeethra
>>25087564I have nothing against catholicism I despise the wave of tradcath LARPers who think BOTNS is good because it was written by a fat catholic>filteredYou got filtered by ashton smith. a literal pulp writer. and you find smith too difficult so you resort to reading wolfe instead. pathetic
>>25087591Nigger, I never stopped reading those books and I think they're good in their own right. You're the one overly emotional here because you can't seem to stand people liking what you don't. Wolfe is good and your reddit-fueled hate for religion won't change it. "Oh no where's my punk, chromatic sci-fi? Now I have to read about a spiritual, atemporal journey about the nature of faith and devotion! Oh the horror!" Go suck a dick.
>>25084848>>25084849helemaal gefilterd
>>25084848>>25084849vollständig ausfiltriert
