Posted by Sterling on 12/11/2011, 18:48:42, in reply to "Re: The Tunnel and other tunnels"
98.71.94.177
I was re-reading this post of your, Guillermo, and I wanted to clear up a misimpression. I said that I have never read romance or historical genre fiction, not that I never read genre fiction at all. I occasionally read science fiction, fantasy, and mystery/crime fiction. When I was young I read plenty of all of these that could not be considered literature by any stretch of the imagination. Now, I generally read works by writers that have a legitimate case to be considered writers with genuine literary merit. Gene Wolfe, John Crowley, and early Paul Park come to mind from the genre side, and such writers as Rikki Ducornet, Mark Helprin, and all the magic realists approach fantasy from the literary side.
--Previous Message--
: Interesting discussion. In the case of Poe, there is an
: exception to what Sterling says: "The Narrative
: of Arthur Gordon Pym", which of course is not
: only horror, but a strange mix of adventure, horror,
: and science fiction in novel form. Just like Sterling,
: I also refuse to read pulp and genre fiction, and only
: include sci fi, horror, and fantasy when they can be
: considered good literature. Not that I haven't done
: it, of course. As a boy and teenager, I read
: everything that fell into my hands, including things
: like Irving Wallace's "The Sins of Philip
: Fleming" and "The Fan Club". I'm
: blushing...
:
: Besides that junk, I also read interesting
: curiosities, like a book with Soviet sci-fi stories,
: which I remember liking a lot, and another compilation
: of American sci-fi stories (you can see I belonged
: with the Non-aligned group!). All I remember of this
: collection is that it included a story by Theodore
: Sturgeon, who is perhaps known by Steven. Finally for
: the moment, I also read collection of horror and
: mystery stories, often including stories not only by
: Poe and Lovecraft, but also writers like Maupassant,
: Nerval, Bulwer-Lytton and others.
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