Arthur C. Clarke
"Ninety-seven percent of science fiction is adolescent rubbish, but good science fiction is the best (and only) literature of our times."
-- Robert Anton Wilson
(1) My interview with Ken Liu, translator of Liu Cixin's The Third-Body Problem, has posted. The book reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke, and Liu discusses this and other matters.
(2) Tyler Cowen on Jo Walton's book about re-reading science fiction classics. To be honest, I wish I could read a book of Arthur Hlavaty's science fiction criticism instead.
(3) Michael Moorcock, the anti-Tolkien. Follow the link, but see the comments. Moorcock's description of Tolkien seems wildly inaccurate.
(4) Quotations from Arthur C. Clarke. I'm thinking of re-reading him when I finish my current Gene Wolfe binge.
3 comments:
Thank you. I wish I could write one, though I wouldn't expect it to be as good as Jo's.
Love the Clarke quotes, and I've enjoyed a lot of his fiction. Girls Lean Back Everywhere, a history of censorship, reports that Allen Ginsberg and friends were debating representatives of the establishment, moderated by Clarke, and Ginsberg was worried (he may have had as stereotyped a view of sf as the straight culture had of beatniks), but "he turned out to be a gay Zen Buddhist and it went very well."
What a great anecdote, and I rather think I should hunt up and read the book.
An excellent book, written by Edward De Grazia, one of the lawyers fighting the good fight against the smut stompers.
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