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From: Purtill.StudentNS@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The Literature of Ideas
Message-ID: <3654@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 18:36:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3654
Posted: Fri Sep 13 18:36:37 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Sep-85 00:03:56 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Mark Purtill
>[responding to Charley Wingate, Peter da Silva writes:]
>Item: Leguin and the other authors you mentioned with her are
>outside the domain of SF. So, I think, are the other authors you
>mentioned. One must distinguish between SF and literature with an SF
>background. Stephen King writes plenty of the latter, but I don't
>believe he has provided one new theme.
You don't think Le Guin writes SF? Or Fred Pohl (one of the "other
authors" Charley Wingate mentioned)? You must have a very narrow view
of what "SF" means, and I don't think this perception is shared by most
readers of "SF." I also don't understand your distinction between "SF"
and "literature with an SF background." Citing Stephen King is little
help as (1) I've never read anything by him, and (2) I was under the
impression that he mostly wrote "horror" stuff.
To me, "SF" means what we point to and say "that's SF." (Does anyone
out there know who came up with that definition? I'm sure I read it
somewhere...) It's not a very satisfactory definition, but anything
excludes works that are "clearly" SF and/or includes works that equally
"clearly" aren't. Anyway, certainly Lequin's _The Lathe of Heaven_ and
Pohl's _Gateway_ are SF.
Mark
^.-.^ Purtill at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA **Insert favorite disclaimer here**
((")) 2-229 MIT Cambrige MA 02139