tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21671128.post2754191619648863485..comments2024-01-19T13:24:15.734+00:00Comments on ::Acquired Taste: Tim Strettonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08598897603628943741noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21671128.post-43296501659931228542009-06-26T22:51:13.539+01:002009-06-26T22:51:13.539+01:00As you noted in a previous post, where you discuss...As you noted in a previous post, where you discussed Agatha Christie, there are different types of mystery novels. At one extreme we have the Poirots and Holmeses Nero Wolfes, where the characters are memorable but flat, and the stories are puzzles. At the other extreme we have real novels, where the mystery exists simply as a spine on which to drape character and moral quandaries. (To tell the truth, in the best of Lawrence Block's Scudder novels, I can't remember what the hell the plot was; I just remember what happened to the protagonist in finding his way through it.)<br /><br />There's a similar thing with science fiction, although the sci-fi equivalent of puzzles is ideas (or sometimes just technology).<br /><br />Fantasy I can't parse into such neat pairs, because fantasy is rather more diverse. Although the swords-and-sorcery model tends to dominate the sales figures, I sometimes think the 'genre' exists only as a catch-all for what doesn't fit neatly elsewhere. I mean, we have Gene Wolfe in the same box as Terry Brooks (and Italo Calvino and William Burroughs rubbing shoulders with Richard Adams and much of Kurt Vonnegut--though all those four have somehow manged to wangle their way out of the 'genre' section and over into "Fiction and Literature"). <br /><br />A series based on a milieu rather than a character is certainly do-able; Larry Niven did quite well with his Ringworld and Future History series (though I'm not a big Niven fan). And Mondia's a place I'd like to visit again, so I hope you hold to your plan.David Isaakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04928598446742324391noreply@blogger.com