" ... what can you say about your own book? It always comes through as kind of fatuous self-advertisement. Here's a good thing to say about it: It's a book. Let's keep it that way. As of today, it's a book. Keep this world inside the covers. Do not let it out."The really annoying thing is the people who read the resulting books and think that it's a really big new idea that the writer came up with.
"It is a very important, and, by the same token, interesting book, which may or may not cause controversy. It can be argued about, surely, even if Monty Python did it first, but must we judge the author for doing so? This book is both similar to others and yet different from them, and it is a testament to the writing skills of the author that it manages to encompass the human experience as a whole and yet not get bogged down in details. "Boom goes the dynamite", as they say. And can the lessons learned not be applied to us, as we live our own lives? Prophets shouting terrorism from soapboxes - is this not a parable of our own times, our own fears?posted by PontifexPrimus at 10:47 AM on March 8, 2010 [7 favorites]
In conclusion, the "lessons" learned should not be taken "lightly", even if they appear - at first glance - superficial. The research the author did to reach this level of realism can be felt on every page, in every vivid description, and this makes this book I want to introduce to you a worthwhile read with many interesting and important aspects."
I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield. [Emphasis mine]I love this because it makes it clear that science fiction gives you the opportunity to understand real things in different ways. For example, I LOVE Battlestar Galactica. When I try to explain it to people, I realize that, okay, yeah, it's a show involving people flying around in space being chased by killer robots, but what it's really ABOUT is family and how people deal with crisis (or whatever you want to say it's about, I'm not going to argue with you, at least not right now). Not all science fiction is good and there's a fair amount that's not really my thing, but at its best it gives you a new framework for thinking about things that really matter.
I sat down at my mother's table, waiting for quiet. The table was smooth and worn, heavy and well crafted. My father had made it for her just before he died. I remembered hanging around underfoot when he built it. He didn't mind. Now I sat leaning on it, missing him. I could have talked to him. He had done it three times in his long life. Three clutches of eggs, three times being opened up and sewed up. How had he done it? How did anyone do it?Her prose tends to vary highly between books and with different speakers, though--this story is sparsely told, but effective. I love the jump from the sensory description of the table, to the memory, to the MC's desire to talk to his father about his current predicament (which is . . . gross.).
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posted by scrump at 10:15 AM on March 8, 2010 [13 favorites]