A truly rousing adventure novel that established many conventions of the genre. While Haggard was no Shakespeare, like the bard he invented characters, plot twists, settings (the whole Lost World/Tribe motif), and lines that people think are clichés...but were all his own. Writers of pulps, movie serials, old time radio, men's adventure stories, blockbuster movies, …
Month: September 2019
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Nova by Samuel R. Delany My rating: 4 of 5 stars This novel might be off-putting to readers of current SF or fantasy novels. Its approach to prose and plot is very different from contemporary works, and I note that SF novels of the 50s and 60s often approached plot as an exploration of ideas. …
Comments on Queer
Queer by William S. Burroughs My rating: 3 of 5 stars I am so often flabbergasted by the comments people make in goodreads. Burroughs’ Queer seems to bring out a bumper crop of nonsense. Is this good queer lit? Does it contribute to gay acceptance or detract from it? Was Lee attracted to boys who …
Genre and Fake-Lit
I’m very tired of reading submission guidelines to journals that say “serious” or “literary” fiction only. And “no genre fiction unless a story is good enough to transcend genre...or uses genre conventions for literary purposes.” Aren’t we past all that? Are we still having this eternal argument between popular and literary? There is certainly a …
Jedediah Smith 