Re: [*FSFFU*] the question of aesthetics

From: Neil Rest (NeilRest@TEZCAT.COM)
Date: Wed Sep 03 1997 - 09:38:20 PDT


Erik Tsao <etsao@CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU> asked:
>To what extent does the concerns for "literariness" (a loaded term, I
>realize) enter into the writings of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror
>writers (both men and women)?

Mostly not. Robert Heinlein belonged to the "beer money" school of
writing: he claimed that he was trying to get the money which would
otherwise be spent on beer. Until The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction began to search out "literary values" and New Worlds promoted
experimental writing in sf, it was pretty exclusively the most
straightforward of storytelling. (As I write this, it occurs to me that
I'm talking about U.S. sf.)

It sounds like you want to find a good bibliography of Samuel R. Delaney!

>How much does politics alone enter into the act of writing such a novel?

Rarely; there are relatively few sf novels which are written exclusively
politically.

>How does that connect up to the politics of feminist sf/fantasy/utopia?
>In other words, what would a feminist aesthetics, or poetics, of
sf/fantasy/utopian fiction look like?

I can't think of much. Have you read _The Female Man_ by Joanna Russ?



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