Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?

On Wed, 4 Dec 2024 08:51:12 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 03/12/2024 15:18, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Fahrenheit 451
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I finally got around to reading this as it's always on those lists of
must read sci-fi books. I very much enjoyed it with its mix of a
dystopian future (all books to be burned) and commentary on US politics
at the time. Well worth a read with a downside that I found some of the
writing a bit clunky compared to modern standards.

>

Bradbury was one of those sci-fi writers were the idea took precedence
over the story and characters. His writing reflects that. It's very
work-a-day with little excess or flourish. It was fairly common
amongst authors of the genre of the time.

>
That's really what I mean by clunky compared to modern standards where
the writing is more elaborate and not so functional. Sci-fi I feel is
one where you can get away with that more than some other other genres
as you're exploring ideas not 'showing off' your literal flourish. I put
some of Philip K. Dick's work in the same category. I also recently read
Iain M. Banks Look to Windward and that's a real contrast in writing style.
>
Tolkien I found an extreme version of it so much so that I gave up
reading it after maybe ten pages and finding it a slog. A great story
teller but just not a good writer. IMHO the films bring his stories to
life far better than the books did.

It was almost a feature of the old-school sci-fi writers. Asimov and
Clarke were also famous for their 'brown prose'; Asimov especially put
almost no details into what things looked like, for instance, focusing
instead almost entirely on the ideas and dialogue. I don't know if it
was an intentional reaction to the overly florid 'purple prose' of
pulp fantasy, but the 'new wave' of science-fiction authors in the
seventies  definitely were a reaction to the dry style of the old
masters.