Re: Is use of literary person changing in indie SF?

In article <utsi6e$190l6$1@dont-email.me>,
Robert Carnegie  <rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:

On 24/03/2024 03:47, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

One thing I have noticed recently in "indie" SF and fantasy books
is a use of literary "person" I don't recall in fiction from previous
years.
 
In particular, I have noticed books which are largely written in
the first person, but which have cutaways to various third person
viewpoints, perhaps omniscient, perhaps not.
 
My conjecture is that without editorial guidelines (or call it interference
if you like) newer authors feel more free to jump around.
 
Has anyone else noticed this, or is it something that has always been
around and I am just picking up on it now for some reason?
 
If it is a newish thing, is it happening in other genres (mystery, romance
etc) or largely in SF?  (I will note that in romancey SF, I have also noticed
dual first person narratives of late).
 
I find I don't mind it, btw.

>
I don't know if it's a new thing, or, as I
think you're suggesting, a new lack of an editor
slapping a new writer into using first-person
or third-person but to stick to one.

Yeah, the slapping thing is my theory.

>
Joe Haldeman did it all over _Buying Time_ (1989)
also titled _The Long Habit of Living_.
And _Ghosts from the Past_ (2000) by Graeme Grant...
oh, I Think it's all third person, it just switches
point of view a lot.  And sometimes italics.
And some of it is stream-of-conscious-y.
It's a tie-in to a remake of _Randall and
Hopkirk Deceased_, a private detective fantasy
series in which Marry Hopkirk is killed and comes
back as a ghost, and I read it quite recently.

Certainly not saying it hasn't been done, just that
I'm noticing it enough recently that it caught
my attention.
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