Re: NY Times SF BBS

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: : > I recently went through the New York Times SF discussion group : : > (more than 450 posts!) looking for references to JV. : : > : : > One person posted a message about all of the good qualities : : > associated with Mr. Vance, and named him the greatest SF writer : : > of all time... : : > : : > The sole response was a fellow who said he didn't like to be : : > judgemental, but that he'd make an exception in this case: JV : : > is nowhere near near the top. : : > : : > No other responses, that's it for 1 1/2 years worth of messages. : : > : : > The sound you now hear is me grinding my teeth. Arrgh! : : : : Jack Vance is not everyone's cup of tea. It's that simple. I : : remember writing a review of "The Dying Earth" for the student : : paper at Caltech when Lancer first reprinted it in the early 1960s, : : and panning the book. I no longer have a copy of the review, but : : I think I complained that his characters were cut out of cardboard, : : or words to that effect. I still hold this view in a modified : : form, but the funny thing is, though, I still have that paperback : : and I regularly re-read this or that Vance work! : : A taste for Vance can be acquired, but it's like learning to : : appreciate, say, classical music: you have to be persistent. Just : : like Darsh or Sandusker cuisine. : : So stop grinding those teeth and recognize that your taste for : : Jack Vance's wonderful fiction makes you a member of a truly : : elite group, entitled to sneer at the unwashed, unappreciative : : masses. : Ha! And I thought that NYT readers were themselves "a truly elite group", or, if you will, an effete corps of impudent snobs. : Grrr! Still grinding them teeth insofar as the fact that the august NYT has never reviewed one of JV's works, although they run the occasional SF review column, which seems to effusively gush over many lesser, and to my mind, unreadable, SF lights.

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