I Know It When I See It

OF course, that is the answer to the question: "What is Science Fiction?" It's funny. Fantasy is easily distinguishable from main-stream fiction, although it has become harder with the advent of "magic realism" and "slipstream", although from MY perspective, those types of stories should be properly catagorized as fantasy. That's okay, its a broad genre, with room for lots of different tropes. But, actually the title of this little rant relates not to "what is SF, or what is Fantasy", but to what do I like as a reader?

Both Don Webb and I agree, what got us started with SF was the great Robert A. Heinlein, and his juveniles in the library. Heinlein was a hard act to follow for the majority of "juvenile" novel writers, because, frankly, their books were just too... juvenile. Heinlein didn't write down to us. Neither did Alan E. Nourse, or Andre Norton.

So, I grew up with books that espoused workman-like prose, books where the writing was transparent. It reminds me of the song by Peter, Paul, and Mary called "(I dig) Rock and Roll Music", in the verse about Donovan where they use the phrase "When the words don't get in the way..."

Which is why I started reading Raymond Chandler with the advent of "The New Wave" back in the sixties. Fortunately, science fiction took the best of the new wave, melded it with the best of the "good old stuff", and came out with some pretty good stuff. Oh, yes, and by the way, I continued to read Analog, even during the glory years of Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ah yes. Science Fiction with rivets, the way God, Hugo Gernsback, and Robert Heinlein meant it to be. Before Heinlein started turning out stuff like I Will Fear No Evil, but that's a rant for a different time.

by Jerry Wright

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