Monday, August 25, 2008
SF Giggle of the Day
by Ken Houghton
Most of the clear gaffes are gone, and it's good to see God Stalk on the final list. But this is a list of "books I read when I was younger," not "books that have been forgotten."
If this is Feminist SF - The Blog's idea of "obscure" works, then I promise to pay attention to them again when I stop yawning.
The penultimate list included a Nebula winner (Scarborough), a work that received an embarassment of awards in and out of genre (The Sparrow), a John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner (Slonczewski), and enough works that are very recent and well-known (Kushner x 2, Bull, Valente, Huff, etc.) that my friend Constance (who edited a work that is appropriate for the list and knows the history of the field) could legitimately note:
Very few of these are anything close to obscure. I still don’t get this.
Though, I am really pleased to find Katharine Kerr’s Polar City Blues on this list. Yet, it wasn’t published by a small, no-name press either.
How do you figure writers like Tanya Huff etc. are obscure and unknown? When their books are all on the shelves of all the chains still in operation?
Most of the clear gaffes are gone, and it's good to see God Stalk on the final list. But this is a list of "books I read when I was younger," not "books that have been forgotten."
If this is Feminist SF - The Blog's idea of "obscure" works, then I promise to pay attention to them again when I stop yawning.
