At 08:54 AM 12/1/00, you wrote:
>I've been meaning to jump in and comment on this topic but time has been
>very limited. Still is, but I did have something I wanted to share.
[snip great citation and anecdote]
>I think Bob's fiction is PLENTY "realistic," because it is about real
>humans. Okay, so Conan is pretty invincible as a warrior -- but as a
>person, with emotions, with beliefs and attitudes, with personal integrity,
>he is a more developed and believable character than most "fantasy"
>characters. Conan is a guy I can really imagine sinking a few pints with.
>
>One of my primary gripes with much of contemporary fantasy writing -- and
>one of the reasons I don't read much of it, any more -- is that it gives
>*too much* detail. Robert Jordan leaves little or nothing to *your*
>imagination, he tries to dazzle you with the richness and complexity of
>*his*. Well, sorry, I don't particularly care to play that game.
>(Especially when, no matter how rich and complex, the stuff he's imagining
>seems to all be stuff I've read before.) I have a pretty good imagination,
>myself, and I enjoy using it, so the authors I like the most are those that
>stimulate my own imagination and direct it toward certain ends (for the
>sake of plot), but that allow it some pretty free play. I don't *need* or
>*want* everything described in minute detail, because then I am merely a
>passive observer rather than an active participant in the act of literary
>creation.
I don't believe I've read any of the Conan pastiches, although I have
certainly read many of the early Marvel comics. Other than the fact that
these authors have mangled Howard's hero, is the extra detail the greatest
sin they commit. i.e., is their departure from Howard's compressed writing
style part of what makes the reading experience unpleasant?
I did read most of the first Andrew J. Offut Cormac Mac Art book before I
finally had to put it down. Part of the problem for me may indeed have
been that he just dragged it out. I don't really remember much about the
story, although I do recall he bashed on Christians at every opportunity,
which also bothered me.
When I think about it, Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels are very short but
packed with action and characters. He, too, seems to have left out the
mundane details. If he stops to describe the landscape or to explore a
facet of Barsoomian (or whoever's) society, he is providing information
which is used later on in the story.
Howard and Burroughs may not be topping the best-sellers lists but their
works still sell decades after their deaths. Is the compressed writing
style going to outlast the fully-detailed pseudo-realism that Anderson
advocated?
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