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-   -   Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway. (http://www.collectingbanter.com/showthread.php?t=178565)

Dave June 26th 06 09:37 PM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
This is a very minor brag, with several questions attached.
I purchased a box lot for $5 USD that included a copy of
_The Forever War_, Joe Haldeman, 1974 St. Martin's Press.
Multiple closed tears in the d/j, esp. at top and bottom of the spine.
D/J is rubbed along the spine, bottom and at the folds . The book has
3 bumped corners, 2 dents to board tops, the expected foxing and dust
coloring but is very tight, not tipped or leaning (much). It appears
to have been read, but carefully and doesn't smell of smoke or mildew.
I _AM_ keeping it.

Anyway, the questions start.
Without digging out my Analog and Locus copies to verify this, ISTR
there being some back-and-forth commentary about this being written as
a sort of anti-Starship Trooper, Viet Nam protest book.
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction?

Thanks,

Dave

John R. Yamamoto-Wilson June 27th 06 12:37 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
Dave wrote:

Obviously in Academia, dissenting ideas get published regularly,
but what about fiction?


Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is a response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane
Eyre, and Golding's The Lord of the Flies is a response to Stevenson's
Treasure Island.

Those are just a couple of examples that immediately come to mind. There
are certainly others, but I can't think of them offhand. This kind of
response to another text is sometimes called "talking back", especially
in the feminist and postcolonial contexts (i.e., when voices that had
hitherto been suppressed find expression).

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

Some Guy June 27th 06 12:59 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
Dave wrote:
This is a very minor brag, with several questions attached.
I purchased a box lot for $5 USD that included a copy of
_The Forever War_, Joe Haldeman, 1974 St. Martin's Press.
Multiple closed tears in the d/j, esp. at top and bottom of the spine.
D/J is rubbed along the spine, bottom and at the folds . The book has
3 bumped corners, 2 dents to board tops, the expected foxing and dust
coloring but is very tight, not tipped or leaning (much). It appears
to have been read, but carefully and doesn't smell of smoke or mildew.
I _AM_ keeping it.

Anyway, the questions start.
Without digging out my Analog and Locus copies to verify this, ISTR
there being some back-and-forth commentary about this being written as
a sort of anti-Starship Trooper, Viet Nam protest book.
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction?

Thanks,

Dave


I remember there being some letter of protest over the Vietnam war
signed by a bunch of sci-fi authors, and then one in favor of the war
signed by other authors. I recall Harlan Ellison being opposed to the
war, while Jack Vance was one of those supporting it.

Does anyone else remember this?

Chris Charles June 27th 06 01:03 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
I was an undergraduate at the Univ of Iowa in '74-75 while Haldeman was
working on his MFA in the Writer's Workshop there. An instructor (who seemed
to have a friendly personal relationship with him) brought him into our
class to discuss his work and the just-published Forever War in particular,
and while I don't recall the specifics I did get the very strong impression
that there was a definite left-wing and anti-war component in his world-view
at the time. I do recall that the instructor herself was very definitely of
that ilk!

Chris



[email protected] June 27th 06 01:16 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction?

In music, there's neil young's "Southern Man," which begat Luynard
Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama," which begat Warren Zevon's "All Night
Long".

In books, Jerry Pournelle's anthology series There Will Be War! begat
lewis Shiner's When The Music's Over.

Nancy Kress said that Beggars in Spain was written in response to both
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed.

And of coiurse, one could consider George Orwell's 1984, Arthur
Koestler's Darkness At Noon, and Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day In
the Life of Ivan Denisovich as responses to Karl Marx's Communist
Manifesto and Vladimir Lenin's What Is To Be Done...

Lawrence Person
Lame Excuse Books
Stock available online at www.tomfolio.com (searched by
www.bookfinder.com), or at:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html


RPN June 27th 06 01:33 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 

Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
Fielding's _Shamela_ as a counter to Richardson's _Pamela_.


And, of course, Fielding's *Joseph Andrews* is yet another
anti-*Pamela*.

RPN


Gene Mierzejewski June 27th 06 06:04 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
In the late '60s, Galaxy magazine published (on several occasions) 2
full-page ads from SF writers who supported the war and those who opposed
it. I haven't looked at my copies in eons, but, as I recall Heinlein and
many others supported the war, and Ellison and many others opposed it. Check
your Galaxys from 1968-69.


"Some Guy" wrote in message
news:8x_ng.6858$6w.1382@fed1read11...
Dave wrote:
This is a very minor brag, with several questions attached.
I purchased a box lot for $5 USD that included a copy of
_The Forever War_, Joe Haldeman, 1974 St. Martin's Press.
Multiple closed tears in the d/j, esp. at top and bottom of the spine.
D/J is rubbed along the spine, bottom and at the folds . The book has
3 bumped corners, 2 dents to board tops, the expected foxing and dust
coloring but is very tight, not tipped or leaning (much). It appears
to have been read, but carefully and doesn't smell of smoke or mildew.
I _AM_ keeping it.

Anyway, the questions start.
Without digging out my Analog and Locus copies to verify this, ISTR
there being some back-and-forth commentary about this being written as
a sort of anti-Starship Trooper, Viet Nam protest book.
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction? Thanks,

Dave


I remember there being some letter of protest over the Vietnam war signed
by a bunch of sci-fi authors, and then one in favor of the war signed by
other authors. I recall Harlan Ellison being opposed to the war, while
Jack Vance was one of those supporting it.

Does anyone else remember this?




[email protected] June 27th 06 07:07 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 

wrote:
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction?


I seem to remember an allegation that
Norman Spinrad's "The Iron Dream"
(that ingenious alternative history
that had Hitler going to New York
and becoming a science fiction writer
rather than embarking on a "political
career; sort of like, "If Hitler had been
a fiction writer, what would he have
'written?") was satirically aimed at
the Gor series by John Norman.
Whether or not the fact that "Norman"
is part of each writer's name had
anything to do with the matter, I
cannot say...

[Memo from the upstairs office.]

Lawrence Person
Lame Excuse Books
Stock available online at
www.tomfolio.com (searched by
www.bookfinder.com), or at:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html



[email protected] June 27th 06 07:36 AM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 

wrote:
wrote:
Has this happened in fiction before, and/or is it common where an
author seems to take aim at another? Obviously in Academia,
dissenting ideas get published regularly, but what about fiction?


I seem to remember an allegation that
Norman Spinrad's "The Iron Dream"
(that ingenious alternative history
that had Hitler going to New York
and becoming a science fiction writer
rather than embarking on a "political
career; sort of like, "If Hitler had been
a fiction writer, what would he have
'written?") was satirically aimed at
the Gor series by John Norman.
Whether or not the fact that "Norman"
is part of each writer's name had
anything to do with the matter, I
cannot say...

[Memo from the upstairs office.]


I know people are not supposed to raise
questions about their just-posted theories,
at the risk of being accused of merely
chewing their cud while acting as if they
are doing some serious thinking, but
after I made the earlier post on this thread
I did some checking and found that John
Norman had only published three of his
Gor books before Spinrad published "The
Iron Dream" so now I am wondering if
Norman ("John", I mean) would have
even been prominent enough in
Norman's "Spinrad's," I mean)
thoughts to merit Spinrad aiming
an entire book at him. Maybe
those who maintain that Spinrad
was mocking a trend he felt he
saw in science fiction are on the
right track...

[Memo from the upstairs office.]

Lawrence Person
Lame Excuse Books
Stock available online at
www.tomfolio.com (searched by
www.bookfinder.com), or at:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html



Dave June 27th 06 02:52 PM

Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
 
On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:37:27 +0900, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"
wrote:

Dave wrote:

Obviously in Academia, dissenting ideas get published regularly,
but what about fiction?


Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is a response to Charlotte Bronte's Jane
Eyre, and Golding's The Lord of the Flies is a response to Stevenson's
Treasure Island.

Those are just a couple of examples that immediately come to mind. There
are certainly others, but I can't think of them offhand. This kind of
response to another text is sometimes called "talking back", especially
in the feminist and postcolonial contexts (i.e., when voices that had
hitherto been suppressed find expression).

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org


John,

I should have recalled Lord of the Flies from Lit classes, but it has
been a while.
The amount of info that is available from RCB continues to amaze me on
a daily basis. I only wish there was less:
"You're one."
"No, YOU'RE one."
"Oh YEAH? Well, so's your mother!"

And that there were fewer entries in my kill file.

Thanks,

Dave


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