Gee! I just made it out of the classical stage to the modern. I wonder if either I or the world will be around long enough for me to make it to the post-modern (assuming, of course, that I want to).
@ Fred: I'm pretty solidly based in the Modern category. I've dabbled in the Classics (more to come) but it's not exactly my comfort zone. SF has quite a bit of a 'man vs technology' motif going on and I'm down with that. 'Man vs Reality' is more of a challenge and only work when the author is competent enough to (rather ironically) retain control of the situation. 'Man vs Author' is the interesting one. I've come across a few of those and they're really mind-bending (or complete trash).
@ Mudpuddle: I suspect that depends on the 'Reality' or, indeed, the 'Man'.
Woman With a Blue Pencil (2015) by Gordon McAlpine
On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come, Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear.
Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes - the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised.
Behind it all is the ambitious, 20-year-old Nisei author who has made the changes, despite the relocation of himself and his family to a Japanese internment camp. And, looming above, is his book editor in New York, who serves as both muse and manipulator to the young author - the woman with the blue pencil, a new kind of femme fatale.
6 comments:
CyberKitten,
Gee! I just made it out of the classical stage to the modern. I wonder if either I or the world will be around long enough for me to make it to the post-modern (assuming, of course, that I want to).
"man vs. reality" promises to be pretty depressing....
@ Fred: I'm pretty solidly based in the Modern category. I've dabbled in the Classics (more to come) but it's not exactly my comfort zone. SF has quite a bit of a 'man vs technology' motif going on and I'm down with that. 'Man vs Reality' is more of a challenge and only work when the author is competent enough to (rather ironically) retain control of the situation. 'Man vs Author' is the interesting one. I've come across a few of those and they're really mind-bending (or complete trash).
@ Mudpuddle: I suspect that depends on the 'Reality' or, indeed, the 'Man'.
CyberKitten,
I think Philip K. Dick would fit into that Man vs. Reality slot.
I have no idea about what would fit into that Man vs. Author category. I'm not even certain as to what it means.
How about this for a 'Man vs Author' book....!
Woman With a Blue Pencil (2015) by Gordon McAlpine
On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come, Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear.
Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes - the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised.
Behind it all is the ambitious, 20-year-old Nisei author who has made the changes, despite the relocation of himself and his family to a Japanese internment camp. And, looming above, is his book editor in New York, who serves as both muse and manipulator to the young author - the woman with the blue pencil, a new kind of femme fatale.
how weird is that...
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