Jeangoldstrom
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I Love AR
Posts: 341
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I am having my doubts about this contest. How can one compare, for example, Lord of the Rings and Heinlein's Future History? One is pure fantasy, one is pure s-f. The two are not in competition with each other in any way, at least IMO.
Plus, it has occurred to me as this contest has been running its course, I question whether the greatest science fiction ever found its way into novel form. S-f was born in the pulps, and in the pulps it grew, thrived, flowered, and...died with the pulps? Sad to say, again in my opinion, I think this is so. Who is writing s-f today to compare with the Lords Of The Pulps? Where is today's Heinlein? Bradbury? Brackett? Cordwainer Smith? Theodore Sturgeon? And these people did not, for the most part, write novels -- they wrote short stories, novellas and novelets. But not novels, because until the 1950s there was NO market for s-f novels, and very little after that.
Maybe I'm waaay off the track here. What do the rest of you think?
-- Jean
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