Riders of the Purple Wage

[shvarz]

If you have not read it yet, it is time (well, it's been almost 40 years since it was written).  It is one of the best sci-fi works ever written and I put it up on our web-site for a while.  Grab it here, read it and then post your thoughts.  It is fairly short, about long-story or short-novella size.

[PurpleYouko]

If you consider that to be one of the best then your definition of good bears absolutely no resemblance to my own.

This story appears to be nothing more than a disjointed string of words put together in some random pattern with frequent references to the grosser forms of sex.

If an infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, could produce the entire works of shakespear then about 10 monkeys could produce this garbage in half a day.

True to his usual rantings, Philip Jose Farmer takes a crappy story and makes it worse by bringing sex into it in completely inappropriate ways. Sigmund Freud would have had a field days with this guy.

As soon as I saw the name of the author I was pretty sure the story would suck and sure enough, PJF didn't dissapoint me. Other than that I had an incredibly hard time keeping up with the rather violent changes in what the story is going on about.

This classic is IMO an unadulterated pile of bollox. If I had paid good money for this (like I did for "A Feast Unknown" by the same author) I would have demanded it back.

(I should have been a critic  B) )

[shvarz]

What?!  Did you actually finish the story or just gave up after the first paragraph?  This is nothing like "Feast unknown", which sucks even by PJFs standards (and they are not very high).

This is the real deal, with interesting plot, beleivable characters, tons of cool ideas, million of word-plays...  All together written with humor and sadness and pain.  I know it 's strange to hear that about PJF, but it is true - just read the story.

PJF wrote so much crap that these jewels are very hard to find and not many do.  So thank me for sifting through all the crap for you.

If you read the story to the end and still think it's crap, then stop reading all together - it is pointless to spend time on something which you can't possibly appreciate!

[PurpleYouko]

I read all of it and I thought that 90% of it was disjointed and just didn't hold together very well.

I saw several completely unwarrented sexual references (I counted about 5) which seem to be a staple of PJF's work.
The whole thing just seemed to flit about like a hover fly on a hot summer afternoon, staying in one place just long enough to start some kind of sequence then jumping inexplicably to a totally unrelated place.

I read a LOT of science fiction and fantasy and I really have no time for supposed writers like PJF. This may be the best of a bad bunch but it is still crap.

[shvarz]

Can't beleive I hear this...

Well, let's ask someone else.  Maybe we'll gang up on you and you admit that you know shit about good sci-fi. :angry:

[Numsgil]

I read this at one point in my life, I'll reread it again a bit later.

I absolutely loved the new Wave movement (I think that's what it was called) in Sci Fi.  "I have no mouth and I must scream", "Repent cried the Tick Tock Man" (both Harlequin, and by far my favorite), "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep" (Philip K. Dick) (hmm, maybe this is my favorite...), "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" (I think, I may be confusing it with "Flowers for Algernon") and pretty much most of Poul Anderson that I was ever able to actually get through.  Specially "Goat Song".  Loved his style to death, but it just makes the stories chug along at half clip.

And "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" to a lesser extent.  Probably because it kind of affronted my sense of deity, and that's not a cerebral discordance I like.

It strikes me as incredibly Modernist in its style and subject matter.  Modernism is, at least by my definition, aimed at the elites of society and written by the elites.  (Not to be confused with Post Modernism, which is written by the Elites, and is actually dumbed down for mass consumption by the literary prolitariot).  Which makes it overly stylistic for the lay man.

But now we're getting into my English Essay last year, which I doubt any of you could care less about.  Point is, most New Wave stuff is unpalatable to people accustomed to the "sliders" of the modern entertainment world.  Not that I'm knocking today's stuff, just that it's a whole different beast.

Back last year, when I was trying to be a scifi writer (and completely unable to prodce a manuscript) this was the sort of style I aspired to.  Specifically Poul Andersion and Harlequin.  Also Card too, but that's another story...

[PurpleYouko]

All fine and dandy but what did you think of the PJF story that Shvarz posted.

Personally I love Greg Bear novels. He has a really cool way of making fictional science seem plausible.

From a fantasy perspective I like Raymond E feist, Terry Goodkind, Peirs Anthony (not the Xanth stories), Janny Wurts, Mercedes Lackey and Ann McAffrey.

From the older style of Sci-Fi I really enjoy reading Brian Aldiss, Robert Silverberg, Asimov, James Bliss, A. E. Van Vogt and Alan Dean Foster.

What I hate more than anything is a story told from a first person perspective. If I pick up a book that starts with a line like...

In the spring of 66 I was a young boy who.............

In such a case I will skip to random spots to see if the perspective has changed. If it doesn't do so in the first few pages then the book goes back on the shelf.

[Numsgil]

Science fiction has had three main categories/genereations of science fiction:

1.  Golden Age - Up to about 60s I believe.  Tends to be straightforward prose with limited symbolism.  Pretty much just a good story.  Asimov is a clear example.  As is Clark.

2.  New Wave - Experimentation in style and content.  This Farmer story is a clear example of New Wave.  New wave happened until about the early 80s I believe.

3.  Current "Media" generation - Authors influenced by popular science fiction in film, as well as the more literary New Wave writings.  They tend to pull from many sources.  This would be Anne McAffery, Mercedes Lackes, etc.

Note that not all authors in the New Wave era really were New Wave authors.  It tended to be fewer (it's hard to write it well!).  I'm not 100% sure, but I think you just named about every popular author that isn't New Wave.

So it would be plausible that you just don't like New Wave material, which is perfectly understandable.  But then that would bias you to any New Wave material you haven't seen yet.

I haven't read this story yet.  I'm going to read it tonight.  Tues and Thurs I get very little accomplished outside of school.

[Carlo]

If you have not read it yet, it is time (well, it's been almost 40 years since it was written).  It is one of the best sci-fi works ever written and I put it up on our web-site for a while.  Grab it here, read it and then post your thoughts.  It is fairly short, about long-story or short-novella size.

It is definitely one of my favourites sci-fi novels. I read it for the first time probably 15 years ago, and immediately loved it. It is funny, prophetic, and the premises are very interesting (what would look like a world without the need to work, where everybody is free to develop his own inclinations).  Some of the things I liked most: the tv with thousands of channels where you can watch shit all the time but also gain a degree-level culture, that reminds me of the www. And the phone that rings with the sound of a rare frog grabbed from a tv show, also reminds me of today's world. The motivational analysis used to study the actions of the main characters, is the same used by modern advertising companies to study the promotional campaigns. And the pessimistic, but credible, prediction about the degradation of people just wasting their time playing cards and watching tv - it has much to say about the world we live in, too.
And the style is great, very different from the often flat style of most of the sci-fi novels.

[PurpleYouko]

So it would be plausible that you just don't like New Wave material, which is perfectly understandable. But then that would bias you to any New Wave material you haven't seen yet.

That is quite possible. However I have never really attempted to catagorize authors into these groups or paid any attention to catagorizing by others so I really have no idea what it means to be "new wave".

I simply like some stories and dislike others.
I happen to violently dislike everything about the writing style of PJF.
I don't believe this will bias me against other "new wave" writings because I wouldn't recognize one if it bit me.

Can you give me some examples of other writers that are considered "new wave"

[shvarz]

Well, that proves that I'm not crazy :)  Other people like this story too ...

PY, we obviously have very different tastes in sci-fi.  I don't like any of the authors that you listed (except for Asimov).  I read three books by Greg Bear and could not remember what they were about.  Thank god for LJ, I could go back and read my impressions.  First I read Eon - that was total crap.  Horrible story, long and unnecessary descriptions of some obscure things, flat characters...  Well, I thought, maybe I am biased because he describes russians as weirdos who fly to an asteroid in fufaikas (old-style warm coats for poor people).
So, I read Legacy.  That was a bit better.  I especially liked the science part of that book.  But still, all his attempts at describing human emotions fall flat on the ground.
But I gave it one more try - I read "Slant".  I was barely able to finish it, it was soooo boring.

Truth is, Bear has almost no literary talent.  He has good science in his books, I give him that.  But the "fiction" part of "science fiction" is just not coming through...

As for New Wave: read wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_%28science_fiction%29  Funny, but they don't have Farmer listed among the authors, although it is generally agreed that "riders of the purple wage" was one of the most interesting stories in "Dangerous Visions" collection (which they mention).

[Numsgil]

Most of the authors I listed in my first post are new Wave.

Poul Anderson is probably the most New Wave of all New Wave authors.  Harlin Ellison (I called him Harlequin the first time around :P) is right up there too.

Anything with a title longer than 4 words is almost definately New Wave.  "'Repent, Harlequin", cried the Ticktockman" would be an awesome example of this.  As is "Do androids dread of electric sleep" (Aka: Bladerunner.  Haven't seen the movie though, just read the book).

Poul Anderson's not so much on long titles, but is absolutely fluent in the style of new Wave.  His story "Goat Song" won both Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Now, this isn't just some obscure subgenre that took off for a while.  Most of these I've named where Hugo award winners at their time.  They're also incredibly poetic and steeped in symbolism and subtle social commentary.

[Numsgil]

Well, I thought, maybe I am biased because he describes russians as weirdos who fly to an asteroid in fufaikas (old-style warm coats for poor people).

Hmm, you're not?  (Revises mental image).  :P

Unfortunately, Scifi is so incredibly American dominated that its had to find any POV outside our little corner of the world.  Although I did like the recent movie adaptation of (Stanislaw I think his name was.  I know he was Russian) Solaris, even if I didn't read the book.

[shvarz]

Damn americans...   :angry:
Stanislaw Lem is polish!   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem

What you could have read are Strugatsky Brothers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strugatsky_brothers  They were probably the best russian sci-fi writers and even though they lived during soviet times they managed to write stuff that was (and still is) very controversial.  I'll dig through my files, I may have translations of some of their works.

[Numsgil]

But Poland was part of the Soviet Bloc right?  (Makes mental note that Russian -> Soviet (or used to be the case) but Soviet does not -> Russian).