From: wendell.martin@the-matrix.com (Wendell Martin) 
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: RE: B. STERLING
Date: 10 Oct 92 06:09:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016
Reply-To: wendell.martin@the-matrix.com (Wendell Martin) 

Replying to tmaddox@netcom.com's following:

>>Sterling isn't a great
>>writer.  He's accepted as a great CP author, but his style is sleepy.
>
>        *Sleepy*???  I have no idea what you mean by this.
>
>>Walter Jon Williams and Gibson may have shortcomings, but they aren't
>>sleepy.  Remember, this is a branch of SF - presentation is more
>>important than "literature."  Hemingway could have written CP;
>>Melville couldn't.
>
>        Your final statement is inarguable without more detail--in
>fact, I suspect it's one of those statements that cannot be sensibly
>argued either way.

Firstly, I wrote my reply in the style common to this forum: fast and
without great preparation.  Secondly, I realize that you are an
instructor in English Literature but didn't expect to receive such a
detailed and cogent reply.  So, I'll shift into high-definition mode
while granting the probability of being competently refuted (I gave up
trying to win arguments over literature with Lit professors a long time
ago <smile>).

To me, SF is a realm of new ideas.  This shapes my appreciation of works

in the genre.  Sterling is a good SF writer, in that he comes up with
new
ideas and explains their ramifications thoroughly (cf. _Schismatrix_).
I don't mind his detailed explanations here; in fact, I appreciate them.

Cyberpunk, however, is the SWIFT introduction of NUMEROUS new ideas.  I
feel it should have a fast, if not breakneck, style.  Apparently
Sterling
agrees, since _Mirrorshades_, which he edited, includes this quote by
Michael Swanwick: "These are all hot young verbal pilots who think
nothing
of taking forty-thousand tons of screaming heavy metal prose and
throwing
it straight at the ground in a forced power dive shedding sparks and
literary chaos only to pull up at the last possible instant shy of total

grammatical implosion just to see the horrified looks on the pale
upturned
faces of the civilians as the afterburners cut in."  Does this describe
_Islands in the Net_ or_The Difference Engine_?  Even omitting TDE,
which
isn't properly CP, IITN is a languid, thorough exploration of a future
world.  It's a 747 cruising slowly at 30,000 feet with champagne and
caviar.  New ideas are lovingly introduced, with careful background
material, rather than being slung out like you should naturally
understand
them as Gibson and Williams present them.  Characters are fully
developed
and explained, rather than just BEING.  That's why I don't think
Sterling
is a good CP writer; he's too slow and detailed, i.e. "sleepy."

My analogy to Hemingway/Melville is similar.  Hemingway presents stories
at the gut level.  There is some symbolism and deeper meaning, but it
doesn't get in the way of the STORY.  Melville (if I was taught
correctly)
is NOTHING without symbolism (oh, the ship rocks in _Billy Budd_ and
Billy spills coffee?  Why, that means he wants to kill to captain, don't

you know?).  I've read critical interpretations of Hemingway's works as
well as biographies of Hemingway; it wouldn't have surprised me if Papa
had belted the critics if he ever met them.  Thus, my contention that
Hemingway could have written better CP than Melville; he could have
presented the ideas without needing to embellish them with unnecessary
deeper meaning (sometimes a cyberdeck is just a cyberdeck).

Therefore, while I have no problems with Sterling as an author, even as
an SF author, I don't think he's a particularly good CP author (as the
sub-genre has developed thus far).

Wendell
                                                                                  
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk