From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: New ideas on SF -or- Confessions of an pulp reader
Date: 21 Jan 1993 13:45 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
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Keywords: Like flys to wanton schoolboys...
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John Henders writes...

>	But you're already defining science fiction in this thread, by
>attempting to define the books you like as "not science fiction".

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I think that while statements like `pickles are not toasters' are interesting
informationally, they hardly consitute a definition.  Imagine a dictionary
that had entries like:

procrustean:  (not os'ten-ta'shas) not v. int. 1.  Not a heavy silk or rayon
fabric with a corded texture.  2.  Not the gathering together of parts of
something to insure equitable distribution.  Do not see also housemaid.
+-----------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+

>	Well, I could say the same thing about you're definiton of the Conan
>movies as science fiction, as you did when refering to to them in
>another post. 

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I think you're just being a little slow off the block here, in more ways
than one.
The comment I made was to the effect that most people's only exposure to
science fiction is Arnold the Barbarian movies.  This is a Joe Bobbs
Briggsism that I assumed would be obviously meant to imply movies in
general with Arnold Schwartzenegger in them and in particular (given the
context of the debate) movies like _Terminator_ (numero uno and numero two-o),
_Total Recall_ and the like.
+--------------------------------------SubG-----------------------------------+


>	By going to the definition of speculative fiction, which despite
>Ellison and others attempts in the 70's has not caught on terribly well
>in libraries or bookstores, then your arguments about such books as
>Gravity's Rainbow seem to be invalidated. 

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I can't parse this very well.  Are you implying that because nobody (that I
can think of) apart from a few blokes on r.a.b. considers that _GR_ is
science fiction, therefore it is?
+------------------------------------SubG-------------------------------------+


>	So far you have argued for all sides of the issue, but the part of
>your argument my post addressed is your seeming insistance on defining
>only a articular sub-genre of what is generally consider as science
>fiction to be science fiction. If the discussion becomes hopeless for
>you because I say I would put the HGTTG series in the box I personally
>consider science fiction, it is only because you want the discussion to
>be centered around only your definition of science fiction, and any time
>someone brings up a counter example, you will just define it as
>!science fiction. This moving the goal posts technique of discussion
>really limits what can be discussed.
>		 John Henders

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I have gone to great lengths to explain why I consider things not to be
science fiction, which gets the inevitable reposte of, "Well, I think things
are hopeless for you because it really is science fiction."

Nobody else here is doing any arguing, they're just contradicting which
(as we learned from the Argument Clinic) isn't an argument.








Yours etc.,




SubGenius




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