From: Ken Kirksey <kkirksey@appstate.campus.mci.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 07:08:41 -0800 (PST)
To: "Duncan Frissell" <frissell@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Why I Don't Read SF Much Anymore
Message-ID: <199611211505.KAA28573@appstate-01.campus.mci.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>The problem with straight SF for me is that computers and networks have
>changed the future so much that (in the words of the motto of the SF
>Writer's Association) The Future Ain't What It Used to Be.  The science
>fictional futures of my childhood are now dead as doornails.

I still enjoy some of the "old stuff", but not in the same way that I did 
when I was younger. I read those works as period pieces now.  There is a 
certain romance in the Gersnbackian view of the future that I enjoy, 
especially in contrast to the Grim and Gritty (TM) "reality" of most 
modern and post-modern SF.  I still find Heinlein's juveniles to be fun 
reads, probably for this reason.  Ditto for Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars 
books.

>And I can't
>enjoy contemporary SF that doesn't include a healthy dose of computers and
>networking.  

Computers and networking may not be central to the story the author is 
trying to tell. And with the way things are going, computers and 
networking will become (some would say already have become) such an 
integral part of the culture that they don't warrant special attention.  
Kinda like airplanes, automobiles, television, radio, microwave ovens, 
cellular phones, ad infinitum.  Computer Networks were a new and nove 
idea when _Shockwave Rider_ was written, but now with every car and 
cereal commercial on TV promoting a web site as well, it's not all that 
exciting anymore.

As far as keeping up with current SF, I, like others, don't seem to make 
as much time to read as I used to.  I rely on Gardner Dozios' annual 
_Year's Best Science Fiction_ anthology to keep me up to date and 
introduce me to new writers.  I've always enjoyed the stories he's 
chosen, some more than others, and he's introduced me to some great 
writers that I probably wouldn't have heard about otherwise: Greg Egan, 
Connie Willis, and Terry Bisson, to name a few.  Judging from your 
comments, I think you'd like Greg Egan, especially his novel _Permutation 
City_.

Ken