In More Mainstream-SF Interaction, I wrote that:
"...Howatch's character refers obliquely to works like Anderson's future histories."
However, we would be surprised to find Poul Anderson's name mentioned in any of Susan Howatch's texts. It would not be there because most of Howatch's readers would not recognize it. I have found one exception among sf authors:
"...she shared a New York apartment with several thousand books and a very large plant which had survived infancy by thriving on coffee-dregs. The plant had become so large, in fact, that she was beginning to feel intimidated by it. Had I ever read John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids? She was sure she already had too much in common with the beleaguered heroine of a science-fiction novel."
-Susan Howatch, Absolute Truths (London, 1996), PART TWO, FIVE, III, p. 271.
And Brian Aldiss wrote:
"It seems as if sf will, with occasional exceptions called John Wyndham, appeal only to a minority..."
-Brian Aldiss, Space, Time & Nathaniel (London, 1966), INTRODUCTION, p. 10.
So what has Wyndham got that Anderson hasn't? Anderson's sf contains genre cliches like hyperspace. Wyndham has only one volume featuring (very modest) space travel. The triffids, and some other Wyndham creations, invade modern Britain rather than a future Earth or an interstellar empire. So maybe Wyndham is closer to a wider readership?
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have been trying to think of writers who wrote in the "mainstream" who might have mentioned SF literature and their authors. And the only ones I can think of is C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov. All of whom wrote in both fields.
If I hadn't so little interest in mainstream literature, I might have known of more such writers. I think Alexander Solzhenitsyn mentions some SF authors in various of his works.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I think it's simpler to say a British writer like Howatch would naturally be more familiar with other UK authors, such as Wyndham.
Ad astra! Sean
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