Re: Book: Brainchild (Nanotech Art/Poetics)

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Fri, 19 Sep 1997 12:10:48 -0700


At 10:53 AM 9/18/97 -0700, Max More wrote in response to:
>> The book is called 'Brainchild' by David Jay Brown and published by
>> New Falcon Press. Its still in print.
>> Paul Hughes

>Warning: I skimmed that book some time ago and found it unreadable.

Going on the plodding, painfully expository passages Paul cited, I expected
that to be true. The author made just about every crude mistake that
science fiction writers have learned to avoid during the last 60 or 70
years - usually the mark of a neophyte enthralled by his or her ideas but
without the patience to learn the medium (that is, to learn from the
developments in narrative technique hard-won by pioneers).

Oddly enough, this aesthetic evaluation has no force with plenty of
readers, who lustily enjoy (for example) the Doc Smith space operas I wish
I'd read when I was 12, before their gauche style and characterisation
became intolerable to me. A very funny book has been compiled from such
sources - edited by Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman - appropriately titled
GHASTLY BEYOND BELIEF.

Damien Broderick