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never seen a bluer sky
Non-speculative fiction is the lowest form of literary art. It takes no risks, it creates nothing. It was born dead.
It safely anchors itself on everyday life, and thus can function in exactly two ways: imitation and escapism. Imitatory works are the ones lauded for their "literary merit", though they are the ones where nothing new is born. Whenever a work gets hauled to publicity by jaded critics, it's because the author has been blessed with a keen sense of perception of the world around them and technical skill of a quality that pleases those who fear to step away from the norm. Every single word is a mirror image of the physical reality the writer has been caged into.
Escapist works, now -- the ones most consumed the public, though people with literary "authority" tend to put them down as lesser literature. In reality, these works are the ones closer to true art, though they fall just off the mark by their very nature: they rely on preconceptions. They cannot breathe. Though escapist works use the reality around them as more of a playground, picking and choosing what to include, adding their own without being reduced to slaves, they must imitate the naïve illusionary reality of the world their readers wish to see, of what "should be".
Non-speculative fiction is a necessary evil in written art in very much the same way portraits and landscape paintings are in visual art. It can be used to show technical skill, and to hone it, but it will never have soul.
--okay no, no no no, not like that, but FUCK I. Just read an official, newspaper-published review where the reviewer basically said that though the book in question is technically perfect (as in, writing-), honestly and fairly imaginative, creates its own jargon and reality and recreates and references it faithfully throughout the whole story without ever slipping up, and yet somehow manages to be accessible (!!) to people unfamiliar with the genre WITHOUT BEING OBTUSE, it is a stagnant piece of crap, unable to create anything new, and inherently inferior to anything and everything else ever written "because it's sci-fi :)".
":)"
It safely anchors itself on everyday life, and thus can function in exactly two ways: imitation and escapism. Imitatory works are the ones lauded for their "literary merit", though they are the ones where nothing new is born. Whenever a work gets hauled to publicity by jaded critics, it's because the author has been blessed with a keen sense of perception of the world around them and technical skill of a quality that pleases those who fear to step away from the norm. Every single word is a mirror image of the physical reality the writer has been caged into.
Escapist works, now -- the ones most consumed the public, though people with literary "authority" tend to put them down as lesser literature. In reality, these works are the ones closer to true art, though they fall just off the mark by their very nature: they rely on preconceptions. They cannot breathe. Though escapist works use the reality around them as more of a playground, picking and choosing what to include, adding their own without being reduced to slaves, they must imitate the naïve illusionary reality of the world their readers wish to see, of what "should be".
Non-speculative fiction is a necessary evil in written art in very much the same way portraits and landscape paintings are in visual art. It can be used to show technical skill, and to hone it, but it will never have soul.
--okay no, no no no, not like that, but FUCK I. Just read an official, newspaper-published review where the reviewer basically said that though the book in question is technically perfect (as in, writing-), honestly and fairly imaginative, creates its own jargon and reality and recreates and references it faithfully throughout the whole story without ever slipping up, and yet somehow manages to be accessible (!!) to people unfamiliar with the genre WITHOUT BEING OBTUSE, it is a stagnant piece of crap, unable to create anything new, and inherently inferior to anything and everything else ever written "because it's sci-fi :)".
":)"
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