[SFRA-L] the new SF Encyclopedia

[Nathan Rockwood]

"And a sharp-eyed critic would have figured it out by now that there's a lot
of meta- in my work"

....

'My work is way too deep for you'? Really?

I'm not saying authors don't put meta in their work, and having never heard
of David Gerrold I can't say I have an opinion about his work itself, but
defending oneself against an encyclopedia entry with "You just don't
understand me" sounds like highschool students I teach.

I suppose the publication of an encyclopedia such as this will often invite
a lot of celebrity-shoulda-thought-before-they-spoke reactions?

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Easterbrook, Neil <n.easterbrook at tcu.edu>wrote:

>  JJP--
>
> I can't, of course, defend each and every entry in the SF Encyclopedia, old
> or new. Tho I do want to say I'm not one of the writers or part of the
> editorial team, so I have no investment in the project's status other than
> that of a scholar (and fan) who has benefited from the earlier editions.
>
> The first and second editions have been almost (clearly almost, in yr
> friend's case) universally celebrated as one of the most essential, vital,
> and central contributions to sf *knowledge* (I really mean that word,
> rather than *scholarship*)--from the time it first appeared until now. I
> think in a published essay Rob Latham once called it something like the
> only truly indispensible work in our discipline. In a reasonably
> recent WorldCon panel organized by Cheryl Morgan, it was the one book *
> assumed* as the most important of the last 20 years, including every work
> of fiction.
>
> Sorry that yr friend feels slighted, but John Clute, the author of his
> particular entry, is one of the best, if not the best, critics in the field.
>
> They are accepting corrections and suggestions, I think, and at least from
> my experience, both professional and personal, they are perfectly willing
> to admit inadequacy and correct entries.
>
> But of course a critic's job is to see things from a critic's perspective,
> not a novelist's.
>
> --Neil
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
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-- 
"This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
      ~Hamlet, I.3.78-80
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