2006 Nebula Awards 105
Embedded Geek writes "Locus is reporting on the winners of the 2006 Nebula Awards (as determined by voting by fellow SF authors). Joe Haldeman picked up the Novel award for Camouflage while Kelly Link took home both the Novella ("Magic for Beginners") and Novelette ("The Faery Handbag"). Off the printed page, Joss Whedon beat out Battlestar Galactica with his script for Serenity. You can check out the final ballot here or look at past winners here."
Re:I wonder about the Nebulas (Score:4, Insightful)
And in this sentence, we have everything I dislike about literary criticism in a nutshell.
Not everything that's easy to read is good, of course; most of what's easy to read is crap. But pretty much everything that's hard to read is crap, because if you have to struggle to read it, then its other qualities just don't matter.
The critical world has pushed for almost a century now the idea that good writing has to be difficult -- which has led to a glut of truly awful, highly praised mainstream fiction, and the marginalization of good storytellers into genre fiction. Folks, the writers who created the literary canon of the 19th century and before weren't trying to show off their distinctive prose style. (For the great stylists, that was just what came naturally.) They were telling stories, and they wanted lots of people to read those stories.
Now, I haven't read Norrell, but people whose judgement I trust have told me that it's exactly the kind of pretentious crap that has ruined mainstream writing and is now invading SF, thickly layered language games that distract the reader from any virtues the story itself might have. In contrast, Haldeman's prose is always elegant and concise. I voted for Camouflage, and I'm glad it won; it's not his best ever (I'd say that's actually All My Sins Remembered, not The Forever War, as good as that was) but it's very good stuff.
Re:I wonder about the Nebulas (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly plan on reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell after the recomendations here, and can't speak for it in particular, but I agree with Daniel's sentiment. The foundation of good writing is suspension of disbelief, and anything that detracts from becoming absorbed in a work harms its effectiveness. I don't expect authors to write to a grade-school level, and I don't mind having to look up a word every now and then. But when I am constantly having to reread sentences or passages because they simply don't parse the first time through, then the author is being too clever in his wording.
"But pretty much everything that's hard to do is crap, because if you have to struggle to do it, then its other qualities just don't matter."
It's not that the other qualities don't matter, it's that these exercises in verbal complexity don't add any value to the story. Sure a book may be good in spite of the language games, but if so, how much better then would it be without them?
Re:Haldeman deserves it for sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Haldeman deserves it for sure... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder about the Nebulas (Score:4, Insightful)
Reading a textbook that's challenging and not fun may be worthwhile if it teaches you some valuable skill. Reading (or even worse, writing) "literature" that's a struggle to get through is not "worth doing". It's merely pretending that you're doing something worthwhile - it's neither entertaining nor valuable; it's just stupid.