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From: don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: crossover authors
Message-ID: <2690@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Aug-84 18:00:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.2690
Posted: Sun Aug 12 18:00:53 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 01:02:01 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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It is unusual for a top-class author to write Sci Fi (or murder
mysteries, westerns, romance novels, etc.).  I can think of a couple
instances though.

C.S. Lewis wrote a strange trilogy of books "Out of the Silent Planet",
"Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength".  My impression is that these
books are not popular among Science Fiction fans.  Lewis was an Oxford
theologian, I believe.  He equated technology with satanism.

H. G. Wells is a highly respected author and one of the most powerful
political forces in England of this century.  Of the hundreds of Sci Fi
novels I have read, I cannot think of any that contain such fine
writing.  The plots of the books revolve around Wells' political and
social theories (i.e. Fabian socialism).

I should mention Tolkien.  Lord of the Rings is fantasy, and I am sure
almost everyone has read it.  No one of his literary stature (an Oxford
professor of philology) has since contributed to that genre.  Like
Lewis (a close friend of his), Tolkien's books contain images of
industrial devastation and waste counterpoised against primeval natural
forces.

Burroughs classifies some of his novels as Sci Fi.  In particular, "The
Soft Machine", and "Nova Express", and "The Ticket that Exploded".
These books are about as difficult to reads as Joyce's "Ulysses"
though.  They describe how men addicted to power ("the boards and
syndicates of the world") control the masses through mind control and
the media.