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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: re: Kingsley Amis & SF
Message-ID: <3252@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Aug-84 09:06:32 EDT
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Posted: Fri Aug 10 09:06:32 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 00:37:09 EDT
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>  I also really was impressed with Amis' "The Alteration", which is a really
>  marvelous "Alternative History" book from someone you wouldn't think would
>  be fooling around with the genre.

It really all depends on your point of view. I remember being very surprised
when I first found out that Kingsley Amis, a science fiction writer, actually
wrote a "modern classic" (LUCKY JIM). This, of course, was in those dark days
when a "true scholar" wouldn't touch sf with a ten-foot pole. In addition to
writing a critical work on the field, NEW MAPS OF HELL, Amis has written several
sf short stories, two full-fledged genre novels, THE GREEN MAN and THE ALTERA-
TION, two thrillers with marginal sf elements, COLONEL SUN (the James Bond pas-
tiche, under the name Robert Markham) and THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE, and co-edited
(with Robert Conquest) the five SPECTRUM anthologies.
	So, as I said, it all depends on your point of view. Is he a mainstream
writer who occasionally "dabbles" in sf, or an sf writer who extends into the
mainstream?

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)

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