Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian 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 Article-I.D.: decwrl.3252 Posted: Fri Aug 10 09:06:32 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 00:37:09 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 21 > 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) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA