On Apr 7, 7:51 pm, John Schilling <schil...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 06 Apr 2008 19:05:42 GMT, "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> [snip]
> >Try something better by him: Island in the Sea of Time.
>
> That's actually the book that convinced me not to ever read any more
> Stirling.
>
> Well, that and his discussion of the book here. It's pretty clear that
> from here on out, it's going to be gratuitous swordfights, Hot Lesbian
> S&M ***, and political editorializing, with whatever degree of idiot
> plotting is necessary to fit in more of that trinity.
To be fair to Steve Stirling, not all of his subsequent books have
swordfights, e.g. the heroes (for some values of the term) of
_Conquistador_ favored firearms when they were available, or even Hot
Lesbian S&M ***, e.g. the Hot Female Scientist in _The Peshawar
Lancers_ tells us that she is *not* a lesbian up front, presumably
just in case. Granted, there is often some Political Editorializing,
but it's not always blatant. And I don't think that, on average, he
uses more than his fair share of Idiot Plotting.
On the other hand, it's easy to see how Steve's "discussion of the
book[s] here" can eventually help convince a reader that the strength
of his convictions is not always fully sup****ted by his command of the
facts, something hinted at in the books. Admittedly, this is by no
means uncommon in SF, but it can seriously damage the kind of WSOD
that you need to enjoy world building scenarios, something that
Stirling specializes in. Which is too bad since, as you say:
> Now, Stirling is a vastly better writer than John Norman, but still...
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