Re: Oldest SF not necessarily most dated?

In article <nebusj.1210665770@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>ilya2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 writes:
>
>>While all SF from 30's, 40's and 50's is dated in obvious ways, it is
>>1970's SF I find most jarringly dated. 
>
>>Does anyone else feel the same way?
>
>	I wouldn't say the 70s are the most jarringly dated -- each 
>decade, really, is dated in its own lovable and hilarious way -- but 
>the 70s were blessed with assimilating a lot of gimmicks and bits of 
>style left over from the New Wave and the discovery that characters 
>could do things even more explicit than kissing and have careers that 
>didn't involve slide-rule jockeying and so on.  So many stories from 
>that era stand out in lime-green polyester overalls with purple stripes 
>against the poodle skirts and legwarmers of other decades.  
>
	That reminds me of the clothing in THE DOPPLEGANGER GAMBIT.

[From an old review]

" But first, a word about the cover. It shows a tall blonde woman 
whose hair is oddly matted, chewing out a tall skinny black man. She is 
wearing a blue top and miniskirt with matching go-go boots and he is
wearing 
a ****rt with horizontal green and purple stripes with green overalls. The 
overalls have the flexi-ribbing one sees on flexi-straws at the knees and 
his shoes look like low top Doc Martins with bright red soles. He is
carrying 
a pistol in one hand. She has one stuffed down the front of her miniskirt;
if 
it's the same model pistol as the man's, it's almost long enough to peek 
out the bottom of her miniskirt. 

        There's a long tradition of mocking inaccurate and ugly SF book 
covers (See the old thread on the 3 armed woman being eaten by a giant
blue 
cabbage cover for the most recent Lord Darcy onmibus), but in this case
aside 
from the lack of holsters this cover actually draws from clothing
descriptions 
in the book, which almost uniformly sound ghastly. It would seem that just
as 
the degree of social liberalism varies with time, so does taste in
clothing 
and this book is set near one of the troughs in public taste." 

-- 
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll
(For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-****rt, cup and tote-bag needs)