John Clute

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John Clute
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21 Quotations from John Clute

dystopic adj. 1993 P. Nicholls & J. Clute Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 1293/1 Only HW would have written…an alternate history (featuring 4 alternate worlds) with time travel from a dystopic future, Amerindian Mound Builders, Aztec Invaders, ancient Greek merchants in power-driven boats and much more.
edisonade n. 1993 J. Clute Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 368/2 As used here the term ‘edisonade’—derived from Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) in the same way that ‘robinsonade’ is derived from Robinson Crusoe—can be understood to describe any story which features a young US male inventor hero who uses his ingenuity to extricate himself from tight spots and who, by so doing, saves himself from defeat and corruption and his friends and nation from foreign oppressors.
fix-up n. 1979 J. Clute Fix-Up in P. Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 627/2 In his autobiographical Reflections of A.E. van Vogt (1975), AEVV uses the term ‘fix-up’ in the same sense in which it has been taken over for use in this Encyclopedia—to define a book made up of stories previously published, but altered to fit together, usually with the addition of new cementing material; the end product is generally marketed as a novel, though it tends to read more episodically than most novels. It is possible that AEVV invented the term, for although fix-ups are not unknown outside sf, the peculiar marketing circumstances of the genre in America encouraged their creation, and it is certainly the case that AEVV has written (or compiled) more fix-ups than any other sf writer of stature.
fix-up n. 1988 J. Clute Strokes 6 I retain this awkward formulation as a minor historical note. In 1976 when, with Peter Nicholls as General Editor, I began to think about how to organize information for The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1979), I came across A E van Vogt’s term for assembled books of the sort described; and in the Encyclopedia, and in any other piece I wrote after 1976, the term fixup is always used 1986.
generation starship n. 2001 J. Clute Appleseed 193 As they spread upwards and outwards from the beds of tigers—beds each shaft emerged from hollowly, each shaft a whorl tattooed with satrapies—the shafts brachiated bewilderingly, proliferated into gorgets and channels and leaves of armoured skin: became the arcimboldo face of the gorgon gazing unwaveringly through vacuum at the Alderede. Each shaft was like the inner whorl of a generation starship; each exfoliated into Yggdrasil.
genre science fiction n. 1993 J. Clute Science Fiction Novels of Year in D. Garnett New Worlds 3 200 He was the sound…of sf talking to itself, the default voice of American genre sf, which had been born in 1926, had been stricken in 1957 when Sputnik began to asset-strip the playground of space, and had since deceased.
Heinleinian adj. 1994 J. Clute Is Science Fiction Out to Lunch? in J. Morrow Nebula Awards 28 6 Moreover, this Lunar world gives off an eerie Heinleinian glow, as does Hildy himself in the cocky slang of the voice in which he tells us his tale.
home galaxy n. 1988 J. Clute in Interzone Nov.–Dec. 55/2 The Culture continues to exercise a loose hegemony over the home galaxy.
Jonbar adj. 2002 J. Clute Happy Hours in Escape World in Scores (2003) (review) These Worlds to escape into—created at a time when the discovery of the planet was nearing completion, and the hegemony of the imperialist West over lesser tribes was no longer an unquestionable given—are clearly ancestral to the kind of alternate history story S M Stirling wishes to write, the kind of adventure in which sf-style journeys to lost worlds, or to planets where topless girl warriors fall in love with you, are replaced (it is a simple paradigm shift) by Jonbar Points which bifurcate reality into histories that are no longer ‘fixed’, playgrounds where adventure is still possible.
planetary romance n. 1993 J. Clute Science Fiction Novels of Year in D. Garnett New Worlds 3 204 In A Woman of the Iron People (Morrow), Eleanor Arnason finally bit into a planetary romance whose scope was great enough to geographize her tough but (in the past) self-lacerating edginess.
postholocaust adj. 1980 J. Clute in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Apr. 48/1 Engine Summer is set in a post-holocaust America… Indians have been so long forgotten that the glorious days of early autumn, during which much of the story takes place, are referred to as engine summer.
sf-ish adj. 1993 P. Nicholls & J. Clute Encyclopedia of Science Fiction xiv/1 In our treatment of authors (most of them writing after WWII) who make occasional use of sf devices…to propel plots set in an undated near future, we have been highly selective, for most of these books…do not reward any attempt to incorporate them as sf or sf-ish, though we have given entries to a few (e.g., Ian Fleming).
sharecrop n. 1991 J. Clute SF Novels of Year in D. Garnett New Worlds 1 249 Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke both ‘collaborated’ in the production of novels both of which—though neither outcome was technically a sharecrop, neither younger partner being sufficiently junior or impoverished to have to work for hire—had all the seeming of the sharecrop title: the clone gaze inwards of each book at the altar of the past; the enervating belatedness of plot and discourse; the medusa chill of the sealed and finished texts.
sharecrop n. 1993 J. Clute Sharecrop in J. Clute & P. Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 1092/1 Similarly, many sharecrops are tied to shared worlds ; but the author of a shared-world text may be the originator of that world (so the work in question cannot properly be called a tie) and may also retain copyright in his or her own name (so the work cannot properly be called a sharecrop).
sharecrop v. 1994 J. Clute Is Science Fiction Out to Lunch? in J. Morrow Nebula Awards 28 2 Most of what is published is now industrial-base frozen food, portion-controlled, Sanisealed, and sharecropped, spilling like plastic hot-dogs from a million identical slots in a million vending machines.
sharecropped adj. 1993 J. Clute Sharecrop in J. Clute & P. Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 1091/2 To describe a text as sharecropped is in 1992 almost certainly to disparage it as commodity fiction, designed to fit a prearranged marketing slot and written to order according to strict instructions from the owner.
shared world n. 1993 P. Nicholls & J. Clute Encyclopedia of Science Fiction p. xii/2 We have excluded very few sf authors who have solely written books tied to shared-world endeavours (like Star Wars or Star Trek).
space opera n. 1974 J. Clute Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Sept. 44/1 In a space opera, control of the lines of power illuminates the world, making it comprehensible to the hero at the reins, and to the reader.
space patrol n. 1993 J. Clute Teething the Gap in Interzone Jan. 63/2 Angus Thermopyle, an extremely ugly pirate on the run from the space-patrol cruiser, captures Morn.
time cop n. 1991 J. Clute SF Novels of Year in D. Garnett New Worlds 1 251 Poul Anderson…provided in The Shield of Time…another meditative time-cops foray into the past, where the gang played pattycake once again with history in order to save some awful new era.
urban fantasy n. 1997 J. Clute Urban Fantasy in J. Clute & J. Grant Encyclopedia of Fantasy 975/1 Urban fantasy, a city is a place ; urban fantasy is a mode. A city may be anicon or a geography; the UF recounts an experience. A city may be seen from afar, and is generally seen clear; the UF is told from within, and, from the perspective of characters acting our their roles, it may be difficult to determine the extent and nature of the surrounding reality. UFs are normally texts where fantasy and the mundane world interact intersect and interweave throughout a tale which is significantlyabout a real city.