David G. Hartwell
15 Quotations from David G. Hartwell
| adult fantasy n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 65 Therefore all literature is escape, and the charge that escape is somehow pernicious is a ‘jealous argument of very ancient lineage indeed’, used by ‘entrenched intellectual privilege’ against popular literature from the time of Elizabethan drama to the present. And we might note that this argument has been used successfully in modern times to nearly eradicate adult fantasy from serious attention until very recently. |
| disaster adj. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 146 Ballard continued to produce such stories into the early 1960s and then emerged as a novelist with four disaster novels, The Wind from Nowhere, The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World. |
| gafiation n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 163 It is possible to return to fandom after an extended period of gafiation; but of course many gafiates are never heard from again. |
| galaxy-wide adj. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 26 James Blish was fascinated by Toynbee’s cyclical theory of history, so he wrote his great four-volume series, Cities in Flight, to demonstrate his version of how this theory would operate in a galaxy-wide civilization over enormous time spans. |
| genre fantasy n. | 2003 in Year’s Best Fantasy 3 Introd. p. xiv We believe that the best-written fantasy can stand up in the long run by any useful literary standard in comparison to fiction published out of category or genre, and furthermore, that out of respect for the genre at its best we ought to stand by genre fantasy and promote it in this book. |
| golden age n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 3 Grown men and women, sixty years old, twenty-five years old, sit around and talk about ‘the golden age of science fiction’, remembering when every story was a masterwork of daring, original thought. Some say the golden age was circa 1928; some say 1939; some favor 1953, or 1970. |
| hard science fiction n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 14 This is a quick rundown of the main possibilities an omnivore might fix on: classic fantasy (ghost stories, legends, tales); supernatural horror (two categories: classic—from Le Fanu, Blackwood, and Machen to Stephen King and Rosemary’s Baby; and Lovecraftian, the school of H. P. Lovecraft and his followers); Tolkienesque fantasy (in the manner of Lord of the Rings—carefully constructed fantasy worlds as the setting for a heroic quest); heroic fantasy (barely repressed sex fantasy in which a muscular, sword-bearing male beats monsters, magicians, racial inferiors, and effete snobs by brute force, then services every willing woman in sight—and they are all willing); Burroughsian science fantasy (adventure on another planet or thinly rationalized SF setting in which fantasy and anachronism—sword fighting among the stars—are essentials); space opera (the Western in space); hard science fiction (the SF idea is the center of attention, usually involving chemistry or physics or astronomy); soft science fiction (two alternate types: one in which the character is more important than the SF idea; the other focusing on any science other than physics or chemistry). |
| heroic fantasy n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 14 This is a quick rundown of the main possibilities an omnivore might fix on: classic fantasy (ghost stories, legends, tales); supernatural horror (two categories: classic—from Le Fanu, Blackwood, and Machen to Stephen King and Rosemary’s Baby; and Lovecraftian, the school of H. P. Lovecraft and his followers); Tolkienesque fantasy (in the manner of Lord of the Rings—carefully constructed fantasy worlds as the setting for a heroic quest); heroic fantasy (barely repressed sex fantasy in which a muscular, sword-bearing male beats monsters, magicians, racial inferiors, and effete snobs by brute force, then services every willing woman in sight—and they are all willing); Burroughsian science fantasy (adventure on another planet or thinly rationalized SF setting in which fantasy and anachronism—sword fighting among the stars—are essentials); space opera (the Western in space); hard science fiction (the SF idea is the center of attention, usually involving chemistry or physics or astronomy); soft science fiction (two alternate types: one in which the character is more important than the SF idea; the other focusing on any science other than physics or chemistry). |
| non-genre adj. | 2003 in Year’s Best Fantasy 3 Introd. p. xv One noticeable trend evident in some of these is toward non-genre, or genre-bending, or slipstream fantastic fiction. |
| relaxacon n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 13 Aside from the World Science Fiction Convention, which is a general gathering of the clans, there is a World Fantasy Convention, numerous Star Trek conventions, a pulp-magazine convention (Pulpcon), Ambercon (devoted to the Amber novels of Roger Zelazny), an SF film convention, numerous ‘relaxicons’ (at which there is no programming—chronics and omnivores gather to party with like minds for a weekend), and literally dozens of localized conventions, ranging from hundreds to thousands of attendees. |
| semiprozine n. | 2003 in Year’s Best Fantasy 3 Introd. p. xv The semi-prozines of our field mirror the "little magazines" of the mainstream in function, holding to professional editorial standards and publishing the next generation of writers, along with some of the present masters. |
| sense of wonder n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 42 A sense of wonder, awe at the vastness of space and time, is at the root of the excitement of science fiction. |
| skiffy n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 13 The science fiction reader sneers at fake SF, artificially produced film tie-in novels and stories, most SF films, most TV SF. This he calls sci-fi (or ‘skiffy’)—junk no right-thinking omnivore or chronic should read, watch, or support. |
| soft science fiction n. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 14 This is a quick rundown of the main possibilities an omnivore might fix on: classic fantasy (ghost stories, legends, tales); supernatural horror (two categories: classic—from Le Fanu, Blackwood, and Machen to Stephen King and Rosemary’s Baby; and Lovecraftian, the school of H. P. Lovecraft and his followers); Tolkienesque fantasy (in the manner of Lord of the Rings—carefully constructed fantasy worlds as the setting for a heroic quest); heroic fantasy (barely repressed sex fantasy in which a muscular, sword-bearing male beats monsters, magicians, racial inferiors, and effete snobs by brute force, then services every willing woman in sight—and they are all willing); Burroughsian science fantasy (adventure on another planet or thinly rationalized SF setting in which fantasy and anachronism—sword fighting among the stars—are essentials); space opera (the Western in space); hard science fiction (the SF idea is the center of attention, usually involving chemistry or physics or astronomy); soft science fiction (two alternate types: one in which the character is more important than the SF idea; the other focusing on any science other than physics or chemistry). |
| Tolkienesque adj. | 1982 The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve in Top of News (1982, issue number unknown) 14 This is a quick rundown of the main possibilities an omnivore might fix on: classic fantasy (ghost stories, legends, tales); supernatural horror (two categories: classic—from Le Fanu, Blackwood, and Machen to Stephen King and Rosemary’s Baby; and Lovecraftian, the school of H. P. Lovecraft and his followers); Tolkienesque fantasy (in the manner of Lord of the Rings—carefully constructed fantasy worlds as the setting for a heroic quest); heroic fantasy (barely repressed sex fantasy in which a muscular, sword-bearing male beats monsters, magicians, racial inferiors, and effete snobs by brute force, then services every willing woman in sight—and they are all willing); Burroughsian science fantasy (adventure on another planet or thinly rationalized SF setting in which fantasy and anachronism—sword fighting among the stars—are essentials); space opera (the Western in space); hard science fiction (the SF idea is the center of attention, usually involving chemistry or physics or astronomy); soft science fiction (two alternate types: one in which the character is more important than the SF idea; the other focusing on any science other than physics or chemistry). |