Thomas M. Disch
9 Quotations from Thomas M. Disch
| dystopic adj. | 1998 Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of 105 Whatever its literary merit, each dystopia, like Tolstoi’s unhappy families, is dystopic in its own way, charting its own unique path to a particular catastrophe. |
| inner space n. | 1967 Camp Concentration in New Worlds Aug. 20/1 The materialist scientist lacks this fundamental insight, and so his whole attention is directed to Outer Space, whereas an alchemist is always aware of the importance of teamwork between Body and Soul, and so he’s naturally more interested in Inner Space. |
| matter transmission n. | 1967 Echo Round His Bones in New Worlds Science Fiction Jan. 140 If matter transmission is truly instantaneous, and not just very very fast, like light, then at the exact instant of transmission, where is the object we’re transmitting? Is it here, or is it there? |
| moon base n. | 1966 Invaded by Love in New Worlds SF Sept. 135 On Friday Traquair had directed that all communications to and from the U.N. moonbase be cleared by himself personally. |
| planetary romance n. | 1998 Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of 117 Enter John Frederick Lange, Jr., who under the pseudonym of John Norman, wrote a series of planetary romances, beginning with Tarnsman of Gor in 1966 and continuing until 1988. |
| proto-science fiction n. | 1998 Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of 32 Lucian of Samasota described voyages to the moon and sun, and provided inspiration to such other proto-SF writers as Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Jonathan Swift, all of whom recounted similar fantastic voyages. |
| proto-science fiction n. | 1998 Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of 39 Poe was a hoaxer. His first and most successful hoax (and his first work of proto-SF) was an 1831 newspaper story in the New York Sun purporting to be the journal of a Welsh balloonist who is swept from his intended course to Paris and fortuitously accomplishes the first transatlantic flight. |
| sharecropped adj. | 1998 Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of 211 The Star Trek franchise has been a gold mine for almost everyone concerned—even, to a degree, for those who have written product for them. Admittedly, their slice of the pie (if any) is smaller than it would be were they to write their own books. At best, they may get a 2 percent royalty, as against standard hardcover royalties of 10 percent and paperback royalties of 6 or 8 percent. But 2 percent of a bundle is better than 10 percent of a smidgeon… A couple such stints of labor each year will pay the bills and still leave a lot of time for product that isn’t ‘sharecropped’ in this way. |
| Terrene adj. 1 | 1965 102 H-Bombs in Fantastic Stories of Imagination Mar. 50/1 Gregors Forrestal was a dabbler in non-terrene gardening. As his wife once put it, he had a red thumb. |