sharecropper n.

a writer of sharecrops

SF Criticism

  • 1987 G. Dozois in Year’s Best Science Fiction Fifth Annual Collection Introd. p. xiv Gardner Dozois

    In the case of the ‘sharecroppers’, I also feel, perhaps naively, that young writers ought to be busy developing their own worlds and working out their own ideas and fresh material, rather than reworking ground already broken by older and more successful writers.

  • 1987 G. Dozois in Year’s Best Science Fiction Fifth Annual Collection Introd. p. xiv Gardner Dozois

    The recent influx of ‘sharecropper’ novels joins a flood of similar items—choose-your-own-adventure books, ‘Robotech’ books, Star Trek novels, and so on. It is possible to argue that none of these items are pernicious in themselves, perhaps not even the ‘sharecropper’ books.

  • 1995 J. Kessel Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan. 30/2

    There are many kinds of writers: the highbrows, the packagers, the high fantasists, the low fantasists, the horror writers, the hard sf writers, the soft sf writers, the feminists, the series writers, the producers of movie and TV tie-ins, the sharecroppers.

  • 1997 Science-Fiction Studies Mar. 143

    Given Clute’s preoccupation with ‘When It Changed’, it makes sense that his hardest words are for the dinosaurs, ‘alpha males of the veldt’ and the sharecroppers who try to sell nostalgic retro-fantasies of Power.

  • 1999 M. Swanwick in Puck Aleshire's Abecedary (2000) 26 Michael Swanwick

    Writers who achieved some fame as sharecroppers but never produced any work of their own include Isaac Asimov…and Roger Zelazny.


Research requirements

antedating 1987

Earliest cite

Gardner Dozois, in 'The Year's Best SF Fifth Annual Collection'

Research History
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1987 cite from Gardner Dozois in Dozois' "The Year's Best SF Fifth Annual Collection". Jeff Prucher submitted a cite from a 2000 reprint of Michael Swanwick's 1999 article "Z is for Zothique". Jeff Prucher submitted a 1997 cite from SF Studies. Alexx Kay submitted a 1990 cite from Gardner Dozois in Dozois' "The Year's Best SF Seventh Annual Collection". Jeff Prucher submitted a 1995 cite from John Kessel's review column in F&SF.

We would like cites of any date from other authors.

Last modified 2021-01-05 23:04:54
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.