Mary not-at-all Gentle

Mary Gentle is dissatisfied with the state of science fiction:

Allow me to tell you why the White Crow books are written exactly the way they are. I recently came across a beautiful quote in Foundation 64, in which J Michael Straczynski lambasts the endemic mediocrity of the SF field, and, more to the point, the consequences of that mediocrity: ‘cookie-cutter SF novels and worn-out fantasy clichés that pollute the field, diminish reader expectations, and degrade the taste and selectivity of the readership’.

This is why, when I say that there are jokes in Rats and Gargoyles that only three people in the world will understand (and one of them is dead), this is not an apology.

This is why, in Left to His Own Devices, the story of what is really going on is written in iambic pentameter and attributed to an Artificial Unconscious versifying as the 16th century playwright Kit Marlowe.

You’re not smart enough to keep up? Get over it. Get used to it. Get up off your ass! I don’t care if you have to try hard — try harder.

And following the kick in the bollocks, the explanation. There’s a sporting chance now that I’ve upset enough people that you’re not reading me any more, but really — would you rather be told that all you’re capable of reading is soggy unicorn fantasy? Police-identikit characterisation in engineering SF? Sexist dominatrix versions of cybertrash? Tired-out alternate histories to which there is no alternative? Honey, there are a hundred publisher’s editors out there who base their salary on the opinion that all you can read is brain-candy. Biker elves. Folksy fantasy. Watered-down mythology, and jazzed-up New Scientist. Books that do not speak irony. Room-temperature-IQ material, and Centigrade at that.

Thus far, the only Mary Gentle novel I’ve read is Grunts, which she doesn’t discuss in any depth here, but which I suspect she’d regard as one of her less ambitious efforts. Even so, it’s a quick, funny (in a deliciously nasty way) read, and a fine example of how to mix SF, fantasy and horror whilst overturning reader expectations at every turn.

Around the time when I was finishing Grunts Gentle’s most recent novel, an enormous tome by the name of Ash: A Secret History, had just been released. I wasn’t in the mood to dive into a long novel right then, so I didn’t follow up my interest in Gentle’s work. I think it’s time I took another look at her work. (Oh good, more books for the To Read piles.)

[Via Wisse Words]