Yeah, but Cormac McCarthy will be remembered twice as much.
I figure Le Guin will continue to be read (although not just by young girl–her stuff is for everyone!). Heinlein seems likelier to me than Asimov, even though I don’t care for either of them very much.
Fantasywise, of modern authors, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is considered a classic. I suspect that Perdido Street Station will remain a favorite among punk’s great-grandchildren a century hence.
Daniel
I dunno. I think it’ll be like now. He’ll have cult status. The literary types will read him, and he’ll be on college reading lists, but the general public will be more familiar with McMurtry and the others.
How about James Michener? Will he be remembered? He’s just about the most popular long-lived historical novelist I can think of.
Other genre writers I think might survive:
James Clavell
Mary Stewart
Thomas Costain
Thomas Disch
George R. R. Martin
I think he was just joking because the list had McCarthy on it twice.
Drat, sent too soon.
I think the way information is disseminated now might make these guesses hard to make. A book is an expensive thing to produce in reprints, but a computer file isn’t. How many authors have fallen aside simply because they aren’t in print and can’t find a new audience? Obviously, the publishers think that they wouldn’t make them money, but if books become electronic media those publishers are no longer taking a risk in publishing. We could end up with a much less stratified future reading list, fewer Dickens and Twains and more of the B-listers who stick around simply because their books are available to be read.
Is Ayn Rand considered a genre writer?
Howzabout Hunter S. Thompson?
My wife asked about Ayn Rand yesterday, I never think of her as a Genre writer.
I definitely do not think of Thompson as Genre.
Jim
:smack:
You know, this reminds me of something I just recently realized about Pratchett’s writing style.
His endings. His endings take FOREVER. Don’t get me wrong – he is and will probably remain my absolute favorite author of all time. His satire and humor are amazing, right up until he grabs your stomach and yanks it out.
But take Night Watch, one of my favorites. The climax starts
with the guardsmen in the alley, with Dai Dickens plucking the lilac and bringing the book full circle to the beginning
and doesn’t end for another fifty pages, probably. Throughout which any number of things happen, but that’s where the climax starts.
I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying. I also agree that he will continue to be read for decades, if for no other reason than his use of the English language, especially with internal themes and repetition, is – I wouldn’t even hesitate to say – unmatched in modern writing. He stands up to close readings the way Shakespeare does. Don’t believe me? Take the woman/city metaphor in Guards! Guards! as far as you can. You could write a serious thesis.
I have this weird premonition that Neal Stephenson will be remembered as the Dickens of our age.
Attribute confusion on my part as to the meaning of “genre” fiction.
I was thinking that most of their works were of a similar theme, instead of whether they shared that particular theme with a number of writers.