Hack is a very specific form of bad writing. Hack is churning out the same formulaic crap to turn a buck. Some bad writers aren’t hacks. Some hacks ain’t bad writers. For instance, just because you went back and reread Tolkien and now don’t like his style doesn’t make him a hack. Anne Rice is not a hack, she is just a bad writer. Hacks don’t write 700 page novels (actually she has been a hack as well, churning out erotic fiction for a buck under other names but that is not what she is most known for). I think most of you have the wrong idea of what a hack is. I don’t like Vonnegut but he is no hack.
hack2 /hæk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hak] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts: As a painter, he was little more than a hack.
“Silver Metal Lover” is only one novel written by the extremely prolific Tanith Lee. Back in the 80’s, I was working at a company with much promise that was being driven into the ground by its nutso trust-fundie founder. So I escaped into the works of Tanith Lee–everything available on the paperback racks or at Half Price Books.
I haven’t kept up with her massive output but I’ve re-read some of my oldies with great pleasure. Don’t know whether I could make it through her “Birthgrave Trilogy” again–but I might try. “The Silver Metal Lover” wasn’t one of my favorites; “Don’t Bite the Sun” & its sequel “Drinking Sapphire Wine” tell a more interesting “teenage girl versus Utopia” story. “Red As Blood: Tales of the Sisters Grimmer” remains one of my favorite anthologies. “Sabella, the Bloodstone: A Science Fiction Vampire Story” is witty fun. I could go on; Lee works in several genres.
Tanith Lee is just one reason we oldsters own so many tattered paperbacks. The Good Stuff keeps going out of print.
I loved the Dragonlance books when I was a kid. Now…bleah.
Like others, I was also into Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffrey.
The older I get, the less interested I am in sword and sorcery. It’s got to be exceptional, like George RR Martin or Ellen Kushner (to give two wildly varying examples) for me to bother.
From this thread and the other one on books/authors that have held up, it’s beginning to look like the rule of thumb is that Children’s fantasy that you enjoyed reading as a child is still worth reading as an adult, but “adult” fantasy that you enjoyed as a youngster probably won’t hold up when you’re older.
May I recommend When the Lights Go Out? It’s set in an English coastal resort out of season and is eccentric, endearing and all-out weird. Imagine a mix of Brighton Rock ** and The Wicker Man ** (but it’s too individualistic to be really like either. There are hints of Powell and Pressburger’s film A Canterbury Tale, too.) As you can no doubt tell I’m having trouble describing the thing. :rolleyes: Just read it!.
Amen! I bought the Don’t Bite the Sun omnibus just because my copies were falling apart.
Anthony, Moorecock, McCaffery: those are hacks. I pick up any of their books now, and they’re just dreadful; I used to like them, but am older and wiser now.
Once upon a time I also enjoyed a book called “Spellfire”, by Ed Greenwood. I am now heartily ashamed of this. :o
Thanks. I went to add the book to my ever-expanding “Saved Items: To Buy Later” at Amazon. But the cheapest paperback edition was $15.00, so I ordered it. I’ve been meaning to catch up on Lee’s more recent works…
I don’t know if Tanith Lee is a hack, but I read “Silver Metal Lover” recently, and after having loved it as a yute, I found it clichéd and obvious on re-reading. I didn’t think we were just staying within the strict, dictionary definition of “hack” - just generally saying which authors haven’t stood the test of time for us, and Tanith Lee is one for me.
The sad thing is, Piers used to be a good writer, before he started aiming specifically for the pubescent-teen crowd. Some of his early books, though, are still good. Macroscope, for example, still stands as (IMO) a classic of the SF field.
I tried to reread the Illuminatus trilogy recently. Made it about a hundred pages in and gave up on it. I can understand why it appealed to me as a kid, but as an adult, I had to conclude that surreal crap is still crap.
I think there’s probably a lot to that. I wonder why. I guess the cliches so common in “adult” fantasy aren’t cliches to a kid yet. And kids are less aware of bad writing, maybe?
I was coming in here to say Terry Brooks whom I could have turned into a nerd-dork in my teens when I discovered the Shannara series and just loved them.
When I rediscovered the books and decided to re-read the series, either it has lost its its thrill or I’d grown up. Probably the first.
