ellen_datlow

Here is the correspondence--read from the bottom up to read in order...
Ellen


Far be it from me to deny anyone the pleasure of riding a hobby horse...

-----Original Message-----
From: Ellen Datlow [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:27 AM
To: 'Bruce Weber'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber

LOL. Ah, but you see we sf/f/h editors/writers have been defending our chosen endeavors against mainstream ...what? denigration/trivialization, whatever for decades. That's a problem with working within what is perceived as a "ghetto."

Of course it goes both ways. I get annoyed when those outside the field say that "if it's good it's not science fiction" --eg Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Cormac McCarthy, et al. But there are also those IN the fields of fantastic fiction who are suspicious of writers who dip into their territory.

I'm pleased that this has slowwwwwly been changing over the decades from both ends. Michael Chabon's fantasy/sf can be honored by both the mainstream and science fiction. Jonathan Lethem can move from sf/f to mainstream adulation, Joyce Carol Oates writers whatever she damned well wants whether it's mystery, mainstream, horror or fantasy. And of course, J. G. Ballard also slipped back and forth between his futuristic novels/stories and his mainstream work.

Sorry. Didn't mean to go on :-)



-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Weber [mailto:weber@nytimes.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:19 AM
To: 'Ellen Datlow'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber

Not that I care to defend robert weil, whom ive never met, but in my experience the blogosphere is exceedingly literal-minded...and whether or not you label orwell or huxley or ballard science fiction seems to me irrelevant, unless you're looking for a reason to be indignant about something.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ellen Datlow [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:48 AM
To: 'Bruce Weber'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber

Actually his comment that Brave New World and 1984 are not science fiction puts the lie to that. That remark has generated a LOT of ridicule in the blogosphere. If there was a comment section by your obit you would have seen the reaction to what he's said. And so might he.
Best
Ellen


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Weber [mailto:weber@nytimes.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:26 AM
From: datlow
Subject: Re: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber

i think he probably meant to suggest that science fiction is ordinarily considered a literary ghetto but that ballard proved it isnt....but perhaps you should be writing to him and not me.


----- Original Message -----
From: "NYTimes.com" <emailus@ms2.lga2.nytimes.com>
To: <weber@nytimes.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:24 PM
Subject: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber


> To: BRUCE WEBER
>
> You have received reader mail via nytimes.com. To respond to this
> reader,

> simply 'reply' to this message.
>
> READER'S NAME:
> Ellen Datlow
>
>
>
> READER'S MESSAGE:
> I'm amused that Bob Weil doesn't consider Ballard a science fiction
> writer

> when Ballard himself did. More to the point, Bob was an editor at
> OMNI, the science fact and science fiction magazine while I was
> fiction editor there and published "Dream Cargoes," by ...you guessed
> it: J.G. Ballard
>
> ARTICLE REFERENCED (if any):
> J. G. Ballard, Novelist, Is Dead at 78