barry@ames-lm.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (05/14/84)
[*************=8>:) (snort)]
"Blue Sky Fie", huh? Cute phrase; but not too many examples of
the stuff around, last time I checked. This has always been a pretty
strait-laced genre. But there are exceptions. No discussion of the subject
would be complete, I think, without mention of the field's greatest pioneer
in this area, Philip Jose Farmer. Even his classic "The Lovers", which
dates from the early '50's and is not even racy by today's standards,
much less pornographic, was considered very shocking in its day, and
I have heard it languished for some time before finding a publisher.
Forget the namby-pamby stuff, though - Farmer's real claim to
fame in the Blue Sky Fie department comes from a number of books he wrote
in the late '60's. The three I'm aware of are IMAGE OF THE BEAST, BLOWN,
and A FEAST UNKNOWN, of which I have read the first and last named. I
believe there was a fourth book which would qualify, but I don't know
the title.
Farmer is a fine writer, but if your curiosity should lead you
to trying these books BE WARNED: these are not what most people would
call 'erotica' - they're more like what Stephen King calls the 'gross-out',
and gross they are. I think Farmer's intent was to shock the reader
speechless, not to provide a turn-on. There's a lot more emphasis on
blood, gore, guts and veins-in-your-teeth than there is on sex.
Me, I don't know what to make of 'em. They're too unlike typical
pornography to have been a simple hacking-for-money job. I guess they're
an attempt to overload and short-circuit the 'civilized' parts of the
reader's nature, a sensory-overload trip, like some drugs. But I speak
as shouldn't, for I didn't like the ones I read, so I probably missed
the point.
But whatever their quality, these books clearly show that Farmer
is a true pioneer of Blue Sky Fie, and should be recognized for it.
Kenn Barry
NASA-Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA
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Electric Avenue: {dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames-lm!barrykarl@dartvax.UUCP (S. Delage.) (05/16/84)
Although the story is not pornography, or racy, or anything like
that, it sort of is. The story being Totenbuch. I forget the author,
but it was in Again, Dangerous Visions. Well worth reading...
{astrovax,cornell,decvax,colby}!dartvax!karl -- karl@dartmouth