--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Jeff Vorzimmer"
<jvorzimmer@...> wrote:
>
> > PS. Sturgeon's law: what a bunch of crud. If 90
% percent of
everything
> > was
> > crap, we wouldn't have this list or then
there's thousands of cruddy
> > hardboiled and noir novels being published each
year.
>
> There are. Maybe not pure crap, but mediocre at
best.
Not so true in hardboiled and noir. In my experience, these
two genres tend to attract better writers than the mystery
field at large. In fact, we seem to be in the middle of a
changing of the guard, and the new names are doing
outstanding work (see "novissimi" thread). I have no doubt
that the literary quality of hardboiled and noir is
improving.
It may be ironic given that people read less and less, but
then the quality of television scripts has improved
enormously just when the public for television is shrinking.
Go figure.
There is a theme for discussion here. Maybe we should explore
it a bit. Have we gone from popular audience for hardboiled
and noir to a more selective and more demanding type of
reader?
Best,
mrt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Jun 2008 EDT