One very good comment at the UK site is worth noting here: "psikeyhackr" commented"
Quote:
"I would rather read Lois McMaster Bujold than Shakespeare and I don't understand why people think Neuromancer is so great.
If e-books affect writing it will only be temporarily while people make the transition.
The computers are all von Neumann machines which is a term we don't hear often enough. Every 12 year old should know it. Computers manipulate symbols. They do not UNDERSTAND the symbols. That is where the Artificial Intelligence business breaks down. The computer science people don't admit it because they want us to BE IN AWE of the computers.
But who decides what GREAT writing is? The Liberal Arts people are totally out of touch with evaluating Science Fiction. This goes back to C.P. Snow's TWO CULTURES business and this ain't 1959 anymore. Kids weren't walking around with von Neumann machines in their pockets in 1959. But how many of those kids can't explain what an electron is? The trouble with Shakespeare is that his stuff is out of date in relation to what is going on in the world today. You can say people don't change all you want but Shakespeare didn't have to decide whether or not to fund Stem Cell research. He wasn't worried about the global effects of Peak Oil either.
But actually some sci-fi writers from the 60s wrote stuff more relevant than Bujold. Mack Reynolds doesn't come close to her in writing ability but ignoring things he wrote about has resulted in problems we have today. Yeah, content and writing are different things. But GREAT WRITING ain't necessarily worth reading."
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