Ionesco: 3
Traviss: 1

Ionesco wins, seemingly.

thoreacydides

Today's match-up...another I won't be voting in...

Bret Easton Ellis vs. L. E. Modessitt Jr.

Ellis wrote "American Psycho"...haven't read that (or seen the movie, not a movie person...though the ones I see are usually a franchise I like or a literary adaptation, so who knows, if I read his book, might see the movie) and Modessitt is...wait for it...

ANOTHER SCI FI WRITER!

And I think I'm beginning to see one of the reasons I treat sci fi and fantasy writers here with a bit of derision...the market's just so goddamn saturated that at some point I cease to become impressed or even interested in new sci fi or fantasy works, because it's a bit like Young Adult Paranormal/Dystopian Fiction--often preferring ideas over story-based logic (call that the Philip K. Dick Syndrome) and there's just so damn many works that they all kind of bleed into one another unless it's either A. A classic that either has predated or weathered this glut (see: Bradbury, Adams, Asimov) or B. Actually breaks the mold...

And B has its own problem, as everyone wants to say their favorite author broke the mold somehow, but in so doing...that in turn creates a mold of breaking the mold just for the sake of breaking the mold rather than innovating because your story's actually innovative.

To take a mild example--Harry Potter is NOT new, by any means, it borrows heavily and un-apologetically from everything from King Arthur to Greco-Roman tradition to Shakespeare to Dickens (my, how J.K. Rowling MUST have loved her Dickens, lol.) But considering what a lot of people associated the fantasy genre with when Harry Potter came out--worlds that were Medieval-esque or Tolkien-ized--setting her work in the present day as well as actually USING that modern day setting (and yes, I know the books actually take place in the 1980s and 1990s) was innovative for the time...in the same way that when "Star Wars" came out, it was a bit new to see a future that was at once space fantasy and yet a sort of "used" space fantasy and neither a gleaming Star Trek-esque setting nor a bleak, grim or highly-intellectualized and harsh setting.

Then you have the series confronting modern issues--ie, terrorism--and giving a kickass female lead...which has since metamorphosed into more of a norm for YA books because A. a lot of the readership is female and B. Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games all sold well, and nothing encourages the drive to actually give female characters something to do in a story like the incentive towards cashing in!

;)

So, where was I?

Oh, right. WebDip...ya read a lot of Sci Fi and Fantasy. News, I know. ;)

Someone else can start the voting, since I have no dog in this fight.

So, yeah.

since i nominated him: bret easton ellis.

if you haven't read anything by him, do it. he's a genius.

and i don't know what to think of your fetish for "new" stuff, obi. no, harry potter wasn't new, but you know why it is successful? because it's a good book.

^And I'd argue one of the things that MADE it a good book were its innovations (Well, the ones it had, anyway.)

That may be something like 69th on a Top 100 Reasons Harry Potter Works as a Series list, but it IS on the list.

And that's something lacking both in high-profile pretenders to the throne (looking at you, Twilight, you Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights/Terrible Ripoff of the Brontes' Already Highly Questionable Works...with a Subsequent Ripoff of Vampire Lore) and the dime-a-dozen glut of sci fi and fantasy paperbacks that get pumped out every year.

Which gives me another opportunity to rail against THAT...

The first couple books, at least, Rowling DID take a decent amount of time writing...

She didn't pump out two new HP novels every year until she was on Book 27, Harry Potter and the Geriatrics-Curing Cauldron.

By contrast...56 novels for today's sci fi writer?

To quote the great Twain (first name, Shania) "That don't impress me much!"

(And that's just about the only country song I know...and I don't care to learn others.)

:)

McCarthy

What a crappy matchup...

This matchup is White Sox/Rockies at Coors Field the first week of the season during a snowstorm. Nobody is going to bother, plus Game of Thrones is on so nobody gives a shit.

True...but like that game, SOMEBODY has to win...lol

Can they just both lose? Who wants to form a bloc to force a tie?

Can we just skip to the final four? Lets be realistic here:

2. T.S. Eliot
14. Tolkien
37. Edgar Alan Poe
63. Charles Dickens

There's your final four.

And your winner:

McCarthy

why all the hate on ellis?

Seriously fucking Tolkien in the final four? Look, the man deserves respect, but winning any kind of overall authorship prize.. That there's shaky ground to stand on

I'm not saying he's the best but that's who everyone is going to vote for. Its a popularity contest, hence all the fucking scifi and fantasy writers.

You forgot Vergil.

Who?

Publius Vergilius Thoreaus

I'm going to come out right now and say I don't think half (at least) from your Final Four will make it there, 2WL.

Eliot's already been eliminated, for one.

Oh, hell, I'll break my own rule and vote for someone I haven't read, in case we don't get any other votes...

Ellis: 1
Modessitt: 0

Oh ghug must mean Virgil, Lol

Eliot

Eliot:
Ellis: 1
Modeshit: 0

So Ellis wins 1-0 because I broke my rule, and that was the most pathetic match-up of the tournament, lol.

Today--Literature vs. Fantasy again.

Though our literary luminary isn't as exclusively highbrow as some of our other candidates...

Kurt "I'm Gonna Draw an Asshole in My Book" Vonnegut...

...vs. Brandon Sanderson, whomever that might be.

Vonnegut: 1
Sanderson: 0

I've heard Sanderson's actually pretty good as far as these SciFi/Fantasy writers go. That said, Vonnegut.

Vonnegut

vonnegut. and ellis actually won 2-0, since i voted for him as well (not that this matters much. looks like webdip loves ellis!)

Ok, after two authors I really couldn't care less about, we now have two of my favourite authors.

I'm going to vote Sanderson, I think, but I certainly won't be too upset if he loses.

Vonnegut.

vonnegut: 5
sanderson: 1