Mitch's Blog

Chuck Klosterman’s most recent book, “Rock*,” imagines an alternate history of 20th Century music where the Beatles fade into obscurity and Velvet Underground became the biggest mainstream rock band in history.

The Velvet Underground are “kind of ground zero” for the idea that there are, on the one hand, bands for critics and serious music fans and, on the other hand, commercial bands. And often the critics and superfans don’t take the megabands seriously. And over the last 20 years those two kinds of bands have converged.

Of course this conversation is about a lot more than pop music.

Klosterman talks with podcast host and fellow journalist Derek Thompson about fame and popularity, culture, contingency, why things become popular and the decline of reading.

It’s a fascinating conversation, like when you go into a bar and start talking with a stranger who has a million fascinating things to say about history, philosophy and pop culture, and you end up talking for hours and then you probably never see the guy again.

Elsewhere on the Internet, a friend was was talking about various particular science fiction series and sf series in general. My reply (lightly edited for readability here):

I loved the “World of Tiers” books, by Philip Jose Farmer, but I read them loooooooooong ago. There was one I did not read, about a psychologist or psychiatrist (whatever) in present-day America treating a patient who believes the World of Tiers is real. That seemed intriguing but I never got around to it.

I loved the first three of Farmer’s Riverworld novels, and enjoyed the remaining novels less and less. The ancient race that created the Riverworld is revealed, and they turn out to be a bunch of jerks with the emotional development of toddlers. I get that there is a powerful basis in mythology for that — Zeus in Greek mythology is a rapey frat-bro — but it didn’t work for me.

There was a single volume of a shared-world anthology with multiple authors based on Riverworld and that was fun; I wish they had continued it. I recall one story about Daniel Boone who learns that there was a TV show based on his life and who is trying to find someone who remembers the theme song. Everybody from the 20th Century that he encounters only remembers the other theme song, Davy Crockett.

After reading Riverworld I made the rule that when a science fiction series is about the characters trying to find the answer to a Great Cosmic Mystery, the answer is usually “aliens with godlike powers” and the answer is usually disappointing. But the journey can be enjoyable, so just go with it.

I loved the Stephen King Gunslinger books. You may be right about the second volume and follow-up volumes going nowhere. I enjoyed the ride anyway.

I loved the first “Amber” series by Roger Zelazny. I was disappointed by the second series but I have since re-read the whole thing once or twice and enjoyed it. The first series is a serious exploration of power, family, treating people like objects and Zelazny’s invented mythos. The second series plays the mythos for laughs and gimmicks, which is what disappointed me at first but on subsequent rereadings I went with it and enjoyed it.

Zelazny basically invented the genre of “high fantasy but the characters talk like they’re in noir detective novels.” There’s a straight line from Amber to Game of Thrones, and I think George RR Martin freely acknowledges it. Martin certainly has explicitly said that Zelazny was one of his most powerful influences.

Forgetting what happened between one book and the next in a series is a real problem for me. There is also the problem of just losing interest between books. That’s even more of a problem for TV shows — I sometimes lose interest between seasons, even if it’s a show I loved. I remember loving “Hijacked,” with Idris Elba, and “Slow Horses,” but I have not been motivated to catch up on the new seasons. I have seen speculation that this may be an issue for many people and a problem for the streaming industry. The regular cadence of linear TV in the 20th Century got people in the habit of picking up their favorite shows, and finding new shows, in September. Each season had a couple of dozen episodes and there was about a three-month gap between seasons. Now, each season has 8-12 episodes with gaps between seasons of a year or more. I loved “Severance,” but when it finally comes back, will I care?

Regarding controversy over Zelazny and Asimov “selling out” by continuing to write Amber books and Foundation books: Back in the distant days of the 20th Century, a creator making things just for the money was looked down on as “selling out.” It was a big deal. Now, influencers consider selling out to be a badge of honor. They’ve made the big time. I say this without judging either way.

Asimov wrote that by the 1980s he was far less interested in writing sf and preferred his science writing, but sf paid him big bucks and far from a shameful sellout, he considered writing for the bucks to be honorable, so that he could provide for his family. At the time of writing that he knew, but had not disclosed, that he was dying of AIDS.

I read the first few pages of the first Dungeon Crawler Carl and was not moved to read further. I’m glad people enjoy it though.