USEFUL LITERARY TERMS

REVIEWER FATIGUE: wherein you discover a book review about a really lame novel gets good marks because the reviewer had previously read ten worthless dipped in manure styled novels and the lame one seemed pretty damn good by comparison.

SERIES FATIGUE: where a good writer loses ground by trying to do too much. Examples: Larry Niven. David Brin.

IDIOT CRITICISM: the ability to drag into a review all and everything in the world around us, but fail to concentrate on the content of the novel being discussed. Examples: a lot of VILLAGE VOICE REVIEWS, where the writer has to fill in reams of paper.

NON FUNCTIONAL WORD PATTERNS: a term coined by Darrell Schwietzer to describe stories that made no sense, had no content but were “literary”. Examples: BABEL by Alan Burns, a “novel” that consists of unrelated paragraphs, and the works of James Sallis.

LITERARY NOVEL: written by an academic who has done nothing but read all his life. Henry James could fit this bill.

USED TO BE A GOOD WRITER. Often a few good novels produced by some writers early in their careers are what keeps them currently publishable, though they haven’t produced anything with any quality of recent. If I name certain writers they will hunt me done and shoot me.

NEVER WAS ANY GOOD. Used to describe Barry Malzberg.