Alexei Panshin

[James A. Landau]

Jim Parish wrote:
<q>
There's a reference to slumgully in Alexei Panshin's 1968 SF novel
_The Thurb Revolution_. Context: a retainer of the imperial family is
paying a call on a mid-level bureaucrat, who invites him to dine.

"'This is excellent Gallimaufry au Baboulis.'
 'It's nothing but slumgully, really,' Ajamian said. Tuesday fare, by
his standards; good, but commonplace.
 'It is as I have always suspected,' Sir Thomas said. 'Food is best in
its own home - and least appreciated there.'"

I'm not sure where Panshin is from, but he seems to delight in obscure
words.
</q>

I have been told that Panshin is from Okemos, Michigan, a little southeast of Lansing.

Panshin has two writing styles.  The one he used in "Rite of Passage" and in his excellent non-fiction study "Heinlein in Dimension" is very clear and easy to read.  On the other hand the affected style in his Thurb books (of which I struggled through exactly one) is unclear and annoying.  The literary criticism he wrote with his wife Cory is unreadable.

   - Jim Landau


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