Bad SF lexicon

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sun, 6 Nov 2005 17:45:35 -0500,   Damien Hall
_halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU_ (mailto:halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU)  writes  inter alia:

>Just a bit of data for you, Jeff;  if you're doing  your SF dictionary from
>entirely 'legit' SF sources, this may come from  outside your purview.  But,
>anyway, here it is:  in his novel  *The Taking*, (horror / supernatural
writer)
>Dean Koontz has his  characters use two (contrary, actually) definitions of
>*terraform*.

>Koontz, Dean. 2005 (pbk ed). *The Taking*. New York: Bantam Dell.  pp152-3.


and on  Sun, 6 Nov 2005 15:12:30 -0800,   Jeff Prucher  _jprucher at YAHOO.COM_
(mailto:jprucher at YAHOO.COM)  replied:


>I'll take citations from any old place I can find 'em.  Indeed,  I'm very
>interested to see where SF terms cross over into other lexicons,  although in
>this case I'd be inclined to think of Koontz as being more or  less within
the
>fold, since if memory serves he's written a few  other  SF novels.



in the early 1970's Deen Koontz was considered within the SF community to  be
an up-and-coming science fiction writer.  I don't know when he started
writing horror (maybe even before SF) nor whether he still writes straight  SF.

I read one Dean Koontz novel, whose title escapes me.  Unfortunately  the
book was hackwork, so I have never bothered reading anything else of  his.  If
memory serves, I read the book while stationed at Fort Myer, which  was 1969-71.
  P Schuyler Miller in his book review column in Analog  (probably about the
same time, because he wrote a short review of the book I had  read), described
Koontz as "the hardest working [of the then newer generation of  SF writers]"

      - James A. Landau