Alexei Panshin

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Mar 15 01:11:51 UTC 2007


At 5:17 PM -0700 3/14/07, James A. Landau wrote:
>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.

  dInIs must be proud!

>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
>
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.
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>------------------------------------------------------------
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