Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Robert Carnegie Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: Is use of literary person changing in indie SF? Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:10:04 +0000 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 36 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 20:10:07 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="f79c2ab0f9716de881948884d05785e8"; logging-data="1344166"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18a8iX/SKeqHnptvZLUXbXP5SQAtR+ZVCM=" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:ctKpwt7GzCklal1YoYOgUeUBmvo= In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-GB Bytes: 2596 On 24/03/2024 03:47, Ted Nolan wrote: > One thing I have noticed recently in "indie" SF and fantasy books > is a use of literary "person" I don't recall in fiction from previous > years. > > In particular, I have noticed books which are largely written in > the first person, but which have cutaways to various third person > viewpoints, perhaps omniscient, perhaps not. > > My conjecture is that without editorial guidelines (or call it interference > if you like) newer authors feel more free to jump around. > > Has anyone else noticed this, or is it something that has always been > around and I am just picking up on it now for some reason? > > If it is a newish thing, is it happening in other genres (mystery, romance > etc) or largely in SF? (I will note that in romancey SF, I have also noticed > dual first person narratives of late). > > I find I don't mind it, btw. I don't know if it's a new thing, or, as I think you're suggesting, a new lack of an editor slapping a new writer into using first-person or third-person but to stick to one. Joe Haldeman did it all over _Buying Time_ (1989) also titled _The Long Habit of Living_. And _Ghosts from the Past_ (2000) by Graeme Grant... oh, I Think it's all third person, it just switches point of view a lot. And sometimes italics. And some of it is stream-of-conscious-y. It's a tie-in to a remake of _Randall and Hopkirk Deceased_, a private detective fantasy series in which Marry Hopkirk is killed and comes back as a ghost, and I read it quite recently.