Friday 15 September 2017

Praised with faint damning

Stumbled across this review by Eamonn Murphy of "Shooting the Messenger" within a generally upbeat write-up of "Best of British Science Fiction 2016":

Shooting The Messenger’ by Robert Bagnall features Dave Kite, an ambitious young journalist looking for a story in Pakistan, a war zone with the Taliban. I get the impression that Bagnall made this up as he went along, which you can do with a short story. It’s certainly unpredictable! I liked it. Authors having fun is something I’m glad to see in ‘the heavy industry that professional writing has become’ as Bernard Berenson wrote to Ray Bradbury.

Made it up as he went along?  Isn't that how fiction works?  Isn't that what I'm meant to do?  I'm having a bit of a 'small; far away' moment: are we saying that novels aren't made up?  I've checked the back of my wardrobe, and that's clearly made up.  What about the works of Philip K Dick - that was all real?  The Moomins are real, though - I've always known that...

(Seriously, though - much obliged)

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