- Joined
- Nov 17, 2014
- Messages
- 437
- Reaction score
- 74
**
Excellent concept. My turn now
**
The real Jim Butcher—is Harry Connolly—in the more noir grit, less soap sense.
The real Neil Gaiman—is the post-1980’s Clive Barker—The Thief of Always is the real Coraline, while Weaveworld and Abarat are the real everything else.
The real 1980’s Clive Barker—is Graham Masterton— in the sense of the gore-splattered, nipple-clamp demon vomit adventure. None of the soapy filler or not-always-successful attempts at stylistic acrobatics, just tight, to the point dismemberment and astral projections.
The real 1970’s Stephen King—is Charles L Grant—in the sense of all the small town horror poetics and none of the generic bloat or quasi-Mark Twainy folksiness.
The real post-1970’s Stephen King—is Robert McCammon—in the sense of the same feeling of an epic and meaty adventure, but without the abrupt existential cruelty. At the end of the book the protagonist’s toddler will not suddenly be eaten by a bear.
The real Dean Koontz—is James Herbert—the exact same approach to compulsive-obsessively detailed suspense writing but without the relentless nagging about kids these days having no manners and civilization going down the toilet with all them graffiti and unemployed slackers.
The real John Saul—is 1980’s Ramsey Campbell—because it’s basically the same stuff about ancient evil and whatnot, but with "Peter Straubish" levels of psychopathic attention to keeping the prose stellar.
The real Ian Fleming—is Donald Hamilton—a then contemporary US peer of Fleming, whose secret agent Matt Helm had way more bombastic adventures, but not as Cro-Magnon as Mickey Spillane’s Tiger Mann.
The real John le Carre—is Len Deighton—also slow and wryly skeptical atmospheric Brit spy fiction, but stuff actually happens, and the prose is not “someone trying and failing to be Graham Greene”.
The real James Patterson—is Richard Laymon—in the sense of the same crudely stylized minimalism, the same psychopaths and occasional sci-fi creatures—but without the stock TV themes and characters that Patterson throws in in order to snare a zillion people and their aunts.
The real Philip K Dick—is Daniel F Galouye--Dick’s peer both in time and in themes, his Simulacron-3 more or less summarizes most of what Dick tried to do in his haphazard way, and is the true vintage US sci-fi ancestor of The Matrix.
The real Robert Heinlein—is David Gerrold—for the readers for whom with Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein took a wrong turn and never got back on track again.
The real G.R.R.Martin—is David Wingrove, whose Chung Kuo series are The Game of Thrones written a decade earlier, but set in a future Earth dominated by a Chinese aristocratic system. Same amount of details, intrigues, and cruelty, but vastly more poetic. And you have orbital stations and stuff.
The real Michael Moorcock—is M. John Harrison—the same poetic broodiness and mythological vibe, but without the TV serial feel.
The real Raymond Chandler—is Ross Macdonald’s PI saga—all the great nuances and atmospherics, but without Chandler’s excruciating attempts at tough guy talk.
The real H.P.Lovecraft—is Algernon Blackwood—the same mind-blowing atmosphere of an inhumanly epic universe just outside the mortal viewpoint, but written in a more confidently baroque style, and the feeling at the end is more of awe than nihilistic despair.
The real Martin Amis—is Iain Banks—when he wasn’t reinventing space opera for fun, Banks would write in a couple of months darkly poetic postmodern things to pay the bills, which Amis would agonize over for a couple of years and still couldn’t quite get right.
The real H.G. Wells—is Olaf Stapledon—the man who, in the 1930’s, using his titanic imagination, mapped out all of modern sci-fi; from intergalactic voyages, to humankind ascending to new levels of being, to the creation and end of life itself.
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