Paradoxes of style

I read a lot and I read a lot of science fiction and related genres. That covers a lot of stylistic ground, of course, and I try to read around the bases although I don't do so systematically.

There are some authors whom I will buy and read sight unseen and I've noticed of late that the quality of writing has generally improved when compared with the norm when I first got into skiffy in the early seventies. That doesn't mean the quality of the books has necessarily got better but the writing has - at least amongst the authors I have read over the last three years or so.

However yesterday I picked up an Anne McCaffrey novel - Pegasus In Space - in a charity shop and read it quickly. Although it was published relatively late in her career it struck me quite forcefully that it was not especially well written. The earliest chapters clunked, cliches abounded and the wrap up happy ending left threads dangling left, right and centre. It was largely plot driven although there was relatively mechanical attention paid to character development and internal dialogue, at least for the protagonist.

I am willing to bet, though, that it sold a great deal better than many a better written and more interesting work.

And that's the paradox of style - all engaged writers want to write well, I think, but it I reckon that it is rare that something well written with a literary quality hits the commercial big time.

One other thing struck me about the McCaffrey novel - I found myself being reminded on occasion of the work of EE "Doc" Smith, father of vintage Space Opera. Perhaps it was a generational thing but it did strike me that McCaffrey will have started out in the tail end of that era and absorbed that ethos of crafting yarns that sell, clunkers and all.