What makes the difference between Mark Twain and Timothy Zahn?

Kier!
You forgot Jules Verne! Haven't you ever seen Back to the future III! LOL!

No, never have seen it. Doubtful that I ever will.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, Journey to the Middle of the Earth, Time Machine. Those were so cool! And he wrote them over a hundred years ago! Time Machine will be out in theaters in a couple of months, the newest version.

I didn't forget anything. And Isaac Asimov wrote Fantastic Voyage, and it's Center not Middle. H.G. Wells wrote Time Machine.

 

[sarcasm]I can tell Zahn's good rightin rubed of on yu din't it?[/sarcasm]
Maybe you should learn how to spell before you enter a literature forum.

Hey, Mr. Fel... no need to be a jerk to a fellow newbie. Just because we here in the lit. forum choose not to dwell on your faults does not mean you don't have them. Furthermore, I thought we established that your no expert in the spelling area yourself in the "Problem on the boards" thread.

Perhaps it IS time to resurrect the "Lit. Forum Respect" thread.

 

Hey Jag "Mr. Democracy will never work" Fel, No reason to be a jerk.

 

Wait a sec... I thought Wells wrote "the Time Machine" not Verne.
Hmmm... I could be wrong, but did you know his great grandson is directing the film?


OOops! You're right! My bad!
I'm watching The Mysterious Adventures of Jules Verne right now. It's a new TV show. It's cool. I have my Jules Verne Collection the garage, but can't remember all of it. It's kinda vague, thanks for the corrections.

 

I would say that the biggest difference between Twain and Zahn would be # of books sold and read. The # of books sold and read by Twain easily dwarfs the number of books sold and read by Zahn.

Mark Twain's works have stood the test of time, and are generally considered classic works of literature. Timothy Zahn has a ways to go to catch up to Twain. Truth be known, there is much debate in these very forums about Zahn. There is some strong sentiment(not held by me) that Zahn has done more harm than good with SW.

As much as I love Sw, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing if kids in school know more about Tom Sawyer than Luke Skywalker.

 

Actually, if Zahn is remembered 100 years from now it will be because it was Star Wars, not because he's Zahn.

 

Zahn's non-SW work does more to show what a great writer he is than his still awesome SW books do. Personally, I would say that Zahn's writing is better than Twain's. However, Twain wrote over a hundred years ago, and his writing was certainly more innovative and more relevant to society than Zahn's is. So Zahn will never be held in the same high regard by scholars.

 

the Missipi river, the state of missouri , and Honest Abe.

 

I'd be careful in saying english teachers rank sci-fi that lowly, especially when they will push certain sci-fi authors on students. They may not push current sci-fi authors, but they will do so with authors their trade says are worth reading.

Oh, and watch the spelling of Mississippi. I tend not to mention people's spelling, especially since I don't have great spelling and will often ask for the proper spelling if I think I misspelled a word. But both the stat and the river are spelled as I spelled it above.

 

As I understand, high school English has always been the government's last ditch efforts to instill values in America's youth. But somewhere in there is also gaining the ability to understand how to read critically, global, etc. Strangely enough, I have yet to read anything by Twain and doubt I will have to in the future.

Since I have only read Zahn's SW stuff, I can only comment on Zahn's SW novels, so keep that in mind. I would think the literary community favors more original pieces of work rather than working from someone else's material. For example, an original drawing is better than one copied from a photo on a certain level. While I agree that Zahn is a good writer, working within someone else's universe cripples a writer's freedom a bit.

I lost track of where I was going so I'll stop, Wampas weren't made to write long responses.

 

I can see both sides of the argument now. I still believe that the education system doesn't encourage science fiction because 'it has no purpose.' Twain tells about what life was like, so it gives a history lesson in English. Some with Goeffry Chaucer.

 

Actually many science fiction books do serve a purpose, they often try to give warning of things that may be if what is does not change. Or in clearer terms Science-fiction allows an author to examine the extremes of humanity and where they might lead in the future.