His characters behave in 1960 as if members of a very conventional mid-19th-century novel.
During the 1950s he produced a series of non-genre, relatively conventional novels.
It's hard to imagine that West could ever have written a conventional novel with any success.
And what exactly is this hated creature, the "conventional" or "standard" novel?
Initially writing a number of science fiction books, he later concentrated on conventional novels.
"It's not a conventional commercial novel that everyone can read in three hours," he said.
To pretend that it is in any way a conventional novel would be a mistake.
Goyen offers absolutely nothing here for readers of conventional novels to grasp on to.
The nearest to a conventional novel by this author.
This series turns the popular, conventional spy-genre novel on its head.