LITGA
Michelle Bottorff
(the critters group, to be specific) where it has generated enough
interest that I'm planning to try make a go of it.
My current goal is to nail down what I'm recruiting people to *do* so
that I can start the actual recruitment process.
If people here, especially if this is something that might interest you,
would be willing to comment on the following...
The LITGA League -- working towards a brighter genre, because
Life Is Too Grim Already
The LiTGA League mission statement: to promote the creation and
distribution of "not grim" science fiction and fantasy, largely by
making it easier for readers to find this kind of book. (This is to the
benefit of readers *and* writers *and* publishers so we hope to recruit
membership from all of those categories.)
"Not grim" does not mean that nothing bad ever happens. We're not
trying to promote *boring* books. We merely require a happy ending, and
that the overall feel of the book is not "dark","gritty" or
"depressing".
Current activities: Create a website promotiong LITGA reccomended
reads. This will be done by A) soliciting suggestions of "not grim"
books, B) having the LITGA membership vote on the suggested books, C)
posting the books that pass the voting stage onto the website, along
with helpful warnings and etc.
I think it would be a good idea to try and sort out the books most
likely to be "new" to readers, by having a special category for recently
published, not next in a continuing series books. These would be
randomly featured on the home page, while the older more established
books are merely listed. What do you all think, good idea, or bad?
Privileges of membership in LITGA: Er... none. But hey, it's not like
you paid anything to join.
Responsibility of LITGA members:
1) Read books. (No requirements on which books, but you will be sent a
list of books that have been suggested that not enough members have read
yet to pass the voting requirements, that it would be nice if you gave
special attention to.)
2) Vote! Vote honestly. Only vote on books you have actually read.
(You don't have to have *finished* them to send in a "too grim" vote
though.)
Since the silly thing is my idea, I assume I'll be building the website.
However I've had someone else volunteer to register the domain name of
LITGA.com for us.
If you have an idea for a better name *now* would be a very good time to
mention it. :)
("Life Is Grim Enough" has been mentioned, but the LIGE.com domain name
has already been taken.)
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Andrew Stephenson
mbot...@lshelby.com "Michelle Bottorff" writes:
> I ended up mentioning this idea over in one of the sff.net
> newsgroups (the critters group, to be specific) where it has
> generated enough interest that I'm planning to try make a go of
> it.
>
> [talks about LITGA and favouring fiction with happy endings]
Methinks you're headed for two HUGE problems:
1) Some people's dislike of tales with guaranteed-happy outcomes
(ie, the Disney Syndrome); and
2) Almost everyone's inability to agree on what makes an outcome
happy or otherwise.
Within the bounds of (2), frex, you could have a tale where Earth
is destroyed utterly But There Is Still Hope (eg, Poul Anderson's
"The Day After Doomsday", IRCC). Gentle Reader can be an utterly
perverse creature on such matters. Some GRs would call "Nineteen
Eight-Four" a book with a happy outcome: poor maladjusted Winston
Smith at last has his head straightened and can Love Big Brother.
Other GRs observe WS, alone in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and wonder
how long before the Thought Police arrive and drag him off for an
ultimate doing-over, now he accepts how very naughty he has been.
--
Andrew Stephenson
Jonathan L Cunningham
> In article <1hupee3.1r7jf7237rfbkN%mbot...@lshelby.com>
> mbot...@lshelby.com "Michelle Bottorff" writes:
>
> > I ended up mentioning this idea over in one of the sff.net
> > newsgroups (the critters group, to be specific) where it has
> > generated enough interest that I'm planning to try make a go of
> > it.
> >
> > [talks about LITGA and favouring fiction with happy endings]
>
> Methinks you're headed for two HUGE problems:
>
> 1) Some people's dislike of tales with guaranteed-happy outcomes
> (ie, the Disney Syndrome); and
Why is that a problem? A LITGA site would help *them* too. If they are
feeling too happy, and want to feel miserable, they go to the LITGA site
to see which books to avoid! :-)
> 2) Almost everyone's inability to agree on what makes an outcome
> happy or otherwise.
I agree that's more of a problem.
Without taking additional precautions, the site could end up favouring a
particular favoured set of happy outcomes. That would make it both more
and less useful.
> Within the bounds of (2), frex, you could have a tale where Earth
> is destroyed utterly But There Is Still Hope (eg, Poul Anderson's
> "The Day After Doomsday", IRCC).
Good example.
> Gentle Reader can be an utterly
> perverse creature on such matters. Some GRs would call "Nineteen
> Eight-Four" a book with a happy outcome: poor maladjusted Winston
> Smith at last has his head straightened and can Love Big Brother.
I think this is a good counter-example. Anyone who consistently voted
for books like this as suitable for the LITGA audience should probably
be excluded from voting.
I don't mean in a biased way -- I mean there ought to be some automatic
mechanism to segregate preferences, so that a cadre of readers or voters
who get a giggle out of rape, torture etc. get different
recommendations.
If that's too difficult, there ought to be a non-automatic way to do it.
One could *hope* that such people, on the site, would be a sufficient
minority that they would be out-voted. And that borderline or difficult
cases would appear borderline in the voting (which should at least be a
warning).
I'd like such a site, but where I'm sceptical is whether it would
attract enough users to make it work. But that's a different issue.
Jonathan
--
(I'm seeing a number of replies to things that never showed up on my
newsserver; I guess it's dropping stuff, maybe about 1% at the moment.)
James Nicoll
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Tony Williams
I sympathise with your motivations. I still have fond memories of sf
novels from the 1950s and 60s, which tended to be far more optimistic
in tone - although perhaps nostalgia has something to do with that!
Come to think of it, they were also considerably shorter. Perhaps I
should start up another group: NATLA - Novels Are Too Long, Already!
Tony Williams
Scales (2007)
The Foresight War (2004)
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
David Friedman
"Tony Williams" <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
> Come to think of it, they were also considerably shorter. Perhaps I
> should start up another group: NATLA - Novels Are Too Long, Already!
_Harald_ was about 90K and _Salamander is currently a little less than
that, so I get to join your group too.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
Michelle Bottorff
> May I mention this on my LJ?
Most certainly!
I've just created a lj community for non-usenet enabled people to go for
more information and discussioin.
http://community.livejournal.com/litga/
Michelle Bottorff
> > I ended up mentioning this idea over in one of the sff.net
> > newsgroups (the critters group, to be specific) where it has
> > generated enough interest that I'm planning to try make a go of
> > it.
> >
> > [talks about LITGA and favouring fiction with happy endings]
>
> Methinks you're headed for two HUGE problems:
>
> 1) Some people's dislike of tales with guaranteed-happy outcomes
> (ie, the Disney Syndrome); and
This is not a problem. Those are not the droids we are looking for.
They don't like happy endings, they don't come to LITGA.
> 2) Almost everyone's inability to agree on what makes an outcome
> happy or otherwise.
The idea of having a membership who vote, is to catch try catch the
center of the large fuzzy grey area that people will be aiming for.
Obviously people looking at the listings would not necessarily find a
precise match, and things acceptable to some people will be missed.
But the search for something acceptable would be much easier than, say,
scanning the bookstore shelves.
Does that seem unworkable?
Another thought I had was that we would not just vote "grim" and "not
grim" but to vote
"mostly sunny" "grim bits but ends well" and "grim"
We maybe could add additional categories...
"funny and grim both" and
"mixed reaction" for stuff that members really can't agree on.
Michelle Bottorff
> I sympathise with your motivations. I still have fond memories of sf
> novels from the 1950s and 60s, which tended to be far more optimistic
> in tone - although perhaps nostalgia has something to do with that!
>
> Come to think of it, they were also considerably shorter. Perhaps I
> should start up another group: NATLA - Novels Are Too Long, Already!
Maybe these are related. If you summarized all the suffering in some of
the fantasy epics I've tried recently, you would get a *much* shorter
book. :(
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Michelle Bottorff
> > Gentle Reader can be an utterly
> > perverse creature on such matters. Some GRs would call "Nineteen
> > Eight-Four" a book with a happy outcome: poor maladjusted Winston
> > Smith at last has his head straightened and can Love Big Brother.
>
> I think this is a good counter-example. Anyone who consistently voted
> for books like this as suitable for the LITGA audience should probably
> be excluded from voting.
Hmm.
That's a point.
I will think about that and see if I can write something up that leaves
that option without sounding too iron-booted.
>
> I don't mean in a biased way -- I mean there ought to be some automatic
> mechanism to segregate preferences, so that a cadre of readers or voters
> who get a giggle out of rape, torture etc. get different
> recommendations.
Um. It's easy enough to automate a "Your tastes seem to be at complete
odds with the rest of the group. Are you sure this is where you
belong?" just by comparing voting statistics.
But I confess to a preference for urging people who get a giggle out of
rape and torture to start their *own* group, rather than try accomodate
them within ours. That sounds like a lot of extra work, and I'm not
sure what the benefit would be.
> If that's too difficult, there ought to be a non-automatic way to do it.
> One could *hope* that such people, on the site, would be a sufficient
> minority that they would be out-voted.
Yep, this is my hope. I'm good at hoping.
>And that borderline or difficult
> cases would appear borderline in the voting (which should at least be a
> warning).
That too. :)
Also see my comment elsewhere about maybe voting categories rather than
a simple yes/no.
James Nicoll
Michelle Bottorff <mbot...@lshelby.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> May I mention this on my LJ?
>
>Most certainly!
>
>I've just created a lj community for non-usenet enabled people to go for
>more information and discussioin.
>
>http://community.livejournal.com/litga/
I see the expansion of the name on the info page but do you
explain it in the journal itself?
I think the logo should be a particularly languishy maiden from
one of the Pre-Raphaelites. I don't have a good reason, I just find the
way a typical Pre-Raph landscape seems to have a woman draped over every
suitable backdrop (or drifting down the creeks -- how do people fish in
that world?) hilarious.
Pre-Raphaelites: Emoing Before There Was an Emo.
Graham Woodland
> Tony Williams <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I sympathise with your motivations. I still have fond memories of sf
>> novels from the 1950s and 60s, which tended to be far more optimistic
>> in tone - although perhaps nostalgia has something to do with that!
>>
>> Come to think of it, they were also considerably shorter. Perhaps I
>> should start up another group: NATLA - Novels Are Too Long, Already!
>
> Maybe these are related. If you summarized all the suffering in some of
> the fantasy epics I've tried recently, you would get a *much* shorter
> book. :(
>
Frodarion and the little company from Torpenhowe rode down out of Hardship
into the Vale McGuffin on a crisp spring morning. It had, Frodarion
reflected, been a long five months.
Suddenly, some plot sprang out.
--
Cheers,
Gray
Andrew Stephenson
jdni...@panix.com "James Nicoll" writes:
> I think the logo should be a particularly languishy maiden from
> one of the Pre-Raphaelites. I don't have a good reason, I just find the
> way a typical Pre-Raph landscape seems to have a woman draped over every
> suitable backdrop (or drifting down the creeks -- how do people fish in
> that world?) hilarious.
>
> Pre-Raphaelites: Emoing Before There Was an Emo.
The main cause of the trouble is, the good but over-ornamented
people of Preraphaeliteland have never quite grasped pollution
control or recycling. They're all living in the 19th Century.
--
Andrew Stephenson
Michelle Bottorff
> > Maybe these are related. If you summarized all the suffering in some of
> > the fantasy epics I've tried recently, you would get a *much* shorter
> > book. :(
> >
>
> Frodarion and the little company from Torpenhowe rode down out of Hardship
> into the Vale McGuffin on a crisp spring morning. It had, Frodarion
> reflected, been a long five months.
>
> Suddenly, some plot sprang out.
:giggle:
Michelle Bottorff
> >http://community.livejournal.com/litga/
>
> I see the expansion of the name on the info page but do you
> explain it in the journal itself?
:ruefully:
I didn't, but I do now.
You fill in so many little boxes when you are setting stuff up, you
start to lose track of which boxes show up where.
>
> I think the logo should be a particularly languishy maiden from
> one of the Pre-Raphaelites. I don't have a good reason, I just find the
> way a typical Pre-Raph landscape seems to have a woman draped over every
> suitable backdrop (or drifting down the creeks -- how do people fish in
> that world?) hilarious.
Seems to me that some of the people drifting in creeks are drifting in
creeks so small that you possibly actually drift anywher in them too.
Jacey Bedford
Bottorff <mbot...@lshelby.com> writes
>Tony Williams <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I sympathise with your motivations. I still have fond memories of sf
>> novels from the 1950s and 60s, which tended to be far more optimistic
>> in tone - although perhaps nostalgia has something to do with that!
>>
>> Come to think of it, they were also considerably shorter. Perhaps I
>> should start up another group: NATLA - Novels Are Too Long, Already!
>
>Maybe these are related. If you summarized all the suffering in some of
>the fantasy epics I've tried recently, you would get a *much* shorter
>book. :(
>
the first volume of Robin Hobb's 'Soldier Son' trilogy and nothing had
happened yet. I now report that I am past page 300 and still nothing has
happened.
I don't mind long books if something happens in them.
But I'd join NATLA because in most of the long books I've tackled
recently there's been a certain amount of author overindulgence in them.
:-(
Where are the editors and why have they stopped editing?
Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own