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Great Young Hope?

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sigi...@yahoo.com

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Sep 22, 2006, 2:06:02ā€ÆPM9/22/06
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(Spun off from this thread -- http://tinyurl.com/zqqd4 -- on James
Nicoll's blog. So I suppose this is a Nicoll Thread.)

Does SF have a Great Young Hope right now?

A few years ago, a lot of people might have pointed to Cory Doctorow.
But Cory's 36 now, and it's been 6 years since he won the Campbel.
Putting aside whether or not he's great, he's no longer all that young.

Let's keep it simple:

1) 30 or younger.

2) SF, not fantasy.

3) Really good.

Surely there must be some crackling excellent young SF writers out
there. Enlighten me, mighty group-mind.

Anyone?


Doug M.

David Tate

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Sep 22, 2006, 3:08:31ā€ÆPM9/22/06
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sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Let's keep it simple:
> 1) 30 or younger.
> 2) SF, not fantasy.
> 3) Really good.

Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
field.

Here's the list of the youngest authors in the ISFDB database, by
increasing age:

1984-04-16 - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (22)
1983-11-17 - Christopher Paolini (23)
1982-00-00 - Jonathan Moeller (24)
1979-00-00 - Tobias S. Buckell (27)
1978-01-25 - David Lee Stone (28)
1977-02-28 - Chris Wooding (29)
1977-02-09 - Rhiannon Lassiter (29)
1976-00-00 - Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (30)

Oops -- we just ran out of 30-and-under authors. Even allowing for the
known incompleteness of the ISFDB[1], that's a stunningly small group.
I've only heard of a few of them[2], and have read nothing by any of
them, so I can't say whether there's any good science fiction on the
list. Judging by titles, only Buckell and Gartenstein-Ross seem likely
to be non-fantasy.

Continuing down the database, we get

1975-00-00 - Mac Tonnies (31)
1975-00-00 - Kynan Hale (31)
1975-00-00 - Kenji Siratori (31)
1974-05-08 - Makoto Yukimura (32)
1974-01-15 - Shaun Tan (32)
1973-00-00 - Kirsten Oulton (33)
1973-00-00 - Keynyn Brysse (33)
1973-00-00 - Jim Munroe (33)
1973-00-00 - Naomi Novik (33)
1972-09-06 - China MiƩville (34)
1972-00-00 - Raakesh Persaud (34)
1972-00-00 - Robert Prouty (34)
1972-00-00 - R. David Stephens (34)
1972-00-00 - Matthew Appleton (34)
1972-00-00 - Eric Garcia (34)
1971-09-22 - Elizabeth Bear (35)
1971-07-17 - Cory Doctorow (35)
1971-00-00 - Heather G. Wells (35)
1971-00-00 - Nicole Luiken (35)
1971-00-00 - Rycke Foreman (35)
1971-00-00 - Jay Michaelson (35)
1971-00-00 - Lawrence Schimel (35)
1971-00-00 - Holly Black (35)

Of these, I'd guess that MiƩville, Doctorow, and Bear are the most
famous. So the answer to your question might still be "Cory Doctorow,
even at 35". Or someone else here might be able to point to one of the
above who writes really good science fiction. If so, please do -- I'm
curious too.

David Tate

[1] I have no idea what fraction of authors in the ISFDB have valid
birthdates, nor how that fraction varies with actual age of the author.

[2] Paolini is the _Eragon_ author, famously young but not science
fiction.

James Nicoll

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Sep 22, 2006, 3:16:46ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
In article <1158952111.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,

David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>> Let's keep it simple:
>> 1) 30 or younger.
>> 2) SF, not fantasy.
>> 3) Really good.
>
>Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
>restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
>field.

At the moment, perhaps. In Olden Days, people as young as
19-year-old Isaac Asimov saw print.

Is there an elegant way to extract age at first printing tracked
vs year of inital sale from the isfdb?


--
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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)

Ahasuerus

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Sep 22, 2006, 3:46:47ā€ÆPM9/22/06
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James Nicoll wrote: [snip]

> Is there an elegant way to extract age at first printing tracked
> vs year of inital sale from the isfdb?

There are pre-compiled graphs at http://www.isfdb.org/agefs1.html for
short fiction and http://www.isfdb.org/agef1.html for novels. There is
more (arguably) useful stuff at http://www.isfdb.org/agestuff.html ,
but I don't think Al has rerun the scripts recently.

--
Ahasuerus

Dorothy J Heydt

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Sep 22, 2006, 3:48:24ā€ÆPM9/22/06
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In article <ef1cqu$mt6$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1158952111.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Let's keep it simple:
>>> 1) 30 or younger.
>>> 2) SF, not fantasy.
>>> 3) Really good.
>>
>>Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
>>restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
>>field.
>
> At the moment, perhaps. In Olden Days, people as young as

My son sold a story to one of MZB's Friends of Darkover
anthologies at not-quite-twenty. However, he hasn't sold
anything since. (But I believe he's working on a novel.)

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com

James Nicoll

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Sep 22, 2006, 4:08:17ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
In article <1158954407....@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
I think what I am looking for is more average age at first
sale vs year of first sale, to see if it is creeping up.

Scott Golden

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Sep 22, 2006, 4:14:47ā€ÆPM9/22/06
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James Nicoll wrote:

> In article <1158952111.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>
>>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Let's keep it simple:
>>>1) 30 or younger.
>>>2) SF, not fantasy.
>>>3) Really good.
>>
>>Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
>>restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
>>field.
>
>
> At the moment, perhaps. In Olden Days, people as young as
> 19-year-old Isaac Asimov saw print.
>
> Is there an elegant way to extract age at first printing tracked
> vs year of inital sale from the isfdb?
>
>
>

It's not necessarily an elegant way but the web page "First Published
SF/Fantasy" --

Link: http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/debut.html

-- alphabetically lists hundreds of genre authors and charts their first
published short stories and novels. Most (but not all) of the names
listed include the year of birth. It's not perfect but it does contain a
lot of info on one page.

Ahasuerus

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Sep 22, 2006, 6:34:22ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
James Nicoll wrote: [snip]

> I think what I am looking for is more average age at first
> sale vs year of first sale, to see if it is creeping up.

Oh, I see. Find all authors whose year/date of birth is known, identify
their first published story/novel (should non-fiction count?),
calculate the author's age when it appeared, then calculate the average
age for 1926-2006, right?

Should be doable (within the limits imposed by database imperfections),
but give me a few hours, I need to find my slide rule first...

--
Ahasuerus

Howard Brazee

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Sep 22, 2006, 6:35:06ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:16:46 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>>Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
>>restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
>>field.
>
> At the moment, perhaps. In Olden Days, people as young as
>19-year-old Isaac Asimov saw print.

But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough competition
that more age and practice is needed to be good enough to be
published.

Derek Lyons

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Sep 22, 2006, 8:12:06ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Andrew Plotkin

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Sep 22, 2006, 8:37:37ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
Here, Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:16:46 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
> >Nicoll) wrote:
> >
> >>>Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> >>>restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> >>>field.
> >>
> >> At the moment, perhaps. In Olden Days, people as young as
> >>19-year-old Isaac Asimov saw print.
> >
> >But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough competition
> >that more age and practice is needed to be good enough to be
> >published.
>
> The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.

I don't think that's the problem. There are fewer places to obtain
experience *for money*. But amateur fiction-writing has seriously
taken over the Internet, and it can offer feedback and criticism at
least as well as an editor's rejection letter.

My theory is the same as Howard's. There are many, many more people
writing SF&F than there were when Asimov was 19. Plenty of them have
several years' experience. That is a formidable bar to clear when
you're new.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
It's a nice distinction to tell American soldiers (and Iraqis) to die in
Iraq for the sake of democracy (ignoring the question of whether it's
*working*) and then whine that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

Howard Brazee

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Sep 22, 2006, 9:26:12ā€ÆPM9/22/06
to
On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:12:06 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

>>But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough competition
>>that more age and practice is needed to be good enough to be
>>published.
>
>The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.

At least if you don't count the Web.

There are far more F&SF novels published these days though.

Derek Lyons

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:20:34ā€ÆAM9/23/06
to
Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

>On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:12:06 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
>wrote:
>
>>>But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough
>>>competition that more age and practice is needed to be good
>>>enough to be published.
>>
>>The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.
>
>At least if you don't count the Web.

How many places on the web have serious and capable editors?

Just publishing is practice. Experience is serious and knowledgeable
feedback from someone whose vested self interest is in nurturing good
writers.

>There are far more F&SF novels published these days though.

There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)

Gene Ward Smith

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:45:39ā€ÆAM9/23/06
to

Derek Lyons wrote:

> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)

In terms of numbers, quality, or type?

co...@aol.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 10:03:51ā€ÆAM9/23/06
to
David Tate wrote:
> sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > Let's keep it simple:
> > 1) 30 or younger.
> > 2) SF, not fantasy.
> > 3) Really good.
>
> Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> field.

No surprise to me. C-C-C-C, Eb-D-D-C-C-B-C.

> Here's the list of the youngest authors in the ISFDB database, by
> increasing age:
>
> 1984-04-16 - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (22)
> 1983-11-17 - Christopher Paolini (23)
> 1982-00-00 - Jonathan Moeller (24)
> 1979-00-00 - Tobias S. Buckell (27)
> 1978-01-25 - David Lee Stone (28)
> 1977-02-28 - Chris Wooding (29)
> 1977-02-09 - Rhiannon Lassiter (29)
> 1976-00-00 - Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (30)
>
> Oops -- we just ran out of 30-and-under authors. Even allowing for the
> known incompleteness of the ISFDB[1], that's a stunningly small group.
> I've only heard of a few of them[2], and have read nothing by any of
> them, so I can't say whether there's any good science fiction on the
> list. Judging by titles, only Buckell and Gartenstein-Ross seem likely
> to be non-fantasy.

There's a substantial excerpt of Buckell's first novel here:

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/crystalrain/excerpt.htm

Not bad -- workmanlike, derivative in the better sense of the word --
but nothing that's going to set even the Cuyahoga on fire.

(Doug, it engages within-genre tropes. Blimps. Loa [1]. A hidden elite
controlling events from behind the scenes. Lost technology. A warlike
people encountering a non-warlike people. Et cetera.)

[1] Although Buckell is from Grenada. The recent small-scale co-option
of Caribbean themes and writers within F&SF is interesting in itself.

James Nicoll

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Sep 23, 2006, 10:33:52ā€ÆAM9/23/06
to
In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,

<co...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>[1] Although Buckell is from Grenada.

He seems to have been 21 when he made his first sale ("Fish Merchant"
Science Fiction Age).

> The recent small-scale co-option
>of Caribbean themes and writers within F&SF is interesting in itself.

OK, there's Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson. Who else has ties to
the Caribbean?

co...@aol.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 11:01:01ā€ÆAM9/23/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:

> >[1] Although Buckell is from Grenada.
>
> He seems to have been 21 when he made his first sale ("Fish Merchant"
> Science Fiction Age).
>
> > The recent small-scale co-option
> >of Caribbean themes and writers within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>
> OK, there's Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson. Who else has ties to
> the Caribbean?

China Mieville. His mother lives in Cuba, and I believe he's said
that New Crobuzon owes a fair amount to Havana and New Orleans (and
Cairo, and London). [1]

Off the top of my head, in terms of AFAIK non-Caribbean F&SF writers
using Caribbean themes: William Gibson, _Count Zero_; Lucius Shepard,
_Green Eyes_; Melissa Scott, _Shadow Man_; Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_
(which credits Hopkinson, IMS); a number of linked Avram Davidson
stories.

How authentically they're engaging with them, I dunno. But I think
the above authors were/are trying to engage with Caribbean themes
respectfully.

... I should note that Manly Wade Wellman -- colonial African in
origin, Southern by the grace of God -- knew of and respected Zora
Neale Hurston's work, mentioning it by name, when he wrote his occult
detective stories of the 1930s and 40s. Different from the standard
racist pulp fare of the era.

Michael Grosberg

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Sep 23, 2006, 12:52:14ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

co...@aol.com wrote:
>
> Off the top of my head, in terms of AFAIK non-Caribbean F&SF writers
> using Caribbean themes: William Gibson, _Count Zero_; Lucius Shepard,
> _Green Eyes_; Melissa Scott, _Shadow Man_; Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_
> (which credits Hopkinson, IMS); a number of linked Avram Davidson
> stories.

And, of course, Bruce Sterling with _Islands in the Net_.

sigi...@yahoo.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 1:51:02ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

David Tate wrote:

> Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> restrictive.

Is it that my criteria are too restrictive, or is is just that there
are no more young SF writers?


> In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> field.

I think "30 or less" is a reasonable definition of "young" here.
Granted that it's a relative term, but there have been plenty of
under-30 sf writers under the years.

There just don't seem to be too many of them right now.


> a stunningly small group.

And most of them seem to be fantasy, not SF.

To a first approximation, there are no SF writers aged 30 or younger.
That seems odd, and a little disturbing.


> Of these, I'd guess that MiƩville, Doctorow, and Bear are the most
> famous. So the answer to your question might still be "Cory Doctorow,
> even at 35".

Well, Mieville's stuff is not SF. So for reasonably well-known and
successful SF writers aged 35 or less, that leaves Doctorow and Bear.

That's not a lot.


Doug M.

James Nicoll

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Sep 23, 2006, 1:55:59ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <1159023661....@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,

<co...@aol.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> >[1] Although Buckell is from Grenada.
>>
>> He seems to have been 21 when he made his first sale ("Fish Merchant"
>> Science Fiction Age).
>>
>> > The recent small-scale co-option
>> >of Caribbean themes and writers within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>>
>> OK, there's Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson. Who else has ties to
>> the Caribbean?
>
>China Mieville. His mother lives in Cuba, and I believe he's said
>that New Crobuzon owes a fair amount to Havana and New Orleans (and
>Cairo, and London). [1]
>
>Off the top of my head, in terms of AFAIK non-Caribbean F&SF writers
>using Caribbean themes: William Gibson, _Count Zero_; Lucius Shepard,
>_Green Eyes_; Melissa Scott, _Shadow Man_; Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_
>(which credits Hopkinson, IMS); a number of linked Avram Davidson
>stories.

I wouldn't call Gibson, Shepard, Scot or Gaiman recent and
Davidson's been dead for the better part of a generation.

James Nicoll

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Sep 23, 2006, 1:58:27ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <1159033861.9...@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>,

<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>David Tate wrote:
>
>> Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
>> restrictive.
>
>Is it that my criteria are too restrictive, or is is just that there
>are no more young SF writers?
>
>
>> In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
>> field.
>
>I think "30 or less" is a reasonable definition of "young" here.
>Granted that it's a relative term, but there have been plenty of
>under-30 sf writers under the years.
>
>There just don't seem to be too many of them right now.
>
>> a stunningly small group.
>
>And most of them seem to be fantasy, not SF.
>
>To a first approximation, there are no SF writers aged 30 or younger.
>That seems odd, and a little disturbing.

I'm not sure we're looked carefully enough. Until I checked
I had no idea how young Buckell was, for example (Born 1979).

Andrew Wheeler

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:03:33ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Derek Lyons wrote:
>
> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:12:06 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>>But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough
> >>>competition that more age and practice is needed to be good
> >>>enough to be published.
> >>
> >>The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.
> >
> >At least if you don't count the Web.
>
> How many places on the web have serious and capable editors?

How many pulp magazines had serious and capable editors? The top tier --
_Astounding_, _F&SF_, _Galaxy_ -- sure, but I rather doubt there was a
firm, fatherly editorial hand carefully guiding each issue of _Spicy
Zeppelin Stories_ and _Knockout Boxing Tales_.

The difference is that the writers then knew that they were creating
stories that people would want to read, and creating them to fit
specific market niches -- and, of course, that they *got paid,* which is
not as common these days.

--
Andrew Wheeler: Professional Editor, Amateur Wise-Acre
--
If you enjoyed this post, try my blog at
http://antickmusings.blogspot.com
If you hated this post, you probably have bad taste anyway.

Jaimie Vandenbergh

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:20:38ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
On 23 Sep 2006 10:51:02 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:

>Well, Mieville's stuff is not SF.

Looks pretty skiffy to me, with spliced body parts, robots and battery
powered indeterminate-state weaponry. Should we just agree to differ?

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Life is complex - partly real and partly imaginary

Damien Sullivan

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:48:35ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
"David Tate" <dt...@ida.org> wrote:

>Here's the list of the youngest authors in the ISFDB database, by
>increasing age:

>Oops -- we just ran out of 30-and-under authors. Even allowing for the


>known incompleteness of the ISFDB[1], that's a stunningly small group.

>[1] I have no idea what fraction of authors in the ISFDB have valid


>birthdates, nor how that fraction varies with actual age of the author.

Or any birthdate. Your list left out "Marie Brennan", author of
_Doppelganger_, whom I know at school. I don't know how old she is, but
most probably under 30. I know other students working on fantasy
novels; none may be a Great Young Hope but people are trying. I don't
know ScF authors, though.

A different question: of people who have seemed to be a Great Hope of
ScF, how many were young when they were seen as Hopes? Douglas Adams,
C. J. Cherryh, Lois Bujold, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Donald Kingsbury,
Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, Stanislaw Lem, Vernor
Vinge -- these are some of the names whose works got me really excited
about ScF at various points; how old were they at first sale, or at
first excited buzz?

And in fantasy, I thought _The King's Peace_ was a very fresh look at
its subject, but not from a young author.

-xx- Damien X-)

sigi...@yahoo.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 2:52:09ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 23 Sep 2006 10:51:02 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> >Well, Mieville's stuff is not SF.
>
> Looks pretty skiffy to me, with spliced body parts, robots and battery
> powered indeterminate-state weaponry.

Mieville's stories are set on a flat world where magic works. (N.B.,
it's not Clarke's Law magic.)

Trying to define the SF-fantasy boundary is a mug's game, but this is
well over the line for most people.


Doug M.

mille...@my-deja.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 3:34:16ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Correspondingly though, how many Great Young Hopes are there for other
genre's? Because a side-effect of the times is that there are very few
venues that young writers have (most sources merely seem to recycle the
same names over and over, and this is across genre's and
magazines/publishers). I don't know what mystery writers think of
there authors but I recall seeing many of the same authors in Ellery
Queen over the past 5 years.

Some of this is a matter of economics as there are fewer paying sources
and, in addition, most younger people are facing a heavy economic
crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately) so
anything that doesn't contribute economically is liklier to be dropped
for a second (or, in some cases, third) job.

Derek Lyons

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Sep 23, 2006, 3:42:43ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:

>Derek Lyons wrote:
>> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:12:06 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
>> >wrote:
>> >>>But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough
>> >>>competition that more age and practice is needed to be good
>> >>>enough to be published.
>> >>
>> >>The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.
>> >
>> >At least if you don't count the Web.
>>
>> How many places on the web have serious and capable editors?
>
>How many pulp magazines had serious and capable editors? The top tier --
>_Astounding_, _F&SF_, _Galaxy_ -- sure, but I rather doubt there was a
>firm, fatherly editorial hand carefully guiding each issue of _Spicy
>Zeppelin Stories_ and _Knockout Boxing Tales_.

True - but the fact remains that at least *some* had those editors and
when you look at the authors valued today, they weren't published
primarily in _Spicy Zeppelin Stories_ were they? Hence my question.

Derek Lyons

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Sep 23, 2006, 3:45:30ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.

Jaimie Vandenbergh

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Sep 23, 2006, 4:44:45ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

I'm happy to include the Science Fantasy category. Mieville's universe
clearly has laws that make it work, rather than being pink unicorn
land.

As opposed to Fantasy Science, which is your Star Trek and whatnot.

I noticed you snipped my agreeing to disagree!

Cheers - Jaimie
--
#include "clue.h"

Ahasuerus

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Sep 23, 2006, 5:04:30ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Andrew Wheeler wrote: [snip]
> How many pulp magazines had serious and capable editors?[snip]

Whatever else you may say about Ray Palmer (and there are many things
that could be said), he was a capable editor. Capable of all kinds of
... interesting things.

--
Ahasuerus

pma...@hotmail.com

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Sep 23, 2006, 5:32:26ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

David Tate wrote:
> sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > Let's keep it simple:
> > 1) 30 or younger.
> > 2) SF, not fantasy.
> > 3) Really good.
>
> Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> restrictive. In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> field.
>

> Here's the list of the youngest authors in the ISFDB database, by
> increasing age:
>
> 1984-04-16 - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (22)
> 1983-11-17 - Christopher Paolini (23)
> 1982-00-00 - Jonathan Moeller (24)
> 1979-00-00 - Tobias S. Buckell (27)
> 1978-01-25 - David Lee Stone (28)
> 1977-02-28 - Chris Wooding (29)
> 1977-02-09 - Rhiannon Lassiter (29)
> 1976-00-00 - Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (30)
>
> Oops -- we just ran out of 30-and-under authors. Even allowing for the
> known incompleteness of the ISFDB[1], that's a stunningly small group.
> I've only heard of a few of them[2], and have read nothing by any of
> them, so I can't say whether there's any good science fiction on the
> list. Judging by titles, only Buckell and Gartenstein-Ross seem likely
> to be non-fantasy.
>
> Continuing down the database, we get
>
> 1975-00-00 - Mac Tonnies (31)
> 1975-00-00 - Kynan Hale (31)
> 1975-00-00 - Kenji Siratori (31)
> 1974-05-08 - Makoto Yukimura (32)
> 1974-01-15 - Shaun Tan (32)
> 1973-00-00 - Kirsten Oulton (33)
> 1973-00-00 - Keynyn Brysse (33)
> 1973-00-00 - Jim Munroe (33)
> 1973-00-00 - Naomi Novik (33)
> 1972-09-06 - China MiƩville (34)
> 1972-00-00 - Raakesh Persaud (34)
> 1972-00-00 - Robert Prouty (34)
> 1972-00-00 - R. David Stephens (34)
> 1972-00-00 - Matthew Appleton (34)
> 1972-00-00 - Eric Garcia (34)
> 1971-09-22 - Elizabeth Bear (35)
> 1971-07-17 - Cory Doctorow (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Heather G. Wells (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Nicole Luiken (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Rycke Foreman (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Jay Michaelson (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Lawrence Schimel (35)
> 1971-00-00 - Holly Black (35)

>
> Of these, I'd guess that MiƩville, Doctorow, and Bear are the most
> famous. So the answer to your question might still be "Cory Doctorow,
> even at 35". Or someone else here might be able to point to one of the
> above who writes really good science fiction. If so, please do -- I'm
> curious too.

Novik writes very well, but her topic is a little off-kilter. Dragons
in the Napoleonic war, sort of an alternative historical fantasy
version of Patrick O'Brien.

If she starts branching out into other fields, she might well be
capable of an excellent SF novel. Not that she has much incentive
right now, with Peter Jackson buying the movie options.

Derek Lyons

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 5:54:12ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.

Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)

Mike Schilling

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Sep 23, 2006, 5:56:19ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

"Michael Grosberg" <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1159030334.1...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

And Vonnegut's _Cat's Cradle_.


Nancy Lebovitz

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Sep 23, 2006, 7:45:15ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <45168e4b....@news.supernews.com>,

Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>
>>> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>>> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>>
>>In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>
>Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
>coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
>in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
>to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>
My impression is that the worst prose is better than it used to be, but
it may be that I'm missing the worst prose these days.

What do you mean by pseudo-SF? I think there's a bigger demand for
mediocre fantasy and a smaller demand for mediocre science fiction.

It's at least possible that you've forgotten the sub-ordinary stuff
from past decades.

--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com

http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 7:48:14ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <451576F5...@optonline.com>,

Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>
>How many pulp magazines had serious and capable editors? The top tier --
>_Astounding_, _F&SF_, _Galaxy_ -- sure, but I rather doubt there was a
>firm, fatherly editorial hand carefully guiding each issue of _Spicy
>Zeppelin Stories_ and _Knockout Boxing Tales_.
>
>The difference is that the writers then knew that they were creating
>stories that people would want to read, and creating them to fit
>specific market niches -- and, of course, that they *got paid,* which is
>not as common these days.

Fan fiction (in the sense of fiction based in other author's universes)
is definitely written for specific audience niches, and the payment
in egoboo (does the fanfiction community use that word? have another
word for the same concept?) is at least quick.

IIRC, some fan fiction writers have started writing professionally.

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 7:49:54ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,

Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>
>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)

Is anyone writing about modern pirates?

Mark Atwood

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Sep 23, 2006, 8:00:14ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
mille...@my-deja.com writes:
> crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
> the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately)

That's rather blatant cherrypicking, in that 1999 was the start of the
dot.com crash, and the fact that the median fell, it did not fall
evenly, but mainly fell hardest on the people who had been overemployed
for the six years previous.

--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://fallenpegasus.livejournal.com/

Derek Lyons

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 8:12:24ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:

>mille...@my-deja.com writes:
>> crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
>> the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately)
>
>That's rather blatant cherrypicking, in that 1999 was the start of the
>dot.com crash, and the fact that the median fell, it did not fall
>evenly, but mainly fell hardest on the people who had been overemployed
>for the six years previous.

<nods> And picking 47 states? What happened to the other 3?

Derek Lyons

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 8:13:09ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:

>In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,
>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>>
>>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)
>
>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?

Not modern pirates - but a steady rise in fascination with
(a)historical pirates.

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 8:34:15ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:

> Fan fiction (in the sense of fiction based in other author's universes)
> is definitely written for specific audience niches, and the payment
> in egoboo (does the fanfiction community use that word? have another
> word for the same concept?) is at least quick.
>
> IIRC, some fan fiction writers have started writing professionally.

*waves hand*


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

James Nicoll

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Sep 23, 2006, 8:45:06ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <4515cd4d....@news.supernews.com>,

Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
>
>>mille...@my-deja.com writes:
>>> crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
>>> the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately)
>>
>>That's rather blatant cherrypicking, in that 1999 was the start of the
>>dot.com crash, and the fact that the median fell, it did not fall
>>evenly, but mainly fell hardest on the people who had been overemployed
>>for the six years previous.
>
><nods> And picking 47 states? What happened to the other 3?

Those are the 47 continental States, 50 minus Alaska,
Hawaii and post-Pan-Dimensional Vortex Inducer Nevada.

John F. Eldredge

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 8:57:10ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:13:09 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

>nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:


>
>>In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,
>>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>>>
>>>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)
>>
>>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?
>
>Not modern pirates - but a steady rise in fascination with
>(a)historical pirates.
>

It is easier to romanticize pirates from 200 years or more ago than
modern-day pirates. Most pirate fiction presents them as humorous
rogues, while downplaying their roles as rapists and mass murderers.

--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

Cyli

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 9:11:27ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:49:54 +0000 (UTC), nan...@panix.com (Nancy
Lebovitz) wrote:

>In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,
>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>>
>>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)
>
>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?

The only one I've ever read that I can recall would be a bit old. John
D. MacDonald did one involving piracy in the Bermuda Triangle.

Oops. Gavin? Black mentioned the pirates of the Malaysian islands and
near Singapore, but his are really old.

It's strange that it's not mentioned in modern works. I understand
there are still pirates in the SE Asia areas. I'm sure they're still
working some in the Caribbean. But it's all, as far as I'd know or
guess, small stuff. In the Caribbean, it'd be tourist boats that seem
to disappear. Later they'd turn up with false registry and be sold in
some other small country, owners and any crew being somewhere in the
sharks and sands. In the Asian seas, I think it's just that the boat
and cargo go somewhere else. Hard to know for sure.

But big piracy seems to happen most in times of war and was previously
overtly encouraged by giving pirates something like privateer status
and having them turn over their proceeds to the crown of whatever
country backed them. As gold and jewels aren't being sent to home
from colonies any more, the valuable cargos would be complete oil
tankers or the big cargo box ships. Hard to hide, hard to sell, hard
to get rid of the evidence easily.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

Andrew Plotkin

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Sep 23, 2006, 9:52:13ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
Here, Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Derek Lyons wrote:
> >
> >> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
> >> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
> >
> >In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>
> Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
> coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
> in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
> to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.

I was not buying SF before Star Wars came out (or even Jedi), but I
would like to see numbers on these assertions. Also a definition of
"pseudo-SF" that doesn't map to "I don't like it".

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're patriotic.

Robert A. Woodward

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Sep 23, 2006, 10:33:10ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <ef3vi3$83f$1...@naig.caltech.edu>,
pho...@ofb.net (Damien Sullivan) wrote:

> "David Tate" <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>
> >Here's the list of the youngest authors in the ISFDB database, by
> >increasing age:
>
> >Oops -- we just ran out of 30-and-under authors. Even allowing for the
> >known incompleteness of the ISFDB[1], that's a stunningly small group.
>
> >[1] I have no idea what fraction of authors in the ISFDB have valid
> >birthdates, nor how that fraction varies with actual age of the author.
>
> Or any birthdate. Your list left out "Marie Brennan", author of
> _Doppelganger_, whom I know at school. I don't know how old she is, but
> most probably under 30. I know other students working on fantasy
> novels; none may be a Great Young Hope but people are trying. I don't
> know ScF authors, though.
>
> A different question: of people who have seemed to be a Great Hope of
> ScF, how many were young when they were seen as Hopes? Douglas Adams,
> C. J. Cherryh, Lois Bujold, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Donald Kingsbury,
> Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, Stanislaw Lem, Vernor
> Vinge -- these are some of the names whose works got me really excited
> about ScF at various points; how old were they at first sale, or at
> first excited buzz?
>

Checking with the ISFDB, I find ...
Douglas Adams, born 1952 - thus less than 30 when "Hitchhiker's
Guide..." debuted.
C. J. Cherryh, born 1942 - about 34 when _The Gate of Ivrel_ was
published.
Lois Bujold, born 1949, 34 when 1st short story was published by
_Twilight Zone Magazine_
Iain M. Banks, born 1954 - 30 when _The Wasp Factory_ was
published, 33 when _Consider Phlebas_ was published.
Greg Egan, born 1961, about 22 when "Artifact" was published.
Donald Kingsbury, born 1929, 23 when "Ghost Town" was published,
but didn't write anymore fiction for 25 years.
Ken MacLeod, born 1954, about 41 when _The Sky Fraction_ was
published.
Charles Stross, born 1964, 22 when "The Boys" was published
Alastair Reynolds, born 1966, about 24 when "Dilation Sleep" was
published.
Stanislaw Lem, born 1921, 25 when first novel was published in
Poland.
Vernor Vinge, born 1944, 20 (I think) when "Apartness" was
published.

Out of the 11 names, 7 (counting Kingsbury who has a 26 year gap
between 1st and 2nd fiction sales) first published (or were
broadcasted) when less than 30.

--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>

David Tate

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Sep 23, 2006, 10:34:39ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> David Tate wrote:
>
> > Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> > restrictive.
>
> Is it that my criteria are too restrictive, or is is just that there
> are no more young SF writers?

Is there a difference? Your criteria are sufficiently restrictive that
the answer to your question is (apparently) a null set.

> > In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> > field.
>

> I think "30 or less" is a reasonable definition of "young" here.

It certainly used to be.

> Granted that it's a relative term, but there have been plenty of
> under-30 sf writers under the years.
>
> There just don't seem to be too many of them right now.

...which is really all I was saying. The question is, is that a
temporary anomaly, or a long-term trend that may well be irreversible?

[...]

> To a first approximation, there are no SF writers aged 30 or younger.
> That seems odd, and a little disturbing.

Not so odd, when you consider how much competition there is. In the
old days, when there were a zillion magazines, one OK short story could
get you published as a teenager. These days, nobody[1] buys short
stories, and novels have to be doorstop-sized (which increases the
editorial resources each novel consumes). That means more competition
for limited shelf space, which pushes out the marginal writers and the
writers with no track record of success. Youths are more likely to be
marginal writers, other things being equal, and they certainly have no
track record of success.

David Tate

[1] To a first approximation

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 23, 2006, 10:59:56ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to
In article <1159065279.1...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,

David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>
>
>Not so odd, when you consider how much competition there is. In the
>old days, when there were a zillion magazines, one OK short story could
>get you published as a teenager. These days, nobody[1] buys short
>stories, and novels have to be doorstop-sized (which increases the
>editorial resources each novel consumes).

Not for SF. In SF, going much over 120K words is the Kiss
of Death, at least in the US (British SF can be longer). SF readers
do not buy 120K word hardcovers in sufficient numbers for the major
chains to carry them, so they don't. Many publishers prefer to focus
on books that chains will buy, due to the entire "let's not get
evicted from our offices" aspect of publishing and won't buy long
SF in the first place.


James Nicoll

Mike Schilling

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Sep 23, 2006, 11:25:03ā€ÆPM9/23/06
to

"Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
news:4515D286...@sgeobviousinc.com...

> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>> Fan fiction (in the sense of fiction based in other author's universes)
>> is definitely written for specific audience niches, and the payment
>> in egoboo (does the fanfiction community use that word? have another
>> word for the same concept?) is at least quick.
>>
>> IIRC, some fan fiction writers have started writing professionally.
>
> *waves hand*

Ok, Wasp, you have the floor. Would you like to name some?


J Moreno

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Sep 24, 2006, 1:00:03ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Cyli <cyl...@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:

> But big piracy seems to happen most in times of war and was previously
> overtly encouraged by giving pirates something like privateer status
> and having them turn over their proceeds to the crown of whatever
> country backed them. As gold and jewels aren't being sent to home
> from colonies any more, the valuable cargos would be complete oil
> tankers or the big cargo box ships. Hard to hide, hard to sell, hard
> to get rid of the evidence easily.

And just as importantly -- hard to hide from the mercs they send out to
take it back. Take a few hundred million dollars worth of goods today,
and you better be able to shell out at least a couple of million dollars
in damage if you hope to keep it.


--
JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg

Bill Snyder

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Sep 24, 2006, 1:53:49ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to

Taunting aside, I believe Damon Knight published a fanzine as a
high-schooler.

--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]

Ahasuerus

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 3:05:33ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Ahasuerus wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote: [snip]
> > I think what I am looking for is more average age at first
> > sale vs year of first sale, to see if it is creeping up.
>
> Oh, I see. Find all authors whose year/date of birth is known, identify
> their first published story/novel (should non-fiction count?),
> calculate the author's age when it appeared, then calculate the average
> age for 1926-2006, right?
>
> Should be doable (within the limits imposed by database imperfections),
> but give me a few hours, I need to find my slide rule first...

Here is what the ISFDB has for 1890-2006 first fiction publications:

Year,average age,median age,number of writers
1890,28,23,2
1891,28,28,1
1892,41,41,1
1893,30,27,3
1894,33,27,2
1895,33,30,6
1896,45,33,3
1897,24,27,3
1898,41,44,3
1899,30,30,1
1900,45,44,3
1902,42,42,1
1903,49,41,3
1904,27,27,5
1905,29,28,3
1906,40,40,1
1907,31,31,5
1908,31,26,4
1909,35,37,4
1910,24,26,3
1911,32,31,3
1912,33,30,4
1913,30,30,1
1914,25,24,2
1915,34,34,1
1916,31,29,4
1917,33,33,1
1918,36,41,3
1919,33,31,6
1920,37,36,6
1921,42,46,3
1922,30,19,2
1923,30,30,14
1924,31,30,11
1925,24,22,9
1926,34,33,19
1927,34,31,10
1928,31,31,15
1929,32,30,17
1930,30,29,26
1931,28,27,15
1932,25,24,10
1933,27,28,11
1934,32,23,12
1935,29,30,11
1936,29,29,7
1937,28,30,17
1938,33,27,10
1939,27,26,22
1940,28,27,14
1941,29,27,15
1942,30,28,13
1943,33,32,10
1944,35,34,8
1945,31,31,9
1946,36,35,20
1947,39,41,9
1948,35,33,11
1949,31,29,13
1950,30,30,24
1951,29,27,24
1952,33,32,32
1953,33,32,27
1954,33,31,26
1955,35,35,17
1956,33,32,16
1957,36,36,17
1958,36,35,21
1959,35,33,24
1960,35,38,9
1961,37,34,21
1962,29,25,14
1963,33,31,25
1964,34,32,23
1965,34,30,11
1966,35,32,21
1967,32,26,25
1968,29,26,19
1969,33,32,25
1970,34,34,34
1971,31,30,28
1972,33,29,24
1973,30,29,37
1974,34,31,26
1975,35,33,29
1976,33,31,31
1977,31,30,34
1978,32,31,47
1979,36,32,56
1980,36,35,49
1981,38,33,34
1982,35,33,61
1983,33,33,33
1984,38,33,57
1985,34,33,52
1986,40,37,54
1987,35,31,59
1988,37,34,56
1989,38,35,59
1990,34,31,48
1991,37,34,41
1992,34,31,36
1993,38,36,47
1994,34,33,47
1995,34,31,46
1996,40,38,32
1997,38,36,32
1998,36,34,13
1999,37,35,14
2000,35,36,7
2001,41,38,8
2002,49,50,11
2003,39,34,7
2004,47,41,17
2005,40,40,8
2006,49,49,3

This is at best imprecise since the ISFDB has useable "year of birth"
data for under 2,300 authors out of 36,324. Also, the ISFDB often
derives "date first published" information from reprints rather than
true first editions. There are other problems with the data like
duplicate author records, etc. (All "first edition" records whose
authors were supposedly over 85 at the time of the publication were
discarded.)

Nonetheless, if the error pattern is roughly the same throughout the
period, then this may be useful, although I would be extra careful with
2000-2006 numbers since year of birth data is even spottier for new
authors.

We will likely eventually re-check the math, rewrite the program in
something more user-friendly like Perl or Python and then post it on
the ISFDB Wiki.

--
Ahasuerus

Mark Atwood

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 3:27:09ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> writes:
> mille...@my-deja.com writes:
> > crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
> > the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately)
>
> That's rather blatant cherrypicking, in that 1999 was the start of the
> dot.com crash, and the fact that the median fell, it did not fall
> evenly, but mainly fell hardest on the people who had been overemployed
> for the six years previous.

To follow up on myself, it's cherrypicking at *both ends*.

Mark Atwood

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 3:34:56ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Cyli <cyl...@gmail.com.invalid> writes:
> >
> >Is anyone writing about modern pirates?
>
> The only one I've ever read that I can recall would be a bit old. John
> D. MacDonald did one involving piracy in the Bermuda Triangle.
>
> Oops. Gavin? Black mentioned the pirates of the Malaysian islands and
> near Singapore, but his are really old.
>
> It's strange that it's not mentioned in modern works. I understand
> there are still pirates in the SE Asia areas.

Modern (well, future) sea pirates are in _Snow Crash_.

They listened to Reason, and got was was coming to them within
a single page of their actual appearance, however.

Ahasuerus

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 3:55:29ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Ahasuerus wrote:
> Here is what the ISFDB has for 1890-2006 first fiction publications:

And here is the same data grouped by decade:

Decade,average age,median age,number of writers
1890s,34,31,25
1900s,35,32,29
1910s,31,30,28
1920s,32,30,106
1930s,29,28,141
1940s,32,32,122
1950s,33,32,228
1960s,33,31,193
1970s,33,31,346
1980s,36,34,514
1990s,36,34,356
2000s,43,40,61

--
Ahasuerus

sigi...@yahoo.com

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:08:48ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Ahasuerus wrote:

[snipping to the last 40 years here]

> 1966,35,32,21
> 1967,32,26,25
> 1968,29,26,19
> 1969,33,32,25
> 1970,34,34,34
> 1971,31,30,28
> 1972,33,29,24
> 1973,30,29,37
> 1974,34,31,26
> 1975,35,33,29
> 1976,33,31,31
> 1977,31,30,34
> 1978,32,31,47

Eyeballing, this period (1966-78) seems to form a discrete unit, with
average age consistently around the early 30s and number of
publications slowly rising.

> 1979,36,32,56
> 1980,36,35,49
> 1981,38,33,34
> 1982,35,33,61
> 1983,33,33,33
> 1984,38,33,57
> 1985,34,33,52
> 1986,40,37,54
> 1987,35,31,59
> 1988,37,34,56
> 1989,38,35,59
> 1990,34,31,48
> 1991,37,34,41
> 1992,34,31,36
> 1993,38,36,47
> 1994,34,33,47
> 1995,34,31,46

This period (1978-95) also seems to form a unit, with average age a bit
higher -- consistently around the mid-30s -- but number of publications
much above the earlier period.

But then we have:

> 1996,40,38,32
> 1997,38,36,32
> 1998,36,34,13
> 1999,37,35,14
> 2000,35,36,7
> 2001,41,38,8
> 2002,49,50,11
> 2003,39,34,7
> 2004,47,41,17
> 2005,40,40,8
> 2006,49,49,3

Average age up, number of publications collapsing. Those are scary
numbers.

Now, as you say, the data since 2000 is dubious. But the slow rise in
age is consistent with the long-term trend back to the 1960s, while the
decline in publications begins in 1996.


> We will likely eventually re-check the math, rewrite the program in
> something more user-friendly like Perl or Python and then post it on
> the ISFDB Wiki.

It looks like the means and averages involve small numbers, and so are
noisy. Might a five-year weighted moving average be useful?


Doug M.

Jaimie Vandenbergh

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:51:21ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 19:57:10 -0500, John F. Eldredge
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:13:09 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
>wrote:
>
>>nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,
>>>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>>>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.
>>>>
>>>>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)
>>>
>>>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?
>>
>>Not modern pirates - but a steady rise in fascination with
>>(a)historical pirates.
>>
>
>It is easier to romanticize pirates from 200 years or more ago than
>modern-day pirates. Most pirate fiction presents them as humorous
>rogues, while downplaying their roles as rapists and mass murderers.

In Watchmen, the existence of real costumed superheroes caused the
comics companies in that world to turn to other sources - and that was
largely pirate horror.

Which leads me to wonder if the current downturn in skiffy publishing
(or at least overwhelming of skiffy on the shelves by fantasy) is
correlated with our increasing knowledge that we - us here, not us the
whole human race - are living in "the future". Apart from the flying
cars, of course.

I had another moment of future-shock a couple of days ago, realising
that my new 1gig Transflash memory card, about 10x15mm and less than
1mm thick, is more than 50 times more capacious than the first
full-height hard drive I used. My new video card pushes ten times as
many textured triangles per second as the brand new military VR kit
that a friend was working with twelve years ago. Cars that drive
themselves are on test roads. Walking robots. Private companies are
reaching space - private individuals can buy themselves a ticket to
orbit.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Networking is well understood and well standardized, unfortunately not by the same people.

Ken from Chicago

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 9:58:08ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to

<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1158948362.3...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> (Spun off from this thread -- http://tinyurl.com/zqqd4 -- on James
> Nicoll's blog. So I suppose this is a Nicoll Thread.)
>
> Does SF have a Great Young Hope right now?
>
> A few years ago, a lot of people might have pointed to Cory Doctorow.
> But Cory's 36 now, and it's been 6 years since he won the Campbel.
> Putting aside whether or not he's great, he's no longer all that young.
>
> Let's keep it simple:
>
> 1) 30 or younger.
>
> 2) SF, not fantasy.
>
> 3) Really good.
>
> Surely there must be some crackling excellent young SF writers out
> there. Enlighten me, mighty group-mind.
>
> Anyone?
>
>
> Doug M.
>

How old is Stross?

-- Ken from Chicago


James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:29:09ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
In article <1159088928.4...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,

<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>But then we have:
>
>> 1996,40,38,32
>> 1997,38,36,32
>> 1998,36,34,13
>> 1999,37,35,14
>> 2000,35,36,7
>> 2001,41,38,8
>> 2002,49,50,11
>> 2003,39,34,7
>> 2004,47,41,17
>> 2005,40,40,8
>> 2006,49,49,3
>
>Average age up, number of publications collapsing. Those are scary
>numbers.
>
>Now, as you say, the data since 2000 is dubious. But the slow rise in
>age is consistent with the long-term trend back to the 1960s, while the
>decline in publications begins in 1996.
>
At which point it might well be sensible to ask "did the
number of publications per year in fact decline starting 1996 and
if so, is it to the degree indicated here"?

As it happens, Andrew Wheeler once supplied the numbers for
1993 to 2001:

http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/aa13e4ec8e970ec6?hl=en&

A condensed version (minus commentary about mergers):

Tor:
217 - 230 - 260 - 246 - 239 - 218 - 263 - 248 - 277

Penguin Putnam:
262 - 251 - 272 - 262 - 259 - 255 - 229 - 215 - 226

S&S/Pocket:
80 - 88 - 121 - 101 - 93 - 04 - 156 - 145 - 169

HarperCollins:
127 - 137 - 184 - 178 - 188 - 216 - 203 - 158 - 157

Random/Ballantine:
128 - 126 - 133 - 118 - 175 - 123 - 122 - 140 - 157

Baen:
53 - 52 - 56 - 59 - 52 - 53 - 59 - 62 - 60

Bantam Doubleday Dell Broadway:
160 - 161 - 129 - 113 - 106 - 100 - 103 - 74 - 49

Wizards of the Coast:
32 - 29 - 49 - 44 - 12 - 45 - 39 - 48 - 47

Warner:
29 - 30 - 42 - 42 - 37 - 39 - 39 - 34 - 46

Can anyone supply the 2002 to 2006 data?

I'm tempted to discard Bantam Doubleday Dell Broadway on account
of how they stink of terminal illness. Wonder if the numbers ever got
better?

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:37:02ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
In article <ef64nl$7js$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1159088928.4...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>But then we have:
>>
>>> 1996,40,38,32
>>> 1997,38,36,32
>>> 1998,36,34,13
>>> 1999,37,35,14
>>> 2000,35,36,7
>>> 2001,41,38,8
>>> 2002,49,50,11
>>> 2003,39,34,7
>>> 2004,47,41,17
>>> 2005,40,40,8
>>> 2006,49,49,3
>>
>>Average age up, number of publications collapsing. Those are scary
>>numbers.
>>
>>Now, as you say, the data since 2000 is dubious. But the slow rise in
>>age is consistent with the long-term trend back to the 1960s, while the
>>decline in publications begins in 1996.
>>
> At which point it might well be sensible to ask "did the
>number of publications per year in fact decline starting 1996 and
>if so, is it to the degree indicated here"?
>
And bear in mind that not only does this include F and SF
but it may also include horror, which had an extinction event in
the mid-1990s.

Actually, they are due for another one. Wonder if Vampire
Shagging is headed for a cull?

David Cowie

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:44:42ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:58:08 -0500, Ken from Chicago wrote:

> How old is Stross?

Forty-two. (Born in 1964, according to my copy of _Singularity Sky_).

--
David Cowie

Containment Failure + 25078:09

co...@aol.com

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:50:54ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:

> >Off the top of my head, in terms of AFAIK non-Caribbean F&SF writers
> >using Caribbean themes: William Gibson, _Count Zero_; Lucius Shepard,
> >_Green Eyes_; Melissa Scott, _Shadow Man_; Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_
> >(which credits Hopkinson, IMS); a number of linked Avram Davidson
> >stories.
>
> I wouldn't call Gibson, Shepard, Scot or Gaiman recent and
> Davidson's been dead for the better part of a generation.

Let's chart it:

1957 *Sputnik, Robert Mitchum's calypso album
___8
___9
1960
___1
___2
___3 Kurt Vonnegut, _Cat's Cradle_
___4
___5 Avram Davidson visits British Honduras for the first time
___6
___7
___8 Avram Davidson lives in Belize (former British Honduras)
*George Romero rehabilitates the zombie movie
___9
1970
___1
___2
___3 *the James Bond movie, Live and Let Die
___4
___5
___6
___7 Avram Davidson, "Manatee Gal...", first Limekiller story
___8
___9
1980
___1
___2 Lucius Shepard in Central America
___3
___4 Lucius Shepard, _Green Eyes_
___5
___6 William Gibson, _Count Zero_
*Wade Davis, _The Serpent and the Rainbow_
___7 Tim Powers, _On Stranger Tides_
___8 Bruce Sterling, _Islands in the Net_
___9
1990
___1 Michael Swanwick, _Stations of the Tide_
___2
___3
___4
___5
___6 Melissa Scott, _Shadow Man_
___7
___8 Nalo Hopkinson, _Brown Girl in the Ring_
___9
2000 China Mieville, _Perdido Street Station_
___1
___2
___3
___4
___5 Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_
___6 Tobias Buckell, _Crystal Rain_

Eyeballing: Vonnegut did not inspire any follow-ups with
this trend within SF. (No surprise.) Neither did Davidson.
(Ditto.)

Lucius Shepard, possibly did -- and why not? _Green Eyes_
was a Terry Carr special -- but I suspect the following
cluster was overdetermined: Tim Powers' love of Sabatini,
Bruce Sterling and non-mainstream places, Michael Swanwick
and carnival culture. When the niche opened, they took it.

The real oddity there is the Gibson, but if I had to guess,
the use of loas in _Count Zero_ came from the avant-garde
figure Maya Deren's work.

(The idea plays an important role in later Gene Wolfe,
incidentally.)

Scott I will tentatively peg as working with source
material inspired by curiosity about the preceding trend.

Gaiman was working on an early version of _Anansi Boys_ in
the mid-1990s, which never jelled -- probably he needed to
write a long-form novel first for it to crystallize.
Probably an outlier.

Then people actually from the Caribbean, or with family
connections there: Hopkinson, Buckell, Mieville.

Recent? within the last twenty years, say.

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:55:57ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
In article <1hm4xl5.e0ntwr1pjf1fjN%pl...@newsreaders.com>,

That just improves the novel. Instead of pirates operating on their own,
we have corruption inside the company--people expecting to get a cut of
the take when the investigation and mercenary operation fail.

A major part of the novel is about the mercenaries sent on a doomed job.
At least one of them survives......
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com

http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:58:11ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to

Besides me?

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 11:02:50ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to

More seriously, I believe LMB wrote fanfic before she was published.
Of the more recently published authors, I suspect there is actually
getting to be a significant percentage who committed fanfic earlier in
their careers. I actually STILL occasionally do so, though rarely
full-length stories; I more often am asked to write scenes or portions
of something in collaboration. (I know there are other examples, but
I'm pulling a blank on the names right now; I'm sure they'll occur to
me _en masse_ in about an hour)

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 11:04:08ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to
Mark Atwood wrote:
> Cyli <cyl...@gmail.com.invalid> writes:
>
>>>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?
>>
>>The only one I've ever read that I can recall would be a bit old. John
>>D. MacDonald did one involving piracy in the Bermuda Triangle.
>>
>>Oops. Gavin? Black mentioned the pirates of the Malaysian islands and
>>near Singapore, but his are really old.
>>
>>It's strange that it's not mentioned in modern works. I understand
>>there are still pirates in the SE Asia areas.
>
>
> Modern (well, future) sea pirates are in _Snow Crash_.
>
> They listened to Reason, and got was was coming to them within
> a single page of their actual appearance, however.
>

Clive Cussler had at least one entirel novel revolving around the
activities of some modern-day pirates, including one with an entire
cartel of pirates who were actually just an arm of a more
legitimate-appearing business.

Mike Schilling

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 11:50:34ā€ÆAM9/24/06
to

"Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
news:45169E1A...@sgeobviousinc.com...
> Mike Schilling wrote:

>
> More seriously, I believe LMB wrote fanfic before she was published. Of
> the more recently published authors, I suspect there is actually getting
> to be a significant percentage who committed fanfic earlier in their
> careers. I actually STILL occasionally do so, though rarely full-length
> stories; I more often am asked to write scenes or portions of something in
> collaboration. (I know there are other examples, but I'm pulling a blank
> on the names right now; I'm sure they'll occur to me _en masse_ in about
> an hour)

If several-paragraph-length scenes published on Usenet count, I do fanfic
too.


Konrad Gaertner

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 12:19:58ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:
>
> In SF, going much over 120K words is the Kiss
> of Death, at least in the US (British SF can be longer). SF readers
> do not buy 120K word hardcovers in sufficient numbers for the major
> chains to carry them, so they don't.

Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about publishers having to split
books in half. I wanted to say something in my booklog about Stross'
_The Clan Corporate_ because I thought I saw somewhere that Charlie
said this story not only had to be split, but had to be split into
thirds. I never did find the source of that comment, but I did find
several people complaining about books being split for publication.
And it was interesting that everyone was saying only Tor splits books,
and (despite what you've said about it only applying to science
fiction) most of the examples they gave were fantasy: Gene Wolfe,
Paul Park, Laura Resnick, and Charlie Stross (yes, I know he's said
it's moving towards ScF, but it's not there yet and Tor is putting
fantasy cover art on the books anyway).

--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll

Ken from Chicago

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Sep 24, 2006, 12:47:49ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

"David Cowie" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.09.24....@privacy.net...

Wow, he's older than me--by a few years.

-- Ken from Chicago


Damien Sullivan

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 1:26:06ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:

>What do you mean by pseudo-SF? I think there's a bigger demand for
>mediocre fantasy and a smaller demand for mediocre science fiction.

Not up to the hard SF standards of Lord of Light, Stranger in a Strange
Land, or Foundation?

-xx- Damien X-)

Damien Sullivan

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 1:32:15ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:

>> >Well, Mieville's stuff is not SF.
>>
>> Looks pretty skiffy to me, with spliced body parts, robots and battery
>> powered indeterminate-state weaponry.
>
>Mieville's stories are set on a flat world where magic works. (N.B.,
>it's not Clarke's Law magic.)

I don't remember the world being flat. I do remember mention of
visitation by the Ghost-something, and the impression that the Rules
might have changed after that; Clarke might apply in some way.

More defensibly, one could argue that while the world is not our world,
and is a fantasy world, the novels are science fiction written within
the fantasy world: the people are having a modern, sciencey attitude to
the world and powers they live in.

-xx- Damien X-)

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 2:33:49ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <45169E1A...@sgeobviousinc.com>,
I'm guessing Doc Smith fanfic--anything else?

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 4:14:23ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516B02B...@worldnet.att.net>,

Konrad Gaertner <gae...@aol.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>> In SF, going much over 120K words is the Kiss
>> of Death, at least in the US (British SF can be longer). SF readers
>> do not buy 120K word hardcovers in sufficient numbers for the major
>> chains to carry them, so they don't.
>
>Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about publishers having to split
>books in half.

It would be more effective to ask someone actually inside
the business, like Charles Stross or Andrew Wheeler, rather than on
the edge, like me.

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 4:20:18ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Konrad Gaertner wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> In SF, going much over 120K words is the Kiss
>>of Death, at least in the US (British SF can be longer). SF readers
>>do not buy 120K word hardcovers in sufficient numbers for the major
>>chains to carry them, so they don't.
>
>
> Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about publishers having to split
> books in half.

I'll note that Jim Baen apparently didn't consider this either a
necessity or even anything of real note, and that it didn't apply to
the stuff he was publishing. There have been, so far, no directives
sent to me or, AFAIK, any Baen authors that we have to worry about
cutting our novels down below some given size. Eric said he didn't
think it amounted to much in the long run either, except in some
specific situations.

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 4:29:13ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516E87E...@sgeobviousinc.com>,
Baen never went in for 700 pagers, as far as I recall. Well,
maybe some of the more bloated Webers but those are, I think, exceptional.

Sea Wasp

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:04:39ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

For me? The only pure-quill Doc Smith fanfic I've written was here,
actually, though my first "original" SF story (written when I was 11)
did a lot of Doc Smith pastiche.

The major fanfic output I had was in the Saint Seiya universe --
probably a million words total, maybe more. The parts which were
posted to the Net were Resurrection (Five sections: Requiem, Rebirth,
Ghosts, Awakening, Meteor), Cry Wolf!, Wild Card, and Snow Queen
(another story in that universe, "Fallen Angel" was entirely written
by my wife, then my fiancee). Other portions written and ranging from
fully completed to fragments included Wolf's Dominion, Vacation,
Corruption, Starpower, The Key, Monolith, and Brave New World.

In addition I did the game/fanfic "An American Gamer in Gondor" (7
parts posted), the joke crossover fic "Little Gundam on the Prairie"
(it was part of a dare), some Gundam/Gundam Wing fanfic, parts of a
couple of Dragonball/DBZ fics (including a few scenes in my wife's
"The Machine"), some Trekfic way back in the misty reaches of time,
and a few others that I'm probably forgetting.

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:21:07ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Ahasuerus wrote:
>
> [snipping to the last 40 years here]
>
> > 1966,35,32,21
> > 1967,32,26,25
> > 1968,29,26,19
> > 1969,33,32,25
> > 1970,34,34,34
> > 1971,31,30,28
> > 1972,33,29,24
> > 1973,30,29,37
> > 1974,34,31,26
> > 1975,35,33,29
> > 1976,33,31,31
> > 1977,31,30,34
> > 1978,32,31,47
>
> Eyeballing, this period (1966-78) seems to form a discrete unit, with
> average age consistently around the early 30s and number of
> publications slowly rising.

According to a line you snipped:


> >Decade,average age,median age,number of writers

that last figure is number of *writers*, not number of *publications*.

It's a measure of how many datapoints are in that set, nothing else.

So the thread hiving off from the "fact" of decreasing number of
publications is based on a misinterpretation.

--
Andrew Wheeler: Professional Editor, Amateur Wise-Acre
--
If you enjoyed this post, try my blog at
http://antickmusings.blogspot.com
If you hated this post, you probably have bad taste anyway.

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:24:10ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Derek Lyons wrote:
>
> "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Derek Lyons wrote:
> >
> >> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
> >> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
> >
> >In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>
> Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
> coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
> in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
> to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.

You really need to stick your head into the DAW threads to see exactly
*what* was getting published on a month-by-month basis in the past. (And
the '70s were *after* the really pulpy junk had stopped being publishable.)

I also agree with Nancy that the low-level SFF of today is generally
much better written than the equivalent in 1976 or 1956.

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:29:06ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Derek Lyons wrote:
>
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>
> >Derek Lyons wrote:
> >> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:12:06 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
> >> >wrote:
> >> >>>But he wasn't very good at that age. Now there is enough
> >> >>>competition that more age and practice is needed to be good
> >> >>>enough to be published.
> >> >>
> >> >>The problem is that there are fewer places to obtain experience.
> >> >
> >> >At least if you don't count the Web.
> >>
> >> How many places on the web have serious and capable editors?
> >
> >How many pulp magazines had serious and capable editors? The top tier --
> >_Astounding_, _F&SF_, _Galaxy_ -- sure, but I rather doubt there was a
> >firm, fatherly editorial hand carefully guiding each issue of _Spicy
> >Zeppelin Stories_ and _Knockout Boxing Tales_.
>
> True - but the fact remains that at least *some* had those editors and
> when you look at the authors valued today, they weren't published
> primarily in _Spicy Zeppelin Stories_ were they? Hence my question.

I still don't get it, I'm afraid.

Back then, you had a top level of highly professional magazines, edited
by people who knew what they were doing and who had a stable of
similarly professional and skilled writers. Below that was a vast mass
of other stuff of varying quality.

Now, we have a top level of highly professional magazines, edited by
people who know what they are doing and who have a stable of similarly
professional and skilled writers. Below that is a vast mass of other
stuff of varying quality.

You asked about "obtaining experience" -- the writers who start out
strongly (Heinlein, Varley, Chiang, etc.) hit the top tier to begin
with. Others work their way up. That, as far as I can see, hasn't
changed all that much. (Except that the low-level publications these
days hardly *pay,* which is a slightly different point -- it's not that
new writers can't get experience, it's that they can't get more than a
pittance while doing so.)

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:30:11ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

Most famously right now, there's Cassandra Claire.

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:31:13ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516F6C2...@optonline.com>,

D'oh!

I mean, I was just checking to see if people were paying attention.

I don't see a catastrophic decline in titles/year (except for Bantam
Spectra), though, and if I recall the -- oh, wait, that's irrevelent too.
Never mind.

Say, does SFWA track stuff like this?

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:32:20ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516F77A...@optonline.com>,

Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>
>> "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Derek Lyons wrote:
>> >
>> >> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>> >> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>> >
>> >In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>>
>> Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
>> coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
>> in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
>> to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>
>You really need to stick your head into the DAW threads to see exactly
>*what* was getting published on a month-by-month basis in the past. (And
>the '70s were *after* the really pulpy junk had stopped being publishable.)
>
>I also agree with Nancy that the low-level SFF of today is generally
>much better written than the equivalent in 1976 or 1956.
>
THE SPACE EGG makes "infra-yellow" look like cutting edge
hard SF.

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:37:45ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> David Tate wrote:
>
> > Surprisingly (to me at least), your criteria seem to be way too
> > restrictive.
>
> Is it that my criteria are too restrictive, or is is just that there
> are no more young SF writers?
>
> > In particular, your definition of 'young' wipes out the
> > field.
>
> I think "30 or less" is a reasonable definition of "young" here.
> Granted that it's a relative term, but there have been plenty of
> under-30 sf writers under the years.
>
> There just don't seem to be too many of them right now.
>
> > a stunningly small group.
>
> And most of them seem to be fantasy, not SF.
>
> To a first approximation, there are no SF writers aged 30 or younger.
> That seems odd, and a little disturbing.
>
> > Of these, I'd guess that MiƩville, Doctorow, and Bear are the most
> > famous. So the answer to your question might still be "Cory Doctorow,
> > even at 35".
>
> Well, Mieville's stuff is not SF. So for reasonably well-known and
> successful SF writers aged 35 or less, that leaves Doctorow and Bear.
>
> That's not a lot.

Perhaps the problem is that the ISFDB database tends to trail the field,
and that it may be stronger on novels than on short fiction.

I'd bet that Joe Writer (selling his first story to _Analog_ in 2006)
and Jane Author (ditto to _Strange Horizons_) are very likely to be
under 30 -- but they won't be in the ISFDB database for a few years (or
at all, if they only write a couple of stories).

I think this is a case of trying to interrogate data that are
fragmentary by their nature -- by the time a writer's full information
percolates into the ISFDB, he's almost guaranteed to be over 30.

Also, given the numbers Ahasuerus posted, the average age of new writers
was *usually* in the '30s -- which is around what I'd expect. (Writers
often start old, though that's not the way the mystique goes.)

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:40:12ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516F8A2...@optonline.com>,

Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>
>You asked about "obtaining experience" -- the writers who start out
>strongly (Heinlein, Varley, Chiang, etc.) hit the top tier to begin
>with. Others work their way up. That, as far as I can see, hasn't
>changed all that much. (Except that the low-level publications these
>days hardly *pay,* which is a slightly different point -- it's not that
>new writers can't get experience, it's that they can't get more than a
>pittance while doing so.)


If I recall the economic argument from HEINLEIN IN DIMENSION,
it's always been hard to make ends meet on short story sales. A
decent living requires a lot of words sold and if you're working
at novella or shorter lengths, you would run out of high paying,
reliable venues fairly quickly.

I find it interesting how quickly people like the Futurians
tended to move out of short material and either into long works or
editorial positions.

James Nicoll

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:56:37ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516F8E3...@optonline.com>,

Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>
>> Mike Schilling wrote:
>> > "Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
>> > news:4515D286...@sgeobviousinc.com...
>> >
>> >>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>Fan fiction (in the sense of fiction based in other author's universes)
>> >>>is definitely written for specific audience niches, and the payment
>> >>>in egoboo (does the fanfiction community use that word? have another
>> >>>word for the same concept?) is at least quick.
>> >>>
>> >>>IIRC, some fan fiction writers have started writing professionally.
>> >>
>> >>*waves hand*
>> >
>> >
>> > Ok, Wasp, you have the floor. Would you like to name some?
>> >
>> >
>>
>> More seriously, I believe LMB wrote fanfic before she was published.
>> Of the more recently published authors, I suspect there is actually
>> getting to be a significant percentage who committed fanfic earlier in
>> their careers. I actually STILL occasionally do so, though rarely
>> full-length stories; I more often am asked to write scenes or portions
>> of something in collaboration. (I know there are other examples, but
>> I'm pulling a blank on the names right now; I'm sure they'll occur to
>> me _en masse_ in about an hour)
>
>Most famously right now, there's Cassandra Claire.
>
For those of you unfamiliar with her work -- with the materials
she has taken credit for:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/8985.html

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 5:57:45ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <4516F77A...@optonline.com>,

Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>
>> "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Derek Lyons wrote:
>> >
>> >> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>> >> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>> >
>> >In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>>
>> Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
>> coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
>> in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
>> to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>
>You really need to stick your head into the DAW threads to see exactly
>*what* was getting published on a month-by-month basis in the past. (And
>the '70s were *after* the really pulpy junk had stopped being publishable.)
>
>I also agree with Nancy that the low-level SFF of today is generally
>much better written than the equivalent in 1976 or 1956.

My standard for mediocre science fiction is the hard-to-remember sludge
from Ace doubles.

Ken from Chicago

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 6:15:43ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ef656e$h6u$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <ef64nl$7js$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <1159088928.4...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>But then we have:
>>>
>>>> 1996,40,38,32
>>>> 1997,38,36,32
>>>> 1998,36,34,13
>>>> 1999,37,35,14
>>>> 2000,35,36,7
>>>> 2001,41,38,8
>>>> 2002,49,50,11
>>>> 2003,39,34,7
>>>> 2004,47,41,17
>>>> 2005,40,40,8
>>>> 2006,49,49,3
>>>
>>>Average age up, number of publications collapsing. Those are scary
>>>numbers.
>>>
>>>Now, as you say, the data since 2000 is dubious. But the slow rise in
>>>age is consistent with the long-term trend back to the 1960s, while the
>>>decline in publications begins in 1996.
>>>
>> At which point it might well be sensible to ask "did the
>>number of publications per year in fact decline starting 1996 and
>>if so, is it to the degree indicated here"?
>>
> And bear in mind that not only does this include F and SF
> but it may also include horror, which had an extinction event in
> the mid-1990s.
>
> Actually, they are due for another one. Wonder if Vampire
> Shagging is headed for a cull?

>
> --
> 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)

What was the Extinction Level Event?

-- Ken from Chicago


Ken from Chicago

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Sep 24, 2006, 6:17:01ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

"Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:45168e4b....@news.supernews.com...

> "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>
>>> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>>> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>>
>>In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>
> Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
> coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
> in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
> to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>
> D.
> --
> Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
>
> -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
> Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

What's "psuedo-SF"? real science?

-- Ken from Chicago


Ken from Chicago

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Sep 24, 2006, 6:17:50ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

"Nancy Lebovitz" <nan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ef4gub$5h1$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <45168e4b....@news.supernews.com>,

> Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>>
>>>> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>>>> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>>>
>>>In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>>
>>Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
>>coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
>>in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
>>to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>>
> My impression is that the worst prose is better than it used to be, but
> it may be that I'm missing the worst prose these days.

>
> What do you mean by pseudo-SF? I think there's a bigger demand for
> mediocre fantasy and a smaller demand for mediocre science fiction.
>
> It's at least possible that you've forgotten the sub-ordinary stuff
> from past decades.

>
> --
> Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
>
> http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
> My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".

Don't most people suppress the worst and remember the best? be it prose?
music? tv? movies?

-- Ken from Chicago


Andrew Wheeler

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Sep 24, 2006, 6:23:44ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:
>
> In article <4516B02B...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Konrad Gaertner <gae...@aol.com> wrote:
> >James Nicoll wrote:
> >>
> >> In SF, going much over 120K words is the Kiss
> >> of Death, at least in the US (British SF can be longer). SF readers
> >> do not buy 120K word hardcovers in sufficient numbers for the major
> >> chains to carry them, so they don't.
> >
> >Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about publishers having to split
> >books in half.
>
> It would be more effective to ask someone actually inside
> the business, like Charles Stross or Andrew Wheeler, rather than on
> the edge, like me.

The "readers like big books" idea seems to me mostly to be a slightly
different idea, that readers *don't* like notably short books (40-70k
words, say). Publishers don't much like books over 100-120k, unless
they're by proven bestsellers (in which case the economies of scale keep
them from being too expensive to produce). So there's a sweet spot in
the middle which writers are encouraged to hit.

There's also the related "readers like lots of books set in the same
world or storyline" idea, which has always been true in SF and Fantasy
(and is generally true, though to a lesser extent, in other areas as
well -- John Updike did four "Rabbit" novels and I learned last week
that Jackie Collins's next book will be about her popular character
Lucky Santangelo). There's a tension in the readership as to how much of
an ending each book should have -- some people hate continued stories,
while others don't want the story to end.

Add all that up, and you get writers creating stories that won't fit
into one publishable volume.

James Nicoll

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Sep 24, 2006, 6:59:59ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <YNOdnSt33JUPnorY...@comcast.com>,

Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>news:ef656e$h6u$1...@reader1.panix.com...

>> And bear in mind that not only does this include F and SF


>> but it may also include horror, which had an extinction event in
>> the mid-1990s.
>>
>> Actually, they are due for another one. Wonder if Vampire
>> Shagging is headed for a cull?
>

>What was the Extinction Level Event?

Horror has a natural boom/bust cycle where it begins to sell,
publishers flood the market, the crap quotient goes up and the horror
market collapses back down to Stephen King and Anne Rice.

John Schilling

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 6:08:52ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:49:54 +0000 (UTC), nan...@panix.com (Nancy
Lebovitz) wrote:

>In article <4516acce....@news.supernews.com>,
>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>In article <1159020231.7...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> <co...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>The recent small-scale co-option of Caribbean themes and writers
>>>>within F&SF is interesting in itself.

>>Pirates are the coming thing culturally. (In the US.)

>Is anyone writing about modern pirates?


Well, there's always <http://galactanet.com/comic/556.htm>...


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

David Tate

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Sep 24, 2006, 7:38:45ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Andrew Wheeler wrote:
>
> The "readers like big books" idea seems to me mostly to be a slightly
> different idea, that readers *don't* like notably short books (40-70k
> words, say).

OK, that's a valid distinction, and I stand corrected. (*I* like 50k
word novels just fine, but then I'm almost old enough to be a
first-time SciFi writer. :-) )

> Publishers don't much like books over 100-120k, unless
> they're by proven bestsellers (in which case the economies of scale keep
> them from being too expensive to produce). So there's a sweet spot in
> the middle which writers are encouraged to hit.

Encouraged how? It seems to me that after-the-fact "we're going to
split your novel into two or three volumes, marketed separately with
suitable spacing" achieves the worst possible outcome, at least from my
biased point of view. I'm very mildly hostile to very long novels, but
I'm extremely hostile to novel-length volumes that turn out not to be
complete stories.

> There's also the related "readers like lots of books set in the same
> world or storyline" idea, which has always been true in SF and Fantasy

[...]


> There's a tension in the readership as to how much of
> an ending each book should have -- some people hate continued stories,
> while others don't want the story to end.

As noted above, there's a third axis here regarding forewarning. How
much I object to a continued story may depend strongly on whether I was
*warned* that it is a continuing story, as opposed to having each
volume promise some sort of closure, then reneg. There's also an upper
bound on how many volumes I will tolerate that never achieve even an
intermediate sort of closure -- there's no chance of me ever starting
the Wheel of Time or Ice and Fire series, because I already know they
can't deliver in time.

I suspect that publishers prefer not to warn readers that first volumes
are first volumes, because then readers (having at least a few working
brain cells, in general) would wait for the whole story to come out
before starting it[1]. So instead, they lie -- which may in fact be
the best strategy, from their point of view[2]. I don't know.

> Add all that up, and you get writers creating stories that won't fit
> into one publishable volume.

I thought you said they were encouraged not to do that. Did I
misunderstand?

David Tate

[1] With the exception you mentioned earlier, namely Big Name authors
that people will buy before the whole story is out because they're
desperate for their next fix.

[2] I.e. maximize sales of the current book, with no consideration for
future books by this author.

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 7:57:43ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <ef72lf$2bv$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <YNOdnSt33JUPnorY...@comcast.com>,
>Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>>news:ef656e$h6u$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
>>> And bear in mind that not only does this include F and SF
>>> but it may also include horror, which had an extinction event in
>>> the mid-1990s.
>>>
>>> Actually, they are due for another one. Wonder if Vampire
>>> Shagging is headed for a cull?
>>
>>What was the Extinction Level Event?
>
> Horror has a natural boom/bust cycle where it begins to sell,
>publishers flood the market, the crap quotient goes up and the horror
>market collapses back down to Stephen King and Anne Rice.

I've been assuming that people have an intermittent desire for horror.
It might be that they like being scared for a while and then get tired
of it, or it might be that some degree of shock is needed, so the problem
is that most people can't appreciate horror on a continuous basis.

Or you might be right that it's too easy to write and produce lousy
horror.

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 7:59:58ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
In article <j4qdnQeCULiNmYrY...@comcast.com>,

Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Nancy Lebovitz" <nan...@panix.com> wrote in message
>news:ef4gub$5h1$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>> In article <45168e4b....@news.supernews.com>,
>> Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There are far more of virtually every kind of novel published these
>>>>> days. (And IMO F&SF has suffered greatly in the era post-Star Wars.)
>>>>
>>>>In terms of numbers, quality, or type?
>>>
>>>Average quality mostly. The vastly increased demand for 'pseudo-SF'
>>>coupled with a dropping level of discernment among the readers results
>>>in an increasing flood of mediocrity. A flood that doesn't even hold
>>>to Sturgeon's Law - the percentage of crap is *rising*.
>>>
>> My impression is that the worst prose is better than it used to be, but
>> it may be that I'm missing the worst prose these days.
>>
>> What do you mean by pseudo-SF? I think there's a bigger demand for
>> mediocre fantasy and a smaller demand for mediocre science fiction.
>>
>> It's at least possible that you've forgotten the sub-ordinary stuff
>> from past decades.
>
>Don't most people suppress the worst and remember the best? be it prose?
>music? tv? movies?

Well, yes, though "worst" probably now means the dullest. There are certain
kinds of flamboyant badness that get remembered.

In any case, remembering the only the best is probably why it's so common
for people to believe that the world is declining.

Ahasuerus

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 8:06:19ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
[snip]
> It looks like the means and averages involve small numbers, and so are
> noisy. Might a five-year weighted moving average be useful?

Sure, can do:

From-To,average age,median age,number of writers

1890-1895,31,28,9
1895-1900,35,31,16
1900-1905,38,32,12
1905-1910,32,32,17
1910-1915,29,30,13
1915-1920,33,32,15
1920-1925,32,31,36
1925-1930,31,30,70
1930-1935,29,27,74
1935-1940,29,29,67
1940-1945,30,29,60
1945-1950,34,33,62
1950-1955,32,31,133
1955-1960,35,34,95
1960-1965,34,32,92
1965-1970,33,29,101
1970-1975,32,30,149
1975-1980,34,31,197
1980-1985,36,34,234
1985-1990,37,34,280
1990-1995,36,33,219
1995-2000,37,37,137
2000-2005,44,39,50
2005-2010,43,42,11

--
Ahasuerus

Ahasuerus

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 9:02:46ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Andrew Wheeler wrote: [snip-snip]

> Perhaps the problem is that the ISFDB database tends to trail the field,
> and that it may be stronger on novels than on short fiction.

There are many biases in the ISFDB data, but it's not clear which ones
have the most pronounced effect in this case. As a wild guess, the fact
that we have better magazine coverage for the 1930s-1990s than for the
last 5+ years makes the biggest difference. Another problem is that
recent data is less tightly integrated, so a recent author may be
listed 3 times (e.g.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/eas.cgi?R._R._Mallory) with his stories
and bio data scattered across multiple records. Then there are
anthologists that are erroneously counted as novelists because our
webbots can't always tell the difference, etc.

> I'd bet that Joe Writer (selling his first story to _Analog_ in 2006)
> and Jane Author (ditto to _Strange Horizons_) are very likely to be
> under 30 -- but they won't be in the ISFDB database for a few years (or
> at all, if they only write a couple of stories).

Well, their stories will be listed as part of the magazine project, but
we may not have their years/dates of birth, which is the limiting
factor here. On the other hand, we have the same problem with people
who published a few stories in the 1930s-1980s and dropped out -- we
may never know whether they were 20 or 60 when they published their
first story. Also, note that the script currently excludes "non-genre"
publications, which may or may not be what we what to do.

> I think this is a case of trying to interrogate data that are
> fragmentary by their nature -- by the time a writer's full information
> percolates into the ISFDB, he's almost guaranteed to be over 30.

As long as we know the author's year of birth and when his first sale
was, we should be able to retrofit it nicely. Eventually.

> Also, given the numbers Ahasuerus posted, the average age of new writers
> was *usually* in the '30s -- which is around what I'd expect. (Writers
> often start old, though that's not the way the mystique goes.)

I think there is enough data to suggest that emerging early 1930s stf
writers were the youngest on record, which matches anecdotal evidence.
Then the median age crawled up and, by the late 1940s, stabilized
around 31-34. It stayed there for decades with a minor dip during the
New Wave years. Whether the apparent upswing since 1995 is real or not
is something to revisit in another 10 years or so.

--
Ahasuerus

Robert Hutchinson

unread,
Sep 24, 2006, 10:10:14ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
Konrad Gaertner says...

> Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about publishers having to split

> books in half. I wanted to say something in my booklog about Stross'
> _The Clan Corporate_ because I thought I saw somewhere that Charlie
> said this story not only had to be split, but had to be split into
> thirds. I never did find the source of that comment, but I did find
> several people complaining about books being split for publication.

I wouldn't presume to speak for the man, but to the best of my
recollection, the first volume was split into halves (_The Family Trade_
and _The Hidden Family_), as the edict came down after the original book
was pretty much written. WRT thirds, I have a *dim* recollection that he
was talking about having to reshuffle his *outlines* for future volumes.

--
Robert Hutchinson | "I've never really been that into hips, T-Rex!"
| "Perhaps that is because you have a case of the
| perversions!"
| http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=849

Peter Meilinger

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Sep 24, 2006, 10:51:21ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:

> And bear in mind that not only does this include F and SF
> but it may also include horror, which had an extinction event in
> the mid-1990s.
>
> Actually, they are due for another one. Wonder if Vampire
> Shagging is headed for a cull?

>From your fingers to God's ear. I was at Powell's yesterday and
I swear at least 75% of the horror section was either vampires
or Lovecraft ripoffs/homages. I could do without either, thanks.
Who's a guy gotta kill to get a damned sea monster story
these days?

Pete

Blake Hyde

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Sep 24, 2006, 10:55:50ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to
MiƩville's _The Scar_ fits that description, to some degree. It's
not very good, but it fits it nonetheless.

mille...@my-deja.com

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Sep 24, 2006, 11:33:50ā€ÆPM9/24/06
to

Derek Lyons wrote:
> Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
>
> >mille...@my-deja.com writes:
> >> crunch (the median salary fell across 47 states between 1999-2005 with
> >> the liklihood that it effected young people disportionately)
> >
> >That's rather blatant cherrypicking, in that 1999 was the start of the
> >dot.com crash, and the fact that the median fell, it did not fall
> >evenly, but mainly fell hardest on the people who had been overemployed
> >for the six years previous.
>
> <nods> And picking 47 states? What happened to the other 3?

Just to answer your question: Wyoming was buoyed by, if memory serves,
the oil boom and had a minor increase. I believe Montana may have
increased its wage minorly as well. I can't recall the third state to
receive an increase but there was a third one that receive a minor
(something like 1.5%) increase.

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