Mr. Ordover, I disagree.
ord...@aol.com
>On 26 Apr 2000 20:21:11 GMT, Mark Dillon <dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>>I've been following the John Ordover threads attentively.
>>His argument, as I see it --
>>
>> * Media tie-ins are outselling original science fiction titles;
>> * These tie-ins are far more successful in the sf field than in
>> any other "category";
>> * In order to attract younger readers, the field should emphasize
>> comfort, familiarity, and pulp-style action.
>>
>>He wrote:
>>
>>>My theory is not enough pulp-style action adventure, and too much stuff written
>>>that appeals to forty-plus editors and readers but not anyone 12-25, which is
>>>the core SF audience. I could be wrong.
>
>
>More parts of this argument I haven't seen before.
>
>I completely agree that there's way too much SF written by and for the
>middle-aged, but I don't remotely buy that "pulp-style action adventure" is
>the magic formula for appealing to readers aged 12-25. It's much more
>complicated than that.
Like I said, I could be wrong. I'm basing the argument on the
popularity of media tie-ins among the 12-25 year olds. All successful
media-tie-in lines conform to the pulp-style action adventure format.
It seems to me the progression would go:
1) Media tie-in books that take place in the generic pulp universe of
Trek, Wars, and other media books
2) Original SF of various kinds that also take place in a riff on the
generic pulp universe, such as Known Space and the Bujold books.
3) Original SF that doesn't do that.
With those suppositions, clear iconography that told the reader which
books were which would be a great help.
I'm also basing the notion, frankly, on the wild popularity of SF
movies among the 12-25 set that are set in a riff on the pulp
universe, Trek, Wars, even the Matrix, for all its flash, is a
pulp-esque story. Those movies are not only popular, they have
created an expectation on the part of 12-25 of what the word "science
fiction" means, and what one should expect to find in the "science
fiction section." An expectation I feel is titled toward what
they've seen in the movies - pulp-esque stuff.
Expectations have a whole lot to do with enjoyment. A wonderful,
fresh pear can be awful to bite into if what you were wanting and
expecting was an apple. Gene Wolfe is wonderful, but if I -thought-
I was getting something closer to Back to the Future when I bought
Wolfe, I might be very irritated.
In my time, the major experience, and entre' to, SF was in prose
form. Nowadays the major entre' is in TV or the movies - heck, there
are so many SF and F shows on TV that no one human being can watch
them all. Never thought I'd live to see the day....:)
That has to make a difference in what people will think they'll find
in the SF section in the bookstore. IMHO.
So now that I've said that, let me revise my above progression:
0) Gain entre' to SF through movies and TV shows that take place in
the generic pulp universe of Trek, Wars, etc.
1) Begin reading media tie-in books that take place in the generic
pulp universe of Trek, Wars, and other media books
2) Begin reading Original SF of various kinds that also take place in
a riff on the generic pulp universe, such as Known Space and the
Bujold books.
3) Begin reading original SF of every and all kinds.
I'm open to any and all thoughts, and I'm not insisting I'm right -
these are just the assumptions I'm building my case on.:)
Mark Dillon
His argument, as I see it --
* Media tie-ins are outselling original science fiction titles;
* These tie-ins are far more successful in the sf field than in
any other "category";
* In order to attract younger readers, the field should emphasize
comfort, familiarity, and pulp-style action.
He wrote:
>My theory is not enough pulp-style action adventure, and too much stuff written
>that appeals to forty-plus editors and readers but not anyone 12-25, which is
>the core SF audience. I could be wrong.
[SNIP]
>Perhaps that's my point. Science fiction is -avoiding- the Campbellian
>(Joseph, not John) themes that it should be embracing. Instead of making the
>average SF universe, make an above-average one. One where a young man -can-
>grow up to save the universe with the help of his friends. Heck, he can be a
>cadet in the first book, a lieutenant in the second, a captain in the third,
>and the only "destiny" around is that he's the star of the book.
[SNIP]
>That may be where all these arguments about what is and isn't science
>fiction come from - the frustration that the current definition is so
>wide that it has become meaningless - or at least unhelpful to a
>reader trying to enter the genre.
I would argue in reply that the field suffers from a *lack* of variety,
and rather than expanding the huge number of action/adventure/
space titles, science fiction -- and its sales -- would be healthier in the
long term if it recaptured the broad range of voices and narratives that
are a part of its heritage.
Consider another publishing category -- Mystery. Media tie-ins
have never dominated that field as they do in contemporary sf,
perhaps because "mystery" is a term vague enough to encompass
a broad range of writers who bear little resemblance to each other
in terms of style, background and world view. John Dickson Carr
is very different from David Goodis, who bears little relation to
Agatha Christie, who is not at all like James Sallis or Elmore Leonard.
Not only does this range ensure a broad readership, but it also ensures
that the label "mystery" cannot be broken down to a few cliches in the public
mind: the gulf between Mike Hammer and Miss Marple is unbridgeable, and
readers of one would hardly spend much time seeking out the other. And that
keeps the field alive, healthy, and open to conflicting voices.
> [snip] The golden age of science fiction is -twelve- not -forty- and I
> think writers and editors should keep that more in mind.
Tell me... what is the golden age of mystery?
"Golden age? What are you talking about?"
Mystery writers and editors rarely stifle themselves that way,
perhaps because it would lead to economic suicide... and also perhaps
because their field is too broad for such narrow standards -- just as
science fiction is too broad in its concerns and stylistic variety
to reduce to any set of cliches.
So why, then, does the general public see sf on such narrow terms?
> The appeal of Science fiction is stories about:
>
> Robots
> Aliens
> Time Travel
> Alternate Universes
> The impact of advanced technology on human society
>
> in the context of an exciting high stakes story.
This is nothing more than a thin slice of what the field has to
offer, but through television shows and movies this narrow
perspective has taken hold of the public mind, and even worse,
the minds of book dealers and publishers.
Media tie-ins dominate the field. Why? Because for all too many,
science fiction *is* nothing more than STAR TREK and STAR WARS.
They have little basis for comparison, because the bookshelves are
bulging with familiar "product" that people recognize at first
glance. But not only readers -- bookdealers, too: TREK is
familiar and popular, therefore an easy sell; PHANTOM MENACE
is coming out on video, gotta stock up on STAR WARS merchandise!
Media tie-ins are profitable because, more often than not, little else
is available on the sf shelves. And they blend in so well with that small
pile of other books -- the ones with smiling young cadets and comfortably
familiar spaceships on the cover. The stuff is all the same, so why
*not* stick to TREK and STAR WARS? Why bother to expand your
horizons when the suburbs over there are no different from
the wasteland over here?
>The SF audience
> isn't longing for great sophisticated realistic ideas, but for good,
> solid, action stories set in a nifty universe where people =can= make a
> difference. [snip]
No, Sir -- the sf readership is broader than you think, and publishers
would have much to gain if they catered to that readership.
Twenty years of narrowing focus have limited the appeal of science fiction;
faced with declining sales, publishers and dealers have tried to
squeeze that appeal even further, making sf conform to the expectations
and prejudices of a TV-saturated audience. And then they wonder
why their "market" is so limited, and shrinking all the time.
Mark Dillon
Quebec, Canada
( Currently reading THE TWIST by Richard Calder: fascinating science
fiction without a starship or cadet in sight. )
James Nicoll
What narrowing focus?
I mean, how exactly is David Weber similar to Gene Wolf,
Tanith Lee with Poul Anderson, Joanna Russ with Robert Jordan?
As far as I can tell, and I have been avidly reading SF for 30-odd
years, we are at a peak, not a trough, of diversity.
James Nicoll
--
Temporary Email: jdni...@home.com
[Just until I fix my current email problems]
P Nielsen Hayden
>His argument, as I see it --
>
> * Media tie-ins are outselling original science fiction titles;
> * These tie-ins are far more successful in the sf field than in
> any other "category";
> * In order to attract younger readers, the field should emphasize
> comfort, familiarity, and pulp-style action.
>
>He wrote:
>
>>My theory is not enough pulp-style action adventure, and too much stuff written
>>that appeals to forty-plus editors and readers but not anyone 12-25, which is
>>the core SF audience. I could be wrong.
More parts of this argument I haven't seen before.
I completely agree that there's way too much SF written by and for the
middle-aged, but I don't remotely buy that "pulp-style action adventure" is
the magic formula for appealing to readers aged 12-25. It's much more
complicated than that.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Ahasuerus
[snip]
> I completely agree that there's way too much SF written by and for the
That's right, darn it! There isn't nearly enough stuff being published for
the 65+ crowd!
--
Ahasuerus
Mark Dillon
>>Twenty years of narrowing focus have limited the appeal
>>of science fiction; faced with declining sales, publishers
>>and dealers have tried to squeeze that appeal even further,
>>making sf conform to the expectations and prejudices of
>>a TV-saturated audience.
> What narrowing focus?
>
> I mean, how exactly is David Weber similar to Gene Wolf,
>Tanith Lee with Poul Anderson, Joanna Russ with Robert Jordan?
>As far as I can tell, and I have been avidly reading SF for 30-odd
>years, we are at a peak, not a trough, of diversity.
The midlist has been shrinking steadily for well over a decade.
Many of the field's important writers are either out of print or
available only in expensive, collectors' editions (And I'm trying
to recall the last time I saw a Russ title in *any* bookstore).
Gene Wolfe now tends to focus upon multi-volume series
novels that are compatible with current "market" demands.
They may be excellent on their own terms, but they still
reinforce the idea that the only way for most writers
to find publishers nowadays is to write a "five volume
trilogy." And I can't help but wonder how much of Wolfe
would still be in print if he had stuck with individual
novels; would he now be in the same boat as Avram
Davidson and R. A. Lafferty?
If I'm not mistaken, Anderson and Jordan have also been writing
series books.
Recently, I came across an article on Tanith Lee -- she
has apparently been having problems getting
published (I may be wrong about this, and can't recall
the source. For her sake -- and for the sake of her readers --
I hope I'm mistaken).
These are merely individual cases, but I believe they
represent the problems facing most sf writers today.
And a final point -- for a field in which the short-story
and novella forms are so crucial to its history and development,
why are collections scarcer than they were twenty years ago?
Not for any dearth of writers, and surely not for any dearth
of readers.
If we are, as you say, at the peak of diversity, then what happened
to the diversity we enjoyed in the sixties and seventies?
Mark Dillon
Quebec, Canada
Anne M. Marble
> >From: holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway)
<lots o' snipping>
> >>Once again: "mystery" -does- mean a single thing - it means 1) A
> >>murder and 2) a story about someone trying to solve it, either
with
> >>all the time in the world or in a race against time to stop
another
> >>murder.
<even more snipping>
> >I think you're oversimplifying mysteries. Even from my limited
reading
> >experience of mysteries, I can tell you that they are *not* all
about
> >murder. They are about some sort of crime, or puzzle, and the
attempt
> >to solve it. That leaves a *lot* more room for diversity than just
> >murder.
<yet more snipping>
> Oh, there are exceptions, of course, but stop someone on the street
and ask
> them what a mystery story has, and they'll say that = and it's
certainly the
> dominant theme in the work of the authors mentioned. In fact, I
can't think of
> an exception among their works.
True. But why are we asking people on the street? Many of them have
very limited experience. These are the people who ask, "Ewwww. Why do
you read books about *murder*? Do you like violence?" If a person
thinks mysteries are about murders, they have missed the real point.
They can be about the solving of the crime; they can be about the
impact of a crime; they can be about the interactions of the
characters... Ruth Rendell and Agatha Christie are British female
mystery writers. But saying they are the same because of that is like
saying that Dukasis and Tsongas were alike because they were Democrats
from New England.
if you asked someone on the street what a science fiction novel has,
they'd mention spaceships and robots. Yet there are plenty of
stories -- readable, accessible stories -- that don't have those
things. (What about Jurassic Park? Doesn't that qualify as SF?) If you
ask someone on the street what a horror novel has, they'd probably
mention vampires, werewolves, knife-wielding maniacs, lots of dripping
blood, and silly plots. They wouldn't associate the genre with the
quiet horror of Ramsey Campbell or ... or... similar authors whose
names I can't think of right now. (aargh)
P Nielsen Hayden
>Gene Wolfe now tends to focus upon multi-volume series
>novels that are compatible with current "market" demands.
>They may be excellent on their own terms, but they still
>reinforce the idea that the only way for most writers
>to find publishers nowadays is to write a "five volume
>trilogy." And I can't help but wonder how much of Wolfe
>would still be in print if he had stuck with individual
>novels; would he now be in the same boat as Avram
>Davidson and R. A. Lafferty?
I can tell you pretty authoritatively that we would happily publish Gene
Wolfe even if his last seven volumes had been unconnected stand-alones.
Whatever his reasons for focussing on these series, it ain't because we
required it of him.
Ahasuerus
[snip]
> The midlist has been shrinking steadily for well over a decade.
Locus lists 2,823 ScF/F/H books published in 1999, 1,602 of them new. A
few years ago the total number stood at 2,000, prior to that at 1,500, and
so on going back to 1976 when they listed 954 books. Would you happen to
have any numbers supporting the proposition that "the midlist" is
shrinking?
I am genuinely interested since every once in a while a "midlist" writer
like Jack Chalker stops by and announces that:
(a) his career is over, brutally murdered by cold-hearted corporate
accountants and/or changes in the way books are distributed,
(b) the midlist is dead, and
(c) that the rest of the genre is soon to follow.
Some of them resurface shortly thereafter.
> Many of the field's important writers are either out of print or
We have heard this complaint (as well as announcements to the effect that
SF Is Dead) many times before. Certainly at any given point in time many
good books are out of print. Some of them get reprinted and some don't,
but the show goes on regardless.
> available only in expensive, collectors' editions
Yes, in a few cases. Most of the time it's regular hardcover and/or trade
paperback editions from major publishers or small presses. In either case
prices are fairly standard, perhaps a little bit more if buying from a
small press, but nothing unheard of. It would certainly be nice if
publishers could keep thousands of mass market paperback titles in print
for decades or at least years, but them are the breaks.
> (And I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a Russ title in *any*
> bookstore).
Amazon lists 1 fiction and 3 non-fiction titles.
--
Ahasuerus
P Nielsen Hayden
>Mark Dillon <dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>[snip]
>> The midlist has been shrinking steadily for well over a decade.
>
>Locus lists 2,823 ScF/F/H books published in 1999, 1,602 of them new. A
>few years ago the total number stood at 2,000, prior to that at 1,500, and
>so on going back to 1976 when they listed 954 books. Would you happen to
>have any numbers supporting the proposition that "the midlist" is
>shrinking?
>
>I am genuinely interested since every once in a while a "midlist" writer
>like Jack Chalker stops by and announces that:
>
>(a) his career is over, brutally murdered by cold-hearted corporate
>accountants and/or changes in the way books are distributed,
>
>(b) the midlist is dead, and
>
>(c) that the rest of the genre is soon to follow.
>
>Some of them resurface shortly thereafter.
It's such a relief when someone else notices this. Every so often the sheer
number of assertions that the sky is falling makes me briefly wonder if I
hallucinate my job in which we profitably publish dozens of "midlist"
writers; if, in fact, I'm not actually a tire-regroover in a Philip K. Dick
novel dreaming an alternate history of SF.
>> Many of the field's important writers are either out of print or
>
>We have heard this complaint (as well as announcements to the effect that
>SF Is Dead) many times before. Certainly at any given point in time many
>good books are out of print. Some of them get reprinted and some don't,
>but the show goes on regardless.
>
>> available only in expensive, collectors' editions
>
>Yes, in a few cases. Most of the time it's regular hardcover and/or trade
>paperback editions from major publishers or small presses. In either case
>prices are fairly standard, perhaps a little bit more if buying from a
>small press, but nothing unheard of. It would certainly be nice if
>publishers could keep thousands of mass market paperback titles in print
>for decades or at least years, but them are the breaks.
Indeed. Even at its height, the mass-market paperback was an imperfect
vessel for keeping the whole of skiffy history in print all the time.
>> (And I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a Russ title in *any*
>> bookstore).
>
>Amazon lists 1 fiction and 3 non-fiction titles.
And you can bet the rent that more of her work would be in print if she'd
write some new work. I can think of at least one major SF editor who
considers her the finest prose stylist the field has ever produced. His
name is
thomas monaghan
> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Twenty years of narrowing focus have limited the appeal
>>> of science fiction; faced with declining sales, publishers
>>> and dealers have tried to squeeze that appeal even further,
>>> making sf conform to the expectations and prejudices of
>>> a TV-saturated audience.
>
>> What narrowing focus?
>>
>> I mean, how exactly is David Weber similar to Gene Wolf,
>> Tanith Lee with Poul Anderson, Joanna Russ with Robert Jordan?
>> As far as I can tell, and I have been avidly reading SF for 30-odd
>> years, we are at a peak, not a trough, of diversity.
>
> The midlist has been shrinking steadily for well over a decade.
> to recall the last time I saw a Russ title in *any* bookstore).
>
> novels that are compatible with current "market" demands.
> They may be excellent on their own terms, but they still
> reinforce the idea that the only way for most writers
> to find publishers nowadays is to write a "five volume
> trilogy." And I can't help but wonder how much of Wolfe
> would still be in print if he had stuck with individual
> novels; would he now be in the same boat as Avram
> Davidson and R. A. Lafferty?
>
> series books.
>
> Recently, I came across an article on Tanith Lee -- she
> has apparently been having problems getting
> published (I may be wrong about this, and can't recall
> the source. For her sake -- and for the sake of her readers --
> I hope I'm mistaken).
>
> These are merely individual cases, but I believe they
> represent the problems facing most sf writers today.
>
> And a final point -- for a field in which the short-story
> and novella forms are so crucial to its history and development,
> why are collections scarcer than they were twenty years ago?
> Not for any dearth of writers, and surely not for any dearth
> of readers.
>
> If we are, as you say, at the peak of diversity, then what happened
> to the diversity we enjoyed in the sixties and seventies?
>
list of authors. Most of those authors used to be mid-list authors who have
been dropped from the paperback market. This is not good, no matter how nice
a book MM publishes they do not make up for the lack of a paperback
publication.
Tom
Ethan A Merritt
>
>Like I said, I could be wrong. I'm basing the argument on the
>popularity of media tie-ins among the 12-25 year olds. All successful
>media-tie-in lines conform to the pulp-style action adventure format.
>It seems to me the progression would go:
>1) Media tie-in books that take place in the generic pulp universe of
>Trek, Wars, and other media books
>2) Original SF of various kinds that also take place in a riff on the
>generic pulp universe, such as Known Space and the Bujold books.
>3) Original SF that doesn't do that.
I cannot speak of, or for, all 12-25 year olds, but judging by the limited
sample available here in front of me, my son and his friends, you are
incorrect. The specific progression I have seen is
1) The Redwall books of Brian Jacques, wildly popular among the pre-teen
set, and the specific catalyst to a love of fantasy and of reading in
general
2) Original SF of various kinds, but with an emphasis on young heroes
(spanning the entire range from Heinlein juvies to Phillip Pullman's
_His Dark Materials_)
3) Gradual emergence of interest in non-SF
Somewhere between (2) and (3) individual differences kick in. Some of
the kids then went head-over-heels for military fiction (Pournelle,
Sterling, Weber, etc, but not so far as I have noticed any particular
preference for media tie-ins). Others veered instead into fantasy.
I asked my 15-year old for some benchmarks on his past and present taste
in SF-
all time favorite: Schmitz _The Witches of Karres_ (so much for Eric
Flint and the notion that unedited Schmitz will not appeal to a new
generation!)
most eagerly awaited book: _Amber Spyglass_ (3rd volume of _His Dark
Materials)
favorite author overall: C J Cherryh
best series: Brin's Uplift Universe
most recently read: _Neuromancer_
Sure, _somebody's_ buying all those media tie-in books, but I'm not
convinced it's the same somebodies that will graduate into general
book lovers, or even general SF lovers. Some will, some won't, and
some never read the Star Trek books to begin with.
Ethan A Merritt
.
>[SNIP]
>
>>That may be where all these arguments about what is and isn't science
>>fiction come from - the frustration that the current definition is so
>>wide that it has become meaningless - or at least unhelpful to a
>>reader trying to enter the genre.
>
>I would argue in reply that the field suffers from a *lack* of variety,
>and rather than expanding the huge number of action/adventure/
>space titles, science fiction -- and its sales -- would be healthier in the
>long term if it recaptured the broad range of voices and narratives that
>are a part of its heritage.
As a media tie-in (especially Star Trek) reader I agree to what John
said. I also explained it in my two previous postings in the other
current Ordover threads.
You can rightfully say, I don`t really know what I am talking about, but
we are also discussing here the problems readers like me are having when
visiting a bookshop and looking at the shelf with SF unfamiliar to me.
The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too much
variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that is my taste
without lots of trial and error, without spending lots of money on books
I am at the end not really interested in?
I think it would help to divide SF into sub genres. Have a look at Star
Trek books. We have the main series which are at the moment TOS, TNG,
DS9, VOY and NF (New Frontier). But we also have more and more sub
series. Some examples: The limited series which are often dealing with
crossovers, Rihannsu (a sub series of TOS), the Shatnerverse, Stargazer
(a sub series of TNG) and even soon kind of a three part sub series in
NF, Excalibur.
Star Trek is already more or less familiar to most people, an advantage
other SF doesn`t have. But with a better labelling of other SF, I would
have a much better idea where to start looking.
>Not only does this range ensure a broad readership, but it also ensures
>that the label "mystery" cannot be broken down to a few cliches in the public
>mind: the gulf between Mike Hammer and Miss Marple is unbridgeable, and
>readers of one would hardly spend much time seeking out the other. And that
>keeps the field alive, healthy, and open to conflicting voices.
No, this labelling system I was talking about has nothing to do with
"breaking a genre down to a few cliches in the public mind". I know the
difference between Mike Hammer and Miss Marple. I would know what to
choose, what I would prefer. But I don`t know this when looking at a SF
shelf with other SF.
If you don`t know what to expect, this hampers readership, it does not
help at all to keep the field alive. Not only is my budget limited, I
also don`t have a huge amount of time and also the motivation to sift
through lots of books in order to find a few I actually like.
Star Trek is already a much narrower field than other SF but even here,
I welcome good labelling because I definitely have my preferences.
>
>> [snip] The golden age of science fiction is -twelve- not -forty- and I
>> think writers and editors should keep that more in mind.
>
>Tell me... what is the golden age of mystery?
>
>"Golden age? What are you talking about?"
I was also about 12 when I started reading SF - which was in my case
Perry Rhodan, a German SF series.
I think 12 is about the time when youngsters start getting away from
children`s books and start discovering the adult market in more detail.
This is also the time when they discover their preferences concerning
books. With me it was SF. In my brother`s case, it was mystery.
>
>Mystery writers and editors rarely stifle themselves that way,
>perhaps because it would lead to economic suicide... and also perhaps
>because their field is too broad for such narrow standards -- just as
>science fiction is too broad in its concerns and stylistic variety
>to reduce to any set of cliches.
>
>So why, then, does the general public see sf on such narrow terms?
I think that answer is very simple: Because they don`t have the
experience to make these distinctions. To lots of people, if you ask
them what is Star Trek, they immediately associate this with TOS, with
Kirk, Spock and McCoy. They have no idea how diverse this field really
is.
And Star Trek is already a sub genre of SF.
>
>> The appeal of Science fiction is stories about:
>>
>> Robots
>> Aliens
>> Time Travel
>> Alternate Universes
>> The impact of advanced technology on human society
>>
>> in the context of an exciting high stakes story.
>
>This is nothing more than a thin slice of what the field has to
>offer, but through television shows and movies this narrow
>perspective has taken hold of the public mind, and even worse,
>the minds of book dealers and publishers.
What John did is giving a rough idea. Of course SF (including Star Trek)
is much more than this collection of headlines.
Of course these are topics in SF, dealt with in different ways, yes, but
not inaccurate.
>
>Media tie-ins dominate the field. Why? Because for all too many,
>science fiction *is* nothing more than STAR TREK and STAR WARS.
>They have little basis for comparison, because the bookshelves are
>bulging with familiar "product" that people recognize at first
>glance. But not only readers -- bookdealers, too: TREK is
>familiar and popular, therefore an easy sell; PHANTOM MENACE
>is coming out on video, gotta stock up on STAR WARS merchandise!
No, no. You are missing the point. If you don`t sell something it is
wrong to look at the books that sell and complain that people buy what
they like, what is familiar to them. What you have to do is looking at
the books that don`t sell so well and ask yourself, what can I do to get
the attention of the media tie-in readers so that they will try some of
them as well? Better labelling would definitely help. Less arrogance
would too, as we already discussed elsewhere. I think advertising could
also help to make a difference. I read several SF magazines. Many of
them are also publishing articles about media tie-in novels, news and
reviews. But other SF is rarely mentioned in them. And most of these few
articles I read are simply not giving me enough information or incentive
to make an exception and buy this book.
>
>Media tie-ins are profitable because, more often than not, little else
>is available on the sf shelves. And they blend in so well with that small
>pile of other books -- the ones with smiling young cadets and comfortably
>familiar spaceships on the cover. The stuff is all the same, so why
>*not* stick to TREK and STAR WARS? Why bother to expand your
>horizons when the suburbs over there are no different from
>the wasteland over here?
>
Hm, what you have written here contains quite a few cliches, something
you have been complaining about earlier when looking at other SF. This
is unfortunately the typical wall of ignorance and arrogance that is not
helping.
No, Star Trek is a very diverse genre of books, as I explained earlier.
Of course it is a sub genre of SF in general, but Star Trek books are
most definitely not SF fast food. It is not "stuff" that is all "the
same" at all.
You should grant media tie-in fans a bit more intelligence. I certainly
bothered to try other SF and sometimes I still do. I just have different
preferences, different tastes. This doesn`t mean that my taste is better
than yours or yours is better than mine. You were welcoming different
tastes when looking at mystery. But when people look at media tie-ins, I
find it regrettable and annoying that so many people look down on it and
immediately dismiss it as an inferior product.
If you want people to try what you like you have to be welcoming,
something also John already explained. You have to give a newcomer an
idea where to start looking. The customer is king and wants to be
treated this way.
>>The SF audience
>> isn't longing for great sophisticated realistic ideas, but for good,
>> solid, action stories set in a nifty universe where people =can= make a
>> difference. [snip]
>
>No, Sir -- the sf readership is broader than you think, and publishers
>would have much to gain if they catered to that readership.
>Twenty years of narrowing focus have limited the appeal of science fiction;
>faced with declining sales, publishers and dealers have tried to
>squeeze that appeal even further, making sf conform to the expectations
>and prejudices of a TV-saturated audience. And then they wonder
>why their "market" is so limited, and shrinking all the time.
You are talking about non-media SF, which shows that you don`t consider
Star Trek books to be "real" SF.
I think it is wrong to blame publishers and editors for this: Of course
they concentrate on books that sell. Book publishing is a business. I
can understand that you are frustrated that so many people ignore what
you consider to be a quality product and what is what you enjoy reading.
But blaming media-tie in fans is definitely the wrong way to go.
>
>
>Mark Dillon
>Quebec, Canada
>
Baerbel Haddrell
Jim Mann
Mark Dillon wrote in message <8e7j3n$s8c$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
>I would argue in reply that the field suffers from a *lack* of variety,
>and rather than expanding the huge number of action/adventure/
>space titles, science fiction -- and its sales -- would be healthier in the
>long term if it recaptured the broad range of voices and narratives that
>are a part of its heritage.
I disagree. The field is very broad right now, perhaps as broad as it has
ever been. Consider the breadth of a field that includes Gene Wolfe, Iain
Banks, Connie Willis, Ken McCleod, Lois McMaster Bujold, Bruce Sterling,
Neil Stephenson, Poul Anderson, Vernon Vinge, Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley
Robinson, Terry Pratchett, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, Patricia Anthony,
Joe Haldeman, Larry Niven, and so on.
>Consider another publishing category -- Mystery. Media tie-ins
>have never dominated that field as they do in contemporary sf,
>perhaps because "mystery" is a term vague enough to encompass
>a broad range of writers who bear little resemblance to each other
>in terms of style, background and world view. John Dickson Carr
>is very different from David Goodis, who bears little relation to
>Agatha Christie, who is not at all like James Sallis or Elmore Leonard.
First off, you've broadened the discussion. You were talking about the
current SF field, but you've broadened the mystery field to include mystery
writers of the past.
>
>Not only does this range ensure a broad readership, but it also ensures
>that the label "mystery" cannot be broken down to a few cliches in the
public
>mind: the gulf between Mike Hammer and Miss Marple is unbridgeable, and
>readers of one would hardly spend much time seeking out the other. And
that
>keeps the field alive, healthy, and open to conflicting voices.
Is the gap between E. E. Smith and William Gibson smaller than the gap
between Mike Hammer and Miss Marple? (Or, if you prefer contemporary SF
writers, subsitute David Weber for E. E. Smith.)
>> [snip] The golden age of science fiction is -twelve- not -forty- and I
>> think writers and editors should keep that more in mind.
>
>Tell me... what is the golden age of mystery?
>
>"Golden age? What are you talking about?"
I'd answer that: "When Chandler and Sayers were writing."
>
>Mystery writers and editors rarely stifle themselves that way,
>perhaps because it would lead to economic suicide... and also perhaps
>because their field is too broad for such narrow standards -- just as
>science fiction is too broad in its concerns and stylistic variety
>to reduce to any set of cliches.
>
>So why, then, does the general public see sf on such narrow terms?
The general public (that part that doesn't read SF) may view it in narrow
terms. The part of the general public that doesn't read mysteries views the
mystery genre in equally narrow terms. The real question may be is to why
this general public tends to view mysteries as adult and potentially serious
while it views SF as juvenile and light.
>This is nothing more than a thin slice of what the field has to
>offer, but through television shows and movies this narrow
>perspective has taken hold of the public mind, and even worse,
>the minds of book dealers and publishers.
A few publishers, perhaps. They certainly don't dominate all of them. Does
Tor publish ANY media tie-ins?
>
>Media tie-ins dominate the field. Why? Because for all too many,
>science fiction *is* nothing more than STAR TREK and STAR WARS.
Media tie-ins are filling a niche, but I'm not concinced that that niche is
all that much bigger than the niche filled by other light, "quick-read-type"
books in the past. Thirty years ago, when I was trying to go through all the
SF in the local bookstore, there were huge sections of Edgar Rice Burroughs
(all the Mars books, all the Pelucidar books, the Venus books, the Tarzan
books, and so on), Conan, Perry Rodan, and so on. I think this is the same
niche that Star Trek and Star Wars books are now filling.
>
>>The SF audience
>> isn't longing for great sophisticated realistic ideas, but for good,
>> solid, action stories set in a nifty universe where people =can= make a
>> difference. [snip]
>
>No, Sir -- the sf readership is broader than you think, and publishers
>would have much to gain if they catered to that readership.
I certainly agree with you here (and with several of your other responses to
Mr. Ordover's narrow view of the readership). But, as noted above, I think
you are ignoring how broad the field still is.
---
Jim Mann
Chris Wesling
>
> The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too
> much variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that
> is my taste without lots of trial and error, without spending lots
> of money on books I am at the end not really interested in?
Isn't that what libraries are for?
Chris W.
--
Remove spam to email me.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't
believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
.
<cwes...@home.cannedmeat.com> writes
>>
>> The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too
>> much variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that
>> is my taste without lots of trial and error, without spending lots
>> of money on books I am at the end not really interested in?
>
That is a good argument. It certainly helps IF there is one with a good
SF selection in it and if it is accessible (being disabled, there are
some obvious limits to me). By the way, I encourage to also use
libraries to give media SF a try if you don`t know where to start and
what direction you might like. Only also thanks to the good labelling of
Star Trek, these readers will have a much easier job at it than me.
But that doesn`t really change what I said. Entering a bookshop and
trying to find non media SF I might like is certainly not easy.
>
>Chris W.
Baerbel Haddrell
P Nielsen Hayden
>Star Trek is already more or less familiar to most people
[...]
>Better labelling would definitely help. Less arrogance would too
Further comment would be superfluous.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too much
> variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that is my taste
> without lots of trial and error, without spending lots of money on books
> I am at the end not really interested in?
I have a number of strategies but they are not failproof. I read reviews
(I enjoy reading reviews in itself, as a matter of fact: they were
almost the only thing I read in Interzone, which has good fiction but
far superior reviewers AFAIC), look at bestseller lists, read this
newsgroup, listen to friend's advice. I'd read the blurbs and the first
few pages of a book if I could, but I can't fro the most part.
But the problem is, buying something known doesn't always work for me
either. I buy _everything_ some particular authors write, but sometimes
I really don't like it (an example would be Banks' _Song of Stone_).
For a long time I have been one of the official translators of Star Wars
books in my country. I got to read them (closely, intimately) whether I
wanted it or not. Sometimes I liked them: I thought Kube-McDowell's
trilogy very good, for example. Sometime I _hated_ them with a passion.
My point is that I think that The Black Fleet Crisis and, say, Shadows
of Empire are (ok, almost) as far apart as it's possible to be in the
genre. So belonging to a franchise offers no absolute guarantee for me.
--
ada...@nit.it
sostituire tin a nit per scrivermi/substitute tin to nit to mail me
http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
Kate Nepveu
[too much non-media sf, is trial & error the only way to filter?]
> But that doesn`t really change what I said. Entering a bookshop and
> trying to find non media SF I might like is certainly not easy.
The best resource I've found to get around this problem is--taa-daa!--
this newsgroup (and others, too). I've simply picked up over time who
has tastes similar to mine & listened when they recommended something.
Other people just ask--"I like X, Y, and Z; who else should I read?"
Then go into the library or the bookstore & flip through whatever has
been recommended, before taking it out or buying it.
Alexlit (http://www.alexlit.com/) is also a good resource, but having
people argue over whether you ought to try A, B, or C has a real value
to it, too. And there are good magazines--online and off--with detailed
reviews of new books (try http://www.sfsite.com/ and Locus, for instance).
If you're not looking for new things to read, then hey, that's what you
like and there's nothing wrong with that. But there are certainly ways to
finding things you like--word of mouth being, in my experience, one of the
most useful.
Kate
--
http://lynx.neu.edu/k/knepveu/ -- The Paired Reading Page; Reviews
"Left of west and coming in a hurry
With the Furies breathing down your neck."
--REM, "It's the End of the World as We Know It"
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>Media tie-ins are profitable because, more often than not, little else
>is available on the sf shelves.
You need to get to a better class if bookstore. In the United States,
at least, the field is being swept by Borders and Barnes & Noble,
along with a few really big independents and specialty stores.
These places have _massive_ science fiction sections, of the sort that
I'd have killed for when I was twelve. "Little else" may be available
at a few bad stores lingering out there, but for me, today, I can go
to the store and choose from among hundreds, if not thousands, of
titles. And the media stuff is neatly segregated into its own
section, where it won't get its cooties on the non-media stuff.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>If you want to look at diversity disappearing just look at Meisha Merlin's
>list of authors. Most of those authors used to be mid-list authors who have
>been dropped from the paperback market. This is not good, no matter how nice
>a book MM publishes they do not make up for the lack of a paperback
>publication.
But the question is whether other authors have taken their place. As
Ahasuerus noted, the raw number of books being published is trending
up, not down; by definition, almost, this means that the midlist is
getting bigger, not smaller. Now, some midlist authors may be having
trouble making a go of it, financially, but that's the way of the
world, when one is in a competitive market.
--
Pete McCutchen
ORDOVER
The problem with strategies of any kind, reading this newsgroup, reading
reviews, is that they assume an already high interest level on the part of the
reader, and require substanial effort to be invested.
One of the questions I'm raising is whether too much SF is written for
long-time initiates, already familiar with the ins and outs of the field - and
if the answer is that there is in fact plenty to appeal to the brand-new SF
reader, it is valid to ask if the books are being published and positioned in
such a way that a new reader can find them without much fuss.
When most of us here started reading SF, there sure as heck weren't
-fifteen-hundred-plus- SF and Fantasy books coming out every year. That's a
huge number of books to ask a new reader to sort through.
Andrew Plotkin
> "." wrote:
>>
>> The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too
>> much variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that
>> is my taste without lots of trial and error, without spending lots
>> of money on books I am at the end not really interested in?
>
That saves money, but not time.
This is what *this newsgroup* is for.
It saves money (if you don't pay per minute for Net connection). It...
well, it eats a lot of time, but you get a much higher hit rate than if
you spend the same amount of time reading books at random.
You think we have some magical formula for sorting out the good books? :-)
No, we hang out and exchange recommendations and read hundreds of little
comments and snippets. Just like fans in any other (sub-)field.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Andrew Plotkin
> The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too much
> variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that is my taste
> without lots of trial and error, without spending lots of money on books
> I am at the end not really interested in?
>
> I think it would help to divide SF into sub genres. Have a look at Star
> Trek books. We have the main series which are at the moment TOS, TNG,
> DS9, VOY and NF (New Frontier). But we also have more and more sub
> series. Some examples: The limited series which are often dealing with
> crossovers, Rihannsu (a sub series of TOS), the Shatnerverse, Stargazer
> (a sub series of TNG) and even soon kind of a three part sub series in
> NF, Excalibur.
I'll also add --
There *are* such subgenres, and labelling. That's the purpose of cover art
and cover design, and after that, the back cover blurb.
Star Trek has the advantage (for this purpose) of a monolithic publisher,
who can set precise labelling rules. Other SF publishers have worked out a
system more or less by common agreement. It's not as precise -- but then
the subgenres aren't as precise either.
Nancy Lebovitz
Kate Nepveu <kh...@pantheon.yale.edu> wrote:
>. (Em...@trekdata.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>
>[too much non-media sf, is trial & error the only way to filter?]
>> But that doesn`t really change what I said. Entering a bookshop and
>> trying to find non media SF I might like is certainly not easy.
>
>The best resource I've found to get around this problem is--taa-daa!--
>this newsgroup (and others, too). I've simply picked up over time who
>has tastes similar to mine & listened when they recommended something.
>Other people just ask--"I like X, Y, and Z; who else should I read?"
>Then go into the library or the bookstore & flip through whatever has
>been recommended, before taking it out or buying it.
Do you know of any good way to get the word out about this newsgroup
and/or newsgroups in general? The existance of newsgroups doesn't seem
to be common knowledge.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
The calligraphic button website is up!
Nancy Lebovitz
ORDOVER <ord...@aol.com> wrote:
>>I have a number of strategies but they are not failproof.
>
>The problem with strategies of any kind, reading this newsgroup, reading
>reviews, is that they assume an already high interest level on the part of the
>reader, and require substanial effort to be invested.
>
>One of the questions I'm raising is whether too much SF is written for
>long-time initiates, already familiar with the ins and outs of the field - and
>if the answer is that there is in fact plenty to appeal to the brand-new SF
>reader, it is valid to ask if the books are being published and positioned in
>such a way that a new reader can find them without much fuss.
>
fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
Andrew Plotkin
> But that doesn`t really change what I said. Entering a bookshop and
> trying to find non media SF I might like is certainly not easy.
And adding even more (I should be squashing these comments into a single
post -- sorry about that):
Do you realize that I, who have been away from nearly all Star Trek books
for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
of Trek books?
The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
days.
The inevitable corrolary to Sturgeon's Law assures me that *some* of these
books must be very good. But I haven't put in the time to discern
which. Non-tie-in SF is what I'm familiar with, so that's what I wind up
buying.
Niall McAuley
>Do you know of any good way to get the word out about this newsgroup
My instant reaction is AAAHHH NO, but in fact this group
has deteriorated a lot less than many in the (counts them)
7 and a bit years I have been reading Usenet, even though
traffic is up substantially.
I wonder why.
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es]
Evelyn C. Leeper
Ethan A Merritt <mer...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> In article <3904dc2c....@news.mindspring.com>, <ord...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >Like I said, I could be wrong. I'm basing the argument on the
> >popularity of media tie-ins among the 12-25 year olds. All successful
> >media-tie-in lines conform to the pulp-style action adventure format.
> >It seems to me the progression would go:
> >1) Media tie-in books that take place in the generic pulp universe of
> >Trek, Wars, and other media books
> >2) Original SF of various kinds that also take place in a riff on the
> >generic pulp universe, such as Known Space and the Bujold books.
> >3) Original SF that doesn't do that.
>
> I cannot speak of, or for, all 12-25 year olds, but judging by the limited
> sample available here in front of me, my son and his friends, you are
> incorrect. The specific progression I have seen is
> 1) The Redwall books of Brian Jacques, wildly popular among the pre-teen
> set, and the specific catalyst to a love of fantasy and of reading in
> general
> 2) Original SF of various kinds, but with an emphasis on young heroes
> (spanning the entire range from Heinlein juvies to Phillip Pullman's
> _His Dark Materials_)
> 3) Gradual emergence of interest in non-SF
I suspect these days Harry Potter fits in here somewhere.
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.
--Teresa Nielsen Hayden
James Nicoll
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
SF labelling:
>There *are* such subgenres, and labelling. That's the purpose of cover art
>and cover design, and after that, the back cover blurb.
>
>Star Trek has the advantage (for this purpose) of a monolithic publisher,
>who can set precise labelling rules. Other SF publishers have worked out a
>system more or less by common agreement. It's not as precise -- but then
>the subgenres aren't as precise either.
Ah. The solution is to have an SF version of the religous
conference which occured at the order of the Byzantine Emperor, where
they hammered out what was and was not Christianity. The various
publishers and critics could get together, decide that SF&F will
be from now on, and ruthlessly punish heritics who publish SF&F
which falls outside the rules.
What small press gets to play gnostics or albeginseians?
--
Temporary Email: jdni...@home.com
[Just until I fix my current email problems]
Samuel Paik
Lebovitz) wrote:
> I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as
> distinct from fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
I really liked Larry Segriff's _Spacer Dreams_. The continuation
of Norton's Solar Queen series by Sherwood Smith was pretty good.
Haven't tried these on a Young Adult however.
Sam
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Ian Montgomerie
<tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Recently, I came across an article on Tanith Lee -- she
>> has apparently been having problems getting
>> published (I may be wrong about this, and can't recall
>> the source. For her sake -- and for the sake of her readers --
>> I hope I'm mistaken).
Interesting how the only "insiders" I've ever heard of claiming that "the
midlist is dying" are authors who personally report trouble being published.
>If you want to look at diversity disappearing just look at Meisha Merlin's
>list of authors. Most of those authors used to be mid-list authors who have
>been dropped from the paperback market. This is not good, no matter how nice
>a book MM publishes they do not make up for the lack of a paperback
>publication.
Um, how about a little logic here. That is not evidence of dropping
diversity. Authors move both in and out of the "mid-list". Diversity only
decreases if the number of old authors who can no longer get published
exceeds the number of new authors who get published instead.
Kevin J. Maroney
>Like I said, I could be wrong. I'm basing the argument on the
>popularity of media tie-ins among the 12-25 year olds. All successful
>media-tie-in lines conform to the pulp-style action adventure format.
I think, just maybe, you are underestimating the sales value of free
television advertising.
For your argument to be testable, we would really need to see an
*unsuccessful* tie-in line (based on a successful media product) that
broke from the guidelines of "pulp-style action adventure".
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
James Nicoll
Niall McAuley <Niall....@eei.ericsson.es> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote in message <8e9khu$e...@netaxs.com>...
>>Do you know of any good way to get the word out about this newsgroup
>>and/or newsgroups in general? .
>
>
>My instant reaction is AAAHHH NO, but in fact this group
>has deteriorated a lot less than many in the (counts them)
>7 and a bit years I have been reading Usenet, even though
>traffic is up substantially.
>
>I wonder why.
coughcoughfansareslanscoughcoughcough
Soc.history.what-if exists to draw off the sewage. That's
my theory. If it weren't for shwi, fr*ck, gw**r and their ilk would
post -here- and we'd have even more gnu-control and political threads
than we do.
Kevin J. Maroney
>I am genuinely interested since every once in a while a "midlist" writer
>like Jack Chalker stops by and announces that:
>
>(a) his career is over, brutally murdered by cold-hearted corporate
>accountants and/or changes in the way books are distributed,
>(b) the midlist is dead, and
>(c) that the rest of the genre is soon to follow.
>Some of them resurface shortly thereafter.
You know, if one were to judge the health and vitality of the sf field
by watching only the decay of older writers' popularity, one *would*
reach the conclusion that we were, inevitably, doomed.
In the long run, we are all dead.
But somewhere in there is a logical oversight....
ORDOVER
>for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
>of Trek books?
>
>The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
>doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
>days.
>
>The inevitable corrolary to Sturgeon's Law assures me that *some* of these
>books must be very good. But I haven't put in the time to discern
>which. Non-tie-in SF is what I'm familiar with, so that's what I wind up
>buying.
I'd be very interesting in learning what kind of labelling of Trek novels would
help you make that distinction.
John Ordover
Executive Editor
Star Trek Fiction
Pocket Books
For more Trek Book Info:
www.startrekbooks.com
Ron Henry
>0) Gain entre' to SF through movies and TV shows that take place in
>the generic pulp universe of Trek, Wars, etc.
I dunno. Some of the first SF I read as a kid was by Ellison and Malzberg.
While this may not have been the most appropriate thing for me to read (in
terms of subject matter) at the time, I did nonetheless progress to become a
voracious teen and adult reader of sf (ranging from Clarke, Benford, and Brin
to Delany, LeGuin, and Wolfe) without needing the training wheels of media
tie-ins. (Though, at the time, the only such tie-ins were probably the Blish
versions of old Trek eps, which I didn't skim till much later, I think when
I was avoiding writing papers in college and found them in used book stores.)
Ron
--
Ron Henry ronh...@clarityconnect.com
http://people2.clarityconnect.com/webpages6/ronhenry/
Nancy Lebovitz
Niall McAuley <Niall....@eei.ericsson.es> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote in message <8e9khu$e...@netaxs.com>...
>>Do you know of any good way to get the word out about this newsgroup
>>and/or newsgroups in general? .
>
>My instant reaction is AAAHHH NO, but in fact this group
>has deteriorated a lot less than many in the (counts them)
>7 and a bit years I have been reading Usenet, even though
>traffic is up substantially.
>
>I wonder why.
Imho, it takes a sufficiently large and varied topic, and a high
proportion of posters who want to discuss it.
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>In article <20000427103157...@ng-cg1.aol.com>,
>ORDOVER <ord...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>I have a number of strategies but they are not failproof.
>>
>>The problem with strategies of any kind, reading this newsgroup, reading
>>reviews, is that they assume an already high interest level on the part of the
>>reader, and require substanial effort to be invested.
>>
>>One of the questions I'm raising is whether too much SF is written for
>>long-time initiates, already familiar with the ins and outs of the field - and
>>if the answer is that there is in fact plenty to appeal to the brand-new SF
>>reader, it is valid to ask if the books are being published and positioned in
>>such a way that a new reader can find them without much fuss.
>>
>fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
_Jumper_ and _Wildside_ were solid [even if the CIA plot was
overused]. If it weren't for the pointless and gratuitous sex, I'd
suggest Gould's latest [_Blind Waves_] as well.
Susan Palwick's _Flying in Place_ may concern themes which are
too adult for many kids but I thought it was well done and may well be
a fantasy, depending. OOP, sadly.
Sheffield's Jupiter series is ok, if somewhat laboured in its
attempt to emulate Heinlein [when it isn't redoing _Captains Courageous_].
If you can find a copy, I heartly recommend _The Grounding of
Group Six_ to any kid heading off to camp for the first time. Not SF
but I think the cross-genre appeal will be high.
James Nicoll
Martin Soederstroem
earth to tell us this:
>There *are* such subgenres, and labelling. That's the purpose of cover art
>and cover design, and after that, the back cover blurb.
I just realized, the cover with Miles Vorkosigan looking like an
übermench and holding a blaster is actually very good. It tells the
new reader that this is a pulpish space opera with fighting and
rockets and stuff. That actually is a disfigured dwarf who didn't
manage to pull his stunner in that scene just isn't important. The
iconography worked.
--
Martin
Remove NEINSPAM.INVALID to email me.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <8e9k8b$jip$3...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> SF labelling:
>
>>and cover design, and after that, the back cover blurb.
>>
>>who can set precise labelling rules. Other SF publishers have worked out a
>>system more or less by common agreement. It's not as precise -- but then
>>the subgenres aren't as precise either.
>
> Ah. The solution is to have an SF version of the religous
> conference which occured at the order of the Byzantine Emperor, where
> they hammered out what was and was not Christianity. The various
> publishers and critics could get together, decide that SF&F will
> be from now on, and ruthlessly punish heritics who publish SF&F
> which falls outside the rules.
Heh. I like it -- but I *was* talking about labelling. The analogy would
have to be a conference to hammer out cover design standards.
"I believe in one MilSF line, consisting of the Weber and the Drake and
those aspiring thereunto. It shall bear a spaceship in its glory, on a
field sable or azure; a title extruded san-serif or.
"And I believe in one Elfy line, under the sign of the half-robed
priestess rampant, magical radiance of any tint; but the radiance shall
not come from a device or artifice, for that is the emblazon of the
Crossover line. From a staff, rod, or wand shall it come, or the hand, or
the body."
"And I accept three forms of the Serious line: the charge on a blank
field, the abstract, and the blank cover pierced; thus may the line be
pushed upon the non-genre shelves without offending the Eastern Church of
the Mainstream..."
> What small press gets to play gnostics or albeginseians?
"Darryl K. Sweet, who professes that all flesh is clay..."
Jonathan W Hendry
>>I am genuinely interested since every once in a while a "midlist" writer
>>like Jack Chalker stops by and announces that:
>>
>>(a) his career is over, brutally murdered by cold-hearted corporate
>>accountants and/or changes in the way books are distributed,
>>(b) the midlist is dead, and
>>(c) that the rest of the genre is soon to follow.
>>Some of them resurface shortly thereafter.
> You know, if one were to judge the health and vitality of the sf field
> by watching only the decay of older writers' popularity, one *would*
> reach the conclusion that we were, inevitably, doomed.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an SF writer's version of
establishing a nightclub revue act in Vegas or Branson, MO.
James Ellis
>
> I think it would help to divide SF into sub genres. Have a look at
> Star Trek books. We have the main series which are at the moment TOS,
> TNG, DS9, VOY and NF (New Frontier). But we also have more and more
> sub series.
Trek has the marked advantage in this of having several clearly
differentiated seed kernals for stories, as deliniated above. What you
propose would be _impossible_ to do for the entire field of non-media sf
because of the lack of same.
As it is, however, there are a lot of sub-genres present; you just
don't recognize them due to lack of familiarity (such as I do not
recognize the Rihannsu sub-genre of Trek for the same reason). If you
know what words (and often cover elements) to look for, you can
distinguish cyberpunk from space opera, hard sf from military sf.
The best recourse for the reader unfamiliar with the genre would be to
start with the back-cover synopses and review blurbs (and I'd start at
the library until you know what it is you like). This will typically
give an indication which elements of the genre are present. Once you
have developed a 'taste', you can then enlarge upon it via online
recommendations (such as this newsgroup), etc.
More specific labelling (aside from being impossible) is unecessary.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Holly E. Ordway
> coughcoughfansareslanscoughcoughcough
OK, I finally have to ask... What, exactly, does "fans are slans" mean?
I've been trying to figure it out from context, but I still don't have a
clue.
--Holly
Keith Morrison
> > Ah. The solution is to have an SF version of the religous
> > conference which occured at the order of the Byzantine Emperor, where
> > they hammered out what was and was not Christianity. The various
> > publishers and critics could get together, decide that SF&F will
> > be from now on, and ruthlessly punish heritics who publish SF&F
> > which falls outside the rules.
>
> Heh. I like it -- but I *was* talking about labelling. The analogy would
> have to be a conference to hammer out cover design standards.
>
> "I believe in one MilSF line, consisting of the Weber and the Drake and
> those aspiring thereunto. It shall bear a spaceship in its glory, on a
> field sable or azure; a title extruded san-serif or.
Note that you've already set your self up for a schism as the
Apostles of Drake the Hammer insist that there shall be no
spaceship, for the true symbol of the Writer is the panzer.
--
Keith
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
>As a media tie-in (especially Star Trek) reader I agree to what John
>said. I also explained it in my two previous postings in the other
>current Ordover threads.
>
>You can rightfully say, I don`t really know what I am talking about, but
>we are also discussing here the problems readers like me are having when
>visiting a bookshop and looking at the shelf with SF unfamiliar to me.
>The problem is not "lack" of variety. The problem is also not too much
>variety. The problem simply is, how do I find other SF that is my taste
>without lots of trial and error, without spending lots of money on books
>I am at the end not really interested in?
Well, the technique I used whn I was getting into SF was "What did my
friends who also liked SF read?" Naturally, it was a two-way street,
and we'd be loaning books to each other (or recommending stuff we found
in the library) on a weekly basis.
I certainly never found myself overwhelmed by the bookstore SF sections
of the late-70s/early-80s. If anything, a huge area of shelf space
devoted to SF was a joy to behold: "Oh, man! Just think of all the
cool stuff I could find there!"
Gym "But perhaps I was/am atypical..." Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Pete McCutchen
A.E. van Vogt wrote a novel called _Slan_ in which (I can't answer
your question without a mild spoiler, OK?) Slans turn out to be
mentally superior beings. "Fans are slans" is a way of saying that
we're smarter than other people. (Which is true, actually, but rather
impolite to bring up in mixed company.)
--
Pete McCutchen
P Nielsen Hayden
It's more twisted than that. The remark that "fans are slans" is generally
meant ironically, since it takes very little observation to see that we, er,
aren't.
The phrase was actually coined, I believe, by unhinged 1940s fan Claude
Degler, whose campaign to unify fandom into a "Cosmic Circle" that would
sponsor fan-only breeding camps in the Ozarks and eventually take over
civilization is documented in Harry Warner, Jr.'s magisterial history ALL
OUR YESTERDAYS. Degler is a significant figure in the history of SF because
his energetic continent-straddling halfwittery unwittingly vaccinated the SF
demimonde against becoming the handmaiden of worse forms of crankery and
idealism. After Degler had flamed out, it was forevermore difficult to see
fandom as the vessel by which we would Save Humanity Through Science And
Sanity. Thank goodness.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
P Nielsen Hayden
>You think we have some magical formula for sorting out the good books? :-)
>No, we hang out and exchange recommendations and read hundreds of little
>comments and snippets. Just like fans in any other (sub-)field.
Indeed. For cry eye, that kind of interaction is the primal grain around
which "fandom" crystallizes.
I'm constantly boggled by the assertion that, in 2000, it's uniquely
difficult to sort out different kinds of SF. Fill in the missing words of
the following centuries-old proverb: "You can't _____ a ____ by its _____."
Ethan A Merritt
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>
>I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as distinct from
>fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
How recent do you want? From the Newberry Awards list (annually awarded for
"most distinguished contribution to American literature for children")
Lois Lowry, _The Giver_ 1994 Newberry Award
Nancy Farmer, _The Ear, The Eye, The Arm_ 1995 Newberry runner-up
To pick up some non-American titles I'd add
Garth Nix, _Shade's Children_ 1998 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
1997 Aurealis Award runner-up
Phillip Pullman, _His Dark Materials_ (distinct from fantasy? we don't know yet)
Not a one of these is spaceships+blasters style nouveau pulp, but there's plenty
of that also.
Ethan A Merritt
Andrew Plotkin
>>Do you realize that I, who have been away from nearly all Star Trek books
>>for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
>>of Trek books?
>>
>>The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
>>doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
>>days.
>>
>>The inevitable corrolary to Sturgeon's Law assures me that *some* of these
>>books must be very good. But I haven't put in the time to discern
>>which. Non-tie-in SF is what I'm familiar with, so that's what I wind up
>>buying.
>
> I'd be very interesting in learning what kind of labelling of Trek
> novels would help you make that distinction.
I don't think any labelling could help. Labels are, by definition, an
encoded summary of information, and are only useful if you're familiar
with the full meanings.
If I picked up and looked at a Trek book every so often, I'd have enough
background to judge which ones I'd like. Reading rec.arts.startrek.* would
help too. I'm sure there are review collections on the web.
The one label which is still valuable to me is the author's name -- when
I'm familiar with him/her, of course. I won't necessarily like a Star Trek
book from an author, just because I like that author's original work; but
I'll usually pick it up and read a few pages.
And if I *know* I like an author's writing in the ST universe, I'll buy
it. No surprises there. (I did read a lot of the stuff, back when there
were only thirty or forty books.)
James Nicoll
Hmmm. I was going to cite the Sc**nt*l*g*sts as a counter-
example then thought about the implications for SF if you are in fact
correct: there's an alternate history where Mr. Dengler fixated on
something else and SF Fandom and Sc**nt*l*gy map onto each other
by 80% or 90% percent.
Vowels omitted because they grep.
Kate Nepveu
> In article <8e9kn5$f...@netaxs.com>,
> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
> >I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as distinct from
> >fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
> How recent do you want? From the Newberry Awards list (annually awarded for
> "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children")
> Lois Lowry, _The Giver_ 1994 Newberry Award
Is this really good, though? My mother had to read it for a class--I
looked at the back and thought it sounded remarkably like dreck, for
reasons which I couldn't quite put my finger on--perhaps because it
sounded like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" & _The Dubious Hills_
rolled together by someone who wasn't familiar with the genre.
I know nothing about Lowry & I could be completely wrong, but it didn't
sound worth reading to me and my mother didn't like it.
Kate
--
http://lynx.neu.edu/k/knepveu/ -- The Paired Reading Page; Reviews
"Left of west and coming in a hurry
With the Furies breathing down your neck."
--REM, "It's the End of the World As We Know It"
ORDOVER
PNH said:
>The phrase was actually coined, I believe, by unhinged 1940s fan Claude
>Degler, whose campaign to unify fandom into a "Cosmic Circle" that would
>sponsor fan-only breeding camps in the Ozarks and eventually take over
>civilization is documented in Harry Warner, Jr.'s magisterial history ALL
>OUR YESTERDAYS. Degler is a significant figure in the history of SF because
>his energetic continent-straddling halfwittery unwittingly vaccinated the SF
>demimonde against becoming the handmaiden of worse forms of crankery and
>idealism. After Degler had flamed out, it was forevermore difficult to see
>fandom as the vessel by which we would Save Humanity Through Science And
>Sanity. Thank goodness.
This is the first I've heard of this. The A.U. story where this guy succeeded
is frightening to consider...:)
ORDOVER
>From: p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden)
>Date: 4/27/00 2:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <slrn8gh2d...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net>
Yeah, but people do all the time. I'm getting really good orders on my Star
Trek: New Earth books in part, at least, because the covers are great....:)
P Nielsen Hayden
>In article <slrn8gh26...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
>P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>It's more twisted than that. The remark that "fans are slans" is generally
>>meant ironically, since it takes very little observation to see that we, er,
>>aren't.
>>
>>Degler, whose campaign to unify fandom into a "Cosmic Circle" that would
>>sponsor fan-only breeding camps in the Ozarks and eventually take over
>>civilization is documented in Harry Warner, Jr.'s magisterial history ALL
>>OUR YESTERDAYS. Degler is a significant figure in the history of SF because
>>his energetic continent-straddling halfwittery unwittingly vaccinated the SF
>>demimonde against becoming the handmaiden of worse forms of crankery and
>>idealism. After Degler had flamed out, it was forevermore difficult to see
>>fandom as the vessel by which we would Save Humanity Through Science And
>>Sanity. Thank goodness.
>
>example then thought about the implications for SF if you are in fact
>correct: there's an alternate history where Mr. Dengler fixated on
>something else and SF Fandom and Sc**nt*l*gy map onto each other
>by 80% or 90% percent.
Very possibly. In fact, what's most interesting about the 1950s
intersection between, um, clams and slans is that so few of us ultimately
dallied with them.
> Vowels omitted because they grep.
I hear you, bro.
ORDOVER
>Message-id: <slrn8gh5t...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net>
CLAMS GOT LEGS!
Ahasuerus
> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>>I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as distinct from
>>fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
>
Isn't it telling that things like Gould's _Jumper_ and Kilian's _Lifter_
are marketed as ScF and not fantasy these days?
> and _Wildside_ were solid [even if the CIA plot was overused]. [snip]
It was certainly overused/ridiculous/etc, but not nearly as
overused/irritating as the "therapy" meme. Still, pretty good YA books,
all things considered.
--
Ahasuerus
Kevin J. Maroney
>Note that you've already set your self up for a schism as the
>Apostles of Drake the Hammer insist that there shall be no
>spaceship, for the true symbol of the Writer is the panzer.
Armored spaceships. The perfect compromise.
Irv Koch
> PNH said:
> >The phrase was actually coined, I believe, by unhinged 1940s fan Claude
> >Degler, whose campaign to unify fandom into a "Cosmic Circle" that would
>
> This is the first I've heard of this. The A.U. story where this guy succeeded
> is frightening to consider...:)
A couple quibbles, which due to the "contradiction just to be polite"
nature of this newsgroup, will undoubtedly be contradicted.
1. "Fans are slans" is not ALWAYS used in a heavily ironic manner.
There are some people who think that at least some subsets of fandom
have some superiority to the general population. Beyond that, it gets
complicated quickly.
2. Degler resurfaced at least once and maybe twice, long after the
events chronicled in accepted fan histories. My observations of
accepted fan histories and Degler are that the former may often be
inaccurate, incomplete, or deliberately distorted. With cases like
Degler, however, my observations were that "it didn't matter." There is
"bad" and there's "so bad you need to 'run away quickly' no matter
why." Degler fit the later category. I looked and then ran.
Ethan A Merritt
Kate Nepveu <kate....@yale.edu> wrote:
>
>Is this really good, though? My mother had to read it for a class--I
>looked at the back and thought it sounded remarkably like dreck, for
>reasons which I couldn't quite put my finger on--perhaps because it
>sounded like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" & _The Dubious Hills_
>rolled together by someone who wasn't familiar with the genre.
It's very good, very disturbing. In many ways it's an atypical
YA novel, not the least of which is that it has an extremely unreliable
narrator. In fact, many of the people (kids and adults) who don't like
the book, or put it down and say 'huh?' at the end, do so because the
entire end of the book is basically unbelievable. But it's only
unbelievable because as the story progresses it becomes more and more
blatantly clear that what the narrator says cannot be taken at face
value. If you miss that, and only in the last pages reach the point
of disbelief, then you're left scratching your head. Questioning the
narration is a wrenching concept, and a powerful one, and I think this
makes the book inaccessible to younger readers. It's a good class
discussion book (middle school - high school), however, because this
can be brought out gradually as the readers are encouraged to
speculate on what else may be going on just out of sight in the story.
You're quite right that it's in the vein of "The ones who walk away
from Omelas" (Le Guin), and that would be a good companion story to read.
But no, I don't see any parallel to _The Dubious Hills_, though I
suppose a badly-written cover blurb might make the titles 'Rememberer'
or 'Giver' come across that way. If you're looking for roots in
genre SF, you'd do better to look at _1984_ with its newspeak, or
Tepper's _Raising the Stones_ with its underlying examination of the
trade-off between individuality and social stability.
_The Giver_ is set in a closed community at some unspecified future
time which implicitly must follow a massive social engineering effort
to remove prejudice and inter-personal conflict from society. Perhaps
I should also suggest genre antecedents in Vance's _The Languages of Pao_,
in that part of the implied engineering must have been the attempt to
remove whole concepts from the realm of possible thought by changing
the language and altering what conceptual axes are available to
describe something. (This is the strong Whorf hypothesis, if you prefer a
non-genre reference.)
The book's setting is an "if this goes on..." exploration of taking
well-meaning measures to an extreme. If Connie Willis were writing
it, it would be a book-length version of "Ado" (oh wait a minute, she
did that already in _Bellwether_), except that if Willis wrote it it
would be funny, and in Lowry's hands it is creepy instead.
[Spoilers follow, though only for the first few chapters]
I'll give an example. The society is colorblind, because the words to
describe someone as 'black', 'white', whatever, have been removed from
the members verbal and mental vocabulary. The price paid is substantial,
however, as the people are effectively colorblind in all other senses of
the word as well. They have no visual arts based on color, because they
do not respond to color as a distinguishing feature or even a significant
property. This social/Whorfian conditioning has not fully taken hold in
the young protagonist. He's sure there is some intrinsic property that
causes certain objects to stand out, or distinguishes them from each
other, that he has no words for and no way to describe. What do
_this_ particular ball and _that_ particular book have in common that
no-one else seems to see? But almost none of this is ever stated
outright; you must infer it from the dialogue and narration.
This is by no means the creepiest example, but its almost-plausibility
and its clever revelation clue the reader in to more serious, but
more sketchily revealed, scars on the social landscape.
>I know nothing about Lowry & I could be completely wrong, but it didn't
>sound worth reading to me and my mother didn't like it.
Oh, I know plenty of kids who didn't like it, particulary because it was
picked for them as a class assignment. But at the risk of being
categorize as one of those pointy-brained snobs, I submit that
"excellent" and "universally popular" are not synonyms. Adults generally
like it better, and clearly enough of them liked it enough that it won
a major award. To me the ending was so dissonant as to be jarring, but
another ending would either have been less powerful or would have required
a whole second half of the book.
Ethan A Merritt
Del Cotter
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Niall McAuley <Niall....@eei.ericsson.es> wrote:
>
>>My instant reaction is AAAHHH NO, but in fact this group
>>has deteriorated a lot less than many in the (counts them)
>>7 and a bit years I have been reading Usenet, even though
>>traffic is up substantially.
>Soc.history.what-if exists to draw off the sewage. That's
>my theory. If it weren't for shwi, fr*ck, gw**r and their ilk would
>post -here- and we'd have even more gnu-control and political threads
>than we do.
I disagree; I think s.h.w-i is the Cesspool Next Door. No wonder we get
periodic outbreaks of malaria and bubonic plague.
--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk
.
<erky...@eblong.com> writes
>. <Em...@trekdata.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> But that doesn`t really change what I said. Entering a bookshop and
>> trying to find non media SF I might like is certainly not easy.
>
>And adding even more (I should be squashing these comments into a single
>post -- sorry about that):
>
>Do you realize that I, who have been away from nearly all Star Trek books
>for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
>of Trek books?
>
>The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
>doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
>days.
>
>The inevitable corrolary to Sturgeon's Law assures me that *some* of these
>books must be very good. But I haven't put in the time to discern
>which. Non-tie-in SF is what I'm familiar with, so that's what I wind up
>buying.
Interesting. But you already have the advantage to know if you like at
least the idea behind it. I mean, if you hate DS9 you will probably not
be fond of DS9 novels as well. But if you like the TV series you are
more willing to give a DS9 novel a try. With non-tie-in SF, everything
is an unknown to me.
Yes, I see your point. There is certainly excellent DS9 around but also
some I wouldn`t recommend at all. The most recent ones are all books I
can recommend any DS9 fan. I give two examples: The anthology "The Lives
of Dax" and "The 34th Rule". Although the "Millennium" trilogy is
definitely not a light, easy read. It is well written, very complex but
overly complicated and heavy in places.
Baerbel Haddrell
Elisabeth Carey
>
> >Do you realize that I, who have been away from nearly all Star Trek books
> >for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
> >of Trek books?
> >
> >The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
> >doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
> >days.
> >
> >The inevitable corrolary to Sturgeon's Law assures me that *some* of these
> >books must be very good. But I haven't put in the time to discern
> >which. Non-tie-in SF is what I'm familiar with, so that's what I wind up
> >buying.
>
> help you make that distinction.
There's nothing wrong with Trek's labelling. What's lacking for
Andrew, or anyone else who doesn't read Trek novels regularly and
hasn't for several years, is _familiarity_ with the labelling. Lack of
familiarity with the labelling results in only being able to derive
the broadest and most obvious distinctions--exactly like the regular
Trek reader looking at the non-media tie-in sf shelves.
In _both_ cases, the labelling is _there_, and it's pretty good
labelling. _Nothing_ substitutes for lack of familiarity with the
labelling, though, and nothing will cure the lack except _getting_
familiar with it by a certain amount of trial and error.
Lis Carey
Craig S. Richardson
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <8e9l13$qkj$1...@newstoo.ericsson.se>,
>Niall McAuley <Niall....@eei.ericsson.es> wrote:
>>Nancy Lebovitz wrote in message <8e9khu$e...@netaxs.com>...
>>>Do you know of any good way to get the word out about this newsgroup
>>>and/or newsgroups in general? .
>>
>>
>>My instant reaction is AAAHHH NO, but in fact this group
>>has deteriorated a lot less than many in the (counts them)
>>7 and a bit years I have been reading Usenet, even though
>>traffic is up substantially.
>>
>>I wonder why.
>
> coughcoughfansareslanscoughcoughcough
>
> Soc.history.what-if exists to draw off the sewage. That's
>my theory. If it weren't for shwi, fr*ck, gw**r and their ilk would
>post -here- and we'd have even more gnu-control and political threads
>than we do.
And even the latter rarely degenerate into mindless babble like they
do on other newsgroups. Carefully mined, they can even be
informative. A group in which political threads have nonzero
signal/noise ratios is a rare jewel indeed, especially now that it's
September.
ObSF: Hmm. If _A Fire Upon The Deep_ were being written today, are
there enough netizens with widely-enough recognized styles to provide
bases for the AFUTD homages?
--Craig
Craig S. Richardson - crichar...@worldnet.att.net
NEW! Innumeracy in action! "If ya want to look at stats,
back it up! There was only a mention of walks/OBA and
slg pct..." --ghosts...@my-dejanews.com
thomas monaghan
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 00:40:31 -0500, thomas monaghan
> <tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> If you want to look at diversity disappearing just look at Meisha Merlin's
>> list of authors. Most of those authors used to be mid-list authors who have
>> been dropped from the paperback market. This is not good, no matter how nice
>> a book MM publishes they do not make up for the lack of a paperback
>> publication.
>
> But the question is whether other authors have taken their place. As
> Ahasuerus noted, the raw number of books being published is trending
> up, not down; by definition, almost, this means that the midlist is
> getting bigger, not smaller. Now, some midlist authors may be having
> trouble making a go of it, financially, but that's the way of the
> world, when one is in a competitive market.
>
> --
>
> Pete McCutchen
Yes but how many of those raw numbers are tv/media btiein books. At my local
Walden's the tiein rack is about 2/3 the size of the regular SF. The local
Walmart has slots for approx. 8 SF books and usually 2 are Star Trek, 1 Star
Wars, and 1 D&D which doesn't leave much room for the non-media SF.
Tom
Anne M. Marble
> <snip>
> Sure, _somebody's_ buying all those media tie-in books, but I'm not
> convinced it's the same somebodies that will graduate into general
> book lovers, or even general SF lovers. Some will, some won't, and
> some never read the Star Trek books to begin with.
My first exposure to science fiction was seeing Star Trek when I was
really, really, really young. But my first science fiction novel was
probably either "Space Ship Under the Apple Tree" or even "Mrs.
Pickerell Goes to Mars." Later, I went on to "House of Stairs" (see
earlier thread). I didn't start reading science fiction on a truly
serious basis until after "Star Wars" came out, and I started finding
out about books like "Dune."
About the reactions of people to Star Trek books...
I do remember once reading a Next Generation book at work, during
lunch. And two of my coworkers said, "You read *Star Trek* books?!"
Sheesh, they acted as if been caught reading pornography! (grumble
grumble) It wasn't as if they were big SF fans, either -- I guess they
thought only "geeky guys" read ST books. They never once thought of
their attitude as being rude -- but I thought it was. So I can
understand why some readers of ST books get annoyed with the attitudes
they get.
Then again, I have also heard of Star Trek fans at conventions going
up to famous writers at signings, checking out the books, and then
saying, "Oh, I only read Star Trek books. Everything else is
b*llsh*t." If that anecdote is true, that fan deserved all the
condescension he will get!
Kate Nepveu
> ObSF: Hmm. If _A Fire Upon The Deep_ were being written today, are
> there enough netizens with widely-enough recognized styles to provide
> bases for the AFUTD homages?
I don't read enough of _this_ group to say, but I could certainly do it
for another group (rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, which actually had
an _Atlas Shrugged_ parody written a few years ago that did a very nice
job of that). Even here, there are certainly a few people that I don't
even have to look at the headers to tell who's writing. So I think it
could be done--that is, if the _aFutD_ homages were restricted to one
newsgroup/hierarchy?
Richard Horton
On 27 Apr 2000 15:00:53 GMT, na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz)
wrote:
>I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as distinct from
>fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
Sheffield's entries in the Tor Jupiter series have been reliably
entertaining, though I'd stop short of calling them excellent.
--
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Phil Fraering
> >> Vowels omitted because they grep.
> >I hear you, bro.
> >Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
> CLAMS GOT LEGS!
THEY GREP
WE SLEEP
--
Phil Fraering "There's a vampire!"
p...@globalreach.net "...In the parcel!"
/Will work for tape/ "...In the kitchen!"
"...Hate Mail!"
Phil Fraering
> ORDOVER wrote:
>
> > CLAMS GOT LEGS!
>
> Be careful what you say - Clams got lawyers.
>
> cd
Can I use that in my .signature?
carl Dershem
carl Dershem
> Fill in the missing words of
> the following centuries-old proverb: "You can't _____ a ____ by its _____."
I hope that's a rhetorical idea. With the people who log on here regularly,
you could end up with *anything*!
Nancy Lebovitz
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>On 27 Apr 2000 18:45:56 GMT, James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>In article <slrn8gh26...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
>>P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>It's more twisted than that. The remark that "fans are slans" is generally
>>>meant ironically, since it takes very little observation to see that we, er,
>>>aren't.
>>>
>>>Degler, whose campaign to unify fandom into a "Cosmic Circle" that would
>>>civilization is documented in Harry Warner, Jr.'s magisterial history ALL
>>>OUR YESTERDAYS. Degler is a significant figure in the history of SF because
>>>his energetic continent-straddling halfwittery unwittingly vaccinated the SF
>>>demimonde against becoming the handmaiden of worse forms of crankery and
>>>idealism. After Degler had flamed out, it was forevermore difficult to see
>>>fandom as the vessel by which we would Save Humanity Through Science And
>>>Sanity. Thank goodness.
>>
>> Hmmm. I was going to cite the Sc**nt*l*g*sts as a counter-
>>example then thought about the implications for SF if you are in fact
>>correct: there's an alternate history where Mr. Dengler fixated on
>>something else and SF Fandom and Sc**nt*l*gy map onto each other
>>by 80% or 90% percent.
>
>
>Very possibly. In fact, what's most interesting about the 1950s
>intersection between, um, clams and slans is that so few of us ultimately
>dallied with them.
>
but superior enough to have created a few unusually high signal-to-noise
newsgroups.
Or maybe we just avoided Scientology because it would have taken too much
time away from fandom and from reading sf.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
The calligraphic button website is up!
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> If you can find a copy, I heartly recommend _The Grounding of
>Group Six_ to any kid heading off to camp for the first time. Not SF
>but I think the cross-genre appeal will be high.
>
By some bizaare coincidence, I've read it, and I agree that it's pretty
good. On the other hand, not only isn't it SF, it's not especially
recent.
>
>
> James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>>
>>I don't know if there's much excellent YA science fiction (as distinct from
>>fantasy) coming out these days. Any recommendations?
>
>"most distinguished contribution to American literature for children")
>
>Lois Lowry, _The Giver_ 1994 Newberry Award
>
>To pick up some non-American titles I'd add
>
>Garth Nix, _Shade's Children_ 1998 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
> 1997 Aurealis Award runner-up
>Phillip Pullman, _His Dark Materials_ (distinct from fantasy? we don't know yet)
>
Thanks for the list. It sounds as though _The Giver_ also has a possible
antecedent in _The Lathe of Heaven_.
Pete McCutchen
You need to find a better class of bookstores. Yes, Waldenbooks and
Wal Mart have lousy sf sections. But, in case you haven't noticed,
there are these really BIG bookstores sprouting up across the US of A,
called "Borders" and "Barnes and Noble," both of which typically have
excellent sf sections. And, if you happen to live so far from
civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
--
Pete McCutchen
P Nielsen Hayden
wrote:
>There's nothing wrong with Trek's labelling. What's lacking for
>Andrew, or anyone else who doesn't read Trek novels regularly and
>hasn't for several years, is _familiarity_ with the labelling.
Indeed. I might read Star Trek books if I didn't have the feeling that they
were written and packaged exclusively for an elite group of snobby
intellectual insiders. No wonder the franchise is losing steam. I hear
this from people all the time. Also, the lurkers support me in email.
--
P Nielsen Hayden
wrote:
>1. "Fans are slans" is not ALWAYS used in a heavily ironic manner.
>There are some people who think that at least some subsets of fandom
>have some superiority to the general population. Beyond that, it gets
>complicated quickly.
Very true. Mostly because whenever anyone asserts "fans are slans" as a
serious proposition, we all tend to move away from them on the Group W
bench.
>2. Degler resurfaced at least once and maybe twice, long after the
>events chronicled in accepted fan histories. My observations of
>accepted fan histories and Degler are that the former may often be
>inaccurate, incomplete, or deliberately distorted. With cases like
>Degler, however, my observations were that "it didn't matter." There is
>"bad" and there's "so bad you need to 'run away quickly' no matter
>why." Degler fit the later category. I looked and then ran.
Irv, are you hinting that you actually met Cosmic Claude? I think we should
be told. Inquiring minds want to know!
Eric D. Berge
ORDOVER wrote:
>
> >Do you realize that I, who have been away from nearly all Star Trek books
> >for a decade, have *exactly* the same problem when I walk past the shelves
> >of Trek books?
> >
> >The labelling doesn't help me. I can see that this is a DS9 book, but that
> >doesn't tell me whether I like what's being done with DS9 books these
> >days.
>
> I'd be very interesting in learning what kind of labelling of Trek novels would
> help you make that distinction.
How 'bout Contents: %USRDA
Robots 140
Rayguns 110
Spaceships 100
Time Travel 50
--
Eric Berge
---------------------------------------------------
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
---------------------------------------------------
thomas monaghan
>
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 18:37:33 -0500, thomas monaghan
> <tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes but how many of those raw numbers are tv/media btiein books. At my local
>> Walden's the tiein rack is about 2/3 the size of the regular SF. The local
>> Walmart has slots for approx. 8 SF books and usually 2 are Star Trek, 1 Star
>> Wars, and 1 D&D which doesn't leave much room for the non-media SF.
> Wal Mart have lousy sf sections. But, in case you haven't noticed,
> there are these really BIG bookstores sprouting up across the US of A,
> called "Borders" and "Barnes and Noble," both of which typically have
> excellent sf sections. And, if you happen to live so far from
> civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
> favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
> titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
>
limited the chance of midlist authors making an impact because quite often
they are never seen. The buyer for Walden's quite often will either order 1
book of a midlist author from ACE and Baen or sometimes none per store.
Makes it hard for a midlist author doesn't it.
Tom
Elisabeth Carey
You've missed Pete's point--which is that Walden's is not the be-all
and end-all of bookstores in America. The superstore chains _do_ carry
midlist authors in reasonable quantity, and even if you're not near a
superstore, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers
carry, effectively, _everything_.
Lis Carey
Rich Clark
"Elisabeth Carey" <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote in message
news:390967AB...@mediaone.net...
> You've missed Pete's point--which is that Walden's is not the be-all
> and end-all of bookstores in America. The superstore chains _do_ carry
> midlist authors in reasonable quantity, and even if you're not near a
> superstore, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers
> carry, effectively, _everything_.
Yes, but the tie-in reader is probably a Walden customer. S/he started
buying tie-ins on trips to the mall with Mom and Dad, and Walden serves
that market amply. These readers won't stumble upon mid-list titles
unless they go to Borders et al, but they have no motivation to go
there, since their tie-in sections aren't significantly better than
Walden's.
RichC
Jim Mann
thomas monaghan wrote in message ...
>Yes but how many of those raw numbers are tv/media btiein books. At my
local
>Walden's the tiein rack is about 2/3 the size of the regular SF. The local
>Walmart has slots for approx. 8 SF books and usually 2 are Star Trek, 1
Star
>Wars, and 1 D&D which doesn't leave much room for the non-media SF.
>
When I was growing up, if you calculated the percentage of the local
Walden's space dedicated to a combination of E.R. Burroughs, Conan, Doc
Savage, and Perry Rodan, it would probably approach the figures you note.
And the local supermarket or drugstore (we didn't have Walmarts back in
those days) would probably have 2 SF books mixed in with the many, many
romances, westerns, and so on.
---
Jim Mann
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>In article <8e9mjq$r33$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca>,
>James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>> If you can find a copy, I heartly recommend _The Grounding of
>>Group Six_ to any kid heading off to camp for the first time. Not SF
>>but I think the cross-genre appeal will be high.
>>
>By some bizaare coincidence, I've read it, and I agree that it's pretty
>good. On the other hand, not only isn't it SF, it's not especially
>recent.
Well, yes. Hmmm.
[hand wave]
I was of course thinking 'recent' on the scale of human history.
In which case I will recommend 'Umi, the Boy Who Became King' because
while not fantasy, a historical set in pre-Contact Hawaii is probably
close enough, it satisfies Ordover's rules of needing a youth power
fanasty [Umi goes from being just a Hawaiian peasant to being the
King's acknowledged son] and it has a footnote at the end telling what
really happened to Umi after the events of the book were over which
parents probably won't read totheir kids but which will make the
parents happy, I bet.
Imagine a European fantasy ending with our naive young fellow
discovering not only is he upper class, he's a -Borgia- and Lucretia
has invited him to dinner. That's Umi.
thomas monaghan
>>>> local
>>>> Walden's the tiein rack is about 2/3 the size of the regular SF. The local
>>>> Walmart has slots for approx. 8 SF books and usually 2 are Star Trek, 1
>>>> Star
>>>> Wars, and 1 D&D which doesn't leave much room for the non-media SF.
>>> You need to find a better class of bookstores. Yes, Waldenbooks and
>>> Wal Mart have lousy sf sections. But, in case you haven't noticed,
>>> there are these really BIG bookstores sprouting up across the US of A,
>>> called "Borders" and "Barnes and Noble," both of which typically have
>>> excellent sf sections. And, if you happen to live so far from
>>> civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
>>> favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
>>> titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
>>>
>> Pete you missed my point, what I saying was it is stores like this that
>> limited the chance of midlist authors making an impact because quite often
>> they are never seen. The buyer for Walden's quite often will either order 1
>> book of a midlist author from ACE and Baen or sometimes none per store.
>> Makes it hard for a midlist author doesn't it.
> You've missed Pete's point--which is that Walden's is not the be-all
> and end-all of bookstores in America. The superstore chains _do_ carry
> midlist authors in reasonable quantity, and even if you're not near a
> superstore, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers
> carry, effectively, _everything_.
>
like Waldens, Walmarts, Grocery stores, and small news shops. Say they sold
2 books in each of these stores that they are not in, considering there are
8 of these type stores in Bossier City (30,000 Pop. very approx.), if you
just take a guess it might mean additional sales 20,000 books. This by
itself would keep quite a few authors in print. Superstores, Amazon, and so
on is nice but if casual readers don't see a book on a shelf they won't be
buying it. The tv tie-ins like Star Trek and Star Wars are on those shelves
available for purchase and they get bought.
Tom
Irv Koch
> Irv, are you hinting that you actually met Cosmic Claude? I think we should
> be told. Inquiring minds want to know!
Letter exchange. He showed up in THE FANDOM DIRECTORY and some other
mailing lists I got. Details long since blurred by memory.
Andrew Plotkin
>
> "Elisabeth Carey" <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote in message
> news:390967AB...@mediaone.net...
>
>> and end-all of bookstores in America. The superstore chains _do_ carry
>> midlist authors in reasonable quantity, and even if you're not near a
>> superstore, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers
>> carry, effectively, _everything_.
>
> buying tie-ins on trips to the mall with Mom and Dad, and Walden serves
> that market amply. These readers won't stumble upon mid-list titles
> unless they go to Borders et al, but they have no motivation to go
> there, since their tie-in sections aren't significantly better than
> Walden's.
They are, though.
I estimate a typical mall-hole as having two or three racks of tie-ins,
and four or five of other SF. The last B&N I tried had four or five of
tie-ins, and twelve or fourteen of other SF.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Kylinn
>And, if you happen to live so far from
>civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
>favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
>titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
But you can't *browse* nearly as well in an online "bookstore". Amazon.com and
its ilk are great for getting stuff one knows one wants but can't locate
locally, but aren't nearly as good for looking for something one doesn't quite
have pegged yet.
--
I used to have a Heisenbergmobile, but every
time I looked at the speedometer, I got lost.
Keith Morrison
> >Very possibly. In fact, what's most interesting about the 1950s
> >intersection between, um, clams and slans is that so few of us ultimately
> >dallied with them.
> >
> That's because we really *are* superior. Not very superior, of course,
> but superior enough to have created a few unusually high signal-to-noise
> newsgroups.
>
> Or maybe we just avoided Sc**nt*l*gy because it would have taken too much
> time away from fandom and from reading sf.
I suspect that there are two reason. The first is that fans knew Elron
was a pulp SF writer. The second is that, once you get a glimpse of
the "secret teachings", you realize just what bad pulp SF it is.
--
Keith
Mike Kozlowski
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Rich Clark <rdclar...@traphome.com> wrote:
>> Yes, but the tie-in reader is probably a Walden customer. S/he started
>> buying tie-ins on trips to the mall with Mom and Dad, and Walden serves
>> that market amply. These readers won't stumble upon mid-list titles
>> unless they go to Borders et al, but they have no motivation to go
>> there, since their tie-in sections aren't significantly better than
>> Walden's.
>
>They are, though.
>
>I estimate a typical mall-hole as having two or three racks of tie-ins,
>and four or five of other SF. The last B&N I tried had four or five of
>tie-ins, and twelve or fourteen of other SF.
Plus, it unscientifically appears to me that little mall-store Waldenbooks
are dying and being replaced by big ol' B&Ns. Every mall I can think of
has a huge B&N (or Borders) by it, and not all of them have WaldenBooks.
--
Mike Kozlowski
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mkozlows/
Pete McCutchen
<rdclar...@TRAPhome.com> wrote:
>
>"Elisabeth Carey" <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote in message
>news:390967AB...@mediaone.net...
>
>> You've missed Pete's point--which is that Walden's is not the be-all
>> and end-all of bookstores in America. The superstore chains _do_ carry
>> midlist authors in reasonable quantity, and even if you're not near a
>> superstore, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers
>> carry, effectively, _everything_.
>
>Yes, but the tie-in reader is probably a Walden customer. S/he started
>buying tie-ins on trips to the mall with Mom and Dad, and Walden serves
>that market amply. These readers won't stumble upon mid-list titles
>unless they go to Borders et al, but they have no motivation to go
>there, since their tie-in sections aren't significantly better than
>Walden's.
A person so unadventurous that he or she never dares to so much as
enter a bookstore other than Waldenbooks at the local mall is unlikely
to like science fiction much, in any case. I suggest that such a
person is most likely to be satisfied boldly reading stories in
universes with which he or she is already familiar.
A lot of science fiction is being written, and published, and it's
available for anybody to purchase. If some people want to stick to
the media stuff, fine by me.
--
Pete McCutchen
Ian Montgomerie
>>Pete McCutchen p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net
>
>>And, if you happen to live so far from
>>civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
>>favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
>>titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
>
>But you can't *browse* nearly as well in an online "bookstore". Amazon.com and
>its ilk are great for getting stuff one knows one wants but can't locate
>locally, but aren't nearly as good for looking for something one doesn't quite
>have pegged yet.
Hm. I actually use Amazon to decide to read books I've never heard of.
Their ratings system is not hideously bad. The "other buyers of this book
bought XYZ" is relatively good, and the instant reviews available for many
books are good suggestions as well. What you need is a starting point,
something that you know you like. Based on that it's not hard to get
halfway decent recommendations.
Samuel Paik
> Yes but how many of those raw numbers are tv/media btiein books.
> At my local Walden's the tiein rack is about 2/3 the size of
> the regular SF.
That's pretty awful. The last time I was in a Waldenbooks
(about six months ago, the Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas),
media tie-ins were something like one shelf out of about six.
thomas monaghan <tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Pete you missed my point, what I saying was it is stores like
> this that limited the chance of midlist authors making an
> impact because quite often they are never seen.
Waldenbooks and Wal-Mart are very different markets.
For Wal-Mart, supermarkets, and other traditional ID markets,
the primary problem appears (to me) to be the explosion in the
number of books published, with possibly the reported collapse
of the mass market distribution system. When shelf space is
that limited, the stores simply are going to try to maximize
sales by trying to pick the fastest selling books. With the
loss of metis in the distributiors, this tends to devolve down
to New York Times best sellers and a scattering of what has
seemed to me to be rather random choices in various genres.
> Makes it hard for a midlist author doesn't it.
Repeat, when there are (an average of) 6 new books a day
vying for 8 shelf spots, anything but the top of the lists is
going to have a tough time.
Sam
[seen recently at Safeway: Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky,
Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic, Drake/Flint, An Oblique
Approach]
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Andrew Wheeler
ord...@aol.com (ORDOVER) wrote:
>When most of us here started reading SF, there sure as heck
weren't
>-fifteen-hundred-plus- SF and Fantasy books coming out every
year. That's a
>huge number of books to ask a new reader to sort through.
Yes, and there were only four TV channels in most towns. Movies
played for months on end, because fewer movies were released.
There were fewer options in _all_ areas of entertainment.
So why are book readers, whom we flatter ourselves to think tend
to be _more_ intelligent than mere TV watchers, uniquely at a
loss to find products they like? And why only SF readers, when
there are as many mysteries published in a year and an order of
magnitude more romances?
I haven't quite agreed with this argument since you started
talking about it, and I think I've finally realized why.
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SFBC
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Andrew Wheeler
monaghan <tmon...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>That is nice but midlist authors need those sales they are
>missing at places like Waldens, Walmarts, Grocery stores, and
>small news shops. Say they sold 2 books in each of these stores
>that they are not in, considering there are 8 of these type
>stores in Bossier City (30,000 Pop. very approx.), if you
>just take a guess it might mean additional sales 20,000 books.
But why should you, as a store owner, stock 2 copies each of 100
different books, at a low discount, instead of 100 copies each
(at a higher discount) of 2 books? Especially when the latter are
more likely to sell out and the former to have to be stripped and
returned for credit? Mass-market retailers (airports,
supermarkets, etc.) would much rather have a few books with
guaranteed sales than have to carry dozens of hit-and-miss
titles. That's the trend here, and nothing's going to stop it
(unless, of course, readers all band together and all buy
completely different books as mass-market outlets). What's
happened is purely rational business practices in action.
Andrew Wheeler
mkoz...@guy.ssc.wisc.edu (Mike Kozlowski) wrote:
>Plus, it unscientifically appears to me that little mall-store
>Waldenbooks are dying and being replaced by big ol' B&Ns. Every
>mall I can think of has a huge B&N (or Borders) by it, and not
>all of them have WaldenBooks.
It's true. The heyday of the "mall store" was in the '80s. B&N
has been closing B. Dalton mall stores faster than its been
opeing new superstores (of course, the superstores are *bigger*
and generate *more revenue*, so they're in good shape). The same
is true for Borders/Walden. I believe Walden stabilized last
year; they're down to about the right number of mall stores (the
profitable ones).
But the big story in bookselling for the last decade has been the
relentless increase of choice, both in conventional stores and
online. Mall stores and all other limited-choice outlets have had
to fight against that tide, not always successfully.
Pete McCutchen
>>Pete McCutchen p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net
>
>>And, if you happen to live so far from
>>civilization that Borders isn't an option, there's always your
>>favorite online purveyor of bookage. You can choose from thousands of
>>titles without even leaving the comfort of your own home!
>
>But you can't *browse* nearly as well in an online "bookstore". Amazon.com and
>its ilk are great for getting stuff one knows one wants but can't locate
>locally, but aren't nearly as good for looking for something one doesn't quite
>have pegged yet.
That's true enough, which is why I like to go to the bookstore. Even
so, Amazon and its ilk really are handy to have around. (Their
recommendations service, which really is getting smarter, is one step
in the direction of "online browsing."
--
Pete McCutchen
Gary J. Weiner
> >But you can't *browse* nearly as well in an online "bookstore". Amazon.com and
> >its ilk are great for getting stuff one knows one wants but can't locate
> >locally, but aren't nearly as good for looking for something one doesn't quite
> >have pegged yet.
>
> Hm. I actually use Amazon to decide to read books I've never heard of.
> Their ratings system is not hideously bad. The "other buyers of this book
> bought XYZ" is relatively good, and the instant reviews available for many
> books are good suggestions as well. What you need is a starting point,
> something that you know you like. Based on that it's not hard to get
> halfway decent recommendations.
Exactly. While browsing the stacks, looking at covers and reading blurbs
and a page or ten in random books are enjoyable ways to spend time, I
find that using online resources to find new and interesting stuff to
read yields better results.
As you point out, Amazon's online reviews and "people who bought this
book also bought ..." lists are generally useful. I find the latter
especially useful when shopping for books as gifts, especially if the
person I'm buying a gift for likes books in genre I'm not very familiar
with.
Secondly, there is Alexlit and (to a lesser extent) reccomendation
services like Amazon's and others to point in directions you might not
have thought of.
Also, there are tons of review sites for every type and genre of book.
Last (but certainly not least) there are usenet groups like this one
with people whose opinion I value. I've picked up plenty of book
suggestions by simply lurking and seeing what people like why.
If one was feeling particularly proactive, you could start a thread
asking for recommendations like, "What are some good first novels
published recently" or some such.
As much as I love bookstores, I rarely visit one these days unless I'm
in the area and have some time to kill or I need a book *right now*.
--
Gary J. Weiner \ "We've got a blind date with Destiny...and
webm...@hatrack.net \ it looks like she's ordered the lobster."
http://www.hatrack.net \ -The Shoveler, "Mystery Men"
"Hang Your Web With Us!"\
Rachel Brown
> >James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> If you can find a copy, I heartly recommend _The Grounding of
> >>Group Six_ to any kid heading off to camp for the first time. Not SF
> >>but I think the cross-genre appeal will be high.
> >>
> >By some bizaare coincidence, I've read it, and I agree that it's pretty
> >good. On the other hand, not only isn't it SF, it's not especially
> >recent.
It's kind-of sort-of sf, as I recall, as one of the characters (Ludi??) is
psychic or precognitive or something like that, and that's why her parents
can't deal with her.
I didn't like it, myself, nor any of Julian Thompson's other books. Even
at sixteen, his writing struck me as precious and smug. His teenagers are
slans, so to speak.
Rachel