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Editing in SF--Bad!

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Aviva Rothschild

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Dec 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/9/97
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As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
the story in the slightest. Moreover, there seems to have been a ban on
active voice; passive voice has taken over.

I understand that some of these books have been padded in order to make
a single story into a series, but that doesn't mean I approve of the
practice, or want to read these novels just because there are a lot of
them and I have some interest in the story.

I open the floor to discussion (as if posting didn't automatically do
that) from readers and authors: Have you perceived these editorial
flaws as well? Or am I over-sensitive? Authors, have you been satisfied
with the editing (or lack thereof) by your publishers? Readers, do you
truly enjoy these bulky books, or would you like to see them pared
down? How much of the literary "fat" are you skimming over, to mix
metaphors?

(This posting was inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "The Fey"
series, which is reasonably interesting but also annoying me with its
extensive use of passive voice, the endless arguments between
characters, and the constant repetition of explanations and details.)

Aviva
Picky, picky, picky!

Jo Walton

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Dec 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/9/97
to

In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>
av...@maroon.cudenver.edu "Aviva Rothschild" writes:

> (This posting was inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "The Fey"
> series, which is reasonably interesting but also annoying me with its
> extensive use of passive voice, the endless arguments between
> characters, and the constant repetition of explanations and details.)

The awful thing about these is not that they're bloated (though they
are) but the terrible howlers in them. I don't think they had a
first read, never mind an edit or a copy edit.

The second book - :The Fey: Changeling: - contains a really awful
line that anyone should have spotted.

Sort of unspecific spoilers - but the books are not IMO worth
the trouble of letting your eyes run over the print - go and
read everything else Rusch has written instead.

The Rusch book I really like and which sparked a really
interesting "borders of SF/fantasy/horror" discussion at
Eurocon/Octocon is :Alien Influences:.

Anyway - awful example of How Not to Do It.

There's a race called The Fey. They can be dissolved with holy
water. Some gets on the hair of one of them, and people are
working to save her life. There is description of her hair and the
top of her head melting. It's gory. It's a life-or-death situation.
Will she make it or not? Then "Her eyes rolled back in her head".
I had absolutely no way of knowing, until a good paragraph later
when she says "Her face was still untouched" whether this was
meant literally - her face was melting, her eyes rolled back...
or as one would generally mean it figuratively for someone fainting.
Yuck. There are _lots_ of little things like this. If I hadn't been
reading it on the train I'd have given up on it a lot sooner,
because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.

The first volume presents a quite interesting society, two societies,
and conflict - it's too long and the characters and plot aren't that
interesting, but I put up with that... yes, you're right, it _really_
needed editing.

How general this is, I'm not sure. I tend not to read trash and to be
very unforgiving of bad fantasy. I think there are authors out there
who have really benefitted from good editing at certain stages of their
careers. I've also heard horror stories about certain excellent British
writers who have had novels rejected because the editor in question
didn't have the time to do the work the manuscript needed (established
writer, and no I'm not naming names so don't ask, but I'm also talking
British publishers, this doesn't apply to the wider market.) But I would
say that I have read far fewer books where I've cried "This needed
editing!" than ones where I have.

You need to be _more_ picky. Also to remember that we are not the
market - the market is the people who buy all those Piers Anthony
and Jordan, we're lucky there are enough of us to keep the authors
we want to read in print, and make sure to support them by buying
them so that there _are_ enough of us.

--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.


Hypnos 164

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Dec 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/9/97
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On Tue, 9 Dec 1997 12:54:52 -0700, av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva
Rothschild) wrote:

>As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
>be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
>just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
>more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
>massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
>have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
>the story in the slightest. Moreover, there seems to have been a ban on
>active voice; passive voice has taken over.
>
>I understand that some of these books have been padded in order to make
>a single story into a series, but that doesn't mean I approve of the
>practice, or want to read these novels just because there are a lot of
>them and I have some interest in the story.
>

[snip]
>
>Aviva
>Picky, picky, picky!

Hmm,

I had generally assumed the following to be the case:

A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author
grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.

I liked this theory as it explains the fact that an authors books
always seem to get longer the later in the career they come

(Go on, arrange a few authors books in chronologial order and see if
you see what i mean)

Of course it could be that more sci-fi now concentrates on (wordy)
characters rather than plot/concepts

Matt.

Alter S. Reiss

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Dec 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/9/97
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On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Aviva Rothschild wrote:

> As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
> be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
> just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
> more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
> massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
> have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
> the story in the slightest. Moreover, there seems to have been a ban on
> active voice; passive voice has taken over.
>
> I understand that some of these books have been padded in order to make
> a single story into a series, but that doesn't mean I approve of the
> practice, or want to read these novels just because there are a lot of
> them and I have some interest in the story.
>

> I open the floor to discussion (as if posting didn't automatically do
> that) from readers and authors: Have you perceived these editorial
> flaws as well? Or am I over-sensitive? Authors, have you been satisfied
> with the editing (or lack thereof) by your publishers? Readers, do you
> truly enjoy these bulky books, or would you like to see them pared
> down? How much of the literary "fat" are you skimming over, to mix
> metaphors?

_Exile's Children_ by Angus Wells. It, well, it has made me
extremely leery of picking up anything else written by that author,
despite recommendations that I've gotten. It was a five hundred page (or
so) book that a good editor could have turned into the first twenty pages
of a real book. Shockingly enough, it was the first part of a trilogy,
which may have explained why only exposition happened throughout. Ugh.
I am perfectly willing to put up with thousand page books, so long as
stuff happens throughout, or even if the prose is sufficiently elegant to
keep me from noticing that nothing is happening, but in this case, neither
was present.
I would call something like this the Jordan effect. People have
noticed that massive series sell, particularly when the individual books
of the series are thick, and want to publish books of that type. Why
those books sell better than tightly written works may have something to
do with people's perceptions that they are geting six dollars worth of
book when it's a fat book, or some such similar factor. It's not
something I like.

-- Alter S. Reiss - www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 - asr...@ymail.yu.edu

"Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist"

Chris Camfield

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
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Hypnos 164 (Hypn...@fire-ball.demon.co.uk) writes:
> On Tue, 9 Dec 1997 12:54:52 -0700, av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva

> Rothschild) wrote:
>
>>As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
>>be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F.

[chop]


> A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author
> grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
> threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
> painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.

Same here.

Contributing factors:
- Some authors simply run lower on ideas (unless it's a lack of editing
that makes them get lazy...)
- Editors or publishers are greedy for sequels to bestsellers, even if
they're formulaic.

Chris


Jason Stokes

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
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In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>,
av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva Rothschild) wrote:

> As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to

> be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
> just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
> more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
> massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
> have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
> the story in the slightest.

For fantasy, this is intentional. I recently called Sara Douglass's work
"bloated" on a mailing list -- her answer was, basically, huge tomes are
what the readers _want_, and she'll keep counting her royalty checks.
What's worse is she is _right._

In article <348ec446...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Hypn...@fire-ball.demon.co.uk (Hypnos 164) wrote:

> A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author
> grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
> threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
> painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.

I think this is _generally_ the case, but I've read some pretty (IMHO)
bloated first novels. "Catch 22" springs to mind, as well as "Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And I've read novels so badly structured
I probably would have demanded a total rewrite had I been editing the
book.

The effect of editing on writing quality seems to be quite negligable.

--
Jason Stokes: j.stokes (at) bohm.anu.edu.au

I use a spam block. Replacd (at) with @ to discover my email address.

Nancy Lebovitz

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
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In article <19971210054...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,

JonAubrey <jona...@aol.com> wrote:
>>A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author
>>grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
>>threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
>>painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.
>>
>Nah. It's just that editors don't edit anymore--they don't have time. They
>spend most of their days running about dealing with corporate concerns like
>marketing and sales and P and L statements.
>
And, I gather, not getting enough money to hire someone else to do
the actual editting.

--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)

November '97 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!


Rob Hafernik

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

I've noticed a real trend lately of SPELLING mistakes in new books. In
one case, the book was a new edition of an old book (but without
changes). I found a copy of the earlier edition and the typo WASN'T
there.\

Don't these people have spelling checkers?

Bill McHale

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

Hypnos 164 (Hypn...@fire-ball.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: I had generally assumed the following to be the case:

: A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author


: grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
: threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
: painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.

: I liked this theory as it explains the fact that an authors books


: always seem to get longer the later in the career they come

: (Go on, arrange a few authors books in chronologial order and see if
: you see what i mean)

: Of course it could be that more sci-fi now concentrates on (wordy)
: characters rather than plot/concepts

Well as a rule the field is more tolerant of long books now than it was
even 20 years ago, When Dune came out it was considered a very big book
for its time (about 500 pgs). Now it would be considered only about
average.

--
Bill

***************************************************************************
(question == (2b || !2b)); If Shakespeare was a C programmer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home page - http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~wmchal1
***************************************************************************

Brendon Towle

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.

_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
were "I don't care about these people."

B.
--
Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu>
"Could God have prevented the serpent from tempting Adam and Eve? If yes,
why didn't he? If no, discuss the possibility that the serpent was as
powerful as God." --Harlan Ellison, "The Deathbird"

Larry Caldwell

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>,
av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva Rothschild) wrote:

> I open the floor to discussion (as if posting didn't automatically do
> that) from readers and authors: Have you perceived these editorial
> flaws as well? Or am I over-sensitive? Authors, have you been satisfied
> with the editing (or lack thereof) by your publishers? Readers, do you
> truly enjoy these bulky books, or would you like to see them pared
> down? How much of the literary "fat" are you skimming over, to mix
> metaphors?

Hmmm. Do you come here often? :)

Yes, I've moaned long and loud about the absence of editing.
The invention of the word processor has almost ruined modern SF.
If an author had to retype those piles of crap for submission,
you betcha whole sections would meet the redline in a hurry!

I truly enjoy bulky books, but not at the expense of the story. Art
is life without the clutter of detail. I don't want to read every
stinking detail of a character's life in the name of character
development. Far too many authors have no sense of what is important
and what is clutter.

From the books being published, it's obvious most editors have the
same problem.

-- Larry


Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>,

Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> wrote:
>
>> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
>
>_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
>were "I don't care about these people."

The *Eight* Deadly Words version, formulated on this group a
couple of years ago by (ahem) me, reads,

"I don't CARE *WHAT* happens to these people!"

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
(My account might go away at any moment; if I disappear, I haven't died.)

Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <shokwave-101...@as2-dialup-09.wc-aus.io.com>,

Rob Hafernik <shok...@well.com> wrote:
>Don't these people have spelling checkers?

Yes, they do, but as we all know (or should), there's a limit to
what spelling checkers will do.

I got my page proofs back a couple months ago and I diligently
went over them. I found at least one, not typo necessarily, but
thing-needing-correction, on two-thirds of the pages. And yet
the thing had clearly been gone over with a spelling checker.
Anywhere a typo had resulted in a non-word, it was corrected.
Anywhere a typo had resulted in an entirely different word, the
different word was let be. E.g., "pig-troops" [they looked like
pigs] became "pit-troops." (They fought in pits, maybe?) Or
my favorite: a reference to the Big- and Little-Endians (Swift,
y'know) came out "Big- and Little-Indians." That's an example of
an overly conscientious spell-checker and an insufficiently
erudite typesetter.

Brenda and Larry Clough

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

Rob Hafernik wrote:
>
> I've noticed a real trend lately of SPELLING mistakes in new books. In
> one case, the book was a new edition of an old book (but without
> changes). I found a copy of the earlier edition and the typo WASN'T
> there.\
>
> Don't these people have spelling checkers?


I was depressed in reading ST.LEIBOWITZ & THE WILD HORSE WOMAN to find a
perfectly simple and obvious typo. (Spelling "the" correctly is not
rocket science.) For a lead title by a classic author from a
prestigious publisher, this is not good.

--
Brenda W. Clough, author of HOW LIKE A GOD from Tor Books
<clo...@erols.com> http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda

Evelyn C. Leeper

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <shokwave-101...@as2-dialup-09.wc-aus.io.com>,

Rob Hafernik <shok...@well.com> wrote:
> I've noticed a real trend lately of SPELLING mistakes in new books. In
> one case, the book was a new edition of an old book (but without
> changes). I found a copy of the earlier edition and the typo WASN'T
> there.\
>
> Don't these people have spelling checkers?

Aye halve a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plainly Marx four my revue
miss steaks eye Cannes knot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your pleased too no.
Its letter perfect in it's whey:
my checker tolled me sew!

[author unknown]
--
Evelyn C. Leeper | ele...@lucent.com
+1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
"Those who do not learn from the future are destined to make mistakes in it."
--Warren Miller (New Yorker)

Jo Walton

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <j.stokes-101...@g32mac02.anu.edu.au>
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au "Jason Stokes" writes:

> I think this is _generally_ the case, but I've read some pretty (IMHO)
> bloated first novels. "Catch 22" springs to mind, as well as "Zen and the
> Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And I've read novels so badly structured
> I probably would have demanded a total rewrite had I been editing the
> book.

:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: is neither bloated nor
a novel.

Jo Walton

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>
to...@ils.nwu.edu "Brendon Towle" writes:

> In article <881700...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> > because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
>
> _Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
> were "I don't care about these people."

"I don't care what happens to these people".

David Klecha

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

Aviva Rothschild <av...@maroon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
: As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
: be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
: just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
: more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
: massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
: have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
: the story in the slightest. Moreover, there seems to have been a ban on

: active voice; passive voice has taken over.

I wouldn't exactly say that this is a new problem, though perhaps one
Science Fiction and Fantasy have been spared in their relatively young
existence as a literary genre. For example, there are Dostoevsky's
massive tomes, such as "Crime and Punishment" or "The Brothers Karamazov"
(interestingly enough, the beginning of an unfinished trilogy). Both
were written for nineteenth century Russian literary magazines that paid
by the word, which is almost certainly why the books were that huge.

However, we have come from a time where there were relatively few Science
Fiction authors, and a relatively small market for it. The market almost
demanded super-high-quality (literarily speaking) work in a tight format.
Editors were ruthless with their precious press time or magazine space.

But now, I think, SF/F has entered the "bloated mass market" stages of
life. With such tremendous "popular" interest in SF/F (fueled mainly by
Hollywood), the demand for new, fresh SF/F (especially since Hollywood
seems to be relying on novelists for new story ideas) is almost
insatiable.

So what happens?

Joe-Shmo Fantasy Writer has 4,000 pages of some incomprehensible fantasy
epic that he wants published. The editor looks at the synopsis (which in
itself probably takes a week to read), gets dollar-signs in his eyes
whilst chanting "Robert Jordan" in his head, and signs Shmo to a contract.
Thus another shelf in Barnes & Noble bends under the weight of
yet-another-damn-fantasy-epic-series. And lots of people buy it. Some
don't like it, but Mr. Shmo has already cashed his royalty checks and B&N
doesn't want the book back, thankyouverymuch.

Meanwhile, across town, Joe-Shmuck is still writing tightly-plotted,
grammatically correct, well-spelled and -typed, active voice, exciting
narratives with little to no excess fat. Fortunately for Joe-Shmuck,
there is still an active, thriving audience looking for his sort of work,
and he routinely gets published. However, to us of the thriving audience,
we are having trouble discerning between Joe-Shmuck and Joe-Shmo. The
publisher, alas and alack, has not been thoughtful enough to label either
book as what it is. They just seem to be lumped in this general category
of "Science Fiction/Fantasy."

Fortunately, there are forums such as these for people to share their
views with a large audience on which books are good and which are bad and
for what reasons. Unfortunately, some of these reviews merely come out as
"I likeded it, uh-huh-huh." But, eventually, we tend to learn who has a
discerning reader's eye and who is merely a pawn of the mass market glut.
And so those of us who prefer the sort of thing that Ms. Rothschild
prefers find out what is worth reading.

In the meantime, though, us unlucky souls discover that our beloved SF/F
editors have discovered one of the evil truths of publishing: "Just about
anything sells, as long as it has a genre attachment and is in something
resembling English." This is probably rather cynical and even slightly
untrue, but nobody seems to have let SF/F publishers in on it yet. And
so, perhaps, one day the Great Collapse will come and the bottom of the
SF/F market will fall out, and publishers will suddenly realize that the
only stuff being bought and read is the really good, really well-editted
stuff, and a State of Happiness shall resume. But I don't know if I'd
count on it.

And then again, I could be wrong. :)

dk
--
David Klecha---------------------------->kle...@bugsy.csis.gvsu.edu
| "Hey look! It's not my fault! It's some guy named |
| 'General Protection.'" -Ratbert, 12/18/96 |
Russian Studies/History/CS------------>http://www2.gvsu.edu/~klechad

Del Cotter

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997, in rec.arts.sf.written
Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> wrote

>> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
>
>_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
>were "I don't care about these people."

"I Don't Care What Happens To..."

--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk

David Kennedy

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>,
to...@ils.nwu.edu (Brendon Towle) writes:

> In article <881700...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
>> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
>
> _Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
> were "I don't care about these people."

(1) Most people's version:

"I don't care what happens to these people."

(2) My alternate version:

"I'm bored, and want to read something else."

--
David Kennedy, Dept. of Pure & Applied Physics, Queen's University of Belfast
Email: D.Ke...@Queens-Belfast.ac.uk | URL: http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dcjk/
My .sig was so clever that it actually escaped!

Graydon

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>,
Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> wrote:
>In article <881700...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
>
>_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
>were "I don't care about these people."

These people are all too stupid to live?

That's more usually my problem with books than with a priori not caring
about them, although that reaction _leads_ to the not caring reaction
quite quickly, so Dorothy's basic description remains more general.
--
goo...@interlog.com | "However many ways there may be of being alive, it
--> mail to Graydon | is certain that there are vastly more ways of being
dead." - Richard Dawkins, :The Blind Watchmaker:

JonAubrey

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Dec 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/10/97
to

>A new authors early works get edited pretty well, but as an author
>grows in readership he can demand more 'creative control' on the
>threat of taking the books elsewhere. Thus escaping the sometimes
>painful truth that half of his/her output is pointless padding.
>
>

Nah. It's just that editors don't edit anymore--they don't have time. They


spend most of their days running about dealing with corporate concerns like
marketing and sales and P and L statements.

Jon

John Boston

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <shokwave-101...@as2-dialup-09.wc-aus.io.com>,
shok...@well.com says...

>
>I've noticed a real trend lately of SPELLING mistakes in new books.
In
>one case, the book was a new edition of an old book (but without
>changes). I found a copy of the earlier edition and the typo WASN'T
>there.\
>
>Don't these people have spelling checkers?


Then there are things like the following, from MISSISSIPPI
BLUES by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Tor, just published), page 86:

"'You can't take them there horses,' came a sharp voice from
the shadows.
"They turned. A man walked toward them slowly, holding a
shotgun across his chest. His hair was long and grizzled, his clothes
unkempt.
"'Why not?' asked Blaze. 'Who do they belong to? You?'
"The old man looked puzzled and his grip on the rifle relaxed."

There's more. A few lines before the quoted passage, one of
the characters says she can't ride bareback, and Blaze proposes getting
some bridles and saddles out of the tack room. Just before the guy
with the rifle or shotgun shows up, they have selected two halters--no
mention of bridles and saddles. He starts shooting at them and they
get on the horses and flee--obviously, riding bareback.

Or maybe this is just postmodern--unreliable narrator, you know.

John Boston


Nancy Lebovitz

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <66mlsm$46d$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>Yes, they do, but as we all know (or should), there's a limit to
>what spelling checkers will do.
>
>I got my page proofs back a couple months ago and I diligently
>went over them. I found at least one, not typo necessarily, but
>thing-needing-correction, on two-thirds of the pages. And yet
>the thing had clearly been gone over with a spelling checker.
>Anywhere a typo had resulted in a non-word, it was corrected.
>Anywhere a typo had resulted in an entirely different word, the
>different word was let be. E.g., "pig-troops" [they looked like
>pigs] became "pit-troops." (They fought in pits, maybe?) Or
>my favorite: a reference to the Big- and Little-Endians (Swift,
>y'know) came out "Big- and Little-Indians." That's an example of
>an overly conscientious spell-checker and an insufficiently
>erudite typesetter.
>
One little, two little, three little Endians.....

And note that it wasn't a matter of making a typo into a different
typo--it was adding a typo where none had existed before.

Remember the good old days when people thought computers would
make everything debilitatingly rational?

WooF

unread,
Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to


On 11 Dec 1997, John Boston wrote:

> "They turned. A man walked toward them slowly, holding a
> shotgun across his chest. His hair was long and grizzled, his clothes
> unkempt.
> "'Why not?' asked Blaze. 'Who do they belong to? You?'
> "The old man looked puzzled and his grip on the rifle relaxed."

[snip] [citation of a writer who didn't know the difference between a
halter and a saddle]

A lot of this is simply elegant variation gone out of control -- the
compulsion never to use the same word twice on a page. Fowler (the Fowler
of _A Dctionary of Modern English Usage_ and Strunk & White of _The
Elements of Style_ have unkind words to say about the practice). Less
obvious, perhaps, but sometimes even more confusing to the reader, is the
writer who will refer to an important character in a story as "the
Doctor," then "Jane," then "O'Smith," then "the Pathologist," then "the
blonde," . . . and so on 'round the loop, instead of simply (and clearly)
identifying her as "Dr. Jane O'Smith, the blonde Pathologist" the first
time she steps on stage, and then as Jane* every time thereafter (or, if
she steps off stage for a bunch of pages, as something like "Jane, the
Pathologist," when she's finished doing whatever she was doing with those
pages).

*Note that what one uses as the short-hand name depends on who else are on
stage (will be on stage, have been on stage), and with what degree of
formality the point of view character views that character: "Jane" if on a
first-name basis, "Dr O'Smith," if on a formal basis . . . and so on. If
several more people named "Jane" are to show up in the second act, you'd
beter call the lady "O'Smith" instead.


George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com

Jo Walton

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <66muj7$g80$1...@news.qub.ac.uk>
D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk "David Kennedy" writes:

> (1) Most people's version:
>
> "I don't care what happens to these people."
>
> (2) My alternate version:
>
> "I'm bored, and want to read something else."

:Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
it worth pressing on?

Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

On 11 Dec 1997 03:40:02 GMT, jbo...@mindspring.com (John Boston)
wrote:

> Then there are things like the following, from MISSISSIPPI
>BLUES by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Tor, just published), page 86:
>
> "'You can't take them there horses,' came a sharp voice from
>the shadows.

> "They turned. A man walked toward them slowly, holding a
>shotgun across his chest. His hair was long and grizzled, his clothes
>unkempt.
> "'Why not?' asked Blaze. 'Who do they belong to? You?'
> "The old man looked puzzled and his grip on the rifle relaxed."
>

> There's more. A few lines before the quoted passage, one of
>the characters says she can't ride bareback, and Blaze proposes getting
>some bridles and saddles out of the tack room. Just before the guy
>with the rifle or shotgun shows up, they have selected two halters--no
>mention of bridles and saddles. He starts shooting at them and they
>get on the horses and flee--obviously, riding bareback.

THIS is the sort of stuff they pay copy editors to catch. That the
copy editor did not do so indicates that he or she is incompetent and
should not be hired again.

I once had a character finish the same cup of coffee twice. Nobody
caught the error until after the book was published -- but the copy
editor had made literally hundreds of stupid little changes, 90% of
which I changed back in the proofs. I can now recognize that copy
editor's style and will protest violently if I ever see it again on
anything I wrote.

I also once had a copy editor on a seafaring fantasy who clearly knew
nothing whatsoever about either square-rigged ships or Irish myth;
apparently she was excellent on other stuff, but totally out of her
depth on that story. She didn't miss stuff, or change things she
shouldn't, but she queried and queried and queried on stuff she didn't
understand that was fine as it was.

Anyway, it's possible Goonan's CE doesn't know a rifle and a shotgun
are different, but I have trouble with the horse-tack error even then.


--
TOUCHED BY THE GODS: Hardcover, Tor Books, now available! $24.95
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 12/9/97

Kate Nepveu

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <66muj7$g80$1...@news.qub.ac.uk>
: D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk "David Kennedy" writes:

: > (2) My alternate version:


: > "I'm bored, and want to read something else."

: :Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
: it worth pressing on?

Well, there's the ability to rant along with me about how you don't like
the complete re-architecting of the universe... but other than that, no.

--
Kate

"There's no such thing as magic."
"Shut up, Horatio."
"My philosophy's as good as yours!"
--Pamela Dean, _The Secret Country_

David Kennedy

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <881869...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,

J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
> In article <66muj7$g80$1...@news.qub.ac.uk>
> D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk "David Kennedy" writes:
>
>> (1) Most people's version:
>> "I don't care what happens to these people."
>>
>> (2) My alternate version:
>> "I'm bored, and want to read something else."
>
>:Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
> it worth pressing on?

Ask me again when it's out in paperback.

(I'm kicking myself for not cracking and buying the 9.99 US import
HB I saw last week. I didn't think Endymion was as good as Hyperion/Fall of..
but it was still good.)

ORAC

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>,
av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva Rothschild) wrote:

>As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
>be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
>just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
>more prevalent in the books I read; I'm also concerned about the
>massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
>have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
>the story in the slightest. Moreover, there seems to have been a ban on
>active voice; passive voice has taken over.
>

>I understand that some of these books have been padded in order to make
>a single story into a series, but that doesn't mean I approve of the
>practice, or want to read these novels just because there are a lot of
>them and I have some interest in the story.


>
>I open the floor to discussion (as if posting didn't automatically do
>that) from readers and authors: Have you perceived these editorial
>flaws as well? Or am I over-sensitive? Authors, have you been satisfied
>with the editing (or lack thereof) by your publishers? Readers, do you
>truly enjoy these bulky books, or would you like to see them pared
>down? How much of the literary "fat" are you skimming over, to mix
>metaphors?

As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
in the novels I've read in the last several years.

I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's. I first
noticed this trend in the late 1970's, but in the last twenty years it's
only gotten worse and worse. The stories suffer for it, IMHO, because
authors feel obligated to pad stories out to make at least a trilogy, if
not a longer series.

My favorite example of this bloat is a series I liked very much at first,
Robert Jordan's WHEEL OF TIME series. The first novel in the series,
although it was around 500-600 pages long, was tightly plotted and kept me
wanting to read more. So did the second and third novels. Over time,
however, I started to get the distinct feeling that the novels were being
padded. Chapters were taken to describe incidents that could have probably
been handled in a couple of pages. The last two novels meandered aimlessly
for 700 pages or so, with no signs of the overall story advancing much. I
could barely finish them. Jordan is now on--what is it?-- the eight book,
with no end to the saga in sight. I doubt that I'll continue to read the
series, but once I've invested this much into it I find it hard to stop,
even when I should.

I know I'm setting myself up for flames from Robert Jordan fans; so, to
spread it out, I'll mention a couple other offenders: Piers Anthony, who
seems to write ONLY series of novels, the Xanth novels being the most
obvious example; and the Terry Brooks Shannara books, which I stopped
reading after the second volume.

I can understand the desire to capitalize on a popular novel with a
series, but after a while it turns into sheer laziness and profit-seeking.
After all, it can easier to write a story about the same world and
characters than it is to come up with a new world and characters. There
has to be a balance that can be struck between capitalizing on popular
titles and characters with more books and new material. Likewise, I can't
believe that EVERY novel is worthy of being turned into a series. Some of
the best novels I ever read were one-shot stand-alone novels.

This is a large part of the reason that I seldom read much fantasy
anymore. I've switched back to reading hard SF, which was always my first
love anyway. But even there, I can't escape the sequel. For instance, Greg
Bear has his Thistledown books and his most recent book is a sequel to
QUEEN OF ANGELS.

I guess you just can't win these days. I know that series have been with
SF as long as there has been SF. (Think of Asimov's Daneel Olivaw robot
books, such CAVES OF STEEL and THE NAKED SUN, and his FOUNDATION series;
Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan and John Carter stories; Herbert's DUNE
series.) I also think that, the longer a series continues, the more
quality suffers. The latter stories in nearly all the aforementioned
series were considerably inferior to their earlier stories.

Further comments?

--
MY E-MAIL ADDRESS HAS BEEN SURGICALLY ALTERED TO HINDER SPAM TO ME.
TO GET AT MY REAL E-MAIL ADDRESS, DELETE THE HYPHEN!

ORAC |"A statement of fact cannot be
a.k.a. | insolent." ORAC
David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D.|
University of Chicago |

Pat Powers

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

In article <348EC4...@erols.com>, clo...@erols.com wrote:

I gotta tell ya -- as a fiction reader, if the story is engaging and the
characters are interesting, I don't give a flying furk about typos.
Nonficiton is different, of cours.


> Rob Hafernik wrote:
> >
> > I've noticed a real trend lately of SPELLING mistakes in new books. In
> > one case, the book was a new edition of an old book (but without
> > changes). I found a copy of the earlier edition and the typo WASN'T
> > there.\
> >
> > Don't these people have spelling checkers?
>
>

> I was depressed in reading ST.LEIBOWITZ & THE WILD HORSE WOMAN to find a
> perfectly simple and obvious typo. (Spelling "the" correctly is not
> rocket science.) For a lead title by a classic author from a
> prestigious publisher, this is not good.
>
> --
> Brenda W. Clough, author of HOW LIKE A GOD from Tor Books
> <clo...@erols.com> http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda

--
Visit www.islandford.w1.com and know the beauty and terror of Karg, enjoy
the Fauxtoons and the Celebrity Clones, and generally have a good time --
mostly for free.

Alter S. Reiss

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to

On 10 Dec 1997, Graydon wrote:

> Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> wrote:
> >In article <881700...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> >> because I was saying the Eight Deadly Words.
> >
> >_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
> >were "I don't care about these people."
>
> These people are all too stupid to live?

I wonder what's on TV? That's always been my formulation for
dropping a book...

-- Alter S. Reiss - www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 - asr...@ymail.yu.edu

"Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist"


Brenda and Larry Clough

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Dec 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/11/97
to ORAC
> ORAC |"A statement of fact cannot be
> a.k.a. | insolent." ORAC
> David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D.|
> University of Chicago |


Well, mine is a 1997 publication!

David Kennedy

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <dgorski-1112...@maxreader.bsd.uchicago.edu>,

dgo...@xsi-te.net (ORAC) writes:
>
> My favorite example of this bloat is a series I liked very much at first,
> Robert Jordan's WHEEL OF TIME series.
[snip]

> The last two novels meandered aimlessly
> for 700 pages or so, with no signs of the overall story advancing much.
[snip]

> I know I'm setting myself up for flames from Robert Jordan fans; so, to
> spread it out, I'll mention a couple other offenders: Piers Anthony, who
> seems to write ONLY series of novels, the Xanth novels being the most
> obvious example; and the Terry Brooks Shannara books, which I stopped
> reading after the second volume.

I don't think that comparing Jordan to Piers Anthony and Terry Brooks
was the best way to avoid flames! :-)

(I agree re: Jordan though, I _liked_ the first few books, I recall
enjoying The Shadow Rising very much indeed. In contrast I can
barely recall what happened in the last couple, never mind the
which volume was which, and I've little desire to read the next.)

Ethan A Merritt

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <dgorski-1112...@maxreader.bsd.uchicago.edu>,

ORAC <dgo...@xsi-te.net> wrote:
>
>I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.

You'd lose.
Some excellent examples:

_The Innkeeper's Song_ Peter Beagle
not a single word of bloat in sight here

_Winter Rose_ Patricia McKillip
or here

_Tigana_, _A Song For Arbonne_, _Lions of Al-Rassan_ G G Kay
not a trilogy (except in an old and perhaps forgotten
thematic sense), not a series. Individually they are
fairly hefty books, so perhaps if your attention span
is short you could complain of "bloat"


Ethan A Merritt
mer...@u.washington.edu

Splints

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
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ORAC wrote:

I read somewhere that AC Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama was intended to be a
ONE-OFF novel, but he ended it with the words 'Raman's do everything in
Threes.' and so, the series was born.

Most of the novels I've read have left me with that WIZZ_BANG_WOWEE feeling,
and I've avidly looked forward to the next in the series, but more often than
not, when it came out, I felt let down. This is usually because the
original plot has been extended out another hundred thousand words or so, and
it just can't take it.

But is this the author's fault, or the editor/publisher's. It's all about
money today, not literary genius.

Were I an author who'd written a good, solid SF first novel, I wonder if I'd
be able to resist writing a sequel when they dangled several thousand bucks
under my nose. I doubt it. And I'd probably extend the plot of my first
novel out until it became mundane and forced, and the story no longer
naturally flowed.

But then ... I'm human ... and I like money.

Tony Plank

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--------------FDB64B2F27AFAB65E2FBF01A--


Rich Horton

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

On Thu, 11 Dec 97 19:40:57 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
wrote:

>:Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
>it worth pressing on?

John Clute sure as heck thought so, and I usually trust him. (Though
his novel, _The Disinheriting Party_, tried me sorely, and by the end
(fortunately it's short) I was just reading more or less disconnected
words.) But on the other hand ... _Endymion_ didn't tempt me at all.

--
Rich Horton

Dan Goodman

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

I think it should be pointed out that SF editing wasn't always good in the
Good Old Days. There used to sometimes be _too much_ cutting.

Example: The book version of Keith Laumer's _Worlds of the Imperium_
lacks the absolute best part of the magazine-serial version. Luckily,
it's reprinted in Damon Knight's collection _A Century of Science
Fiction_.

--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.

john jordan III

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

I agree that editing has deteriorated in recent printed works of all
kinds. This a minor flaw thow I don't like it, and something should be
done about it. But my major peeve is that the publishers of sf have
reduced their new titles in publication. I used to buy five or six sf
alone each week out of a larger selection, now I can't even find five or
six new titles a week. The other catagories are almost as bad, you would
think they didn't want to sell any new books. So bad as some of the
editing and gramar is we have to hope the stories they decide to print
are are worth it, in spite of their defects.

Hear me bable
John Jordan III

Sion Arrowsmith

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <Pine.A41.3.95.971211...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,

Alter S. Reiss <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>On 10 Dec 1997, Graydon wrote:
>> Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> wrote:
>> >_Eight_ deadly words? I had always thought that the _six_ deadly words
>> >were "I don't care about these people."
>> These people are all too stupid to live?
> I wonder what's on TV? That's always been my formulation for
>dropping a book...

"I can write better than this" usually has me throwing a book
across the room. Well, not literally, I disapprove of physical
violence to books. And I'll usually pick it up again. My normal
reason for abandonning a book is "This prose is too turgid to
read" as I never really care about characters anyway, although
I've just put a book down on the basis of "This is offensively
racist" (and it wasn't by RAH).

--
\S -- si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
___ | Spot the sleevenotes #9: | 88% of clowns
\X/ | "This album is dedicated to Glastonbury '97 | never fall
<*> | and all who sailed in her..." | in love

Sion Arrowsmith

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <66q4kh$avv$1...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,

Ethan A Merritt <mer...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> _Tigana_, _A Song For Arbonne_, _Lions of Al-Rassan_ G G Kay
>not a trilogy (except in an old and perhaps forgotten thematic sense)

Certainly a trilogy in the thematic sense, one about "the
relationship between storytelling and history and magic and the
world as we know it" (<1kd*Er...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
thank you DejaNews). But in every other sense, they are fine
examples of modern, stand-alone fantasy novels. Curious how
they're orders of magnitude better than the same author's
earlier trilogy....

Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997 18:55:57 -0500, Brenda and Larry Clough
<clo...@erols.com> wrote:

>ORAC wrote:
>>
>> I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>> be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>> thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>> seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>> about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>>
>

>Well, mine is a 1997 publication!

So is mine. (See .sig.) A big fat fantasy novel that's not part of a
series.

Of course, if it sells in huge numbers it may BECOME a series, but it
isn't planned as one.

Aviva Rothschild

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

dgo...@xsi-te.net,News writes:
>I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems
>to
>be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer
>such a
>thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's. I first
>noticed this trend in the late 1970's, but in the last twenty years it's
>only gotten worse and worse. The stories suffer for it, IMHO, because
>authors feel obligated to pad stories out to make at least a trilogy, if
>not a longer series.

I could probably live with it if the books could stand on their own,
but they never do any more. I HATE partial books! Among other things,
it's impossible to pick up a book in the middle of a series. There are
plenty of non-SF/F authors who write series where the books are each
individuals. IMHO, this silly padding in SF/F not only points up the
dearth of real ability in many of today's writers, it also makes the
genres look bad to outsiders.

Aviva

Andrew Plotkin

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

Ethan A Merritt (mer...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
> In article <dgorski-1112...@maxreader.bsd.uchicago.edu>,
> ORAC <dgo...@xsi-te.net> wrote:
> >
> >I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
> >be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
> >thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
> >seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
> >about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> >part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.

> You'd lose.
> Some excellent examples: [snipped]

Forget not _Freedom and Necessity_.

Furthermore, there are many more books which are parts of series, but
which (contrary to your plaint) *do* stand alone, and are a single unit
of storytelling.

--Z

--

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."

Aviva Rothschild

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

nan...@universe.digex.net,News writes:
>And note that it wasn't a matter of making a typo into a different
>typo--it was adding a typo where none had existed before.

Oh, yes. When I worked on a publication called American Reference Books
Annual, we had a stylistic rule where words like "dialogue" and
"catalogue" were stripped of the "ue." So our proofreader changed
"synagogue." I still get a chuckle out of that one!

Aviva

Martijn Faassen

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

>As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
>in the novels I've read in the last several years.
>
>I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.

While I agree with the sentiment that fantasy tends to be impossibly bloated,
some stand alone fantasy novels are still being written:

_The Element of Fire_, and _City of Bones_, both by Martha Wells, are not part
of trilogies and don't even share the same universe. They're nice, and part of
what makes them nice is that they stand on their own.

Martijn
--
Martijn Faassen email:faa...@phil.ruu.nl
Pessimist's Definition of Optimism : Failing to learn from life.
Optimist's Definition of Pessimism : Failing to learn to live.

ORAC

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <34907D...@erols.com>, clo...@erols.com wrote:

>ORAC wrote:

>> As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
>> in the novels I've read in the last several years.
>>
>> I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>> be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>> thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>> seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>> about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.

>Well, mine is a 1997 publication!

Ah, but if it sells well, I bet you'll find it hard to resist the
temptation to make it into a series. :-)

Evelyn C. Leeper

unread,
Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to
> When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.

While I don't read as much fantasy as science fiction, I find these titles
among the non-series fantasy I reviewed in the 1990's:
James Morrow's "Only Begotten Daughter"
Terry Bisson's "Talking Man"
Sheri Tepper's "Beauty"
Jane Yolen's "Briar Rose"
John Barthelme's "The King"
Martin Amis's "Time's Arrow"
Thomas Monteleone's "Blood of the Lamb"
Ian McDonald's "Broken Land"
Dan Simmons's "Children of the Night"
Gore Videl's "Live from Golgotha"
Roger Zelazny's "Night in the Lonesome October"
Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Thread That Binds the Bones"
Harry Turtledove's "Case of the Toxic Spell Dump"
Edward B. Hanna's "Whitechapel Horrors"
Steven Brust's "Agyar"
Sam Siciliano's "Angel of the Opera"
Holly Lisle's "Minerva Wakes"
Robert Charles Wilson's "Mysterium"
L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s "Of Tangible Ghosts"
Charles de Lint's "Wild Wood"
Katherine Kurtz's "Two Crowns for America"
Ellen Galford's "Dyke & the Dybbuk"
Dan Jacobson's "The God-Fearer"
Brain Stableford's "Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires"
Lisa Goldstein's "Summer King, Winter Fool"
Lisa Goldstein's "Tourists"
Esther Friesner's "Child of the Eagle "
John Barnes's "One for the Morning Glory "
Lisa Goldstein's "Walking the Labyrinth"
Christopher Priests's "The Prestige"
Jerry Jay Carroll's "Top Dog"

--
Evelyn C. Leeper | ele...@lucent.com
+1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
"Those who do not learn from the future are destined to make mistakes in it."
--Warren Miller (New Yorker)

Brenda and Larry Clough

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

ORAC wrote:
>
> In article <34907D...@erols.com>, clo...@erols.com wrote:
>
> >ORAC wrote:
>
> >> As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
> >> in the novels I've read in the last several years.
> >>
> >> I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
> >> be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
> >> thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
> >> seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
> >> about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> >> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>
> >Well, mine is a 1997 publication!
>
> Ah, but if it sells well, I bet you'll find it hard to resist the
> temptation to make it into a series. :-)
>
> --
> MY E-MAIL ADDRESS HAS BEEN SURGICALLY ALTERED TO HINDER SPAM TO ME.
> TO GET AT MY REAL E-MAIL ADDRESS, DELETE THE HYPHEN!
>
> ORAC |"A statement of fact cannot be
> a.k.a. | insolent." ORAC
> David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D.|
> University of Chicago |


If editors want to rub zillions of dollars up and down my body, I will
find it difficult to refuse, 'tis true.

Ninni M Pettersson

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

Ethan A Merritt <mer...@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> ORAC <dgo...@xsi-te.net> wrote:
> >
> >I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
> >be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
> >thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
> >seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
> >about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> >part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>

> You'd lose.
> Some excellent examples:
>

> _The Innkeeper's Song_ Peter Beagle
> not a single word of bloat in sight here
>
> _Winter Rose_ Patricia McKillip
> or here
>

> _Tigana_, _A Song For Arbonne_, _Lions of Al-Rassan_ G G Kay
> not a trilogy (except in an old and perhaps forgotten

> thematic sense), not a series. Individually they are
> fairly hefty books, so perhaps if your attention span
> is short you could complain of "bloat"

Other *very* good examples of a stand-alone fantasy novels published in
the 90s are _Deerskin_ by Robin McKinley (1993) and her newest _Rose
Daughter_ (though this is not as good as Deerskin IMHO). Both of them
mercyfully free from needless verbiage.

And Pamela Dean's _Tam Lin_ was published in 1990 so it qualifies too.
Though it's a rather long book, it can certainly not be called
"bloated", at least not IMHO.

/Ninni Pettersson

--
Mail-adress "anti-spammed" - remove INTE
http://www.algonet.se/~arador/md_home.html

ORAC

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <66rtpk$5...@laurel.stud.phil.ruu.nl>, faa...@phil.ruu.nl
(Martijn Faassen) wrote:

>>As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
>>in the novels I've read in the last several years.
>>
>>I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>>be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>>thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>>seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>>about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>>part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>

>While I agree with the sentiment that fantasy tends to be impossibly bloated,
>some stand alone fantasy novels are still being written:
>
>_The Element of Fire_, and _City of Bones_, both by Martha Wells, are not part
>of trilogies and don't even share the same universe. They're nice, and part of
>what makes them nice is that they stand on their own.

Part of the problem is that I've been so disgusted with the fantasy I've
seen out there that I pretty much stopped buying and reading fantasy
novels a few years ago. Every now and then, I check out the shelves at
various bookstores, but I seldom find anything that looks interesting. If
those novels that you mention are as good as you say, I might just check
them out--after I get through my backlog of about 8 or 9 novels that are
sitting around my apartment unread...

ORAC

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

>ORAC wrote:
>>
>> In article <34907D...@erols.com>, clo...@erols.com wrote:
>>
>> >ORAC wrote:
>>

>> >> As a longtime SF/F fan, I've seen a lot of fat and not much meat, at least
>> >> in the novels I've read in the last several years.
>> >>
>> >> I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
>> >> be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
>> >> thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
>> >> seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
>> >> about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
>> >> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>>

>> >Well, mine is a 1997 publication!
>>
>> Ah, but if it sells well, I bet you'll find it hard to resist the
>> temptation to make it into a series. :-)
>

>If editors want to rub zillions of dollars up and down my body, I will
>find it difficult to refuse, 'tis true.

Now *that* sounds like an interesting experience that I shall never have. :-)

John & Linda VanSickle

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>
> On Thu, 11 Dec 1997 18:55:57 -0500, Brenda and Larry Clough
> <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >ORAC wrote:
> >>
> >> I agree that there is a trend towards "bloat" in SF/F. The bloat seems to
> >> be much, much worse in fantasy, where, it seems, there is no longer such a
> >> thing as a stand-alone novel. EVERY novel has to be part of a series, it
> >> seems, and the basic unit of storytelling seems to be the trilogy. Think
> >> about it. When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> >> part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
> >>
> >
> >Well, mine is a 1997 publication!
>
> So is mine. (See .sig.) A big fat fantasy novel that's not part of a
> series.
>
> Of course, if it sells in huge numbers it may BECOME a series, but it
> isn't planned as one.

If you weren't already an established and well-selling author, would you
have been able to get a one-shot novel published as easily?

--
"However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn
on an inexcusably silly idea--a practice I shall always follow."
http://www.erols.com/vansickl

jbford

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to


Evelyn C. Leeper <e...@hobcs1.mt.lucent.com> wrote in article
<66s140$4...@nntpb.cb.lucent.com>...

> > When was the last time you saw a fantasy novel that *wasn't*
> > part of a trilogy or series? I'd bet it wasn't in the 1990's.
>

> While I don't read as much fantasy as science fiction, I find these
titles
> among the non-series fantasy I reviewed in the 1990's:

Great list snipped

Add GG Kay - Arbonne (90), Tigana, Lions
Storm Constantine, AA Attanasio, Cherryh and Hambly have written
standalones in the 90s so there are books there - although personally I
like to return to settings and characters - it allows for development and
if a books engaging you want to hear more about these people. What drives
me most mad is not being able to find earlier volumes of a series - I see
books that have been recommended or look good but I refuse to start at
number 2 or 3 in a series.

--
Jenny
e-mail:jbford @ bournemouth-net.co.uk

Andrew Plotkin

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

Ah, and? Is not "synagogue" a word like "dialogue" and "catalogue" (and
"demagogue", etc?) They're all from Greek, from words with similar verb
roots, pulled through French spelling.

The on-line Merriam-Webster even lists "synagog" as a known variant, just
as "dialog" and "catalog".

Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/12/97
to

In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:

>Forget not _Freedom and Necessity_.

IS _Freedom and Necessity_ a fantasy novel? Most reviews I've
read boil down to "Ok, this is a slightly peculiar mainstream
novel by a couple of people who previously wrote fantasy."

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
(My account might go away at any moment; if I disappear, I haven't died.)

Evelyn C. Leeper

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Dec 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/13/97
to

In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
> Aviva Rothschild (av...@maroon.cudenver.edu) wrote:
> > nan...@universe.digex.net,News writes:
> > >And note that it wasn't a matter of making a typo into a different
> > >typo--it was adding a typo where none had existed before.
>
> > Oh, yes. When I worked on a publication called American Reference Books
> > Annual, we had a stylistic rule where words like "dialogue" and
> > "catalogue" were stripped of the "ue." So our proofreader changed
> > "synagogue." I still get a chuckle out of that one!
>
> Ah, and? Is not "synagogue" a word like "dialogue" and "catalogue" (and
> "demagogue", etc?) They're all from Greek, from words with similar verb
> roots, pulled through French spelling.
>
> The on-line Merriam-Webster even lists "synagog" as a known variant, just
> as "dialog" and "catalog".

Only for the Extremely Reform.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/13/97
to

On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 17:30:42 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
<vans...@erols.com> wrote:

>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>> So is mine. (See .sig.) A big fat fantasy novel that's not part of a
>> series.
>>
>> Of course, if it sells in huge numbers it may BECOME a series, but it
>> isn't planned as one.
>
>If you weren't already an established and well-selling author, would you
>have been able to get a one-shot novel published as easily?

I have no idea.

Jo Walton

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Dec 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/13/97
to

In article <66pmep$uov$4...@isn.dac.neu.edu>
kne...@lynx.dac.neu.edu "Kate Nepveu" writes:

> Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> : In article <66muj7$g80$1...@news.qub.ac.uk>
> : D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk "David Kennedy" writes:
>
> : > (2) My alternate version:
> : > "I'm bored, and want to read something else."
>
> : :Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
> : it worth pressing on?
>
> Well, there's the ability to rant along with me about how you don't like
> the complete re-architecting of the universe... but other than that, no.

How much of it is from the POV of that ghastly Raul? I've put it down
for the moment but I may pick it up again.

--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.


Alter S. Reiss

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

On 13 Dec 1997, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
> In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
> > Aviva Rothschild (av...@maroon.cudenver.edu) wrote:
> >
> > > Oh, yes. When I worked on a publication called American Reference Books
> > > Annual, we had a stylistic rule where words like "dialogue" and
> > > "catalogue" were stripped of the "ue." So our proofreader changed
> > > "synagogue." I still get a chuckle out of that one!
> >
> > Ah, and? Is not "synagogue" a word like "dialogue" and "catalogue" (and
> > "demagogue", etc?) They're all from Greek, from words with similar verb
> > roots, pulled through French spelling.
> >
> > The on-line Merriam-Webster even lists "synagog" as a known variant, just
> > as "dialog" and "catalog".
>
> Only for the Extremely Reform.

Eh. If it's a shul, it's a shul. English spelling is completely
irrelivant... I've been known to use the "gog" varient at times, as a
result of general illiteracy, and nobody's complained much.

-- Alter S. Reiss - www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 - asr...@ymail.yu.edu

"Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist"


Andrew Plotkin

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:
> In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:

> >Forget not _Freedom and Necessity_.

> IS _Freedom and Necessity_ a fantasy novel?

Yes.

(Opinions: two cents. Knowing where to thump: two hundred dollars.)

> Most reviews I've
> read boil down to "Ok, this is a slightly peculiar mainstream
> novel by a couple of people who previously wrote fantasy."

I can see why they think so. Nonetheless...

I'm re-reading _The Grey Mane of Morning_ (for the first time in years,
as a result of it being mentioned in this newsgroup.) So far, it's as
carefully non-committal on the mainstream/fantasy line as _F&N_. (Well,
except that it takes place in an alternate world -- I forget what we
decided to call that genre, unless it was "Stuff like _Swordspoint_.")

(And yes, I've gotten to the scene where the God appears.)

_F&N_, like _Grey Mane_, is about magic. Even if there *isn't* any by our
standards.

Stephen Taylor

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> _F&N_, like _Grey Mane_, is about magic. Even if there *isn't* any by our
> standards.

Does that attitude make Gene Wolfe's _Devil in a Forest_ a fantasy
novel?

(Not a rhetorical question by the way - I'm willing to listen to "yes"
or "no")

> --Z


Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Taylor st...@afs.net.au
Applied Financial Services
Phone: +61 3 9670 0233
Fax: +61 3 9670 5018

Kate Nepveu

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <66pmep$uov$4...@isn.dac.neu.edu>

: kne...@lynx.dac.neu.edu "Kate Nepveu" writes:
: > Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: > : :Rise of Endymion:'s coming close to getting statement (2) there, is
: > : it worth pressing on?

: > Well, there's the ability to rant along with me about how you don't like
: > the complete re-architecting of the universe... but other than that, no.

: How much of it is from the POV of that ghastly Raul? I've put it down
: for the moment but I may pick it up again.

Some pretty high percentage, I think--I don't have the book here with me,
and I didn't re-read it after finishing it the first time.

--
Kate

"There's no such thing as magic."
"Shut up, Horatio."
"My philosophy's as good as yours!"
--Pamela Dean, _The Secret Country_

Kate Nepveu

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:
: IS _Freedom and Necessity_ a fantasy novel? Most reviews I've

: read boil down to "Ok, this is a slightly peculiar mainstream
: novel by a couple of people who previously wrote fantasy."

I like what Brust said about it (on 1997/03/26 according to Dejanews):

"As to the question about category, well, I assure you Kitty would
know that fantastical things happened, and Richard is fairly certain
of it. I suspect James and Susan would disagree, but I can't speak
for them.
[....]
But where would *I* put it? I sort of like the suggestion made to me
by a friend whose initials are PNH: It is science fiction; the science
being Hegeilian dialectics."

Personally I say it's an excellent book and leave it at that.

M. Wesley Osam

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>,
av...@maroon.cudenver.edu (Aviva Rothschild) wrote:

> As a professional editor and writer, I'm dismayed by what I perceive to
> be the almost total retreat from editing in SF/F. I'm not talking about
> just typos and minor grammatical mistakes, which are becoming more and
> more prevalent in the books I read;

I've noticed this, too. Some mistakes look like they were caused by
spellcheckers. One book I read recently (_Ghost Devices_ by Simon
Bucher-Jones, from a British publisher called Virgin Books) used the word
"assent" for "ascent" twice on the same page. It also demonstrated another
pet peeve, odd punctuation; either I've got some serious delusions about
commas, or writers and editors are getting worse at using them.

> I'm also concerned about the
> massive bloat of books. Too many titles I've read recently could easily
> have been cut down to a third or less of their length without affecting
> the story in the slightest.

I think the bloat factor of a book is frequently directly proportional
to its percieved marketing value. The bigger a book is, the more its
publisher can make off of it.

--
"Why do you look so skeptical?" M. Wesley Osam
"Because I've seen too much." wo...@iastate.edu
"Then why do you keep looking?
"Too much is never enough." -- Bill Griffith, "Zippy the Pinhead"

Steve Cross

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:


>my favorite: a reference to the Big- and Little-Endians (Swift,
>y'know) came out "Big- and Little-Indians." That's an example of
>an overly conscientious spell-checker and an insufficiently
>erudite typesetter.

>Dorothy J. Heydt

Ya gotta watch out for spell checkers. I've seen in my own MS such
obvious (to a human being) errors as "piece" for "peace" and "their"
for "there."

Steve


Evelyn C. Leeper

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <34934e0d...@news.clark.net>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <lawr...@clark.net> wrote:
> On 11 Dec 1997 03:40:02 GMT, jbo...@mindspring.com (John Boston)
> wrote:
>
> > [misuse of "rifle" for "shotgun" deleted]
> > There's more. A few lines before the quoted passage, one of
> >the characters says she can't ride bareback, and Blaze proposes getting
> >some bridles and saddles out of the tack room. Just before the guy
> >with the rifle or shotgun shows up, they have selected two halters--no
> >mention of bridles and saddles. He starts shooting at them and they
> >get on the horses and flee--obviously, riding bareback.
>
> THIS is the sort of stuff they pay copy editors to catch. That the
> copy editor did not do so indicates that he or she is incompetent and
> should not be hired again.

How about:

"In a moment four dreidels, some of wood, others baked from clay, were
spinning on the floor ..."

[author deleted, but it's from a 1992 anthology]

Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <670j2t$hbu$5...@isn.dac.neu.edu>,
Kate Nepveu <kne...@lynx.dac.neu.edu> wrote:

>[I quote PNH]: [_Freedom and Necessity-] is science fiction; the science
>being Hegelian dialectics."

Cripes!! Really?? Thank you for warning me before I attempted to
read it.

(Ordinarily I would read anything Bull wrote, but I think I'll
make an exception. I gave up on Brust some time ago so he's no
problem.)

Robert Pearlman

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:

>I think it should be pointed out that SF editing wasn't always good in the
>Good Old Days. There used to sometimes be _too much_ cutting.
>
>Example: The book version of Keith Laumer's _Worlds of the Imperium_
>lacks the absolute best part of the magazine-serial version. Luckily,
>it's reprinted in Damon Knight's collection _A Century of Science
>Fiction_.

What part was that?
Pearlman


Robert Pearlman

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

>djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>
>>my favorite: a reference to the Big- and Little-Endians (Swift,
>>y'know) came out "Big- and Little-Indians." That's an example of
>>an overly conscientious spell-checker and an insufficiently
>>erudite typesetter.
>
>>Dorothy J. Heydt

Back in the days of typed mss. one could write "sic" or "as is" in the
margin, warning the compositor. Is this impossible with current word
processors?

Pearlman

Graydon

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <6718hp$t51$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>In article <670j2t$hbu$5...@isn.dac.neu.edu>,
>Kate Nepveu <kne...@lynx.dac.neu.edu> wrote:
>
>>[I quote PNH]: [_Freedom and Necessity-] is science fiction; the science
>>being Hegelian dialectics."
>
>Cripes!! Really?? Thank you for warning me before I attempted to
>read it.
>
>(Ordinarily I would read anything Bull wrote, but I think I'll
>make an exception. I gave up on Brust some time ago so he's no
>problem.)

I'd read it anyway; the dialectics aren't the head bashing over sort.

It's a good thing to not be expecting it to be a fantasy novel in the
median sense, though.
--
goo...@interlog.com | "However many ways there may be of being alive, it
--> mail to Graydon | is certain that there are vastly more ways of being
dead." - Richard Dawkins, :The Blind Watchmaker:

Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <67162p$a...@nntpa.cb.lucent.com>,

Evelyn C. Leeper <ele...@lucent.com> wrote:
>
>How about:
>
>"In a moment four dreidels, some of wood, others baked from clay, were
>spinning on the floor ..."

OK, now enlighten us. What's wrong with it? I know (approximately)
what a dreidel is, and they are used in a game that involves
spinning them, are they not? What's the part that's wrong?
Is it having four of them spinning at once?

Dorothy J Heydt

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

In article <34984f6a...@news.pipeline.com>,

Robert Pearlman <rpea...@pipeline.com> wrote:
>>
>>>my favorite: a reference to the Big- and Little-Endians (Swift,
>>>y'know) came out "Big- and Little-Indians." ...

>Back in the days of typed mss. one could write "sic" or "as is" in the
>margin, warning the compositor. Is this impossible with current word
>processors?

Well, I don't suppose the word processor is going to do it for
you--and in any case the folk at DAW didn't give a flying what
kind of word processor I used; they typeset it from my printed
MS., without even *asking* for a diskette (which I could've given
them). I could have written "sic" alongside the Big- and
Little-Endians on the MS, but it didn't occur to me that any
English-speaking, reasonably literate adult would not have taken
one look at what the spellchecker was suggesting, burst into
gales of laughter, and fixed it. Guess I was wrong.

Aviva Rothschild

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Dec 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/14/97
to

rpea...@pipeline.com,News writes:
>Back in the days of typed mss. one could write "sic" or "as is" in the
>margin, warning the compositor. Is this impossible with current word
>processors?

Well, I edit using the Revisions feature of MS Word, and if I want to
bring something to the attention of the author, project editor,
proofreader, or typesetter, I do this:

<<<AU: Is "Kieth" spelled correctly?>>ED>
<<<PROOF: "Kieth" is spelled correctly; do not change.>>ED>

Well set off from the rest of the text, and in "revision blue" for
increased noticeability.

So yeah, I guess it's possible. Clunky, but possible.

Aviva

Kerry Allsup

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

vidu...@INTEswipnet.se (Ninni M Pettersson) wrote:


>
>And Pamela Dean's _Tam Lin_ was published in 1990 so it qualifies too.
>Though it's a rather long book, it can certainly not be called
>"bloated", at least not IMHO.
>

At the risk of invoking massive flames, this was one of the very first
books this topic brought to mind. I thought _Tam Lin_ was bloated,
self-indulgent, and about 300 pages too long. Please excuse me while
I don my asbestos underwear.

Evelyn C. Leeper

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

In article <671pj1$6i7$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> In article <67162p$a...@nntpa.cb.lucent.com>,
> Evelyn C. Leeper <ele...@lucent.com> wrote:
> >
> >"In a moment four dreidels, some of wood, others baked from clay, were
> >spinning on the floor ..."
>
> OK, now enlighten us. What's wrong with it? I know (approximately)
> what a dreidel is, and they are used in a game that involves
> spinning them, are they not? What's the part that's wrong?
> Is it having four of them spinning at once?

No, it's that "some" and "others" both mean (to me, anyway) an
indeterminate number more than one. If "some" are made of wood, then
that is at least two; similarly, "others" is at least two. But if
there are only four, that means there are exactly two wooden and two
clay. So why not say that?

Stephen Taylor

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
>> OK, now enlighten us. What's wrong with it? I know (approximately)
>> what a dreidel is, and they are used in a game that involves
>> spinning them, are they not? What's the part that's wrong?
>> Is it having four of them spinning at once?

> No, it's that "some" and "others" both mean (to me, anyway) an
> indeterminate number more than one. If "some" are made of wood, then
> that is at least two; similarly, "others" is at least two. But if
> there are only four, that means there are exactly two wooden and two
> clay. So why not say that?

Sorry - I can't see a problem there either. The fact that one can deduce
the numbers of dreidels doesn't bother to me at all. There's also
arguably some difference in tone between

"There were some jars on the shelf."

and

"There were six jars on the shelf"

A narrator who bothers to count things and tell you how many they've
seen is a little more formal than one who doesn't care. It would depend
on the story, of course... Was there any particular significance to the
fact that there were two of each?

> Evelyn C. Leeper

William Davis

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to


>In article <msg709.thr-...@maroon.cudenver.edu>,

>
> I've noticed this, too. Some mistakes look like they were caused by
>spellcheckers. One book I read recently (_Ghost Devices_ by Simon
>Bucher-Jones, from a British publisher called Virgin Books) used the word
>"assent" for "ascent" twice on the same page. It also demonstrated another
>pet peeve, odd punctuation; either I've got some serious delusions about
>commas, or writers and editors are getting worse at using them.
>

Hey don't blame them. I went through twelve years of public high
school (where they were supposed to teach grammar) and three years of
college (in journalism courses) before I learned how to use a colon
and semi-colon.

My first week of newswriting I was told not to use any punctuation
besides periods, quotation marks, question marks, and commas. It
wasn't until I was required to read The Elements of Style by Strunk
and White that I learned to use what was on the key beside the letter
L.

On a side note, I helped a friend edit a paper for a freshman writing
class and used my newfound knowledge to clean up her usage in a comp
piece. When she came to me in tears after the teacher (an adjunct and
not a tenured professor) handed back her paper, which he had ripped up
to the tune of a C-minus for incorrect use of colons and semi-colons,
specifically in how the latter is used to join indepent clauses in a
sentence. I pulled out the S&T and we both went over it and found
that it backed her up on every marked "error." She brought the book
to him with the paper and he said that it wasn't a standard textbook,
but he would look over her paper again. He returned it with a B-plus
and a note saying that he would be forgiving this time since she had
received information in error, but to be more careful next time.

Andrew Plotkin

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

Just re-read _The Warrior's Apprentice_, and was thereby reminded how
the word "liege" -- a fairly important word in the plot -- is misspelled
"leige". Consistently. ("Seige", too.)

And wasn't it an edition of _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_ where
"empathic" (again, important word) was spelled "emphatic"?

Stephen Taylor

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> Just re-read _The Warrior's Apprentice_, and was thereby reminded how
> the word "liege" -- a fairly important word in the plot -- is misspelled
> "leige". Consistently. ("Seige", too.)

Thinking of bad editing and Bujold, someone keeps letting her get away
with using the word "pearlescent". Now I know it's a real word and all
(well, Websters thinks it is...), but it's so goddamn *ugly*. It smacks
of someone trying to use five dollar words when they've only got three
dollars fifty in their pocket. What's wrong with either the upmarket
"nacreous" or the robust proletarian "pearly"?

Maybe it's just me...

Theresa Wojtasiewicz

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

wis...@mindspring.com,Internet writes:
On a side note, I helped a friend edit a paper for a freshman writing
class and used my newfound knowledge to clean up her usage in a comp
piece. When she came to me in tears after the teacher (an adjunct and
not a tenured professor) handed back her paper, which he had ripped up
to the tune of a C-minus for incorrect use of colons and semi-colons,
specifically in how the latter is used to join indepent clauses in a
sentence. I pulled out the S&T and we both went over it and found
that it backed her up on every marked "error." She brought the book
to him with the paper and he said that it wasn't a standard textbook,
but he would look over her paper again. He returned it with a B-plus
and a note saying that he would be forgiving this time since she had
received information in error, but to be more careful next time.
It seems likely that the adjunct had never seen S&T before... it's terrifying
to think that someone is marking papers who can't tell a semi-colon from a
buttonhook. S&T should be required reading for anyone in the writing
business, whether they write or edit.
--------------
Theresa

Mitch Hagmaier

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

Stephen Taylor wrote:
>
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
> > Just re-read _The Warrior's Apprentice_, and was thereby reminded
> > how the word "liege" -- a fairly important word in the plot -- is
> > misspelled "leige". Consistently. ("Seige", too.)
>
> Thinking of bad editing and Bujold, someone keeps letting her get away
> with using the word "pearlescent". Now I know it's a real word and all
> (well, Websters thinks it is...), but it's so goddamn *ugly*. It
> smacks of someone trying to use five dollar words when they've only
> got three dollars fifty in their pocket. What's wrong with either the
> upmarket "nacreous" or the robust proletarian "pearly"?

Well, "nacreous" looks and sounds like a variant on "necrotic", and
brings rather lovecraftian images to my mind (vacant as it might be).
Definitely an uglier word than pearlescent.

> Maybe it's just me...

Possibly. OTOH I just forced my determinedly-semiliterate roommate
to read _Shards of Honor_, and he bitched and moaned that Bujold
used too many five-dollar words.

Mitch Hagmaier
Quest Labs

Emma Pease

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

In <erkyrathE...@netcom.com> erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:

>Just re-read _The Warrior's Apprentice_, and was thereby reminded how
>the word "liege" -- a fairly important word in the plot -- is misspelled
>"leige". Consistently. ("Seige", too.)

Maybe Barrayarans don't know how to spell :-)

My own gotcha is people spelling rein as in "reins of power" as reign
though I can't think of a case offhand.

Of course if the misspelling happens often enough it does sometimes
become the proper spelling (honor vs. honour, an adder vs. a nadder,
gaol vs jail[1]).

Emma


[1] Though the OED indicates that there are different origins for gaol
and jail as well as different spellings.

--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ em...@csli.stanford.edu Die Luft der Freiheit weht

Evelyn C. Leeper

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Dec 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/15/97
to

In article <emma.88...@kanpai.stanford.edu>,

Emma Pease <em...@Kanpai.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>
> My own gotcha is people spelling rein as in "reins of power" as reign
> though I can't think of a case offhand.

Something I once read said "reins of blood" when it meant either
"reigns of blood" or "rains of blood"--and I couldn't tell which. I
only knew that the one they had chosen was definitely wrong.

Stephen Taylor

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

Mitch Hagmaier wrote:

> Well, "nacreous" looks and sounds like a variant on "necrotic", and
> brings rather lovecraftian images to my mind (vacant as it might be).
> Definitely an uglier word than pearlescent.

Hmm... never thought of the "necrotic" connection before. I'll continue
to favour nacreous myself. though.

> Possibly. OTOH I just forced my determinedly-semiliterate roommate
> to read _Shards of Honor_, and he bitched and moaned that Bujold
> used too many five-dollar words.

Wowzers! I certainly wouldn't say that. With the exception of her
unhealthy addiction to the p-word, I think Bujold writes very pleasant
straightforward prose. Your roommate should try Gene Wolfe, who uses
$7.50 words, or R.A. Lafferty who uses shopsoiled ones from the discount
bin out the front of the shop.

> Mitch Hagmaier

Geoff C. Marshall

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
>
> In article <emma.88...@kanpai.stanford.edu>,
> Emma Pease <em...@Kanpai.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > My own gotcha is people spelling rein as in "reins of power" as reign
> > though I can't think of a case offhand.
>
> Something I once read said "reins of blood" when it meant either
> "reigns of blood" or "rains of blood"--and I couldn't tell which. I
> only knew that the one they had chosen was definitely wrong.

Unless they were talking about the power a matriarch or
patriarch has. That would make sense....

<evil grin>

Geoff.....

John Boston

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

Here's another prize from Goonan's MISSISSIPPI BLUES, page 177: the
characters are on the Ohio River somewhere between Cincinnati, Ohio and
Cairo, Illinois: "Tennessee across the river was gathering herself
into greening cliffs and rolling hills suggestive of mountains."

Hint: Even a New York editor could look at a map.

John Boston


Steve Cross

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

em...@Kanpai.Stanford.EDU (Emma Pease) wrote:


>Of course if the misspelling happens often enough it does sometimes
>become the proper spelling (honor vs. honour, an adder vs. a nadder,
>gaol vs jail[1]).

>Emma

HONOR instead of HONOUR is American spelling usage as opposed to
French-influenced British spelling. It's a result of Noah Webster's
spelling reform. He thought the "u" was unnecessary. Same with LABOR
for LABOUR and CATALOG for CATALOGUE.

Steve


Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

On 16 Dec 1997 04:00:55 GMT, jbo...@mindspring.com (John Boston)
wrote:

>Here's another prize from Goonan's MISSISSIPPI BLUES, page 177: the

And there aren't any cliffs along that stretch, anyway, quite aside
from it being Kentucky rather than Tennessee. There are some honking
big hills, yeah -- there's one just south of Cincinnati where
southbound cars regularly break down trying to get up it -- but none
of the long, long grades even come CLOSE to attaining cliffhood.

So I think we've established that Goonan needed a copy editor and
didn't get one.


--
TOUCHED BY THE GODS: Hardcover, Tor Books, now available! $24.95
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 12/9/97

Julie Stampnitzky

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

On 12 Dec 1997, jbford wrote:
>What drives
> me most mad is not being able to find earlier volumes of a series - I
see
> books that have been recommended or look good but I refuse to start at
> number 2 or 3 in a series.

Half the time, I'll start in the middle of a series because I don't
realize that there were earlier books...Books I've randomly picked up in
the library include _The White Dragon_, _The Forbidden Tower_ (though it's
10 times better than _Spell Sword_), _Sharra's Exile_, _Vale of the Vole_,
_Phaze Doubt_, _The Guardians of the West_, etc. And the spoilers stick in
my memory...

***Julie Stampnitzky
Keeper, http://neskaya.darkover.org


Coyu

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

From the Tor paperback edition of The Phoenix Guards, by Steven Brust, pg. 84.
From a passage describing a swordfight:

"I think," said Khaavren, "that it is not [Note this word - coyu] time to
withdraw."

"Bah," said Tazendra. "The game is only beginning to grow warm."

c: Yikes. For a spell-checking program to pick that up, it would have be Strong
AI indeed.

c: 'now' for 'not', of course.

c: Also, has any else noted how poorly many mass-market paperbacks are bound
and cut? Have a copy of Ellroy's White Jazz that has text at a 15-degree angle,
with words sliding into the fold. Also haven't bought the new Brin yet, because
I can't read the words closest to the fold without damaging the book beyond my
standards (minor wrinkles in the binding, but then I read gently). Have found
*NO* copies without this defect.

c: Dammit, even a mass-market paperback should have a twenty-year life
expectancy. Not a two-week one. My $.02.

Pagadan

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

<<Thinking of bad editing and Bujold, someone keeps letting her get away
with using the word "pearlescent". Now I know it's a real word and all
(well, Websters thinks it is...), but it's so goddamn *ugly*. It smacks
of someone trying to use five dollar words when they've only got three
dollars fifty in their pocket. What's wrong with either the upmarket
"nacreous" or the robust proletarian "pearly"?

Maybe it's just me...>>

It's you. Pearlescent is one of my favorite words. Nacreous is ugly, IMNHO;
and pearly is way too proletarian.

Kevin J. Maroney

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

co...@aol.com (Coyu) wrote:

>From the Tor paperback edition of The Phoenix Guards, by Steven Brust, pg. 84.
>From a passage describing a swordfight:

There were at least four spelling-checker errors in the edition of
_The Phoenix Guards_ which I read (four that I caught), and at least
three of them lead to confusing ambiguities or problems.

But mistaeks are inevitable.

Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor
The New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html

Peter H. Granzeau

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

On 16 Dec 1997 20:07:01 GMT, co...@aol.com (Coyu) wrote:

>c: Dammit, even a mass-market paperback should have a twenty-year life
>expectancy. Not a two-week one. My $.02.

Lousy production and lousy editing are the responsibility of two
different places, of course. Production is done (as I understand it)
by one of two different independent contractors.

Stupid little misteaks (sic) like "not" for "now" are not usually
fatal, and one of the truisms of book production is that there must at
least three errors in every published book.

Peter H. Granzeau

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Dec 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/16/97
to

On Tue, 16 Dec 1997 11:58:06 GMT, stev...@mindspring.com (Steve
Cross) wrote:

>HONOR instead of HONOUR is American spelling usage as opposed to
>French-influenced British spelling. It's a result of Noah Webster's
>spelling reform. He thought the "u" was unnecessary. Same with LABOR
>for LABOUR and CATALOG for CATALOGUE.

I thought that last was one of Colonel Robert McCormick's Chicago
Tribune foibles (along with "sherif") that disappeared with the old
curmudgeon's death?

Geoff C. Marshall

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Dec 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/17/97
to

Steve Cross wrote:
>
> em...@Kanpai.Stanford.EDU (Emma Pease) wrote:
>
> >Of course if the misspelling happens often enough it does sometimes
> >become the proper spelling (honor vs. honour, an adder vs. a nadder,
> >gaol vs jail[1]).
>
> >Emma
>
> HONOR instead of HONOUR is American spelling usage as opposed to
> French-influenced British spelling. It's a result of Noah Webster's
> spelling reform. He thought the "u" was unnecessary. Same with LABOR
> for LABOUR and CATALOG for CATALOGUE.
>

So it was a *deliberate* error on Websters part that was
then "copied"
in error, by the remaining population ?

And that is how all those "incorrect" spellings came about
? Sheesh,
the last place you would expect to fall for that would be
the "home
of the free". I had though them changed by "evolution"....

That's good. I can in good concience retain the correct
spelling
without feeling I am slighting anyone but Noel Webster
anymore.

Thanks !

Geoff...

Robert Pearlman

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Dec 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/17/97
to

"If you can't find them, put them in!"
Pearlman


Robert Pearlman

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Dec 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/17/97
to

Noah Webster had every bit as much right to propose spelling changes
as anyone else. Is it honorable to leave the "u" out of "honour" if
you wear bib overalls, but dishonorouble if you wear breeches and
frock coat?

Pearlman


Julie Stampnitzky

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Dec 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/17/97
to

On Thu, 18 Dec 1997, Geoff C. Marshall wrote:

> I was under the impression that the differences in
> transatlantic usage of the English language, was due
> to time and sistance (language evolving). If it was
> (substantially) a matter of choice, then that's a bit
> different.
>
> It is of ludicrous arrogance to presume to redefine a
> language on your own personal opinion. The guy was a
> jerk.
>
> It violates "copyright" somewhat to take a product,
> "steal" most of it, make a "few" changes and market
> it as the same product ("English"). The guy had no
> moral gumption.
>
> This 'snake' put one over on generations, didn't he?
>
> Geoff...

Up until the 17th century, there was no such thing as correct English
spelling. Even Shakespeare might spell the same word different ways in
different places. It was troublemakers like Webster who invented "correct"
spelling, which often had nothing to do with the current pronunciation.

Cathy Purchis-Jefferies

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Dec 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/17/97
to

I've got a question about the semantics on this thread, and I just want
to see if I'm on the same wavelength as everybody else.

To me, a trilogy implies one story told over the course of 3 books.
There's one BIG conflict that is introduced in the first book, and it
takes until the third one to resolve it. To take one I've read recently,
Robin Hobb's Farseer/Assassin books. The central problem was how to stop
the Red Ship Raiders, although there were a bunch of sub-plots going on
as well. I would define series is a bunch of books set in the same
world, perhaps using the same characters, but each book has a separate
plot. For example, the Sherlock Holmes books all use the same
characters, but each book is an independent story, so I would call that
a series.

The reason I think this makes a difference is because I don't
necessarily have a problem revisiting the same world, or reading several
stories about the same characters. And as long as the author doesn't
fall into the pattern of writing the same story over and over, I'll be
happy to keep going back. Where I see the sin of padding more likely to
occur is in a trilogy. I really have trouble believing that there are a
lot of stories that take 1500 pages to tell, or at least it seems like
most of the stories being sold as trilogies could be told in less space,
but they're being stretched and padded to sell more books. I liked the
Assassin trilogy, but there were several places where things started to
seem repetitive and I got bored and skimmed for a while until the action
picked up again.

Am I out in left field?
--
Cathy "George" Purchis cat...@value.net
visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
NEW Fire Information Cache now on-line
http://www.nps.gov/seki/fire

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