Science Fiction Blurbception
Tony
"Dune brings the story of of the man known as Maud'dib -- and of a great
family's ambition to bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable
dream."
There's just one problem, that wasn't what the story was about! It was never
the Atreides family dream to become leaders of a desert Fremen religion. In
addition, it was never an Artreides family ambition to have a Kwisatz Haderach
in the family.
So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
Lawrence Watt-Evans
>So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
>editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
Authors don't get to write their own blurbs except in a few special
cases, or at some small presses.
Sometimes it's the editor who writes them; sometimes it's someone in
the marketing department. Writing cover copy is considered a special
skill.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:01:11 -0400, "Tony" <to...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
>> editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
>
> Authors don't get to write their own blurbs except in a few special
> cases, or at some small presses.
>
> Sometimes it's the editor who writes them; sometimes it's someone in
> the marketing department. Writing cover copy is considered a special
> skill.
>
So far they've let me write mine, though with no guarantee that they
won't change it.
To my surprise, they've so far changed them minimally, for the most part.
But this could change at any time; as you imply above, the author has
no actual control over it.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
erilar
<d3opb5t11uqubqp3c...@news.eternal-september.org>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
> Writing cover copy is considered a special
> skill.
I would never class that as a "skill".
--
Erilar, biblioholic
bib-li-o-hol-ism [<Gr biblion] n. [BIBLIO + HOLISM] books, of books:
habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Baen, while it's a major house in distribution and sales, operates
like a small press in many ways. I mean, they can't afford to operate
out of midtown Manhattan at all, where Tor occupies three floors of
the Flatiron Building, and Del Rey is in that scary black tower on the
East Side.
(Del Rey is still in that tower, right?)
The possibility that I might write any of my own cover copy has never
been mentioned at Tor, Del Rey, Avon, Bantam, or Pocket; at Roc it was
discussed and laughed at as absurd, as it would have fed the feud that
was going on at the time between editorial and marketing.
But at Wildside they've sometimes asked me to write it, and I've
sometimes obliged.
David Johnston
>I was looking at the back of my Dune novel and noticed it read:
>
>"Dune brings the story of of the man known as Maud'dib -- and of a great
>family's ambition to bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable
>dream."
>
>There's just one problem, that wasn't what the story was about! It was never
>the Atreides family dream to become leaders of a desert Fremen religion. In
>addition, it was never an Artreides family ambition to have a Kwisatz Haderach
>in the family.
>
It was his mother's ambition to have a Kumquat Hagendaaz...
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In article
><d3opb5t11uqubqp3c...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>> Writing cover copy is considered a special
>> skill.
>
>I would never class that as a "skill".
I should have said "writing good cover copy."
And it's much harder than it looks; it really does require unusual
skills.
Christopher Henrich
"Tony" <to...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Welcome to Planet Earth.
That was not one of the worst ones. It at least makes enough sense to be
wrong.
You ask where blurbs come from. They are *said* to come from the
marketing department, but some analysts suspect that they have a deeper
origin, even more squamous, eldritch, and noneuclidean than marketeers.
--
Christopher J. Henrich
chen...@monmouth.com
http://www.mathinteract.com
"A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver." -- Boon
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
For the purpose of the story, what is humankind's most ancient and
unattainable dream? Individual life-extension or immortality?
Spaceships? Political self-determination? The right to bear arms?
Meeting passionate young native women? Or to find out what you have
to do to get a drink around here?
Giovanni Wassen
The Bene Gesserit, one big family.
--
Gio
http://www.watkijkikoptv.info
http://myanimelist.net/profile/extatix
http://watkijkikoptv.info/animeblog
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article
> <d3opb5t11uqubqp3c...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>> Writing cover copy is considered a special
>> skill.
>
> I would never class that as a "skill".
>
Then, with all due respect, you have never tried to do it well.
It's similar to writing an abstract for a technical proposal (something
I do often) when you want to both convey the idea that you're doing
something really cool and innovative to solve the client's problem (so
that you stand out from the 50 other proposals they're reading on the
same topic, and therefore they will read PAST your abtract) while at the
same time conveying absolutely the minimum information which would
actually be technically USEFUL to anyone else in figuring out what
you're doing (because the abstract will be publicly released and you
don't want your competitors getting anything from it).
In the case of a fiction book, you're trying to give the reader the
idea of the core spirit of the book, including what makes it cool or fun
to read, without hopefully spoilering the hell out of the story so that
you ruin the impact of reading it.
I think that word-for-word, writing a good blurb requires more effort
than just about anything else. I spent two hours working on the blurb
for Grand Central Arena, a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
3,000 words in a novel.
Kurt Busiek
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> said:
I write my own cover copy and solicitation blurbs all the time. I'd
love for someone else to do it, but I'm not willing to endure the drop
in accuracy and effectiveness.
But then, I was taught to write blurbs while first editing Marvel
Comics' fan-focused "coming attractions" guide and then writing their
catalog, handling between 60-120 compact sales descriptions a month,
and while I was writing it, sales were consistently on the rise and
retailers were telling me the catalog was the best it had ever been.
[I largely credit Jim Salicrup and Carol Kalish for this, since they're
the ones who drilled me into being good at it.]
Then I went freelance, and a couple of years later, it was being
written by someone for whom English was not is first language, and my
debut issue of DARKMAN (based on the Raimi film) had a sales blurb in
which the blurb writer, casting about for the term, "black humor,"
could only come up with "tongue in cheek awfulness."
I hate writing blurbs, but I'd hate to turn it over to others people, too.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Dorothy J Heydt
Christopher Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>
>You ask where blurbs come from. They are *said* to come from the
>marketing department, but some analysts suspect that they have a deeper
>origin, even more squamous, eldritch, and noneuclidean than marketeers.
Coincidentally enough, _User Friendly_ is currently winding
up (I think) a Chthulhu-meets-marketeer sequence. Chthulhu
wins.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Cece
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:01:11 -0400, "Tony" <t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
> >editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
>
> Authors don't get to write their own blurbs except in a few special
> cases, or at some small presses.
>
> Sometimes it's the editor who writes them; sometimes it's someone in
> the marketing department. Writing cover copy is considered a special
> skill.
>
> --
> I'm selling my comic collection -- seehttp://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
> I'm serializing a novel athttp://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Much like headlines, which are written by "experts," not the reporter
who wrote the story nor the editor who (probably) read the story and
cut the last inch or three off before having it set.
Dave Hansen
[...]
>
> Much like headlines, which are written by "experts," not the reporter
> who wrote the story nor the editor who (probably) read the story and
> cut the last inch or three off before having it set.
I remember working with classmates writing headlines for articles in
the school newspaper. One of the sports stories was a feature on the
hockey team's star goalie. A candidate headline (that didn't make it
into print) was "Getting the Puck Out of Here"
-=Dave
Taki Kogoma
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
> I think that word-for-word, writing a good blurb requires more effort
> than just about anything else. I spent two hours working on the blurb
> for Grand Central Arena, a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
> maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
> 3,000 words in a novel.
"I apologize for the length of this letter; I did not have the time to
write a shorter one."
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Louann Miller
news:slrnhbqk0g...@chishio.swcp.com:
> , a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
>> maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
>> 3,000 words in a novel.
>
> "I apologize for the length of this letter; I did not have the time to
> write a shorter one."
You beat me to it. Do you know who wrote the original?
David DeLaney
> I think that word-for-word, writing a good blurb requires more effort
>than just about anything else. I spent two hours working on the blurb
>for Grand Central Arena, a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
>maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
>3,000 words in a novel.
The front-cover blurb for Soulless, which was approximately "A novel of
vampires, werewolves, and parasols", turned out to be both intriguing and
fairly accurate, for me.
Dave "there were also dirigibles. and one parasol was hydraulic." DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Robert A. Woodward
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Several sites I found (via Google) credit Blaise Pascal (which
means the above is a translation from French).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Butch Malahide
wrote:
> In article <4fednaYylpdWziDXnZ2dnUVZ_oCdn...@giganews.com>,
> Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Taki Kogoma <qu...@swcp.com> wrote in
> >news:slrnhbqk0g...@chishio.swcp.com:
>
> > > , a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
> > >> maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
> > >> 3,000 words in a novel.
>
> > > "I apologize for the length of this letter; I did not have the time to
> > > write a shorter one."
>
> > You beat me to it. Do you know who wrote the original?
>
> Several sites I found (via Google) credit Blaise Pascal (which
> means the above is a translation from French).
For once the internet is right. The Yale Book of Quotations agrees
with that attribution and gives the French original:
"Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le
loisir de la faire plus courte."
The YBQ also gives similar quotations by Thoreau and Woodrow Wilson:
"Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to
make it short."
"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if
fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I
am ready now."
ObSF: This next one is by Ernest Bramah.
"The written sentence, indeed, was all that it had been pronounced. It
had been composed by a remote ancestor, who had spent his entire life
in crystallizing all his knowledge and experience into a few written
lines, which as a result became correspondingly precious. It defined
in a very original and profound manner several undisputable
principles, and was so engagingly subtle in its manner of expression
that the most superficial person was irresistibly thrown into a deep
inward contemplation upon reading it. When it was complete, the person
who had contrived this ingenious masterpiece, discovering by means of
omens that he still had ten years to live, devoted each remaining year
to the task of reducing the sentence by one word without in any way
altering its meaning. This unapproachable example of conciseness found
such favour . . ."
Matt Hughes
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> erilar wrote:
> > In article
> > <d3opb5t11uqubqp3cdp9nm6ruqv0clg...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> > Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
> >> Writing cover copy is considered a special
> >> skill.
>
> > I would never class that as a "skill".
>
> Then, with all due respect, you have never tried to do it well.
Allow me to pile on. It is indeed a specialist's job. You have to
provide sizzle without giving away major plot points. And you have to
match the tone of the book.
I did it for my two Warner-Aspect books because the copywriter
couldn't get the right tone.
I didn't do it for my Tor book, but I was a little concerned when I
saw the first cut that the copywriter had misspelled the lead
character's name.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
For some ladies it goes that way.
<http://notalwaysright.com/?s=%22mint%20chocolate%22>
Greg Goss
I've seen it credited to Twain, but that doesn't limit it much.
--
apart from one noisy guy up in Canada, no-one wants
a three-cylinder tissue box on bicycle tires.
Butch Malahide
> Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Taki Kogoma <qu...@swcp.com> wrote in
> >news:slrnhbqk0g...@chishio.swcp.com:
>
> >> , a blurb that's probably, oh, 100 words or so,
> >>> maybe 200. In the same amount of time, I would normally write about
> >>> 3,000 words in a novel.
>
> >> "I apologize for the length of this letter; I did not have the time to
> >> write a shorter one."
>
> >You beat me to it. Do you know who wrote the original?
>
> I've seen it credited to Twain, but that doesn't limit it much.
That's nothing, I've seen "time is what keeps everything from
happening at once" attributed to Woody Allen and Albert Einstein. But
"I didn't have time to make it shorter" is from Blaise Pascal, as
noted earlier in this thread by Mr. Woodward.
--
"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." (Pascal)
SandChigger
lurking writers! :D )
Sammy Sands
"SandChigger" <sandc...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:c0bef347-ad2a-4db4...@h14g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
> (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> lurking writers! :D )
No lurkers. Tones feat was accomplished through the magic of
crossposting...
Sammy
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> lurking writers! :D )
Who's lurking?
Matt Hughes
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> SandChigger wrote:
> > (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> > lurking writers! :D )
>
> Who's lurking?
Yeah, and whattaya mean, hidden?
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
W. Citoan
> On 27 Sep, 14:06, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> > SandChigger wrote:
> > > (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> > > lurking writers! :D )
> >
> > Who's lurking?
>
> Yeah, and whattaya mean, hidden?
This thread is x-posted to alt.fan.dune. I don't believe SandChigger
frequents rasfw (at least according to Google groups, but you know how
that goes) so he's probably unaware of its active writer population.
- W. Citoan
--
That little world, the human mind.
-- Samuel Rogers
Matt Hughes
> MattHugheswrote:
> > On 27 Sep, 14:06, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> > > SandChigger wrote:
> > > > (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> > > > lurking writers! :D )
>
> > > Who's lurking?
>
> > Yeah, and whattaya mean, hidden?
>
> This thread is x-posted to alt.fan.dune. I don't believe SandChigger
> frequents rasfw (at least according to Google groups, but you know how
> that goes) so he's probably unaware of its active writer population.
>
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Tony
"Giovanni Wassen" <ext...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:
> "Tony" <to...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was looking at the back of my Dune novel and noticed it read:
>>
>> "Dune brings the story of of the man known as Maud'dib -- and of a
>> great family's ambition to bring to fruition humankind's most ancient
>> and unattainable dream."
>>
>> There's just one problem, that wasn't what the story was about! It
>> was never the Atreides family dream to become leaders of a desert
>> Fremen religion. In addition, it was never an Artreides family
>> ambition to have a Kwisatz Haderach in the family.
>>
>> So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it,
>> or the editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
>
> The Bene Gesserit, one big family.
>
> --
> Gio
>
Hi Gio,
If we accept that the "great family" in the blurb refers to the Bene Gesserit,
then we must ask, Was their "ambition to bring to fruition humankind's most
ancient and unattainable dream?" Wasn't creating a Kwisatz Haderach a Bene
Gesserit dream, rather than a ancient dream of humankind?
In any event, I can see one advantage to blurbs bearing little resemblance to
the stories they purport to describe: such blurbs will not spoil the actual
story for the reader. ;-)
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> Matt Hughes wrote:
> > On 27 Sep, 14:06, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> > > SandChigger wrote:
> > > > (Hey, Tony, good job! You finally tapped the hidden reservoir of
> > > > lurking writers! :D )
>
> > > Who's lurking?
>
> > Yeah, and whattaya mean, hidden?
>
> This thread is x-posted to alt.fan.dune. I don't believe SandChigger
> frequents rasfw (at least according to Google groups, but you know how
> that goes) so he's probably unaware of its active writer population.
Yeah, hi from rec.arts.sf.work-avoidance :-)
mimus
> I was looking at the back of my Dune novel and noticed it read:
>
> "Dune brings the story of of the man known as Maud'dib -- and of a great
> family's ambition to bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable
> dream."
>
> There's just one problem, that wasn't what the story was about! It was never
> the Atreides family dream to become leaders of a desert Fremen religion. In
> addition, it was never an Artreides family ambition to have a Kwisatz Haderach
> in the family.
>
> So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
> editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
You get covers like that too, where the art depicts a scene that looks
like it's supposed to but in fact doesn't have anything to do with the
book.
--
"You are either insane or a fool."
"I am a sanitary inspector."
< _Maske: Thaery_
Tony
"mimus" <tinmi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:
make the movie look fantastic, but when you see the movie, it's nothing like
that, and it sucks. There seems to be a skill to making a great coming
attractions, and a separate skill to actually making a good movie. I'd think
it's easier to make the movie coming attractions look good, than to actually
make a good movie. This seems to be particularly true for science fiction
movies. There's some great coming attractions out there, but fewer good movies.
However, unlike book covers, the coming attraction scenes are generally taken
from the actual movie.
Louann Miller
news:_YqdnfXhPc-kW17X...@giganews.com:
> It reminds me of movie coming attractions. Some of these coming
> attractions make the movie look fantastic, but when you see the movie,
> it's nothing like that, and it sucks. There seems to be a skill to
> making a great coming attractions, and a separate skill to actually
> making a good movie. I'd think it's easier to make the movie coming
> attractions look good, than to actually make a good movie.
You only need two or three minutes of good stuff to make a trailer. In some
cases, that's the good stuff supply for the entire movie.
Giovanni Wassen
>> The Bene Gesserit, one big family.
>>
> If we accept that the "great family" in the blurb refers to the Bene
> Gesserit, then we must ask, Was their "ambition to bring to fruition
> humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream?" Wasn't creating a
> Kwisatz Haderach a Bene Gesserit dream, rather than a ancient dream of
> humankind?
You do realize I wasn't entirely serious, don't you?
But humandkind does dream about the next step in evolution, a human with
powers beyond their own.
--
Gio
http://www.watkijkikoptv.info
http://myanimelist.net/profile/extatix
http://watkijkikoptv.info/animeblog
Tony
Tony
>
>>> The Bene Gesserit, one big family.
>>>
>> If we accept that the "great family" in the blurb refers to the Bene
>> Gesserit, then we must ask, Was their "ambition to bring to fruition
>> humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream?" Wasn't creating a
>> Kwisatz Haderach a Bene Gesserit dream, rather than a ancient dream of
>> humankind?
>
> You do realize I wasn't entirely serious, don't you?
>
> But humandkind does dream about the next step in evolution, a human with
> powers beyond their own.
>
Hi Gio,
Yes I understand that describing the Bene Gesserit as a "great family" was a bit
of a stretch, and perhaps a joke. I was just considering the idea to see if it
was possible to interpret the blurb in a way that was consistent with the actual
novel. With respect to your second point, if we accept for a moment that
humankind does have an ancient dream of taking a step in evolution, I think we'd
have to assert that this would apply to humankind as a whole, not to just one
person. In other words, a boy like Paul becoming the Kwisatz Haderach doesn't
appear to conform to an ancient dream of humankind. While this might be the
beginning of an ancient dream, if we accept that, like Paul, everyone in
humankind will soon acquire god-like powers, Paul's transformation in itself
would not represent the "fruition of humankind's most ancient and unattainable
dream," because only one person actually experienced it.
SandChigger
Oops, didn't notice the other group in the address! :(
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> It reminds me of movie coming attractions. Some of these coming attractions
> make the movie look fantastic, but when you see the movie, it's nothing like
> that, and it sucks. There seems to be a skill to making a great coming
> attractions, and a separate skill to actually making a good movie. I'd think
> it's easier to make the movie coming attractions look good, than to actually
> make a good movie. This seems to be particularly true for science fiction
> movies. There's some great coming attractions out there, but fewer good movies.
> However, unlike book covers, the coming attraction scenes are generally taken
> from the actual movie.
Wi=th exceptions. In a TV ad for _Up_
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/>
I noticed a disclaimer that what we were seeing wasn't in the movie.
In some genres you shoot the trailer first.
I think that when watching a trailer you assume that the Eight Deadly
Words won't have kicked in when you get to the scene in question,
although sometimes I'm mentally quoting Ms Heydt's "I don't care what
happens to these people" in, well, is thirty seconds too short?
I don't go to the cinema much or even watch many pre-recorded videos,
but since I now have trouble finding satisfactory blank VHS cassettes
to buy (I like TDK, hate Maxell), I've been picking up second-hand
movie tapes to recycle from charity thrift shops, and boy some of
their trailers go on and on and on. I suppose I don't help myself by
deliberately choosing films outside my genre taste and outside the
first rank to destroy. Their trailers aren't classy... and am I the
only one who is bugged by over ten minutes of commercials on a tape
that I paid to see?
GeekGirl
> On Sep 25, 10:25 am, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:01:11 -0400, "Tony" <t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >So where does a blurb like this come from? Does the author write it, or the
> > >editor? Are blurbs like this often deceptive?
>
> > cases, or at some small presses.
>
> > Sometimes it's the editor who writes them; sometimes it's someone in
> > the marketing department. Writing cover copy is considered a special
> > skill.
>
> > --
> > My webpage is athttp://www.watt-evans.com
> > I'm selling my comic collection -- seehttp://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
> > I'm serializing a novel athttp://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
>
> Much like headlines, which are written by "experts,"
Indeed. One of the best headlines ever:
HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR
(New York Post, 1982)
GeekGirl
Tony
"GeekGirl" <just.a...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:
GeekGirl"
That's a great headline, and one that was bound to sell a lot of newspapers.
Considering all the issues raised in this thread, it would appear that blurbs
are crafted as marketing tools to sell a book. Consequently, they are not
necessarily accurate, but they must be persuasive. With the Dune blurb
originally quoted, I'm sensing a strong sales pitch (inserted within brackets).
For example:
"Dune brings the story of of the man known as Maud'dib [an exotic sounding
character to stimulate the reader's interest]-- and of a great
family's ambition [this novel will read like history with powerful, impressive
families] to bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable
dream [humankind's dream is the reader's dream - This novel is relevant to you!
Buy it]."
Fred
Love it! Gotta admit, I have never seen that one before.
--
Fred
Mad Hamish
wrote:
Which makes it a really bad sign when they can't get 2 minutes of good
stuff for the trailer..
--
"Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by."
Stuart Adamson 1958-2001
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
newsunsp...@iinet.unspamme.net.au
Tony
"Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-o...@moderators.isc.or�g"
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in message news:.
On Sep 30, 9:57 pm, "Tony" <t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It reminds me of movie coming attractions. Some of these coming attractions
> make the movie look fantastic, but when you see the movie, it's nothing like
> that, and it sucks. There seems to be a skill to making a great coming
> attractions, and a separate skill to actually making a good movie. I'd think
> it's easier to make the movie coming attractions look good, than to actually
> make a good movie. This seems to be particularly true for science fiction
> movies. There's some great coming attractions out there, but fewer good
> movies.
> However, unlike book covers, the coming attraction scenes are generally taken
> from the actual movie.
"Wi=th exceptions. In a TV ad for _Up_
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/>
I noticed a disclaimer that what we were seeing wasn't in the movie.
In some genres you shoot the trailer first.
I think that when watching a trailer you assume that the Eight Deadly
Words won't have kicked in when you get to the scene in question,
although sometimes I'm mentally quoting Ms Heydt's "I don't care what
happens to these people" in, well, is thirty seconds too short?"
Hi Robert,
I think they often try to shoot some scenes first that they can use in the
trailer. The trailers may also involve other differences from the actual movie:
for example, a narrator, novel music, and scenes shown out of sequence.
Trailers can be deceptive in suggesting a movie contains a variety of desirable
things, and unfortunately these things might not appear in an actual movie.
As for trailers at the beginning of video tapes and dvds, I think they should be
banned. They are a ridiculous waste of time.
Robert Carnegie
'Apes Have Souls Too' Says Primate
Giovanni Wassen
> With respect to your
> second point, if we accept for a moment that humankind does have an
> ancient dream of taking a step in evolution, I think we'd have to
> assert that this would apply to humankind as a whole, not to just one
> person. In other words, a boy like Paul becoming the Kwisatz Haderach
> doesn't appear to conform to an ancient dream of humankind. While
> this might be the beginning of an ancient dream, if we accept that,
> like Paul, everyone in humankind will soon acquire god-like powers,
> Paul's transformation in itself would not represent the "fruition of
> humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream," because only one
> person actually experienced it.
Sure, but they can breed with it and see if these powers can become common.
It's what Hitler wanted to try in WOII with his Aryan race but (luckily)
failed to do.
Hm, Godwin's law.
Tony
>
>> With respect to your
>> second point, if we accept for a moment that humankind does have an
>> ancient dream of taking a step in evolution, I think we'd have to
>> assert that this would apply to humankind as a whole, not to just one
>> person. In other words, a boy like Paul becoming the Kwisatz Haderach
>> doesn't appear to conform to an ancient dream of humankind. While
>> this might be the beginning of an ancient dream, if we accept that,
>> like Paul, everyone in humankind will soon acquire god-like powers,
>> Paul's transformation in itself would not represent the "fruition of
>> humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream," because only one
>> person actually experienced it.
>
> Sure, but they can breed with it and see if these powers can become common.
> It's what Hitler wanted to try in WOII with his Aryan race but (luckily)
> failed to do.
>
> Hm, Godwin's law.
>
> --
But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it. So what
would be the point? Wouldn't it make more sense to plan for a gigantic
scattering to ensure humankind's survival? ;-)
David DeLaney
>> It's what Hitler wanted to try in WOII with his Aryan race but (luckily)
>> failed to do.
>>
>> Hm, Godwin's law.
>
Er, no. If _everyone_ had prescience, the Universe gets more complicated than
we're used to. And "now" spreads out alarmingly compared to what we currently
live with. See, each person's prescience gets to take into account,
renormalization-style, every other person's prescience, which can lead to
an end actual-state rather far from the "none of them take each other into
account" 'bare' solution.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Tony
"David DeLaney" <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message news:
> Tony <to...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>"Giovanni Wassen" <ext...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:
>>> Sure, but they can breed with it and see if these powers can become common.
>>> It's what Hitler wanted to try in WOII with his Aryan race but (luckily)
>>> failed to do.
>>>
>>> Hm, Godwin's law.
>>
>>But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
>
> Er, no. If _everyone_ had prescience, the Universe gets more complicated than
> we're used to. And "now" spreads out alarmingly compared to what we currently
> live with. See, each person's prescience gets to take into account,
> renormalization-style, every other person's prescience, which can lead to
> an end actual-state rather far from the "none of them take each other into
> account" 'bare' solution.
>
I imagine if everyone had prescience people would naturally gravitate towards
others with similar goals and form competing power blocks. Each power block
would be free to pursue its own course of action without being controlled by the
other groups.
Giovanni Wassen
> But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
> So what would be the point?
Finding ways to hide from it. And a society full of lottery winners.
Walter Bushell
Giovanni Wassen <ext...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tony wrote:
>
> > But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
> > So what would be the point?
>
> Finding ways to hide from it. And a society full of lottery winners.
The $10 million dollar jackpot has 20 million winners. Here's your 50
cents.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Giovanni Wassen
> In article <Xns9CA59D504F...@217.19.16.66>,
> Giovanni Wassen <ext...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Tony wrote:
>>
>> > But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
>> > So what would be the point?
>>
>> Finding ways to hide from it. And a society full of lottery winners.
>
> The $10 million dollar jackpot has 20 million winners. Here's your 50
> cents.
It would be kind of a small price yes, but they do all win, in a way.
Walter Bushell
Giovanni Wassen <ext...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> > In article <Xns9CA59D504F...@217.19.16.66>,
> > Giovanni Wassen <ext...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Tony wrote:
> >>
> >> > But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
> >> > So what would be the point?
> >>
> >> Finding ways to hide from it. And a society full of lottery winners.
> >
> > The $10 million dollar jackpot has 20 million winners. Here's your 50
> > cents.
>
> It would be kind of a small price yes, but they do all win, in a way.
The ticket is a dollar, so its a very pyrrhic victory, net loss 50
Tony
>
>> In article <Xns9CA59D504F...@217.19.16.66>,
>> Giovanni Wassen <ext...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Tony wrote:
>>>
>>> > But if everyone had prescience, then it would be like no one had it.
>>> > So what would be the point?
>>>
>>> Finding ways to hide from it. And a society full of lottery winners.
>>
>> The $10 million dollar jackpot has 20 million winners. Here's your 50
>> cents.
>
> It would be kind of a small price yes, but they do all win, in a way.
>
> --
And continuing with the blurbs, the blurb on the back of Dune Messiah reads:
"Dune Messiah continues the story of the man Muad'dib, heir to a power
unimaginable, bringing to completion the centuries-old scheme to create a
superbeing."
Was Paul completing a scheme to create a superbeing in Dune Messiah?