John Ordover's SF Rules (LONG) (was: something else about John Ordover)
Andrew C. Wheeler
the past few days, and, though I've seen a lot of things that I agree
with,
I've gotten the urge to spout at length. Before you read any further,
you
might want to know "who the heck is this guy?" I am a working SF editor,
having been with the Science Fiction Book Club for the past nine years.
I
know, either personally or by reputation, all of the book editors in the
field.
And much of what I do on a day-to-day basis is looking at what's being
published and trying to fit it into slots to sell it to readers. (That
doesn't
mean I'm uniquely qualified, by any stretch of the imagination -- the
book
buyers for the big chains and major reviewers have a similar overview of
the field. It just means that what I have to say, though based in part
on my
personal opinion, is also based largely on my knowledge of sales of
various
books and on conversations over the years with many other editors.)
I know John Ordover slightly, and generally like what he's been doing at
Pocket.
But I don't really agree with his view of the rest of the SF field, or
with the reasons
he thinks media tie-ins are so dominant. And those are the issues I want
to address in
this very long message.
Ordover has talked about "SF publishing" or "other editors" as if it was
a single
entity. I think it makes more sense to look at each list separately,
to see what each editor (or group of editors) is actually doing. Also, I
have a slightly different view of the field than he does. We're both
professional editors, true, but he has a list of his own that's to some
degree in competition with other publishers' lists, and I don't. I don't
claim that this makes me completely objective, only that I've been a
member
and observer of the SF publishing world for a decade now and have what I
hope are interesting thoughts to share.
I'm working from Locus Magazine's forthcoming books list in March, and
primarily looking at the books publishing in February through April
(i.e.,
the ones that will be in stores right now). I'll also bring in other
major
authors and books to provide a fuller picture of each publisher.
Let's run down the publishers one at a time:
Ace:
edited by Susan Allison & Ginjer Buchanan.
Top author, Anne McCaffrey, is published by the mainstream side of the
house (under the Putnam imprint), but I believe are edited
by the Ace folks. Other big names are Laurell Hamilton and Joe Haldeman.
Major books (hardcover or trade paperback launches) in this period
include
_Oceanspace_ by Allen Steele (adventure and intrigue on the sea floor),
_The
Magic Dead_ by Peter Garrison (third in fantasy trilogy) and _Galveston_
by
Sean Stewart (near-future fantasy). The paperback list has a number of
YA
reprints (a Merlin series by T.A. Barron and Brian Jacques's "Redwall"
books), some media tie-ins (Xena and Poltergeist) and some
military/adventure SF (Don DeBrandt, Rick Shelley). They also do some
SF-Romance hybrids, like Sharon Shinn, and I believe they are also
involved
in publishing books of that ilk on the other side of the hybrid line, as
romances. Though they do publish some "literary" authors, like Joe
Haldeman,
the bulk of the list is aimed at entertainment. They don't have one huge
tent-pole fantasy series to skew the picture, but do have a number of
smaller fantasy authors, along with their SF. The Anne McCaffrey books
published by Putnam and _Oceanspace_ closely fit Ordover's prescription:
adventure stories with Neat Stuff and happy endings. Much, if not all,
of
the paperback SF also appears to be of the pure adventure variety, which
is one of the two things Ace is famous for (the other, the Ace Specials,
were only borderline successful both times.) There is some "literary"
stuff
here, but not a whole lot.
Baen:
edited by Jim Baen and Toni Weisskopf.
Top authors are David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, David Drake
and Elizabeth Moon, the first being a recent bestseller (at least
briefly).
The major book in this period is _1632_ by Eric Flint; Baen does not
do many hardcovers. They make up for it with a plethora
of paperbacks, with some fantasy (mostly of the heroic but not epic
variety)
and lots of adventure SF. They're reprinting much of Heinlein, and have
also
embarked on a series of paperback omnibuses of James Schmitz. I don't
think
anyone could make a serious case against Baen under Ordover's
strictures;
they primarily publish adventure SF stories with a military or
libertarian
bent. In fact, I'd say that they're the publisher that has most
consciously
targeted that market. They don't have the sales success of Pocket, but,
then
again, they don't have weekly TV shows featuring Miles Vorkosigan and
Honor
Harrington.
Bantam Spectra:
edited by Anne Lesley Groell and (formerly) Pat LoBrutto.
Top authors are George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb and Brian Herbert
& Kevin J. Anderson (the Dune prequels). Major books in the period
are _The Depths of Time_ by Roger MacBride Allen and _The Grand
Design_ by John Marco; two trade paperbacks by midlist names (one
each SF and fantasy). Bantam has a fairly small list at the moment,
though they've grown and contracted several times in memory. I don't see
much thematic coherence in the paperback list, which has things like the
"Pangaea" series by Lisa Mason and _Distance Haze_ by Jamil Nasir.
Spectra has
had notable successes on the top end, but they don't seem to have much
of a
middle at the moment. Perhaps this is part of a corporate strategy to
only
publish "big books," which seems to be entirely fantasy, save for the
new
Dune books. Those books are not strictly speaking media tie-ins, but
they
partake of much of what makes media ties successful: the immediate
recognition factor of the characters and situations. Much of the list
tends
towards the more literary end, from the Roger Allen novel (something
of a fence-sitter, with a slam-bang opening and a more contemplative
second half about guilt and terraforming) to the mass market books noted
above. But, again, I don't really see a whole lot of coherence in
Spectra's
list as opposed to some other publishers, so it's hard to draw overall
conclusions.
DAW:
edited by Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert.
Top authors are Mercedes Lackey, Kate Elliott, Marion Zimmer Bradley
and Tad Williams. The major books in the period is _Guardian of the
Trust_
by Irene Radford; DAW is another house that does not do many hardcovers,
and doesn't do any trade paperbacks that I'm aware of. The paperback
list
(like the hardcovers) is heavily fantasy, but that's been DAW's
specialty for at least the last decade. Much of their SF list seems to
me to
have been directly or indirectly inspired by Darkover, with lots of psi
powers and other semi-fantasy trappings. DAW's list is almost
exclusively
adventure stories - and I say "almost" because someone may be able to
provide a counter-example, though I can't think of one. On the big SF
side,
we have the late Darkover books (adventure science fantasy with a
helping
of female-audience-grabbing relationship talkfests) and Tad Williams's
"Otherland" series (a mostly successful attempt to adapt the epic
fantasy
plotline and worldview to virtual reality SF). Again, the
list is heavily fantasy, and the SF that is there is either pure
adventure
(Steven Swiniarski and his various pseudonyms) or fantasy-flavored
psi-powered SF in the MZB/McCaffrey mode, like Julie E. Czerneda.
Another publisher that mostly puts out books conforming to Ordover's
rules, though the fact that they're primarily fantasy doesn't really
help
my case, either.
Del Rey:
edited by Shelly Shapiro and Owen Lock (I think that's the line-up right
now;
they had a major shake-up last year).
The very top author is Mr. Star Wars, but other major names include Anne
McCaffrey (Del Rey publishes the Pern novels), Greg Bear (at least, they
seem to be his regular publisher now), Terry Brooks and David & Leigh
Eddings. Major books in the period are _Colonization: Down to Earth_
by Harry Turtledove, _Hero in the Shadows_ by David Gemmell and
_Pegasus in Space_ by McCaffrey. The paperback list mixes trade paper
reprints of classics (_Dragon's Egg_) with media ties (_The
Tenth Planet_), along with original fantasy (by J. Gregory Keyes and
Christopher Stasheff) and SF (by Jack Chalker and Julian May). Del
Rey still seems to do more SF than fantasy in mass
market (or perhaps that's a sign that the SF is selling badly and has
been
demoted), though their upper end is full of fantasy and fantasy-tinged
SF
(of which Pern is still the best example). Their "hardest" SF writers
are
Bear (whose first book for Del Rey, _Darwin's Radio_, was a near-future
biological thriller) and Turtledove (a special case, since what he
writes is
alternate history). Del Rey has never specialized in what you might call
"literary" books; always preferring to focus on the adventure stories
that
most of the market wants. I think they follow Ordover's guidelines quite
closely, too, though the mass market crash of recent years has clearly
seriously affected them.
Eos:
edited by Jennifer Brehl and Jennifer Hershey (in charge right now, but
the
current list incorporates the former HarperPrism list mostly bought by
John
Douglas.)
Top authors are Terry Pratchett, Raymond Feist, and yet another
McCaffrey series ("Acorna," written with various collaborators). Major
books
in the period: _Black Hearts, Ivory Bones_ edited by Ellen Datlow and
Teri Windling,
_Fortress of Dragons_ by C.J. Cherryh and _Eater_ by Gregory Benford.
Eos does
have a reputation as a more "literary" list, perhaps because they
publish
Sheri S. Tepper and Jeffrey Ford, but the paperbacks do have some
adventure-oriented material. There's the finale of a military SF trilogy
by
Ian Douglas, reprints from Ben Bova and Diana Paxson, and a reprinted
big
disaster novel by Walter Jon Williams. On the other hand, Eos publishes
Kage
Baker in mass market and Kathleen Ann Goonan in hardcover; two writers
that
can't be considered adventure SF. Eos is the first publisher on this
list to
do a substantial amount of SF that does not fit Ordover's criteria. They
clearly
publish at least part of their list at a substantially different
audience, one that is
not looking for adventure plots, plucky young heroes, and happy endings.
Roc:
edited by Laura Anne Gilman.
It's a small, almost entirely mass-market list, and the only big name on
it
is Peter S. Beagle, who tends to the literary side (though he's quite
popular).
There are no major books in the period. The paperbacks seem evenly
divided
between media ties (BattleTech, Stargate SG-1 and Shadowrun) and
original
SF (S.M. Stirling, Chris Bunch) and fantasy (Christopher Rowley). All
these books
seem quite adventure-oriented; I don't see anything at all
(other than Beagle) that I'd consider "literary" on this list.
Pocket:
edited by our good friend John Ordover!
King is, of course, Star Trek, but Pocket has recently started to
publish
non-Trek SF&F. I don't know if these books were bought by Ordover
or some other editor, so I can't make any judgments there. On the big
side was _The Burning City_ by Niven and Pournelle, interestingly a
straight fantasy from two writers very strongly identified with hard SF.
Pocket also did the Nebula-award winning novel _The
Moon and the Sun_ by Vonda McIntyre, which would count as literary. The
rest
of the list is Trek, which, unsurprisingly, hews closely to the
published
tenets of its editor.
Tor:
edited by a myriad, of whom the most important (I think) are Patrick
Nielsen Hayden, David G. Hartwell, Claire Eddy and James Frenkel.
Tor is probably what Ordover had in mind when he talked about "Literary"
SF; they
publish the highest percentage of non-adventure stories of any
publisher. Of
course, they also publish almost as much as all of the others combined
(roughly eight hardcovers a month, plus reissues, reprints, Orb trade
paperbacks, and divers and sundry other things). Major authors are Orson
Scott Card, Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind, but they also publish
practically everyone else in the field. In the period in question we
have
epic fantasy from Storm Constantine, Ed Greenwood, Ricardo Pinto and
Harry
Turtledove; literary SF from James Tiptree, Jr. and Margaret Wander
Bonnanno; adventure SF from Catherine Asaro, Michael Flynn, David
Gerrold,
Roland Green and Ben Bova; along with a bunch of reprints. This appears
to
be a rather adventure-oriented list, but Tor can swing either way. Tor
publishes "sociological" writers like Slonczewski and Pohl and more
specifically literary things like PNH's Starlight series. Then there's
_The
Light of Other Days_ by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which is
old-fashioned big idea sf without having an adventure plot. Tor's
clearly
the publisher that breaks Ordover's rules most frequently, but they also
do
quite a bit of adventure stuff (Asaro is one of the obvious examples of
a
writer who's gotten pretty popular working for Tor). Even here there's a
mix.
Warner Aspect:
edited by Betsy Mitchell.
Another small list to finish up, featuring as top authors J.V. Jones and
Peter F. Hamilton. In the period in question, Aspect has _A Triumph of
Souls_ by Alan Dean Foster, the finale to a fantasy trilogy, and a quite
literary SF novel, _Midnight Robber_ by Nalo Hopkinson. Paperbacks
are few, but include adventure fantasy from Chris Bunch, media ties to
the
wargame VOR: The Maelstrom, and adventure SF from David Feintuch. Except
for
the African-American side of the Aspect list (Octavia Butler and
Hopkinson,
and a major anthology upcoming in the summer), the rest is all adventure
stories, whether SF or fantasy.
The major lesson I take away from this (having spent half the day on it)
is that, while fantasy comprises half or slightly more of the books
published (and a noticeable majority of the biggest books), SF is not
the
slough of despond that Ordover seems to think it is. Only Tor comes
close to
his description of publishing only epic fantasy and depressing SF, and
they do
much that is fun and uplifting on the SF side as well. Eos also has a
number of literary
works, but, again, it's in the context of a larger, adventure-oriented
list.
Star Trek sells better than most of those other books and authors for, I
would imagine, the obvious reason: the books tie into a popular series
of TV
shows and movies, and so offer new stories in a familiar and comforting
milieu. There's plenty of SF that has some of the elements of Trek
(though
very little can have all of them without being a clear knock-off),
particularly the adventure plots, neat technological gimmicks, and happy
endings.
The lack of any recent homegrown SF bestsellers of late is worrying,
though. (The last writers
to come out of SF and become bestsellers were William Gibson and Neal
Stephenson,
both of whom are not exactly SF writers -- or at least not perceived
that way by a
large segment of their readership.) Tor has been able to push Robert
Jordan and Terry Goodkind onto bestseller lists (as Spectra has done
with George R.R.
Martin) through smart publishing and offering books readers like in a
series they want
to follow. No similar push seems to have been made for newer SF writers
(Tor does
a similar job for Card's Ender books, but Card's a writer of longer
standing). Maybe
David Weber is the great skiffy hope here; his sales seem to be still
building strongly
from book-to-book, and he attracts fanatical fans (just ask me how many
of them have
e-mailed me to ask when _Ashes of Victory_ will be in the SFBC!). I
also have hopes for
writers like Stephen Baxter (if he had a strong series, with continuing
characters, he'd
have a good chance to hit that level) and Elizabeth Moon.
I'd say the model to emulate (if any of you are writers wanting to be SF
bestsellers) is
mysteries, rather than fantasy. In a mystery series, the hero and
supporting cast
continues from book-to-book (though with some changes), but each book
tells an
independent story. I don't think the
multiple-books-with-one-continuing-plot model
(best exemplar: Robert Jordan) would work as well for SF as it does in
fantasy.
But then, that's just my opinion.
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SFBC
ord...@aol.com
<lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 22:50:03 +0000, Andrew C. Wheeler
>> <andyw...@ultracom.net> wrote:
>>
>> >Tor: edited by a myriad, of whom the most important (I think) are Patrick
>> >Nielsen Hayden, David G. Hartwell, Claire Eddy and James Frenkel.
>>
>> You're omitting Beth Meacham, who is one of the field's most major SF and
>> fantasy editors by any measure.
>>
>> >Tor's clearly the publisher that breaks Ordover's rules most frequently
>>
>> I am dazzled by this sentence. Our former editorial assistant has rules?
>> Which we break? Goodness.
>>
>> Clearly I've missed some discussions while out of town for a week and a
>> half. However, since that period yields over 3000 unread messages in rasfw,
>> I'm unlikely to catch up.
>
>John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
>tie-in sf because 1)Media tie-ins have adventure-oriented,
>change-the-world plots in which ordinary young persons accomplish
>great things, and themes of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice
>2)With very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim, depressing
>settings and plots, and characters who only change things (and only
>try to change things) for themselves and a few friends, and are not
>about heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice, and finally 3)sales of
>non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales of media tie-ins are
>rising, because only the "sf literati" want to read the overwhelming
>majority of non-media tie-in sf.
>
>Lis Carey
hardly a fair characterization, Patrick. See my letter in the next
locus...:)
ord...@aol.com
>But the lists are possibly even more schizophrenic, with DR. ATKINS' NEW
>DIET REVOLUTION cheek-by-jowl with TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES.
>There isn't a "general public" anymore, just lots and lots of various-sized
>interest groups.
>
>Andrew Wheeler
>Editor, SFBC
This brings up the notion of commandos on a low-carbohydrate diet.
You don't wanna mess with those folks....:)
ord...@aol.com
quite instructive - and I'm not qutie so monolithic as I appear.
I think Andy Wheeler made an exellent point about fantasy taking place
in a semi-generic fantasy land. What I've been agitating for without
knowing it can be summed up as the old semi-generic SF land, the kind
of pulp universe that Lensmen, Trek, Wars, Known Space and Bujold all
exist in, and some way to make it clear on the cover that a particular
book is set in that kind of universe. As clear as having a
swordsman, a sorceror, and a dragon on the cover of a fantasy novel is
There are fantasy novels that don't take place in that generic fantasy
world and those that do, and there are SF novels that don't take place
in the generic SF pulp world, and those that do. Perhaps the only
advantage that F has over SF is that the cover iconography is more
easily recognizable, making it easier to distinguish books in the
generic F world and out of it. And yes, that matters - it matters a
whole lot.
The only point I'm not changing is that I truly believe that at least
a certain percentage of the Trek and Wars audience -can- be lured over
to original SF set in the same collective-consciousness pulp world.
They -do- read Bujold, for instance.
.
<andyw...@ultracom.net> writes
>I've been following the discussion about the state of modern SF here for
>
>the past few days, and, though I've seen a lot of things that I agree
>with,
>I've gotten the urge to spout at length. Before you read any further,
>you
>might want to know "who the heck is this guy?" I am a working SF editor,
>
>having been with the Science Fiction Book Club for the past nine years.
I am a newcomer in this group so that I have missed most of the past
discussions here, but I read what I have got with much interest,
including your comments.
I explained within the Ordover thread why I rarely read other SF. I
can`t comment on most of what you have written because I simply don`t
know most of these names but some remarks got my attention.
>
>DAW:
>edited by Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert.
>Top authors are Mercedes Lackey, Kate Elliott, Marion Zimmer Bradley
>and Tad Williams. The major books in the period is _Guardian of the
>Trust_
>by Irene Radford; DAW is another house that does not do many hardcovers,
>
>and doesn't do any trade paperbacks that I'm aware of. The paperback
>list
>(like the hardcovers) is heavily fantasy, but that's been DAW's
>specialty for at least the last decade. Much of their SF list seems to
>me to
>have been directly or indirectly inspired by Darkover, with lots of psi
>powers and other semi-fantasy trappings. DAW's list is almost
>exclusively
>adventure stories - and I say "almost" because someone may be able to
>provide a counter-example, though I can't think of one. On the big SF
>side,
>we have the late Darkover books (adventure science fantasy with a
>helping
>of female-audience-grabbing relationship talkfests)
* LOL! * "Adventure science fantasy with a helping of female-audience-
grabbing relationship talkfests" - that is a good one! :-)
Of course you are right, but I discovered that this is hardly
exclusively a quality in books only female readers enjoy. I am quite
well known in the Star Trek fandom and have contacts with Trekkers of
all kinds. Also to the male Trek readers characterizations are very
important, and, yes, it is not unusual that also male Trek readers enjoy
relationship "talkfests". On the other hand, it is indeed true that as a
rule female readers form much stronger emotional bonds with fictional
characters than male readers. I admit it, I am a good example for that.
BUT what is true is that if you look at the other side of SF, the
technical, scientific side, this is something mainly male readers are
interested in. I also discover this with my husband and at our local
Star Trek meetings. Only (or let`s say, very predominantly) men would
get the idea to reduce the tape speed to slow motion in order to study
what types of ships are involved in a battle or get into an argument
about A versus B, which class of ship would win. The German Star Trek
technology group is nearly exclusively a men`s club :-).
This kind of "hardcore" SF is usually at the expense of "character"
based SF. This explains in my opinion why especially women feel
attracted to Star Trek and Star Trek books. This kind of SF is very rare
among Star Trek books. The only recent obvious exception was "Death of a
Neutron Star", written by a scientist. This book showed very well the
problem I have with this kind of SF: The scientific stuff was simply
boring to me and the characterizations very shallow.
>
>Star Trek sells better than most of those other books and authors for, I
>
>would imagine, the obvious reason: the books tie into a popular series
>of TV
>shows and movies, and so offer new stories in a familiar and comforting
>milieu. There's plenty of SF that has some of the elements of Trek
>(though
>very little can have all of them without being a clear knock-off),
>particularly the adventure plots, neat technological gimmicks, and happy
>
>endings.
I think you should keep in mind that there is hardly "the" Star Trek any
more. The time in which we were only able to get TOS are long gone. Now
there are several Star Trek series around, several directions. And
mainly thanks to John Ordover, we now get a variety of Star Trek books
so that nearly everybody can find something he or she likes. Not only
have we books featuring the four TV series, but also one that is an
ongoing Star Trek series exclusively in book form (New Frontier, my
absolute favourite) and others of this kind will follow. We get
different styles and sub series as well. Star Trek books are evolving,
changing. To quote a German proverb: Who rests starts to rust. Star Trek
books editors are definitely not resting. This is why they are more
popular than ever.
But I don`t have this feeling when looking at the "regular" SF books.
Also, you should be careful about generalizing Star Trek books too much.
Adventure is always important, although certainly not at the expense of
characterizations, that is true. Neat technological stuff is already a
different matter as I just explained. And happy endings? My favourite
Star Trek novel is one of the darkest ones published so far, the New
Frontier novel "Once Burned", which is by the way also the Star Trek
novel voted to be the Star Trek book of the year on the Pocket Books
BBS. Also Star Trek fans like good drama as long as you don`t cross the
line and kill the most popular character/s off.
>
>The lack of any recent homegrown SF bestsellers of late is worrying,
>though.
I find it regrettable but unfortunately I don`t know how to change this.
My experience on this field is admittedly very limited but I know what
my husband is reading. And most of his books consist of the more classic
SF novels and writers. I hardly find anything what I would call "modern"
SF.
I think part of the problem is simply an image problem. I am sure, if I
knew exactly where to look and had the chance to sit in a bookshop
trying a variety of SF literature, I could find something new that grabs
my interest. But this is not possible where I live.
Also, another factor is simply money. I am already spending a lot on my
Star Trek collection and my budget is very limited.
> I don't think the
>multiple-books-with-one-continuing-plot model
>(best exemplar: Robert Jordan) would work as well for SF as it does in
>fantasy.
Hm, this works wonderfully with Star Trek books. They even sell better
than stand alones. And the only ongoing Star Trek series so far, New
Frontier, is the most popular one.
>
>But then, that's just my opinion.
>
>Andrew Wheeler
>Editor, SFBC
Baerbel Haddrell
MXPalmieri
a single
entity. I think it makes more sense to look at each list separately,
to see what each editor (or group of editors) is actually doing. >>
-snip.-
<< Pocket:
edited by our good friend John Ordover!
King is, of course, Star Trek, but Pocket has recently started to
publish
non-Trek SF&F. >>
It should also be noted that John isn't the only editor at Pocket working on
these books. There are others, such as myself, and we're all very much
individuals in our editorial style and philosophy. :)
Marco Palmieri
Editor
Pocket Books
Andrew Plotkin
> Not only
> have we books featuring the four TV series, but also one that is an
> ongoing Star Trek series exclusively in book form (New Frontier, my
> absolute favourite) and others of this kind will follow. We get
> different styles and sub series as well. Star Trek books are evolving,
> changing. To quote a German proverb: Who rests starts to rust. Star Trek
> books editors are definitely not resting. This is why they are more
> popular than ever.
>
> But I don`t have this feeling when looking at the "regular" SF books.
But you say you rarely read "regular" SF. I think that you're missing
details because you're less familiar with the field.
(The same, of course, is true in reverse for me. I barely glance at Star
Trek books these days, and I have no idea what's going on there -- aside
from what I can glean from the titles.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
ORDOVER
vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
John Ordover
Executive Editor
Star Trek Fiction
Pocket Books
For more Trek Book Info:
www.startrekbooks.com
Andrew Plotkin
> Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
> vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
Who is this directed to?
I suspect it's Andrew Wheeler, but I'll answer anyway:
I don't believe in media-tie-in incursion.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
>Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
>vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
I'm not Andy, but my guess is that SF & F fandom made media tieins
"doable" long before other genres even considered it. Conventions,
etc--when Star Trek hit, sf conventions were already off the ground
and rolling, so there was an immediate publicity vehicle ready and
waiting. Mystery and other genre conventions aren't as big, as
popular or as common as sf conventions. Nor do I think other genre
fandoms are as organized.
jrw
J. B. Moreno
-snip-
> << Pocket:
> edited by our good friend John Ordover!
> King is, of course, Star Trek, but Pocket has recently started to
> publish
> non-Trek SF&F. >>
>
> It should also be noted that John isn't the only editor at Pocket working on
> these books. There are others, such as myself, and we're all very much
> individuals in our editorial style and philosophy. :)
Just how many editors are working on the ST books? And are the
organized (i.e. one per series)?
> Marco Palmieri
> Editor
> Pocket Books
BTW -- a couple of usenet pointers. Please include an attribution line
like above which includes the name of the person you are quoting.
Quoting is normally done by adding ">" before each line -- AOL has the
option of doing this for you, but you'll have to change a preference.
Signatures should be preceded by a sigdash (two dashes and a single
space on an otherwise blank line).
I realize all of this is a bit of extra work, but that's the price of
using AOL instead of something that would do it for you...
--
John B. Moreno
Anncrispin
>Just how many editors are working on the ST books? And are the
>organized (i.e. one per series)?
>
Any time I get down and depressed, all I have to do is think about the fact
that Pocket's Star Trek Department has both Star Trek FICTION editors, and Star
Trek NONFICTION editors.
That is good for a giggle.
<g>
-Ann C. Crispin
Irv Koch
Thanks for your attention,
Irv Koch (who mostly agrees with your post but doesn't think it would
help to respond in the newsgroup that:
Baen is for all practical purposes the Simon & Schuster SF arm, not
Pocket Books, whose SF line, in theory, is. Bantam and Del Rey are now
both part of the same company, and, the owners rhetoric to the contrary,
the expected ... from that ... is happening. DAW is maybe an
independent company but all the shipping containers, when I owned half
of The SF & Mystery Book Shop, Ltd., in Atlanta, said "DIVISION of ...
whatever conglomerate ate their "distributor.""
The above explains lack of hardcovers and TPB, in many cases. I could
also go into the history of the editors at Ace ... also part of the same
company that owns Bantam and Del Rey ... and the impact of the
personallities of the editors on the line. But, <shrug>, it matters
little. (And, to make matters more interesting, Toni is a friend of
mine.)
Keep up the good work.
Evelyn C. Leeper
Andrew C. Wheeler <andyw...@ultracom.net> wrote:
>
> The lack of any recent homegrown SF bestsellers of late is worrying,
> though. (The last writers to come out of SF and become bestsellers
> were William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, both of whom are not exactly
> SF writers -- or at least not perceived that way by a large segment of
> their readership.)
Well, that almost goes without saying, since whatever sells well enough
to become a best-seller has to sell to the general public, who will
look for any excuse to say what they like isn't science fiction.
(My sister-in-law claimed that the movie COCCON wasn't science fiction,
for just that reason.)
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.
--Teresa Nielsen Hayden
MXPalmieri
>organized (i.e. one per series)?
Margaret Clark. Each of us also works on other projects besides ST.
>BTW -- a couple of usenet pointers. Please include an >attribution line
>like above which includes the name of the person you >are quoting.
Thanks for the pointers.
MXPalmieri
>Any time I get down and depressed, all I have to do is >think about the fact
>that Pocket's Star Trek Department has both Star >Trek FICTION editors, and
Star
>Trek NONFICTION editors.
>That is good for a giggle.
Actually, jokes aside, we haven't separated the books that way for some time.
It's true that John has been doing most of the fiction, Margaret's been doing
most of the reference, while I've been doing a little of each. But we're all
free now to work on either type of book.
Ian Montgomerie
>Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
>vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
Another poster raised a good point. Which is that Star Trek tie-ins
probably succeed for the same reason that there are Star Trek conventions,
and Trek produces loads of successful movies and spinoffs, and why to some
degree the other media properties with successful tie-ins show similar
versions of the same thing.
As you said, Murder She Wrote novels don't seem to have been highly
successful, even though the series was popular. But I don't see Murder She
Wrote conventions or anything like that either.
SF and fantasy seem to attract people who are unusually loyal fans, and who
are much much more likely than average to read a lot. Which in itself
predicts that Star Trek viewers are more likely to like the setting and
characters enough to pursue them into other genres, and are likely to buy
many more tie-ins than their numbers alone would indicate relative to the
number of watchers of other shows.
I mean, good grief, there is a reason why "Trekkies" in general are by far
the most recognizable kind of media fan, and it has nothing to do with
novels in particular. Star Trek tie-ins are also, second to Star Wars tie
ins, by far the most successful media tie in for computer games. And it's
sure as hell not because Star Trek games are of higher quality than the
competition (the opposite is usually true), or because suitable heroic
action is unavailable in other computer games.
Martin Soederstroem
tell us this:
>Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
>vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
Someone else said, I think, that SF* media fiction are unique in
having any biproduct sales. Now I don't personally know about the
other types of media fiction, so I ask: Are there Law and Order action
figures? Do people buy replica Baywatch beach towels? (Imagine reading
a Baywatch tie in novel. Urk.)
*"SF" Stands for Speculative Fiction on this group.
--
Martin
Remove NEINSPAM.INVALID to email me.
ORDOVER
-fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media tie-ins.
It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books outsell the
original novels.
In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world so
compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media books,
why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it being done?
Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But that's
not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
Over to you guys.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
>But there were SF conventions long before Star Trek ever existed - and
>-fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media tie-ins.
Well, you wanted to know why other genres didn't develop the same
amount of tie-ins--and I think that's why sf developed tie-ins and
mystery didn't. I think in other genres, there's a certain amount of
scorn and dislike of media tie-ins (rightly or wrongly), while in SF
all you've gotta do is trot off to your neighborhood con and dress up
as your favorite character. Other genres, it's shoved under the rug
(with the possible exception of Sherlock Holmes, but that's not a
media tie-in, that's fanfic).
So that makes it easier for folks to accept written media tie-ins in
this genre.
Additionally, the media tie-ins have been established here long enough
that while officially scorned, there's enough guilty pleasure in the
media tie-ins that folks support it in sf while they don't in other
genres.
Besides, have you *read* any of the other media tie-ins? I skimmed a
"Dallas" one *years* ago--and if ANY media tie-in should have taken
off, it was that one--and man, was it awful! I think the average
quality of an sf media tie-in is higher than in the other genres.
Sorry but true.
>It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books outsell the
>original novels.
>In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world so
>compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media books,
>why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it being done?
Well, I think if you are looking at the attraction of mainstream
readers to sf--that is, the mainstream reader reads Star Trek and Star
Wars without crossing over to sf, then I'd argue that part of it may
well be the general perception of sf as a whole in the overall writing
world. Sf is still the red-headed stepchild in a lot of ways when it
comes to dealing with overall acceptance. A media tie-in is probably
just more acceptable than regular sf to non sf readers because, after
all, it's based on a popular movie! It's in hardback! It's Not
Really Science Fiction, It's A Media Tie-in! Yeppers, there *are*
people who think like that....sigh.
Fantasy may be more accessible because it's enough like other
acceptable genres--romance, for example--for readers to feel
comfortable to make the switch (think of the massive
multi-generational Big Book Romances and their popularity). SF,
however, is much like Westerns (a genre definitely in eclipse at the
moment) in that it is about notions which May Not Be Politicially
Correct at the moment--exploration, war, etc, etc.
jrw
Gary Weiner
Martin Soederstroem wrote:
>
> On 25 Apr 2000 15:59:06 GMT the living god ORDOVER walked on earth to
> tell us this:
>
> >Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
> >vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
>
> Someone else said, I think, that SF* media fiction are unique in
> having any biproduct sales. Now I don't personally know about the
> other types of media fiction, so I ask: Are there Law and Order action
> figures? Do people buy replica Baywatch beach towels? (Imagine reading
> a Baywatch tie in novel. Urk.)
Maybe a Baywatch Photonovel? <g>
--
Gary J. Weiner
webm...@hatrack.net
Gary Weiner
ORDOVER wrote:
>
> But there were SF conventions long before Star Trek ever existed - and
> -fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media tie-ins.
But Star Trek was the first media event to really affect SF fandom and
tap into that group of loyal, book-reading people. Is there a large
overlap between mystery book lovers and "Murder She Wrote" viewers?
And when you say WOT outsells media tie-ins, do mean all media tie-ins
(as a group) or indivdual ST novels or what?
>
> It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books outsell the
> original novels.
Correction, it is Star Trek and Star Wars that sell so well, two huge,
cross-media phenomena that span decades. What pecentage of SF-related
media tie-in novels are not part of one of these two juggernauts?
> In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world so
> compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media books,
> why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it being done?
>
> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But that's
> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
Chricton writes SF. Bad SF, to be sure, but SF just the same.
Andrew C. Wheeler
> Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
> vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
>
> John Ordover
> Executive Editor
> Star Trek Fiction
> Pocket Books
>
> For more Trek Book Info:
> www.startrekbooks.com
I didn't realize you'd sent this to the group as well. Let's see if I can find
the e-mail I just sent you...Ah, here it is:
I don't really have one over-arching theory. I think some of it has to do with
the addictive personality common in fandom (ER fans just watch the show,
mostly, but Babylon 5 fans dress up in costume). I think that there's also
distinctions to be made among media tie lines; Trek has lasted, more on than
off, for thirty+ years. Star Wars has had peaks, but it doesn't have the same
long history (or depth of product). Star Wars has consciously presented nearly
every book as an _event_. And everything else is pretty small, not mainstream
bestseller class, just solid, dependable sales for a genre title. Trek does hit
those points you articulated, and the utopian space opera is a powerful
storyline. There are other aspects, too. I don't believe there is one
explanation. But one of my reasons is similar to yours: I think SF writers and
fandom wanted for so long to be taken seriously that now, when a generation
weaned on SF is in charge, that there is a tendency to package books in ways I
find counter-productive. (But don't get me started on cover art and marketing,
I'll be here all day.)
I'm not exactly opposed to your view; I do think that adventure SF is an
important part of the field, and, when done well, can be as good as anything
else. Personally, I've got a middlebrow taste; I find a lot of both ends of the
spectrum tedious for different reasons. I just wanted to run through the field
(mostly for my own benefit), to see if I thought your picture held true. I sent
the message because I thought others might (if they managed to read all the way
through the whole damn thing) find it interesting. I haven't checked the group
yet, so I don't know what's exfolitated since.
I hope you didn't take that as some sort of attack; I tried to make it clear at
the top that this was just another editor's view of the field. Of course, I
expect _every_ editor to think his books are superior to everyone else's!
Andy Wheeler
Andrew C. Wheeler
> Well, that almost goes without saying, since whatever sells well enough
> to become a best-seller has to sell to the general public, who will
> look for any excuse to say what they like isn't science fiction.
I honestly don't believe that's true. As late as the 1970s, there did seem
to be a general "bestseller" audience: fairly homogenous and middlebrow.
But looking at the betseller lists over the past two decades, I can't
imagine that the same kind of people are buying these books. I do think
certain kinds of SF and fantasy appeal to a wide enough audience (most of
the "read lots of the stuff" audience, along with a big crossover into the
"read only 5-10 books a year" audience, which is much bigger than the core
bookbuyers but harder to reach.)
I happen to have this week's _Publishers Weekly_ in front of me, so it
might be interesting to see what the bestseller lists look like (I type
this not having looked at them yet.)
Hardcover:
1.THE WEDDING, Danielle Steel
2. THE BRETHREN, John Grisham
3. BACK ROADS, Tawni O'Dell
4. HUGGER MUGGER, Robert Parker
5. BEOWULF, translated by Seamus Heaney
6. CAROLINA MOON, Nora Roberts
7. HORSE HEAVEN, Jane Smiley
8. DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE, Isabel Allende
9. WICKED WIDOW, Amanda Quick
10. BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON, Helen Fielding
11. THE PATIENT, Michael Palmer
12. GAP CREEK, Robert Morgan
13. THE LION'S GAME, Nelson DeMille
14. IN THE FALL, Jeffrey Lent
15. TIMELINE, Michael Crichton
(It needs to be noted here that PW refuses to put the Harry Potter books on
this list, even though their sales would put all three to date in the top
10, since they are "childrens' books," and thus, presumably, not "hardcover
bestsellers," as they bill this list. Sorry, it's a hobby horse of mine.)
The PW paperback lists aren't divided into "fiction" and "non-fiction,"
like the hardcovers, so I won't list both "mass market" and "trade" here.
ord...@aol.com
<iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 11:43:28 GMT, Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net>
>wrote:
>
>>> >John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
>>> >tie-in sf because 1)Media tie-ins have adventure-oriented,
>>> >change-the-world plots in which ordinary young persons accomplish
>>> >great things, and themes of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice
>>> >2)With very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim, depressing
>>> >settings and plots, and characters who only change things (and only
>>> >try to change things) for themselves and a few friends, and are not
>>> >about heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice, and finally 3)sales of
>>> >non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales of media tie-ins are
>>> >rising, because only the "sf literati" want to read the overwhelming
>>> >majority of non-media tie-in sf.
>>> >
>>> >Lis Carey
>>>
>>> hardly a fair characterization, Patrick. See my letter in the next
>>> locus...:)
>>
>>In what way is it unfair? Yes, I did leave out the bit about how
>>readers of media tie-ins who have read one non-media sf novel and
>>liked it are defeated by the complexity of the task involved in
>>finding another non-media sf novel that they'll like, but other than
>>that, it's exactly what you certainly _seem_ to have been saying. If
>>you meant something else, perhaps you'd care to clarify?
>
>It seems to be to be a perfectly fair characterization of Ordover's views as
>presented here. If that is not a fair characterization of his actual views,
>I suggest that the problem lies in his explanation of his views, not lin
>Elisabeth's interpretation.
Wow, people are arguing about the finer points of interpreting
something -I- posted. I have -arrived.- :)
>
P Nielsen Hayden
wrote:
>The above explains lack of hardcovers and TPB, in many cases. I could
>also go into the history of the editors at Ace ... also part of the same
>company that owns Bantam and Del Rey ...
Wrong. Bantam and Del Rey are part of Bertelsmann. Ace is part of the
Pearson/Putnam/Viking/Penguin conglomerate.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
P Nielsen Hayden
<andyw...@ultracom.net> wrote:
>Tor: edited by a myriad, of whom the most important (I think) are Patrick
>Nielsen Hayden, David G. Hartwell, Claire Eddy and James Frenkel.
You're omitting Beth Meacham, who is one of the field's most major SF and
fantasy editors by any measure.
>Tor's clearly the publisher that breaks Ordover's rules most frequently
I am dazzled by this sentence. Our former editorial assistant has rules?
Which we break? Goodness.
Clearly I've missed some discussions while out of town for a week and a
half. However, since that period yields over 3000 unread messages in rasfw,
I'm unlikely to catch up.
--
Elisabeth Carey
John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
Elisabeth Carey
> locus...:)
In what way is it unfair? Yes, I did leave out the bit about how
readers of media tie-ins who have read one non-media sf novel and
liked it are defeated by the complexity of the task involved in
finding another non-media sf novel that they'll like, but other than
that, it's exactly what you certainly _seem_ to have been saying. If
you meant something else, perhaps you'd care to clarify?
Lis Carey
P Nielsen Hayden
wrote:
>John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
>tie-in sf because 1)Media tie-ins have adventure-oriented,
>change-the-world plots in which ordinary young persons accomplish
>great things, and themes of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice
>2)With very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim, depressing
>settings and plots, and characters who only change things (and only
>try to change things) for themselves and a few friends, and are not
>about heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice, and finally 3)sales of
>non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales of media tie-ins are
>rising, because only the "sf literati" want to read the overwhelming
>majority of non-media tie-in sf.
This certainly sounds like a mixed bag of common sense and wildly
unsupportable assertions. Just to start, the idea that "media tie-in sf
outsells non-media-tie-in sf" comes from an alternate world. Some media
tie-in sf sells very well; some doesn't. Looking at the other kind of sf,
we see that some of it sells very well and, goodness, some doesn't. Neither
kind of sf reliably sells as well as the big refrigerator-sized fantasy
epics. The idea that "sales of non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales
of media tie-ins are rising" is pretty simplistic. Sales of many of the
media-franchise series are slowly falling; sales of Neal Stephenson are
rising. What can be said without question about media tie-in sf is that a
well-established series offers publishers _reliability_ -- a slot with
budgetary predictability. That's a very desirable thing in the otherwise
extremely unpredictable world of book publishing, and can make up for some
otherwise relatively unspectacular numbers.
The idea that "with very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim,
depressing settings and plots" is of course a silly overstatement, but I
suspect John would object to this characterization of his views. Certainly
the set "sf" contains some fairly downbeat material, while the set "media
tie-in sf" mostly doesn't. Is John perhaps asserting that the existence of
Barry Malzberg acts as a cap on the sales potential of David Brin -- that
hundreds of thousands of potential Brin fans are deterred by the vague
suspicion that the paperback they would otherwise try might turn out to be
something like HEROVIT'S WORLD? Well, it's a notion. But I can't help
thinking that this is all rather like comparing "Tuesday night sitcoms" to
"the theater." Tuesday night sitcoms are all watched by more people than the
overwhelming majority of stage productions! Well, yes, but this is a
function of a whole lot of factors, many of which are (to put it gently)
somewhat extraneous to the content, good and bad, of Tuesday night sitcoms.
I certainly wouldn't dream of arguing against the idea that, by and large,
stories about ordinary people accomplishing great things are likelier to
find a large audience. People do indeed like to read about heroism,
friendship, and self-sacrifice. And people like a little of the new mixed
in to a large wodge of the familiar and reassuring. This is not breaking
news, nor are these qualities exclusive to "media tie-in SF"; they're
frequently found in popular narrative art of all sorts. Of course, when you
actually look at the full range of what's popular, you find that these
qualities are (1) frequently present and (2) often take some very unusual
forms.
Finally, I'm a little confused by what I can discern from this discussion
because I'm unsure of who's aspiring to what. From the one side, I've never
quite understood the people who believe that media tie-in SF is a dreadful
threat to the precious bodily fluids of skiffydom. As John observes, people
read it for reasons which are actually not insane; and moreover, my own
observation is that teenagers who contract a taste for the media tie-in
stuff are more likely, not less likely, to read other SF as well. On the
other hand, I don't understand what appears to be John's insistence on some
insupportable generalizations, unless the real point here is that John feels
he and his books Don't Get No Respect. Shrug. Things are tough all over.
Norman Spinrad sneers at John's preferred variety of SF. Margaret Atwood
sneers at mine. I don't recall life being advertised as free of people
sneering at the work we love. We deal with it, and do our work anyway, and
move on.
ORDOVER
Patrick, to what amounts to my cry for "Truth in Labelling.":)
Pete McCutchen
>>Tor's clearly the publisher that breaks Ordover's rules most frequently
>
>
>I am dazzled by this sentence. Our former editorial assistant has rules?
>Which we break? Goodness.
Ordover believes that Trek outsells regular written sf because regular
written sf is self-referential and downbeat, while Trek is upbeat
about the future and features adventure stories. Tor publishes books
set in downbeat futures which aren't adventure stories and are
self-referential to boot. See those self-referential boring dystopian
tales by Debra Doyle and Jim McDonald for an example thereof.
Ordover also believes that regular written sf it outsold by Trek
because his readers are too stupid to find what they want amidst the
welter of choices.
--
Pete McCutchen
thomas monaghan
Trouble is after they distilled what you wrote and then added their own
slant it seemed to have lost something in the translation.
Tom
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, ord...@aol.com () says:
>On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 09:45:47 GMT, Elisabeth Carey
><lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>
>>P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>>>
>>> I am dazzled by this sentence. Our former editorial assistant has rules?
>>> Which we break? Goodness.
>>>
>>> Clearly I've missed some discussions while out of town for a week and a
>>> half. However, since that period yields over 3000 unread messages in rasfw,
>>> I'm unlikely to catch up.
>>
>>John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
>>tie-in sf because 1)Media tie-ins have adventure-oriented,
>>change-the-world plots in which ordinary young persons accomplish
>>great things, and themes of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice
>>2)With very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim, depressing
>>settings and plots, and characters who only change things (and only
>>try to change things) for themselves and a few friends, and are not
>>about heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice, and finally 3)sales of
>>non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales of media tie-ins are
>>rising, because only the "sf literati" want to read the overwhelming
>>majority of non-media tie-in sf.
>>
>>Lis Carey
>
>hardly a fair characterization, Patrick. See my letter in the next
>locus...:)
>
Is it up on the online edition?
< http://www.locusmag.com/Whatsnew.html >?
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Book Reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
--
Robert Shaw
Gary Weiner <webm...@hatrack.net> wrote
>
> ORDOVER wrote:
> >
> >
> > It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books
outsell the
> > original novels.
>
> Correction, it is Star Trek and Star Wars that sell so well, two huge,
> cross-media phenomena that span decades. What pecentage of SF-related
> media tie-in novels are not part of one of these two juggernauts?
>
managed to publish several books where the doctor never appeared that
had a non-tv companion has the main character. Since they are being
written without a reset button, that helps their quality.
--
'It is a wise crow that knows which way the camel points' - Pratchett
Robert Shaw
Ian Montgomerie
wrote:
>> It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books outsell the
>> original novels.
>
>Correction, it is Star Trek and Star Wars that sell so well, two huge,
>cross-media phenomena that span decades. What pecentage of SF-related
>media tie-in novels are not part of one of these two juggernauts?
I think it would actually be safe to call the AD&D novels "media tie-ins" as
well. Quite a lot of people have played AD&D at least casually at some
point, and thus provide a ready audience for said sets of novels.
I do know that if you look for tie ins in the book store, Star Trek and Star
Wars are huge sections. There are smaller series about the Aliens universe,
Babylon 5, and Doctor Who, but they generally occupy a heck of a lot less
shelf space. There are less books and afaik they are rather less
successful.
>> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But that's
>> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
>> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
>
>Chricton writes SF. Bad SF, to be sure, but SF just the same.
Although Crichton's books are often classifiable as SF (Sphere is an obvious
example), sometimes they are more like "technothrillers". The ones I've
read have all been set on present day Earth, focusing on one new technology
or SF thingy. This is unlike many peoples' impression of SF, which is of
stories set in the future. Extrapolation of a single near-future technology
is quite common in books which are referred to as "technothrillers", that
are generally considered distinct from SF by nearly everyone.
ord...@aol.com
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 22:17:22 +0100, "." <Em...@trekdata.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>>If you read these two books and don't like them, well, I'd conclude
>>>that non-media sf just isn't for you. Because if characters are what
>>>you like, Bujold is clearly at the top of the pile.
>>>
>>>Really. Give her a try. I'd love to hear what you think.
>>>
>>
>>I was recently talking to John Ordover on AIM and he also recommended
>>this author to me. I made a note and will keep it in mind. My husband
>>hasn`t got her in his collection and at the moment I don`t have the
>>money left to buy too many books because although I am willing to try
>>her work, I have to make priorities.
>
>If you're going to hang out here, you almost have to read Bujold. :-)
>
>Honestly, given your stated preferences, I cannot imagine you'll be
>disappointed. Characters are very definitely her strong point.
>However, while some people disagree, I would suggest definitely making
>sure that you take them in order; that way, you can stay on top of
>character development. As I said, the first two (chronologically, in
>the series) are _Shards of Honor_ and _Barrayar_, packaged together as
>_Cordelia's Honor_. _Shards of Honor_ is less polished -- it was her
>first novel -- but it's still very good.
>
>Oh, and since you indicated that there are some financial constraints,
>let me tell you how you can get a book (an ebook, at least) for FREE.
>That's right, FREE! Go to www.baen.com, and register for Baen
>Webscriptions. Most books you have to pay for (though it's cheap:
>four books for ten bucks), but _registering_ is free, _and_ they have
>a free sample online -- _On Basilisk Station_, by David Weber, the
>first novel featuring Honor Harrington. Given your stated
>preferences, I'm less sure that you'll like the HH series, though your
>husband probably will (it has lots of fighting, and stuff about what
>ship can beat up what other kind of ship).
>
>>
>>But thank you very much. This was very helpful.
>>
>>I am reading a Star Trek novel at the moment but I already told John
>>that after finishing it I will follow his recommendation and try
>>Ringworld by Larry Niven. My husband has the book and has given it to me
>>although he has his doubts that it will be my taste. But we will see...
>
>I seriously doubt that you'll like it. My wife, who, like you,
>expresses an interest in good characters, really doesn't dig Niven,
>though she absolutely adores Bujold. (We fight over who gets to read
>a new Bujold first.)
>
>--
>
>Pete McCutchen
Pete, this is exactly what I'm saying about how to talk to a media fan
about trying something else. Note what it is they like about the
media they are reading, then suggest things that might appeal to
someone with that taste.
That's all I'm saying. Of course, things they might like have to
actually be written, published, out there and availible, and they are
of course, but more might even be better.
ord...@aol.com
<jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <20000425170256...@ng-cg1.aol.com>,
> ord...@aol.com (ORDOVER) wrote:
>> But there were SF conventions long before Star Trek ever existed - and
>> -fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media
>tie-ins.
>>
>> It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books
>outsell the
>> original novels.
>>
>> In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world
>so
>> compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media
>books,
>> why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it
>being done?
>
>Okay, you've made me come up with a theory. With numbered guesses. (I
>have no evidence for most of it.)
>
>1. So many people watch movies and TV that tie-ins are bound to be more
>popular than original fiction in the same genre. In particular, media
>science fiction sells like burritos on Cinco de Mayo, with consequences
>for sales of tie-in books.
>
>2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
>can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
>this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
>
>3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
>Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
>of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
>science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
>too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
>
>4. Why is that?
> Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
>or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
>the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
>knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
>Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
>it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
>Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
> "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step."
> (Maybe I should point out how much I'm generalizing. Some of us
>find almost all of Hollywood science fiction to be highly
>unsatisfactory. But what is my opinion against that of millions?)
Friend of mine has a theory - one I'm not totally convinced by, but is
interesting - that goes like this:
To be popular, movies must appeal to an American sensibility.
American sensibilities are based on the western and post WWII on
high-tech. SF movies have the western sensibility with a high-tech
gloss.
Knights, castles, etc. are based on a European sensibility. The
horses-arrows-and-castles movies that work best for the American
sensibility are stories like Robin Hood, like Braveheart, which are
about rebels fighting against British authority - another american
sensibility. Xena is "Have Sword, Will Travel."
There aren't knights and castles in the American past, so the
connection isn't there.
Further, he says, horses and armour are a horrible pain to deal with,
and all horses pretty much look alike and they don't have the punch of
a landspeer or an alien animal, and if you introduce a weird fantasy
riding beast, then you have to deal with it in every scene, etc. etc.
Plus, he says, wizards have an annoying tendency to stand and point,
or to soliloquize until something big happens, both of which come out
static on screen.
All of this means that 1) Fantasy with a european base has a following
that can make bestsellers but not blockbuster movies and 2) that
fantasy works better in prose.
Anyway, I'm not standing behind this, but it's worth talking about.
>
>5. Exception that proves the rule: From what you've been saying, the
>most successful fantasy tie-ins are to RPGs--which rely on the players'
>imagination, not the designers'.
>
>6. And another thing. Lots of people who like fantasy seem to want an
>experience that lasts many hours. What Patrick Nielsen Hayden aptly
>calls refrigerator-sized books fill that need very nicely, and so do
>RPGs (to the detriment of my grades in college). Hollywood's products
>don't.
>
>> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But
>that's
>> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
>> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
>
>That's mere snobbery. The two Crichton books I've read (_The Andromeda
>Strain_ and _The Terminal Man_) were certainly science fiction by my
>definition.
>
>--
>Jerry Friedman
>jfrE...@nnm.cc.nm.us
>i before e
>and all the disclaimers
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
ord...@aol.com
>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 19:35:26 GMT, Jerry Friedman <jfried...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>
>>2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
>>can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
>>this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
>
>
>I don't think very many Star Trek books have sold a half-million copies in
>hardcover, no. (If any have, I'm sure John will correct me.)
We've come close in the past, but in the current market, Jordan
outsells us handily, which I've mentioned on this thread.:)
>
>
>>3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
>>Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
>>of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
>>science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
>>too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
>>
>>4. Why is that?
>> Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
>>or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
>>the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
>>knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
>>Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
>>it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
>>Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
>> "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step."
>
>
>I've long thought pretty much the same thing. The STAR WARS of epic fantasy
>has yet to be made. Here in the year 2000, if your tastes run to SF
>adventure, you can watch a lot of passable movies and TV before you need to
>resort to books. If your tastes run to lengthy fantasy epics, while there
>are scraps of more-or-less successful this and that in movie and TV form,
>you'll need to take up reading a lot sooner.
>
>So will Peter Jackson kill the fantasy publishing genre? Only Time Will
>Tell. This is Roland Hedley Jr. reporting; over to you, Muffy.
Assuming that Peter Jackson is the director of the Lord of the Rings
movie, it won't kill the epic fantasy genre even if its wildly
successful. It'll take an epic fantasy TV series - perhaps one based
on Jordan - to do that.
ord...@aol.com
<r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote in article
>
>> Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>> fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>> of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
>I bet I could get widespread agreement regarding "The Wizard of Oz," "The
>Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
OZ is an epic fantasy in miniature, but the others, while having
fantasy elements, aren't the WHEEL OF TIME type.:)
>
>But you're right, there hasn't been a great serious, imaginary-world
>fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the Rings"
>movie will change that.
>
>Rachel
ord...@aol.com
>Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the reasons
>I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they can set up a
>good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into a Generic
>Fantasyverse.
>
First of all, I gotta say I was never crazy about Tolkein, but the
trailer for the movie makes -me- impatient to see it. It looks good.
I'm always concerned when Hollywood does an intentional trilogy - they
often wind up saving cool stuff for Movie Two, but without that cool
stuff in Movie I it doesn't do well enough to make Movie Two happen.
It's a little different here because they have three books to draw on,
so we'll see.
Ian Montgomerie
wrote:
>> >John Ordover's SF Rules: Media tie-in SF vastly outsells non-media
>> >tie-in sf because 1)Media tie-ins have adventure-oriented,
>> >change-the-world plots in which ordinary young persons accomplish
>> >great things, and themes of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice
>> >2)With very few exceptions, non-media tie-in sf has grim, depressing
>> >settings and plots, and characters who only change things (and only
>> >try to change things) for themselves and a few friends, and are not
>> >about heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice, and finally 3)sales of
>> >non-media tie-in sf are falling, and sales of media tie-ins are
>> >rising, because only the "sf literati" want to read the overwhelming
>> >majority of non-media tie-in sf.
>> >
>> >Lis Carey
>>
>> hardly a fair characterization, Patrick. See my letter in the next
>> locus...:)
>
>In what way is it unfair? Yes, I did leave out the bit about how
>readers of media tie-ins who have read one non-media sf novel and
>liked it are defeated by the complexity of the task involved in
>finding another non-media sf novel that they'll like, but other than
>that, it's exactly what you certainly _seem_ to have been saying. If
>you meant something else, perhaps you'd care to clarify?
It seems to be to be a perfectly fair characterization of Ordover's views as
P Nielsen Hayden
>Wow, people are arguing about the finer points of interpreting
>something -I- posted. I have -arrived.- :)
No, it means you need to write more clearly.
Pete McCutchen
>>It seems to be to be a perfectly fair characterization of Ordover's views as
>>presented here. If that is not a fair characterization of his actual views,
>>I suggest that the problem lies in his explanation of his views, not lin
>>Elisabeth's interpretation.
>
>Wow, people are arguing about the finer points of interpreting
>something -I- posted. I have -arrived.- :)
Actually, they were agreeing with Lis's characterization of your
expressed views. I agree, too, so there's no argument, unless you
want to support your claim to Patrick that her characterization was in
some way "unfair."
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>* LOL! * "Adventure science fantasy with a helping of female-audience-
>grabbing relationship talkfests" - that is a good one! :-)
>
>Of course you are right, but I discovered that this is hardly
>exclusively a quality in books only female readers enjoy. I am quite
>well known in the Star Trek fandom and have contacts with Trekkers of
>all kinds. Also to the male Trek readers characterizations are very
>important, and, yes, it is not unusual that also male Trek readers enjoy
>relationship "talkfests". On the other hand, it is indeed true that as a
>rule female readers form much stronger emotional bonds with fictional
>characters than male readers. I admit it, I am a good example for that.
>
>BUT what is true is that if you look at the other side of SF, the
>technical, scientific side, this is something mainly male readers are
>interested in. I also discover this with my husband and at our local
>Star Trek meetings. Only (or let`s say, very predominantly) men would
>get the idea to reduce the tape speed to slow motion in order to study
>what types of ships are involved in a battle or get into an argument
>about A versus B, which class of ship would win. The German Star Trek
>technology group is nearly exclusively a men`s club :-).
>
>This kind of "hardcore" SF is usually at the expense of "character"
>based SF. This explains in my opinion why especially women feel
>attracted to Star Trek and Star Trek books. This kind of SF is very rare
>among Star Trek books. The only recent obvious exception was "Death of a
>Neutron Star", written by a scientist. This book showed very well the
>problem I have with this kind of SF: The scientific stuff was simply
>boring to me and the characterizations very shallow.
Reading this, I think it's quite possible that your distaste for
non-media sf arises out of your husband's incompatible tastes in the
stuff. Once again, let me give you a name: Lois McMaster Bujold. If
you want "emotional connection to the characters" and "strong
characterization," then I'll tell you, Bujold is for you. Most of her
books are in a series featuring continuing characters with whom one
develops a very strong connection. The first two, _Shards of Honor_
and _Barrayar_, are available, at least in the US, in an omnibus
collection called _Cordelia's Honor_. Checking Amazon.co.uk, it
appears also to be available in England packaged that way.
If you read these two books and don't like them, well, I'd conclude
that non-media sf just isn't for you. Because if characters are what
you like, Bujold is clearly at the top of the pile.
Really. Give her a try. I'd love to hear what you think.
--
Pete McCutchen
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, webm...@hatrack.net (Gary Weiner) says:
>
>
>Martin Soederstroem wrote:
>>
>> On 25 Apr 2000 15:59:06 GMT the living god ORDOVER walked on earth to
>> tell us this:
>>
>> >Andy, let me ask - what is -your- explanation of why only SF and Fantasy are
>> >vulnerable to media-tie-in incursion?
>>
>> Someone else said, I think, that SF* media fiction are unique in
>> having any biproduct sales. Now I don't personally know about the
>> other types of media fiction, so I ask: Are there Law and Order action
>> figures? Do people buy replica Baywatch beach towels? (Imagine reading
>> a Baywatch tie in novel. Urk.)
>
>Maybe a Baywatch Photonovel? <g>
>
I think SI does that. Always sells well, too
Cheers -- Pete T
--
On my fact-finding trips to Miami-area beaches, I've noticed that the
Europeans don't seem to notice that they're almost naked. But the
Americans definitely do. American women are cool about it; they have
developed the ability to look at things, such as a man's Euro region,
via a Stealth Glance technique, so that you never actually catch them
doing it. (They use a similar technique for scratching.) American men,
on the other hand, are as subtle as a dog with its nose in another
dog's butt... -- Dave Barry,
http://www.herald.com/herald/content/archive/news/barry/
--
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, webm...@hatrack.net (Gary Weiner) says:
>
>
>ORDOVER wrote:
>>
>
>> In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world so
>> compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media books,
>> why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it being done?
>>
>> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But that's
>> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
>> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
>
>Chricton writes SF. Bad SF, to be sure, but SF just the same.
>
Crichton (for a third try at spelling) writes almost counter-SF,
in that he's invariably technphobic -- at least he was until I
gave up on him, and reviews of later books suggest more of the
same. He writes well, and God knows he's popular, but his audience
ain't the trad-SF readers.
I'm not sure just why I find Crichton so annoying, as it's been
some years since I last read him. Smartass negative attitude maybe.
But a publisher's dream.
Rick
P.D. TILLMAN <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
news:8e9u98$t97$1...@news.asu.edu...
> Crichton (for a third try at spelling) writes almost counter-SF,
> in that he's invariably technphobic -- at least he was until I
> gave up on him, and reviews of later books suggest more of the
> same. He writes well, and God knows he's popular, but his audience
> ain't the trad-SF readers.
I disagree. He doesn't write well at all.
Jerry Friedman
ord...@aol.com (ORDOVER) wrote:
> But there were SF conventions long before Star Trek ever existed - and
> -fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media
tie-ins.
>
> It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books
outsell the
> original novels.
>
so
> compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media
books,
> why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it
being done?
Okay, you've made me come up with a theory. With numbered guesses. (I
have no evidence for most of it.)
1. So many people watch movies and TV that tie-ins are bound to be more
popular than original fiction in the same genre. In particular, media
science fiction sells like burritos on Cinco de Mayo, with consequences
for sales of tie-in books.
2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
4. Why is that?
Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step."
(Maybe I should point out how much I'm generalizing. Some of us
find almost all of Hollywood science fiction to be highly
unsatisfactory. But what is my opinion against that of millions?)
5. Exception that proves the rule: From what you've been saying, the
most successful fantasy tie-ins are to RPGs--which rely on the players'
imagination, not the designers'.
6. And another thing. Lots of people who like fantasy seem to want an
experience that lasts many hours. What Patrick Nielsen Hayden aptly
calls refrigerator-sized books fill that need very nicely, and so do
RPGs (to the detriment of my grades in college). Hollywood's products
don't.
> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But
that's
> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
That's mere snobbery. The two Crichton books I've read (_The Andromeda
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
wrote:
snip
>I'm not sure just why I find Crichton so annoying, as it's been
>some years since I last read him. Smartass negative attitude maybe.
>But a publisher's dream.
>
I know why *I* find Crichton annoying, it's his characters (or lack
thereof). They just read like cardboard cutouts to me...whereas for
some reason Stephen King manages to make 'em live.
jrw
ORDOVER
The Cautionary Tale with regard to technology is a valid form of SF. SF was
never entirely about the glorification of technology.
It's hard to imagine a story about resurrected dinosaurs rampaging on a
presenty-day island that -isn't- SF (at least until such time as it becomes
commonplace).
Keith Morrison
> Okay, you've made me come up with a theory. With numbered guesses. (I
> have no evidence for most of it.)
>
> 1. So many people watch movies and TV that tie-ins are bound to be more
> popular than original fiction in the same genre. In particular, media
> science fiction sells like burritos on Cinco de Mayo, with consequences
> for sales of tie-in books.
>
> 2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
> can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
> this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
>
> 3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
> Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
> of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
> science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
> too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
>
> 4. Why is that?
> Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
> or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
> the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
> knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
> Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
> it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
> Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
You may be on to something. I've seen a lot of comments about the
new film version of LOTR in which some of the people have said
just about the same thing. Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
of people to agree is great fantasy. Many people will argue about what
is a great sceince fiction film but just about everyone can agree that
there are some out there.
Even if you forget the subjective interpretation of "great" and just
substitute "influential", you can see it. I don't read fantasy that
often but I'll watch it on screen and I find it's easy to list off a
bunch of influential science fiction films. "Forbidden Planet",
"The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Alien", "2001", "Terminator", "Star
Wars", assorted Star Treks (film and TV) are recognized by lots of
people even outside fandom. You're hard up to find fantasy that,
especially high fantasy.
--
Keith
.
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> writes
>
>
>Reading this, I think it's quite possible that your distaste for
>non-media sf arises out of your husband's incompatible tastes in the
>stuff. Once again, let me give you a name: Lois McMaster Bujold. If
>you want "emotional connection to the characters" and "strong
>characterization," then I'll tell you, Bujold is for you. Most of her
>books are in a series featuring continuing characters with whom one
>develops a very strong connection. The first two, _Shards of Honor_
>and _Barrayar_, are available, at least in the US, in an omnibus
>collection called _Cordelia's Honor_. Checking Amazon.co.uk, it
>appears also to be available in England packaged that way.
>
>If you read these two books and don't like them, well, I'd conclude
>that non-media sf just isn't for you. Because if characters are what
>you like, Bujold is clearly at the top of the pile.
>
>Really. Give her a try. I'd love to hear what you think.
>
I was recently talking to John Ordover on AIM and he also recommended
this author to me. I made a note and will keep it in mind. My husband
hasn`t got her in his collection and at the moment I don`t have the
money left to buy too many books because although I am willing to try
her work, I have to make priorities.
But thank you very much. This was very helpful.
I am reading a Star Trek novel at the moment but I already told John
that after finishing it I will follow his recommendation and try
Ringworld by Larry Niven. My husband has the book and has given it to me
although he has his doubts that it will be my taste. But we will see...
Baerbel Haddrell
Rachel Brown
> Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
> fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> of people to agree is great fantasy.
I bet I could get widespread agreement regarding "The Wizard of Oz," "The
Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
But you're right, there hasn't been a great serious, imaginary-world
fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the Rings"
movie will change that.
Rachel
Kevin J. Maroney
>Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>of people to agree is great fantasy.
Counterexample: _The Wizard of Oz_.
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
Joseph Michael Bay
>The Cautionary Tale with regard to technology is a valid form of SF. SF was
>never entirely about the glorification of technology.
>It's hard to imagine a story about resurrected dinosaurs rampaging on a
>presenty-day island that -isn't- SF (at least until such time as it becomes
>commonplace).
Well, resurrected dinosaurs, sure. But there were plenty
of pulp fiction "Lost Worlds" that actually were about lost
worlds, back when there were still places on Earth's surface
where we couldn't easily go.
--
Joseph M. Bay Boy Genius
Putting the "harm" in the "Molecular Pharmacology" since 1997
(Oo) Someone you love is One of Us. (oO)
/{|\ What Would Cthulhu Do? /|}\
Phil Fraering
> The Cautionary Tale with regard to technology is a valid form of SF. SF was
> never entirely about the glorification of technology.
>
> It's hard to imagine a story about resurrected dinosaurs rampaging on a
> presenty-day island that -isn't- SF (at least until such time as it becomes
> commonplace).
Except the resurrected dinosaurs don't have any effect on society,
just on the prey.
If someone pulls out a stunner and shoots at a character, that's
a technothriller. If the character while running from the stunner
wielding person passes a "Weapons shop" with a "The Right To Bear
Stunners Is the Right To Be Free" sign you have science fiction.
Another comment I've read in the past about Crichton was that
he wrote the equivalent of 18th century French novels about
intimate matters, where the reader would get titillated by
all the details but have their values vindicated when things
turned out badly for the characters.
_Jurrasic Park_ is one example: you get to read a book (or see
a movie) with Real Live Dinosaurs, but everyone who actually
did the hard work of resurrecting them is conveniently eaten.
I need to try to spelunk through old files, and try to see who
came up with that first.
--
Phil Fraering "There's a vampire!"
p...@globalreach.net "...In the parcel!"
/Will work for tape/ "...In the kitchen!"
"...Hate Mail!"
Jean Prouvaire
P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 10:41:59 GMT, ord...@aol.com <ord...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >Wow, people are arguing about the finer points of interpreting
> >something -I- posted. I have -arrived.- :)
>
Or people need to read more clearly. Or both. :-)
--
____________________________________________
Beyond the barricades
Les Miserables resource and recordings index
http://www.thebarricades.com
____________________________________________
Ian Montgomerie
<r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>But you're right, there hasn't been a great serious, imaginary-world
>fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the Rings"
>movie will change that.
Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the reasons
Ian Montgomerie
<kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>
>>Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>>of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
>Counterexample: _The Wizard of Oz_.
That's not fantasy in the sense that seems to have been discussed. I don't
think of "fantasy" when I hear "Wizard of Oz".
Steve Parker
<kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>but no film that you can get a large group
>of people to agree is great fantasy.
Except (in my experience) The Princess Bride.
Steve
--
Hugo-Reviews Page (and cover scans) at
http://www.crosswinds.net/~sparker9/home.html
(Note new location. Update your bookmarks.)
Jerry Friedman
"Rachel Brown" <r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote in article
>
> > Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
> > of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
"The
> Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
>
> fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the
Rings"
> movie will change that.
Right, the movies you mention are definitely highly regarded [*], but
_The Wizard of Oz_ and _Mary Poppins_ are at least nominally for
children and more cute than sublime, _The Princess Bride_ is at least
partly a parody, and _It's a Wonderful Life_ is set in our world (more
or less). None of them tries for the "high fantasy" of the best-selling
mega-series. So I should have said that people who want *that kind* of
fantasy have to go to books for it.
[*] I haven't seen any of them all the way through.
Michael Alan Chary
Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>
>>Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>>of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
Alexander Korda's "The Thief of Bagdad."
Any number of Disney flicks.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
--
In memoriam Walter Payton, 1954-1999, the greatest Bear of all time.
"Being the fastest? I wasn't. Being the strongest? I wasn't. Being the biggest?
I wasn't. I had something that nobody else had. I think I was the smartest."
-- Sweetness
Pete McCutchen
<iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the reasons
>I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they can set up a
>good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into a Generic
>Fantasyverse.
I expect it to suck. That way, if it's any good at all, I'll be
happily surprised.
I just wonder if there will be a nude Hobbit shower scene.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>>If you read these two books and don't like them, well, I'd conclude
>>that non-media sf just isn't for you. Because if characters are what
>>you like, Bujold is clearly at the top of the pile.
>>
>>Really. Give her a try. I'd love to hear what you think.
>>
>
>I was recently talking to John Ordover on AIM and he also recommended
>this author to me. I made a note and will keep it in mind. My husband
>hasn`t got her in his collection and at the moment I don`t have the
>money left to buy too many books because although I am willing to try
>her work, I have to make priorities.
If you're going to hang out here, you almost have to read Bujold. :-)
Honestly, given your stated preferences, I cannot imagine you'll be
disappointed. Characters are very definitely her strong point.
However, while some people disagree, I would suggest definitely making
sure that you take them in order; that way, you can stay on top of
character development. As I said, the first two (chronologically, in
the series) are _Shards of Honor_ and _Barrayar_, packaged together as
_Cordelia's Honor_. _Shards of Honor_ is less polished -- it was her
first novel -- but it's still very good.
Oh, and since you indicated that there are some financial constraints,
let me tell you how you can get a book (an ebook, at least) for FREE.
That's right, FREE! Go to www.baen.com, and register for Baen
Webscriptions. Most books you have to pay for (though it's cheap:
four books for ten bucks), but _registering_ is free, _and_ they have
a free sample online -- _On Basilisk Station_, by David Weber, the
first novel featuring Honor Harrington. Given your stated
preferences, I'm less sure that you'll like the HH series, though your
husband probably will (it has lots of fighting, and stuff about what
ship can beat up what other kind of ship).
>
>But thank you very much. This was very helpful.
>
>I am reading a Star Trek novel at the moment but I already told John
>that after finishing it I will follow his recommendation and try
>Ringworld by Larry Niven. My husband has the book and has given it to me
>although he has his doubts that it will be my taste. But we will see...
I seriously doubt that you'll like it. My wife, who, like you,
expresses an interest in good characters, really doesn't dig Niven,
though she absolutely adores Bujold. (We fight over who gets to read
a new Bujold first.)
--
Pete McCutchen
P Nielsen Hayden
wrote:
>2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
>can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
>this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
I don't think very many Star Trek books have sold a half-million copies in
hardcover, no. (If any have, I'm sure John will correct me.)
>3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
>Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
>of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
>science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
>too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
>
>4. Why is that?
> Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
>or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
>the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
>knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
>Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
>it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
>Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
> "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step."
I've long thought pretty much the same thing. The STAR WARS of epic fantasy
has yet to be made. Here in the year 2000, if your tastes run to SF
adventure, you can watch a lot of passable movies and TV before you need to
resort to books. If your tastes run to lengthy fantasy epics, while there
are scraps of more-or-less successful this and that in movie and TV form,
you'll need to take up reading a lot sooner.
So will Peter Jackson kill the fantasy publishing genre? Only Time Will
Tell. This is Roland Hedley Jr. reporting; over to you, Muffy.
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, mch...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu (Michael Alan Chary) says:
>In article <14jhgs8g82rg7g3sa...@4ax.com>,
>Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>>>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>>>of people to agree is great fantasy.
>>
>>Counterexample: _The Wizard of Oz_.
>
>Alexander Korda's "The Thief of Bagdad."
>
>Any number of Disney flicks.
>
>Raiders of the Lost Ark.
>
Baron Munchausen
Time Bandits
Life of Brian
Many individual Monty Python skits (the "Meaning of Life"/exploding
fat guy one comes to mind)
Ghost Busters
Quant suff?
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Book Reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
--
He impaled her and their two bodies melted together, limbs fusing,
faces haloed by radiant neural coronae that conjoined their brains.
Their minds sang together in a duet of mental intercourse more
ecstatic than that of the body... (Julian May, Magnificat, 1996)
--
Maureen O'Brien
And I suspect that the YA market is more likely to latch onto any sort
of series and any sort of tie-in, because kids and YA are not as
prejudiced against trying out different kinds of fiction and are willing
to get attached to the characters.
Soap operas would be a natural fit for tie-ins, except that soaps run
year-round. Still, a novel that traced the history of some pivotal
character and made all the melodramatic twists and turns work would
appeal to many. (Remember Twin Peaks? An autobio of Erica Kane instead
of a diary of Laura Palmer, maybe.) And if you don't believe me, you
should see how enthusiastically the soap fans have adopted fanfic,
which many of them have long written on their own but which they never
dreamed could be shared. Considering the extremely low literary value
of their productions, a good writer who's willing to admit he/she has
been following the soap all these years could do something special. Of
course, hiring a writer who's not up on the whole saga would be a
recipe for disaster.
However, let's look at JAG's media tie-ins. Aside from the sad lack of
merchandise for the JAG fan to buy, the first two JAG novels were pretty
sorry productions by a gentleman named Robert Tine. This gentleman
apparently does a great many tie-in novels, and it is my hope that he
someday learns to do one correctly. The level of professional care he
took with the first novel was not sufficient to convince me that he had
ever watched even one episode of the series. The characters were very
nearly unrecognizable, and he couldn't even keep their hair and eye
colors straight. (In his defense, the first season female lead did
have blonde hair and blue eyes. But if you run a search and replace of
brown/blonde brown/blue, you should do it for every occurrence.)
The final disgrace, which appears on the back of both JAG novels, is
that the editors are convinced that the male lead used to fly F-16's,
not F-14's. I mean, really! It does make a difference, and that is
why _somebody_ is paid bucks for proofreading and fact-checking. If I
were Paramount, I'd be unnnnnhappy.
But then, frankly, I've seen very few non-sf/f media tie-ins which
impressed me as having enough quality as books to make them worth
buying for even the most fanatical fan. The A-Team's comics did well
for a while, I believe, and Target in the UK used to release
novelizations of all sorts of series. (Airwolf! Now those novelizations
were excellent, catching both the flavor of the show and adding
something to it.) But you have to have somebody doing the work who
makes it work, not somebody who doesn't give a care. If something's
really shoddy, the back cover or the first page is going to give it
away before the book gets a chance to hit the cash register.
Maureen
Eric D. Berge
> Baron Munchausen
You are aware that there are (at least) three versions of this
on film, all of them great?
One from Nazi Germany, one from (IIRC, and I don't feel like
checking just now) Czekoslovakia, and the Gilliam version.
--
Eric Berge
---------------------------------------------------
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
---------------------------------------------------
Niall McAuley
[Peter Jackson's _Lord of the Rings_ movies]
>I'm always concerned when Hollywood does an intentional trilogy - they
>often wind up saving cool stuff for Movie Two, but without that cool
>stuff in Movie I it doesn't do well enough to make Movie Two happen.
As I understand it, Jackson has the funding and is already making
all three, not releasing the first and testing the water for a sequel.
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es]
James Nicoll
>
>To be popular, movies must appeal to an American sensibility.
>American sensibilities are based on the western and post WWII on
>high-tech. SF movies have the western sensibility with a high-tech
>gloss.
Actually I have read that with the rise of the extra-America
markets as important markets for movies, that's less true. Norman Jewison's
comments are probably still true, but instead of just producing stuff
for the US market, you now have to think about the European and Asian
markets as well.
Didn't someone on rasff comment about how the UK market for
Bollywood movies has gotten so large, Indian film makers are now shooting
a lot of stuff in the UK? The Indians don't seem to have any trouble
marketing fantasy. -Musical- fantasy, at that. With apparently two
lead singers for all the films.
Hmmm. HK film makers have done some ripping fantasy tales:
Chinese Ghost Story 1->N did ok. So did _Bride With WHite Hair_.
Hmmm.
--
Temporary Email: jdni...@home.com
[Just until I fix my current email problems]
Pete McCutchen
<jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>Right, the movies you mention are definitely highly regarded [*], but
>_The Wizard of Oz_ and _Mary Poppins_ are at least nominally for
>children and more cute than sublime, _The Princess Bride_ is at least
>partly a parody, and _It's a Wonderful Life_ is set in our world (more
>or less). None of them tries for the "high fantasy" of the best-selling
>mega-series. So I should have said that people who want *that kind* of
>fantasy have to go to books for it.
>
>[*] I haven't seen any of them all the way through.
I absolutely adore _The Wizard of Oz_. My wife and I saw it in the
theater when the remastered version was rereleased a while back. It
was _magnificent_ on the big screen. (Particularly the transition
from B&W to color.)
--
Pete McCutchen
Evelyn C. Leeper
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 22:17:22 +0100, "." <Em...@trekdata.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >>If you read these two books and don't like them, well, I'd conclude
> >>that non-media sf just isn't for you. Because if characters are what
> >>you like, Bujold is clearly at the top of the pile.
> >>
> >>Really. Give her a try. I'd love to hear what you think.
> >
> >I was recently talking to John Ordover on AIM and he also recommended
> >this author to me. I made a note and will keep it in mind. My husband
> >hasn`t got her in his collection and at the moment I don`t have the
> >money left to buy too many books because although I am willing to try
> >her work, I have to make priorities.
>
> If you're going to hang out here, you almost have to read Bujold. :-)
From the FAQ:
37. What are the books that come up again and again in rec.arts.sf.written?
Here are the high runners (numbers in brackets represent an estimate of the
number of mentions in rec.arts.sf.written in the last six months of 1999).
Ian Banks's "Culture" novels [4584]
Stephen Brust's "Jhereg" series [584]
Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" stories (see #19A) [3275]
Orson Scott Card's "Ender" series [1918]
Robert A. Heinlein's novels and stories, especially STARSHIP TROOPERS [3203]
Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" [8172]
Ursula K. LeGuin's "Earthsea" books and THE DISPOSSESSED [1880]
Ken MacLeod's novels (see #12N) [1068]
Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED [996]
Neal Stephenson's CRYPTONOMICON [2131]
J. R. R. Tolkien's HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS [1016]
Vernor Vinge's "Singularity" novels [1004]
David Weber's "Honor Harrington" novels [263]
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.
--Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Keith Morrison
> The final disgrace, which appears on the back of both JAG novels, is
> that the editors are convinced that the male lead used to fly F-16's,
> not F-14's. I mean, really! It does make a difference, and that is
> why _somebody_ is paid bucks for proofreading and fact-checking. If I
> were Paramount, I'd be unnnnnhappy.
Heck, that's nothing. Watch a TV series that includes US fighters
and see the Mighty Morphing Air Combat Vehicle. I happened to catch
an episode of _Pensacola_ and the Marine pilots are flying F-18s,
which magically become F-14s and then F-15s in the period of about
seven seconds. _JAG_ has had F-14s become F-18s and even F-4s.
--
Keith
Keith Morrison
>
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote in article
>
> > Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
> > fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> > of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
> Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
Sure, but I bet you'd have a harder time getting them to agree
that those are "fantasy" at all. _The Princess Bride_ comes closest
to what most people would consider "fantasy" these days, as opposed
to the strict definition of the term. If you mention fantasy to
most people they will think of the Tolkeinesque Epic Quest with
swords and armour and stuff. In fact, that's what I was obviously
unconsciously thinking of.
The movies that came to my mind were stuff like _Excalibur_ and
_Dragonheart_. You know, swords and armour and stuff.
--
Keith
Ian Montgomerie
>>>But you're right, there hasn't been a great serious, imaginary-world
>>>fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the Rings"
>>>movie will change that.
>>
>>Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the reasons
>>I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they can set up a
>>good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into a Generic
>>Fantasyverse.
>>
>First of all, I gotta say I was never crazy about Tolkein, but the
>trailer for the movie makes -me- impatient to see it. It looks good.
>
>I'm always concerned when Hollywood does an intentional trilogy - they
>often wind up saving cool stuff for Movie Two, but without that cool
>stuff in Movie I it doesn't do well enough to make Movie Two happen.
>
>It's a little different here because they have three books to draw on,
>so we'll see.
It's also different because all of the movies will be filmed before the
first is released. They are presently filming all three at once in a giant
mishmash of takes.
Evelyn C. Leeper
Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>
> You may be on to something. I've seen a lot of comments about the
> new film version of LOTR in which some of the people have said
> fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> of people to agree is great fantasy.
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Depending on how one defines fantasy, add KING KONG (the 1933 version,
of course).
Evelyn C. Leeper
Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
> Rachel Brown wrote:
> > Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote in article
> >
> > > fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> > > of people to agree is great fantasy.
> >
> > Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
>
> Sure, but I bet you'd have a harder time getting them to agree
> that those are "fantasy" at all.
Well, I hope they're not going to claim they're realistic. :-)
Gary J. Weiner
> Alexander Korda's "The Thief of Bagdad."
Oh yeah, that's a good one.
I'm partial to "Dragonslayer" myself. It has all the requisite elements
of a decent fantasy book. Although perhaps too strong of a sense of
irony for traditional fantasy.
--
Gary J. Weiner \ "We've got a blind date with Destiny...and
webm...@hatrack.net \ it looks like she's ordered the lobster."
http://www.hatrack.net \ -The Shoveler, "Mystery Men"
"Hang Your Web With Us!"\
James Ellis
>
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 22:12:47 GMT, "Rachel Brown"
>
> >But you're right, there hasn't been a great serious, imaginary-world
> >fantasy movie. However, I suspect that the upcoming "Lord of the
> >Rings" movie will change that.
>
> Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the
> reasons I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they
> can set up a good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into
> a Generic Fantasyverse.
I'm a little less optimistic. The BBC radio play of LOTR had the
advantage of not having to worry about the visual element, concentrated
on dialogue, filled 13 hours, and yet _still_ was forced to make pretty
substantial cuts to the source material.
Since the movies have to worry about the visual element too, and have
(probably) half the time of the radio play, I anticipate significant
trimming will be required. Expect much of the finer detail of
Middle-Earth to be lost due to more pressing plot concerns.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary J. Weiner
>
> On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 00:16:19 GMT, Ian Montgomerie
> <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> >I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they can set up a
> >good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into a Generic
> >Fantasyverse.
>
> happily surprised.
>
> I just wonder if there will be a nude Hobbit shower scene.
That's just sick!
A nude Elf shower scene on the other hand...
Andrew Wheeler
>I think you should keep in mind that there is hardly "the" Star
>Trek any more. The time in which we were only able to get TOS
>are long gone. Now there are several Star Trek series around,
>several directions. And mainly thanks to John Ordover, we now
>get a variety of Star Trek books so that
>nearly everybody can find something he or she likes.
Well, as long as "nearly everyone" is equal to "people who like
to watch TV shows with 'Star Trek" in the title," I could agree
with that statement. However, there are certainly more people who
don't watch Trek than those that do.
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SFBC
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Jonathan W Hendry
> In article <3908B59F...@polarnet.ca>,
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>
>> You may be on to something. I've seen a lot of comments about the
>> new film version of LOTR in which some of the people have said
>> fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>> of people to agree is great fantasy.
> IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and THE WIZARD OF OZ.
> Depending on how one defines fantasy, add KING KONG (the 1933 version,
> of course).
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Andrew Wheeler
<irv...@pop.a001.sprintmail.com> wrote:
>Where did Pat LoBrutto go?
>
He got fired. 1999 was a bad year for SF editors; we lost Pat
along with John Douglas and John Silbersack of Harper and Lou
Aronica of Avon.
>Baen is for all practical purposes the Simon & Schuster SF arm,
>not Pocket Books, whose SF line, in theory, is.
Not true at all. Baen is completely independent, owned and
operated by Jim Baen. Pocket/S&S distributes their books, but
that's not the same thing at all.
>Bantam and Del Rey are now
>both part of the same company, and, the owners rhetoric
>to the contrary,
Here you might have a point, but I don't see what that point
actually is. But the two lines are completely independent of each
other, and organized very separately. Random House is composed of
about half-a-dozen essentially independent "groups" -- it's a lot
like a medieval court. Bantam is under Irwyn Applebaum, the Duke
of Bantam Dell. Del Rey is part of the fiefdom of Ballantine, but
I can't remember who their laird is right now.
>DAW is maybe an independent company but all the shipping
>containers, when I owned half of The SF & Mystery Book Shop,
>Ltd., in Atlanta, said "DIVISION of ...
>whatever conglomerate ate their "distributor.""
Again, being distributed by someone is not the same as being
owned by them. DAW is, mostly owned by the Wollheims (I believe
Penguin Putnam owns a small stake).
>The above explains lack of hardcovers and TPB, in many cases.
The fact that several lines are owned by the same publisher
explains why they all only do a limited number of HCs and trade
pbs? Could you explain this? Please remember, Tor does several
times as many books as any other publisher in large part because
Tor has more editors than anyone can count. Half of the people in
the field are consulting editors for Tor. (And don't think I'm
complaining.) All the other houses make do with between one and
three editors, which is the main reason they do fewer books.
Andrew Wheeler
mxpal...@aol.com (MXPalmieri) wrote:
>It should also be noted that John isn't the only editor at
Pocket working on
>these books. There are others, such as myself, and we're all
very much
>individuals in our editorial style and philosophy. :)
>
>Marco Palmieri
>Editor
>Pocket Books
I stand corrected, sir! The last I remembered, John was
desperately looking for another editor to ease the load, but that
was probably four years ago. He's always been my Star Trek
contact, but I'm happy to hear that the ecosystem supports more
than one editor.
Erich Schneider
> If someone pulls out a stunner and shoots at a character, that's
> a technothriller. If the character while running from the stunner
> wielding person passes a "Weapons shop" with a "The Right To Bear
> Stunners Is the Right To Be Free" sign you have science fiction.
What exactly was it that Asimov (I think) said about how it's one
thing to predict cars or to predict movies, but another thing entirely
to predict drive-in movies?
--
Erich Schneider er...@caltech.edu Caltech Information Technology Services
Del Cotter
Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>You may be on to something. I've seen a lot of comments about the
>new film version of LOTR in which some of the people have said
>just about the same thing. Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>of people to agree is great fantasy.
Be careful how you define fantasy. I would count :It's a Wonderful Life:; :A
Christmas Carol:; :A Matter of Life and Death:; :Groundhog Day:; and :Defending
Your Life: all as fantasies, and you could get a large group of people to agree
that at least some of them are great Hollywood fantasies.
--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk
Keith Morrison
> > > > Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
> > > > fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> > > > of people to agree is great fantasy.
> > >
> > > I bet I could get widespread agreement regarding "The Wizard of Oz," "The
> > > Princess Bride," "Mary Poppins," "It's A Wonderful Life..."
> >
> > Sure, but I bet you'd have a harder time getting them to agree
> > that those are "fantasy" at all.
>
> Well, I hope they're not going to claim they're realistic. :-)
Of course not. But _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ isn't reality either,
but that's not the first film that pops into my head when someone
says "Fantasy".
--
Keith
Kevin J. Maroney
>If you mention fantasy to
>most people they will think of the Tolkeinesque Epic Quest with
>swords and armour and stuff. In fact, that's what I was obviously
>unconsciously thinking of.
And if you mention "science fiction" to most people, they think of
_Star Trek_. I see no reason to allow the perceptions of the people
who don't experience fantasy and science fiction to define the genre
boundaries for me.
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
Evelyn C. Leeper
Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, in rec.arts.sf.written
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>
> >You may be on to something. I've seen a lot of comments about the
> >new film version of LOTR in which some of the people have said
> >fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
> >of people to agree is great fantasy.
>
> Christmas Carol:; :A Matter of Life and Death:; :Groundhog Day:; and :Defending
> Your Life: all as fantasies, and you could get a large group of people to agree
> that at least some of them are great Hollywood fantasies.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH are not great
Hollywood fantasies, because they are not from Hollywood--they are
British.
LORD OF THE RINGS is not entirely Hollywood either (if at all).
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca (James Nicoll) says:
>In article <3906ceb5...@news.mindspring.com>, <ord...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>To be popular, movies must appeal to an American sensibility.
>>American sensibilities are based on the western and post WWII on
>>high-tech. SF movies have the western sensibility with a high-tech
>>gloss.
>
> Actually I have read that with the rise of the extra-America
>markets as important markets for movies, that's less true. Norman Jewison's
>comments are probably still true, but instead of just producing stuff
>for the US market, you now have to think about the European and Asian
>markets as well.
>
> Didn't someone on rasff comment about how the UK market for
>Bollywood movies has gotten so large, Indian film makers are now shooting
>a lot of stuff in the UK? The Indians don't seem to have any trouble
>marketing fantasy. -Musical- fantasy, at that. With apparently two
>lead singers for all the films.
>
ObSF -- the fairly recent Bruce Sterling, with an Indian director
making quick-flicks in the (depressed) UK, because it's cheap
and white actors will work for almost nothing.... Now, what
*was* the title? A typically-excellent stand-things-on-head
Sterling. What a terrific writer.
James Nicoll
Was it _Sacred Cow_? IMS, the UK had been depopulated by
whatever the humans equivelent of BSE is.
Chris Wesling
>
> Pete McCutchen wrote:
> >
> > I just wonder if there will be a nude Hobbit shower scene.
>
> That's just sick!
>
> A nude Elf shower scene on the other hand...
Oh, is Anna Nicole Smith playing Galadriel?
Chris W.
--
Remove spam to email me.
"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency." - Alan Turing
Erich Schneider
> ObSF -- the fairly recent Bruce Sterling, with an Indian director
> making quick-flicks in the (depressed) UK, because it's cheap
> and white actors will work for almost nothing.... Now, what
> *was* the title? A typically-excellent stand-things-on-head
> Sterling. What a terrific writer.
"Sacred Cow", originally published in _Omni_ in 1993 and reprinted in
the recent collection _A Good Old-Fashioned Future_.
My favorite bit is when the Indian leading lady complains to the
director about not being able to understand the English spoken by
people in England.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
WIZARDS AND WARRIORS. It was a very well done fantasy, with a lot of
strange characters - the bad guys had British accents (see Ordover's
comments below about American sensibilities), the main good guy had a
generic American accent (his brother had a Texan accent which I thought
was hysterically funny being so out of context), and the princess had a
leather-fetish... Only six episodes, alas, but very well done.
ord...@aol.com wrote:
>
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 19:35:26 GMT, Jerry Friedman
> <jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <20000425170256...@ng-cg1.aol.com>,
> > ord...@aol.com (ORDOVER) wrote:
> >> But there were SF conventions long before Star Trek ever existed - and
> >> -fantasy- novels, such as Wheel of Time, regularly outsell media
> >tie-ins.
> >>
> >> It is explicitly in the Science ficiton genre that the media books
> >outsell the
> >> original novels.
> >>
> >> In other words - if Robert Jordan, et all, can create a fantasy world
> >so
> >> compelling that it attracts readers over and above the sales of media
> >books,
> >> why can't it be done in science fiction as well? Or why -isn't- it
> >being done?
> >
> >Okay, you've made me come up with a theory. With numbered guesses. (I
> >have no evidence for most of it.)
> >
> >1. So many people watch movies and TV that tie-ins are bound to be more
> >popular than original fiction in the same genre. In particular, media
> >science fiction sells like burritos on Cinco de Mayo, with consequences
> >for sales of tie-in books.
>
> >
> >2. But fantasy is an exception--Robert "Don't Get Me Started" Jordan
> >can outsell tie-in fantasy--and if I read the comments from the pros in
> >this thread correctly, tie-in science fiction too.
> >
> >3. This is because Hollywood science fiction is more satisfactory than
> >Hollywood fantasy. Therefore people who like fantasy have to get most
> >of their good product from books (and comics?), whereas people who like
> >science fiction can get it from Hollywood--and those who like to read
> >too are often influenced in their book selections by Hollywood.
> >
> >4. Why is that?
> > Because film and TV science fiction only needs to look futuristic
> >or gritty or both. Hollywood knows how to do those. Heroic fantasy, on
> >the other hand, needs to look sublime. The closest things Hollywood
> >knows are sumptuous and larger-than-life. But what works in a
> >Merchant-Ivory costume drama still can't equal the reader's imagination;
> >it's not good enough for Tolkien, and maybe not good enough even for
> >Jordan and Goodkind, whose characters probably have pores in their skin.
> > "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step."
> > (Maybe I should point out how much I'm generalizing. Some of us
> >find almost all of Hollywood science fiction to be highly
> >unsatisfactory. But what is my opinion against that of millions?)
>
> Friend of mine has a theory - one I'm not totally convinced by, but is
> interesting - that goes like this:
>
> To be popular, movies must appeal to an American sensibility.
> American sensibilities are based on the western and post WWII on
> high-tech. SF movies have the western sensibility with a high-tech
> gloss.
>
> Knights, castles, etc. are based on a European sensibility. The
> horses-arrows-and-castles movies that work best for the American
> sensibility are stories like Robin Hood, like Braveheart, which are
> about rebels fighting against British authority - another american
> sensibility. Xena is "Have Sword, Will Travel."
>
> There aren't knights and castles in the American past, so the
> connection isn't there.
>
> Further, he says, horses and armour are a horrible pain to deal with,
> and all horses pretty much look alike and they don't have the punch of
> a landspeer or an alien animal, and if you introduce a weird fantasy
> riding beast, then you have to deal with it in every scene, etc. etc.
> Plus, he says, wizards have an annoying tendency to stand and point,
> or to soliloquize until something big happens, both of which come out
> static on screen.
>
> All of this means that 1) Fantasy with a european base has a following
> that can make bestsellers but not blockbuster movies and 2) that
> fantasy works better in prose.
>
> Anyway, I'm not standing behind this, but it's worth talking about.
> >
> >5. Exception that proves the rule: From what you've been saying, the
> >most successful fantasy tie-ins are to RPGs--which rely on the players'
> >imagination, not the designers'.
> >
> >6. And another thing. Lots of people who like fantasy seem to want an
> >experience that lasts many hours. What Patrick Nielsen Hayden aptly
> >calls refrigerator-sized books fill that need very nicely, and so do
> >RPGs (to the detriment of my grades in college). Hollywood's products
> >don't.
> >
> >> Of course, in a way it is being done - by Critchton, for instance. But
> >that's
> >> not science fiction - or so I've been told over and over again, not by
> >> mainstream readers but by science fiction readers.
> >
> >That's mere snobbery. The two Crichton books I've read (_The Andromeda
> >Strain_ and _The Terminal Man_) were certainly science fiction by my
> >definition.
> >
> >--
> >Jerry Friedman
> >jfrE...@nnm.cc.nm.us
> >i before e
> >and all the disclaimers
> >
> >
> >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> >Before you buy.
--
Programming is a race between creating
bigger and better idiot-proof programs,
and the Universe creating
bigger and better idiots.
William Clifford
wrote:
>
>In a previous article, mch...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu (Michael Alan Chary) says:
>
>>In article <14jhgs8g82rg7g3sa...@4ax.com>,
>>Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>>>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hollywood has put out bad fantasy, mediocre
>>>>fantasy and okay fantasy, but no film that you can get a large group
>>>>of people to agree is great fantasy.
>>>
>>>Counterexample: _The Wizard of Oz_.
>>
>>Alexander Korda's "The Thief of Bagdad."
>>
>>Any number of Disney flicks.
>>
>>Raiders of the Lost Ark.
>
>Baron Munchausen
>
>Time Bandits
>
>Life of Brian
>
>Many individual Monty Python skits (the "Meaning of Life"/exploding
>fat guy one comes to mind)
>
>Ghost Busters
>
>Quant suff?
No. _Conan the Barbarian_.
--
|William Clifford |"Baggins? We don't need no steenking |
|wo...@yahoo.com | Baggins." |
|lame webpage at: | --Thorin Oakenshield |
|http://www.ionline.com/wobh | _Treasure Under the Lonely Mountain_ |
Martin Soederstroem
on earth to tell us this:
>"Gary J. Weiner" wrote:
>>
>> Pete McCutchen wrote:
>> >
>> > I just wonder if there will be a nude Hobbit shower scene.
>>
>> That's just sick!
>>
>> A nude Elf shower scene on the other hand...
>
>Oh, is Anna Nicole Smith playing Galadriel?
You know, when Coppola made _Bram_Stoker's_Dracula_, there was a
tie-in novel produced titled _Bram_Stoker's_Dracula_, written by
mumble Saberhagen or someone called Alice Schick. (Both have written a
novel with that title.) And when _Mary_Shelley's_Frankenstein_ was
made into a movie, the tie-in novel _Mary_Shelley's_Frankenstein_, by
someone other than Mary Shelley. This leads to a question: who will
write _J. R. R. Tolkien's_Lord_of_the_Rings_?
--
Martin
Remove NEINSPAM.INVALID to email me.
Jaquandor
>>American sensibilities are based on the western and post WWII on
>>high-tech. SF movies have the western sensibility with a high-tech
>>gloss.
>
>markets as important markets for movies, that's less true. Norman Jewison's
>comments are probably still true, but instead of just producing stuff
>for the US market, you now have to think about the European and Asian
>markets as well.
A good illustration of this is "The Postman" (the Kevin Costner one, not that
Italian film) which flopped miserably in the US and is viewed as one of the
biggest bombs ever, but apparently made back all its money in overseas release.
Thus say I, and sayeth I no more.
-J
Ian Montgomerie
<kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>If you mention fantasy to
>>most people they will think of the Tolkeinesque Epic Quest with
>>swords and armour and stuff. In fact, that's what I was obviously
>>unconsciously thinking of.
>
>And if you mention "science fiction" to most people, they think of
>_Star Trek_. I see no reason to allow the perceptions of the people
>who don't experience fantasy and science fiction to define the genre
>boundaries for me.
Um, go into a book store and look at the "fantasy section". They have reams
and reams of AD&D tie ins, Robert Jordan books, and general stories with
pictures of dragons and people in armor on the front. You won't find the
Wizard of Oz or It's a Wonderful Life. Realistically speaking, there is a
genre which does not include those works but does include the stuff
generally found in the fantasy section of the book store, and that genre is
what most people are referring to when they say "fantasy".
Ian Montgomerie
wrote:
>> Movies, actually. One per book of the trilogy. Which is one of the
>> reasons I'm hoping it Won't Suck... enough time is available that they
>> can set up a good world and story, and not mangle Tolkein's story into
>> a Generic Fantasyverse.
>
> I'm a little less optimistic. The BBC radio play of LOTR had the
>advantage of not having to worry about the visual element, concentrated
>on dialogue, filled 13 hours, and yet _still_ was forced to make pretty
>substantial cuts to the source material.
Of course they have to cut stuff. But there's a difference between cutting
stuff, and mangling the story into generic hollywood schlock.