William Sanders: At It…Again
It’s amazing really. This man has no off button. None, not even a pause button. Instead of doing, as Joe Sherry has intelligently pointed out, what he should have done, he has done the opposite and probably should earn the award for most angry, foul-mouthed, horrendously pathetic and cranky editor to ever grace the publishing industry. In Joe Sherry’s words: Not to get too deep into the initial issue, as this has all been covered before, but what bothered me most about this whole situation was not necessarily the opening statement (bad as it came across), but rather in how Sanders responded to the criticism…it appears that Sanders was so angry that anyone would possibly be offended by something he said and no longer wish to be associated with his magazine that he accused those writers of having their panties in a wad (more or less) and of being cowards, among other less complimentary things. This is what bothered me the most. Well, this is what bothered me the most as well. You see, I saw the comments in the original rejection letter and thought, “Well, I understand what he means, but these are stupid words.” And then I read Sanders’s responses and started to get the impression that these weren’t simply stupid things said by people that don’t always think through things all the way–I’m guilty of this at times. I saw his anger, his hatred, and his violent words towards the people who disagreed with him and thought his comments were offensive. He never once made an honest apology, but continued shoving his foot into his mouth in a display of close-minded anger, the kind of anger we’d expect of the extreme religious right who still think the Earth is only a few thousand years old and refuse to accept that science has made the world a better place.Now comes word that Helix is closing its doors. It seems true that Helix has had plans to close for a while, and I’m willing to accept this as truth as one of the contributors of Helix, quoted in Joe Sherry’s article, has stated that it is true. But, considering the controversy over this whole thing, are we at all surprised by this? Let’s just say that Helix wasn’t planning to close their doors before the incident, do any of us honestly think that Helix would last much longer anyway? Some places have already withdrawn their support by removing *links* to Helix and the blogosphere has turned William Sanders’s name into an alternative to searching for the anti-christ. Authors have been requesting that their work be removed from Helix’s archives. Many were denied (and still are being denied, with Sanders’s grumpy, and very “professional” comments attached). In all honesty, the market has become so tainted by Sanders’s inability to save face for even a moment, or at least shut his mouth and stop fuming like delinquent teenager.And now we’re left with these comments about those of us who spoke out about him: At this point the Blogtrotters and other hostile entities will be leaping grasshopperlikeabout, emitting shrill piping sounds of joy, clapping their tiny hands, bursting into “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead,” and other childish expressions of triumph. One hopes that they do not injure themselves patting themselves on the back.…The point is, all this was decided long before the Blogtrotters went into their latest shit-flinging frenzy. So as much as it no doubt pleases them to believe that they were responsible for taking down the Great Monster, they should rather offer thanks to the freeloaders who, simply by sitting on their rumps and doing nothing to support the magazine, did more to terminate Helix than all the silly whining bastards put together.Of course they won’t believe this; they will choose to believe what they want to believe, just as they always do. If there is one thing the Blogtrotters and the Silly Righteous Girls have demonstrated throughout this affair, it is their total imperviousness to reality. Yeah, and if that wasn’t enough you can see his continued spewing of hatred here, in which he’s apparently interviewed about his comments and tries desperately to make himself sound like a rational human being who never did anything wrong. I read about three or four questions worth and realized this is the same garbage he’s been spewing the whole time since the beginning of this fiasco, with the same style of language, the same unapologetic attitude, and the same anger and bigotry that got him flamed by bloggers in the first place.So a word to William Sanders: Grow up. If you ever work in this business again, pray you get hired by someone that doesn’t know what kind of person you are, because you’ve yet to learn what it means to be an adult. No human being should be as angry as you. Maybe some therapy in your near future would help you deal with whatever deep-seeded psychological damage has turned you into this grumpy person. And with that, I think I’m done with this whole thing. We’ll see if he can get his foot any deeper down his throat in the next few months or years.
Should bloggers get paid?
Having read enough about this now to feel the necessity to write about it myself, I figure I would take a wholly different approach to addressing the question. I don’t agree that we should be paid, but I also don’t disagree that we shouldn’t be paid. The problem for me is that some of us–bloggers, that is–might go on to do other things with books: we might become publicists, editors, publishers, professional reviewers, etc. Some of us might even become “professional bloggers”, if that even makes sense, and start making a living from blogging alone, with the occasional freelance project on the side.The one thing that I think people aren’t addressing is that quite a few of us already are getting paid, it’s just not in a monetary form. Some bloggers are fortunate enough to receive review copies from publishers, preventing them from having to go to the store to buy them at retail price. I’m one of these bloggers, and I know many others. Take into account that many of the books bloggers receive are hardcovers or trade paperbacks and you’re talking about a lot of money saved. So, in a way I am actually paid by publishers, although not in any traditional form of money and under no contractual obligation to perform. Think of it as “good faith bargaining”, if you will. They give me the books, I give them the reviews unless I die or my time suddenly becomes too restricted or other obligations take precedence.I’ve thought about this whole issue enough times now to wonder if perhaps those of us demanding/asking for payment might find ourselves in a position where we are no longer receiving free books. I’m particularly fond of the way publicity is working in terms of getting books to bloggers, and I’d like to see it continue to be a big thing for publishers–sending us books, that is. But some of what we’re demanding/asking is somewhat ridiculous. I say “we” only because the blogosphere is a community, and because I fall into a certain group of bloggers whom I feel somewhat connected with and some of us are talking about being paid for something we once did for free, which is sort of like the airlines telling you they’re going to charge you $15 to check a bag now, even though for decades before it was free. Do we not see a problem with this?So, in the spirit of things, whatever spirit that might be, I thought I’d talk about how much money publishers have saved me from spending, broken down into categories (hardcover, trade paperback, mass market–all of which are rather arbitrary categories when you consider that there are various hardcover sizes, etc.). It should be noted that to provide accuracy I am using the cover prices and not the Amazon prices. Hardcover$368.38 Trade Paperback$944.54 Mass Market Paperback$47.94 Total$1360.86 (w/ tax = $1456 roughly) To put that into perspective, that is about two months of rent and one month of groceries (and I only rent a room, not my own place).So, in all fairness, I’m being compensated very well, thank you. I get free reading in exchange for an hour of my time to write a review. Since I already like to read, this is a double benefit on my end because I couldn’t afford to pay that much for books. I wish I could, but I can’t. The only downside is that I don’t have a lot of choice in what I read for publishers, which can be a bad thing, but isn’t always. I’ve read some great works from Tor and from several small presses (like Aio, Arkham, and several others). So, I think it works out, don’t you?
Sacrificing Quality For Style in Spec. Lit.
To say that the idea of sacrificing quality for style applies only to speculative literature would be a severe misrepresentation of the truth. However, speculative literature has one problem that literary fiction seems to either be incapable of addressing or simply never plans to address in the first place: speculative literature must always entertain. This is a stigma particular present in fantasy where the concept of originality, in more ways than one, doesn’t exist. Tolkien created the mold for the genre and as such it becomes increasingly difficult for new writers to come up with considerably profound works of fantasy. World building is often compared to Tolkien, and in a lot of cases when that happens, those comparing typically say that non-Tolkien world building lacks depth–an absurd notion considering that even Tolkien was no divine creator of fantasy tropes; he simply pioneered them. Given this, fantasy must, as a rule, entertain to be considered of any value in our increasingly popularized culture. That’s the truth and that may very well lead to the notion that one does not need to attempt to be original, or at least fresh, and instead can simply write grandiose stories that hinder on the absurd. Speculative fiction as a whole, however, must entertain the masses. The reasons are numerous, but the primary and likely most important reason is that those who place critical acclaim on a novel as literature generally do not read speculative fiction and consider speculative fiction to be of ‘lesser quality’. This leaves speculative writers a very narrow viewpoint to work in, and while certainly that viewpoint encompasses a large portion of the market, there is perhaps some desire there to be recognized among those that have shunned the genre–a sense of acceptance. Taking into account that speculative fiction must always entertain we run into a persistent issue of quality vs. style. One might conclude that in literary fiction quality is in conjunction with style, and perhaps there is some validity to this in the literary theory camp. However, typically, style does not determine quality. One could write a novel that represents truly magnificent ideas and destroy the quality of those ideas by using a style that borders on the unintelligible. A novel, therefore, cannot be based solely on the style of the writing. It must, for its sake and the sake of the author, present itself in a manner that can be read. Readability could probably be broken up into the following categories: Popcorn Fiction ReadabilityThis is basically the simplest, most basic, most bare-bones you can possibly get in terms of writing. Most of the novels in this group are formulaic and so utterly simplistic that one really need not read too deep into what is going on. It’s pretty basic. Ironically, this is also the majority of what shows up on best seller kiosks in the grocery store and many other stores you frequent. General ReadabilityNot too simple and not too hard. The difference here from Profound is that the novels in this section actually do have a profound effect on literature and society without having to intentionally be profound in style. Profound ReadabilityLiterary fiction. That pretty much sums it up. If something is written in such a way that the structure itself leans on the complicated, it’s generally literary fiction. The style here is one that tends to ignore the typical conventions of writing–the ‘rules’ if you will–in order to make some grand statement. The problem? Most of us don’t read this stuff because it’s, mostly, b-o-r-i-n-g. For this reason, I never call ANY speculative literature ‘literary fiction’ because that would mean that 1984 by George Orwell is dull and boring. Now, almost all speculative fiction is intentionally readable. That sounds like a rather stupid statement, but when you think about the dying market of unreadable literary fiction, fiction that tries so desperately to be profound and interesting and is incapable of realizing that the average reader doesn’t read above an 8th grade level, it becomes obvious that speculative fiction is pretty much almost always readable. Here’s where style comes in, though. Now, when Isaac Asimov proposed that we are in an Age of Style in regards to Science Fiction, he wasn’t simply speaking about the actual style of writing–as far as grammar and structure are concerned. He was actually talking very much about the style of science and the style of the stories told. We are seeing a lot more in the genre dealing with quantum physics, string theory, and other advanced sciences that most people probably would have problems understanding even if it were common knowledge. The problem, then, is that science fiction is making efforts to use these sciences in the story, without making it clear what is going on. SF writers have to realize that we’re not all scientists. Certainly science is acceptable and obvious, but if the science seems to get in the way of the story, that is an example of sacrificing quality for style. It also is something we all should be avoiding. Regardless of how much science plays an important role in SF–and I can recognize this and actually enjoy the use of science to add validity to the literary form–when it is used stylistically or, as I like to say, ‘text-book style’, it detracts from the story, from the form, and from the quality of the book as a form of literature. To apply the same ideal to fantasy I’ll have to take something that has probably been done in SF too, but seems more prevalent in fantasy as the use of this particular thing is rather common in fantasy, or at least better presented or useful in that genre. Flashbacks and multiple POVs in the same paragraph section. Stylistically speaking, flashbacks actually can work wonderfully well, if utilized appropriately. But just like with science in SF, some authors use flashbacks poorly and draw the reader away from the story. Transitions are important. You can’t just go to a