We Still Have A Long Way To Go!
I was originally going to do this as a video blog, but decided the subject couldn’t wait until I could get the time to actually write down all the main points, find the time to do a video blog, etc. So I’m doing it here. Now, Vandermeer already discussed this over on Clarkesworld, at least to some extent, and I too have talked about it before. I have to agree to some extent that indeed people are rather preoccupied with the idea of speculative fiction being against the mainstream or everything else. That is very true. In reality, specfic is practically mainstream anyway. The books are generally selling very well. Fantasy has exploded, partially thanks to Harry Potter, and while science fiction may not have superb sales, it too is doing very well in the fact that many books are actually being turned into films. Whether these films are of good quality and represent the greatness of the literature they are attempting to portray is an argument for another time.One point, though, that I have to make, and have made, is that despite the popularity of specfic, despite its acceptance by the masses as a valuable form of literature, it is still being fought against by the academia. I will not deny that there are now colleges that teach specfic and neither will I deny that a lot of colleges do offer some courses in the subject. What must be realized, however, is that there are very few colleges that actually offer degrees in the field of specfic–mainly science fiction or fantasy–and of the colleges that offer coursework in the field the genre is not taken seriously at all. I will give you an example:I took a science fiction & fantasy lit course at my previous school, a community college. Now, before one treads upon the quality of community colleges I will make a comparison to UC Santa Cruz, where I am studying now: they are almost exactly the same, with some very minor differences in leniency in the community college. The class, I will admit, was absolutely awesome, but for different reasons than one might think. It was a course that didn’t look at SF & F nearly in the same light as a class studying British lit. In fact, the class was almost like a giant forum for discussion, with minor amounts of reading. There was no reading into the history of SF & F, nor into the history of the authors we were reading. Given that, the course was basically open discussion, which never lent itself to deep analysis or otherwise thorough understanding of the text itself.This is, unfortunately, the model by which many colleges treat specfic, if they deal with the genre at all. Most colleges don’t offer much in the way of studying specfic. This is an issue that has to be rectified if specfic is to be taken seriously in the literary community. More degree programs have to be offered that allow you to focus in the field. Four or five major programs in the world isn’t enough. There is an enormous field of analysis available by studying specfic. Science fiction, for example, is constantly raising questions about our society, our technology, and our species, drawing upon everything from physics to sociology. Just as one could look upon the many literary theories of criticism and draw information from a literary text, so too can you use such things on science fiction, meaning that a school could very well address science fiction texts without having to fully change their way of thinking.While obviously specfic has come a long way in the last fifty years, heck, even in the last twenty, it still has a long way to go. People should stop complaining that specfic isn’t being accepted, because it is, but they should strive, or rather, push, to see specfic involved in teaching students at all levels about literature since specfic is extremely influential in our society–a fact that cannot logically be denied. Despite where it stands now, we still have a long way to go everyone. Let’s get over that next milestone and start claiming victory. For now, realize that we’ve achieved success in one arena.
Writer’s Strike: Can I have their jobs?
This will be a short, short, short post.I’m sure enough of you out there have heard about the strike in Hollywood. If not, go here. My question is: Where do I need to go to sign up to take their jobs? Yes, that’s a serious question. I’d be willing to take their jobs. (Don’t click the read more, there is not more after this)
A Magazine Tryout
This isn’t directly related to my previous post, or to any posts out there on the net about the death of the short story market in speculative fiction. Just so you know. I’ve recently started submitting my work again. I’ve been in a rut for a while as far as submitting goes. I was doing The World in the Satin Bag (which you can find all the links to the semi-edited, experimental form on the right hand side), and that was all I was doing. I didn’t do much other writing. But I’m writing other stuff now. Yes, I am still working on The Spellweaver of Dern, the sequel to The World in the Satin Bag. I really hate that word ‘sequel’ in reference to WISB though. I think I’ll simply call it the ‘other half to an epic’. In any case, I am working on it. Mostly my brain is milling it around in my head. I want to have a better idea of what happens this time around so I can keep focus. I also need to go back to WISB and find all the plot points that I need to close up and figure out if I can do that in one novel or if I will have to do a third. In essence, I know what is ‘going’ to happen in the beginning, but not beyond that.So, I’m writing other stuff, and I have two submissions out as you can see on the side there. In submitting, however, I’m in a bit of a dilemma. I recently subscribed to Analog, and have bought the most recent issues of Neo-Opsis, Shimmer, Andromeda Spaceways, ON Spec, and Apex to give them a try (since I am not familiar with any of them on a personal basis). Analog I expect to like again since I have some 20 years or so worth of back issues going as far back as the early 60’s. I was subscribed once before but when my cancer hit I didn’t have much energy to do anything other than sleep. The others are basically testers. I have high hopes for Shimmer, since I’ve read it is good, and Neo-Opsis sounds interesting. I’ve seen a lot of stuff about Andromeda Spaceways and ON Spec, but Apex I’m somewhat unfamiliar with, though it looks to be of quality.What other magazines are there that I should be reading though? I wanted to test out F&SF and Asimov’s, but their stupid site is so hard to navigate I couldn’t seem to find a place to order the current issue direct in print format. I have problems reading on the computer–real reading I mean. I know I can print stuff out, but I would rather have a real copy in my hands.But what other magazines are out there? What are you reading? What do you recommend? I want to broaden my horizons here and find some new reading experiences in short fiction! (Doesn’t matter if it’s not in the USA. UK, AU, wherever, it’s fine)
Short Stories (another babble about this)
Anyone reading about science fiction right now will undoubtedly have heard about the demise of the short story market. I think of all the forms that science fiction (and fantasy) comes in, the short form is the one that is most likely to die as a viable market. Anthologies and collections will still be around, but the magazine market, I think, is in serious danger of going away. The sad part of this is that the science fiction short has such an amazing history. Some of the first stories in science fiction were short stories! Go back to the days of Astounding, IF, Galaxy, Imaginative Tales, etc. I certainly wasn’t alive when those magazines were initially running, but I am such a sucker for what I would call ‘historical science fiction’, meaning SF that is of historical import to the genre. I even have some twenty years worth of back issues from the early days of Analog to today. I certainly have not read all of them, but I have read a good portion and I love them to death.So, why are subscriptions and sales dropping? Why are the big three dying (Analog, Asimov, and F&SF)?Perhaps some reasons for the demise is that SF & F magazines have problems acquiring works from authors who are big names in the genre, or at least have problems getting truly awe-inspiring work. This is just a judgment based on what I think might be a possible reason, but as I just subscribed to Analog for the second time today I obviously am not 100% clear on how true this is. But I will argue a point about this. These magazines don’t typically pay a lot of money for short stories. Scifiction paid something close to fifty cents (USD) a word when it was in existence, and it was one of the highest paying markets. But Analog and the other three don’t pay nearly that much–though certainly the big three have a lot of prestige attached to them for good reason. Writers who want to pursue writing as a career are less likely to work with short stories simply because it isn’t a market that they can rely on for income. At best, short form markets can supplement income, but not replace it. There are probably a few authors who do survive on shorts (such as Alastair Reynolds who sells books of connected shorts), but most of us aren’t those lucky few. But magazines are like book companies: they rely on sales. When circulation goes down, so too does the money they are pulling in as profit, and as such there is no chance that these magazines would increase how much they pay. It’s a sad paradox really, although I really doubt that the magazines intend to increase payment anyway.Perhaps that reason is only a minor reason. Certainly a lot of the bigger authors who publish books have little interest in short form because they simply do not have the time to ‘waste’. I put emphasis on ‘waste’ because I don’t find writing shorts to be a waste of time. I actually enjoy writing shorts, even if I may not be very good at them. But I’m also not writing several novels a year, so I can fully understand why established authors might not want to spend time on short stories.I think the most pressing matter in the demise of the short story market, however, is that people simply do not know where to find them. The big three are generally easy enough to find if you live in a large city. However, I’ve been to several Borders stores that didn’t have Asimov’s or Analog’s, or even F&SF. In fact, I’ve been to several Borders that had no speculative fiction magazines at all. I don’t know if this is Borders’ issue, or if it is the management of those stores, but it seems to me that if you want sales of the big three, and even some of the smaller magazines that are actually quite good I hear, then you should be making it your mission to make sure they are easy to find. Not everyone who would enjoy reading SF or F shorts knows to go online and go straight to Asimov’s website or to Analog’s. In fact, aside from the big three, it’s really not that simple to find the quality speculative fiction magazines if you don’t know where to look.The fact that even the big three are hard to find is an indicator of what the short story market needs to do: advertise and establish a marketplace presence. How are people supposed to find out about these magazines, give them a look, read them, etc. if they can’t even find them in their favorite newsstand or book store? That’s the problem, they can’t. There are dozens of quality magazines that print quality material, but almost none of them are available to the general public in traditional venues (yes, I know they are on the net, but that’s not a ‘traditional venue’). Most people are not entirely interested in going online to find magazines to subscribe to. So something that magazines need to do is get themselves out there.And what if the big three are not suitable to your tastes? While the big three are certainly in a lot of stores and therefore have more exposure than the other magazines, they also publish a certain type of speculative fiction. As such, they go into the store and don’t see anything to their liking and never buy the magazines that they would be interested in, which unfortunately are not in a lot of stores and very well should be. In short (ha, get the pun?), the magazine market needs to make itself better known.Another thing that might make people more inclined to subscribe is to offer ‘example issues’ online. They could be a few notable stories from last year that, most likely, are not going to be read by people in the
SF/F Things of Note
I saw these two articles today and thought you guys would be interested in them. First is this article from Abebooks. It’s the top ten scariest characters in literature: Big Brother from 1984 by George Orwell Hannibal Lecter from the novels by Thomas Harris Pennywise the clown from It by Stephen King Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey Count Dracula from Bram Stoker’s novel Annie Wilkes from Misery by Stephen King The demon from The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty Patrick Bateman from American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Voldemort from the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling What do you think of that list? I’m not sure some of them are really all that frightening to me. But I agree with Big Brother being at the front. Next is this article about the ten things that science fiction got wrong (although there are only nine on the page…). The short version is as follows: Sound in Space Faster-than-light Travel Laser Bolts You Can Dodge Human Looking Aliens Half-breed Aliens Brain-sucking Aliens Shape-shifting Aliens Time Travel The Planetary Sameness Principle I agree with 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9. I’d argue against human looking aliens because life could very well evolve on other planets to bring out humanoid aliens. That might not be the case always, but certainly it would have to happen sometimes. The Universe is kind of a big place. As for brain-sucking aliens, in which he refers to symbiotic relationships such as in Alien, I have to argue that one needs to really look into parasitic relationships on this planet. While it might be very uncommon for humans to be significantly affected by parasitic relationships, there are parasites in the animal kingdom that actually will alter the ‘brain’ chemistry of other animals to get them to do something that the parasite needs–usually this involves reproduction. Perhaps, then, we can assume that larger, more evolved creatures could very well do this to humans, and how are we supposed to know exactly what alien parasites will be like or how they will affect us? Also, some parasites on Earth do feed on brain matter. There’s an amoeba that I talked about here that does just that.What do you all think about those nine things?
More Reasons Why I Hate J. K. Rowling!
(This is an old post that I accidentally made a draft when I was editing it. Sorry if it shows up in your RSS feed again! The comments are amusing, though. It should also be noted that the book discussed below was eventually released as a proper publication.) You’d think it would be incredibly hard to do, but J. K. Rowling has once again pissed me off by doing something that no respectable writer would do in her position. You can find the story here. The short version is that Rowling is going to publish seven copies of a new book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Yes, only seven. We’ll get back to that in a minute. Six copies are going to her friends and family, and the last copy is going to be put up for auction for charity–the bid starts at $62,000. Okay, now the only good side to this is that she’s raising money for kids. Here is my problem. You are the richest damn person in England and practically the richest woman in the whole freaking world. So, instead of saying “thank you fans for making me filthy stinking rich” you’re going to take a nice dump right in the face of everyone that supported you by not making this book accessible to everyone. Gee, thanks Rowling. I appreciate it. I mean, goodness, I spend over $200 of my hard earned money buying your books, reading them, and then spending another $300 going to the movies and buying them on DVD. But, your reward to me as your fan is to slap me in the face and make what could be a very interesting reading experience impossible. Now hold on before you think I’m a horrible grumpy man ignoring that she’s donating to charity. Take this into account. What if Rowling had simply gone to her publisher, who presumably wouldn’t think twice about this, and said “I’d like to publish this book from the HP series, but I don’t want any royalties. All royalties should go to such-and-such charity”? Think about that. The publisher gets its profit and that little charity gets millions of dollars to help kids in Europe. The seventh HP book sold millions of copies. We can assume that a couple million would be sold of this other book. If 1$ from every purchase goes to unfortunate kids, that’s easily a million dollars, if not more. If she donated her advance too, which would probably be considerable anyway, just imagine? So not only is she spitting in the face of her fans, she’s also spitting in the face of all those unfortunate kids in Europe by telling them “well, I don’t care enough about you to actually do something that could bring you considerable money”. So, Rowling has spit in the face of gay people, spit in the face of fans (twice), and now spit in the face of unfortunate European children. Congrats Rowling, you earn the Worst Person of the Month Award. Keep it up and you might get Worst Person of the Year.