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OtherRealms Issue 18 Part 09
Electronic OtherRealms #18
Fall, 1987
Part 9
Letters to OtherRealms
Judy-Lynn isn't forgotten. This is the dedication for
2061: Odyssey III (due out in Jan 88):
To the memory of Judy-Lynn Del Rey,
Editor Extraodinary,
Who Bought this book for one dollar
-- But never knew if she got her money's worth.
A.C. Clarke
Sri Lanka
Chuq;
Oh well, I'm sorry you'll be going to quarterly publication (since it
means I will have read most of what you review before I see
OtherRealms). I hope this means you'll have more long reviews (I agree
that the pico reviews are much less useful). I can live without horror
reviews, too (a hint) -- so if horror dies due to lack of
editors/reviewers, I will not be terribly upset.
[[I don't think that's strictly true -- the major books, yes,
but one thing I try to emphasize with OR is the books that you
don't hear about, but should. That will probably take a higher
profile in the future, along with all my new material I'm
working on. At least, that's my hope -- anyone can find the
latest david brin book these days -- I'd kind of like to help
people find the decent stuff they probably missed.
We'll see. -- chuq]]
Are the reviewers really trying to defend their "importance" in the
scheme of things? Seems pretty strange -- though it may come from some
confusion between book reviewing and Literary Interpretation, generally
thought to be a Good Thing by literature professors, and would-be
literature professors like me. I'd say that the two are quite distinct;
book reviews (and reviewers) should be trying to say "buy this" or
"don't bother" -- value judgements with enough description so the
reader can interpret (or, perhaps, review) the review. Literary
interpretation (which may be almost as important as literary creation)
is rather different -- and I can't see much use for it in most Science
Fiction. Somehow, though, I can't see anyone claiming that either book
reviews or literary interpretation are as "important" in the scheme of
things as creating the silly things in the first place. I'd be out of
business if Euripides & Co. had never existed -- and I'd give a limb or
two to be able to write as well as Plato or Aristophanes (though,
presumably, in English). Such feuds have a long history, though, so I
suppose I shouldn't be surprised (you might see traces of one in
Aristophanes, I guess).
-- Martin
martin@scruz2.sc.intel.com
[[Oh, yeah -- all over the place. Read the New York Review of
books, where the book gets mentioned somewhere on the third
page of a review, or the San Jose Mercury News, where the
theater reporter says things like "I walked out at intermission
-- I will say that most of the folks in the theater seemed to
be enjoying themselves, but I still thought it sucked...." - -
or the book section of the San Francisco Chronicle, which not
only tells reviewers what books they'll write about, but what
they'll think about them. Or the San Jose Mercury News book
section, where the editor doesn't like SF, and so, despite a
very large contigent of pros, enough readers to support three
genre bookstores, and a large fan population, we have a paper
with no SF coverage at all.
I read LOTS of reviews -- the LA times periodically, the local
papers, the NYRoB, the Chicago Tribune stuff, Publisher's
Weekly, ALL the genre columns and magazines I can get my hands
on -- everything I can touch that more or less does what I'm
doing in OtherRealms. And I think fair reviews are a rarity
outside of the field -- AJ, Baird and Tom Easton are the most
level headed folks in the entire group I read. Outside the
Family, it seems like reviewers are little more than Folks Who
Can't that want to pull Those Who Do down a peg.
of course, we aren't perfect -- read the Spinrad 'criticisms'
in IASFM, or the latest Fantasy Review, where a reviewer
likened Card's Ender to Hitler (to which Orson appropriately
responded: "Huh?")
Few reviews or criticisms really review or criticise -- they
are either a literary ego stroke by the critic (masturbation
for the masses -- look how much smarter I am than he is....) or
a critic attempting to tell the world how THEY would have
written this. foo -- I try to avoid this stuff in OR,
personally. -- chuq]]
Chuq,
There are a couple of points of bibliography in error in the reviews
this time. First up, Davis Tucker, in reviewing Dark Seeker, refers to
it as "[Jeter's] first attempt at horror". Not so, as Tor had published
a previous horror novel by Jeter, Soul Eater, back in 1983. Secondly,
in your review of Dianna Wynne Jones' Archer's Goon, you call it her
second book. She's actually had published more than a dozen novels and
at least one short story collection.
A left-over point from the previous issue (#16), regarding Peter David
(whose Knight Life was reviewed by Jim Johnston) and what else he's
written. Aside from Knight Life -- which, by the way, has been optioned
for a movie -- David has written two book tie-ins to the game Photon,
with a third to follow, all written under the pseudonym David Peters.
As for his comic book work, he's generally held up as one of the better
currently- practicing writers of mainstream comics. Of perhaps some
interest to fans of Star Trek is that David is going to be writing DC's
Star Trek comic starting in a few issues.
Jerry Boyajian
boyajian@akov68.dec.com
Dear Chuq;
James Brunet made some excellent points in his article on Hard SF in
OR#17, but I'd just like to add to his commentary that every form of
fiction requires research -- some of it very specialized -- not just
Hard SF. If you're setting your novel in a contemporary setting, using
police as characters, for example, you have to know how it all works --
terminology, heirarchy, routines, etc. you have to know your settings,
their history and such, even if most of the research material never
gets into the book.
Yes, Hard SF takes a certain amount of specialized -- and, for some
laymen -- difficult research. But research is research. I spent months
researching Romany for my novel Mulengro before ever putting a word
down on paper -- everything from interviews to secondhand bookshops and
library stacks. I've ben researching my current project, Svhaha, a near
future SF novel based on Ojibway legends, off and on for almost five
years. Even high Fantasies require research, if only in such simple
things as geography.
I'm not alone in this. Greg Frost spent years researching Tain for Ace
books. Ditto for Pete Godwin's roman Britain books. Even heroic Fantasy
isn't immune -- you should see the research library Charles Saunders
has built up over the years for his African Fantasies.
The problem with a great deal of the current crop of generic high
Fantasy is that the authors' only research appears to be other Fantasy
novels, giving us second and third generation material. No wonder so
much of it reads the same. But that's not a good reason to say that
Fantasy, or any other fiction, doesn't require a great deal of research
as well.
I understand the point that Brunet was making -- hard SF is
particularly difficult to research because it's constantly changing.
I'm only adding these comments because I believe extensive researching
is necessary for every form of fiction. And it's always time-consuming,
but it is fun. And if it's not, then you're working on the wrong kind
of mateerial, because if you like it enough to write about it, then the
research should just be one more part of the process -- and a
pleasurable one to boot.
Cheers,
Charles de Lint
Dear chuq;
James Brunet is all too right about Hard SF. It IS getting harder to
write as the standards of the field rise. I try to keep scientifically
scrupulous, and if I must finesse a point I try to sin by omission,
dodging a clean exposition of what's unworkable. The most intersting
question in Hard SF is the aesthetic boundary -- when is a clear
scientific cheat woth the dramatic payoff? You're got to write pretty
well to commit obvious crimes, that I know...
I've attempted my most ambitious synthesis of Hard SF elements and
Narrative tightness, with social inventiveness in my next novel, Great
Sky River -- and I agree, it's truly exhausting to keep to the
ever-higher standards of the sub-genre.
Gregory Benford
Chuq,
James Brunet's article on SF made me quizzical. What makes him think
Hard SF is under siege? David Brin won the Hugo as I recall, and is one
of the more popular writers in the field. Greg Benford, Greg Bear,
James Hogan, Robert Forward, Arthur C. Clarke, and others aren't having
any trouble at all getting published. Even in the "Good Old Days" Hard
SF was a numerical minority. Most SF from the 1950's and 1960's was
transplanted adventure fiction, space opera, disaster stories, after
the bomb stories, and such. I don't think there's been much change in
the place of Hard SF at all.
I do agree, however, that errors of science don't necessarily ruin a
novel. Rings of Ice by Piers Anthony is one of my favorites, a novel of
the reaction of people when faced with a global tragedy. Now, someone
pointed out to me that the mechanism by which Anthony sets up the
ecological upheaval is meteorologically impossible, which is an
interesting observation but has absolutely no relevance to the story,
only to its background. I would prefer that he had gotten it right, but
it does not materially affect my enjoyment of the novel that he did not
do so.
Speaking of Anthony, the review of Chthon amused me. This was his first
novel, a complexly plotted, original idea that marked him as a writer
to be watched. And his novels immediately following were unusually
interesting as well. It wasn't until he reached Xanth and found that he
could churn out funny Fantasy and make lots of money that I found
myself enjoying his stuff less. I suspect your reviewer did not
understand much of the underlying themes of the novel if he found it so
hard to understand. It certainly does not match the kind of Fantasy
that Anthony is doing now.
Yours,
Don D'Ammassa
Book Ratings in OtherRealms
All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books receive
[***]. Ratings may be modified a half step with a + or a -, so [***-]
is somewhat better than [**+]
[*****] One of the best books of the year
[****] A very good book -- above average
[***] A good book
[**] Flawed, but has its moments
[*] Not recommended
[] Avoid at all costs
OtherRealms
Reviewing the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.
Editor & Publisher
Chuq Von Rospach
Associate Editor
Laurie Sefton
Contributing Editors
James Brunet
Charles de Lint
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Alan Wexelblat
OtherRealms #18
Fall, 1987
Copyright 1987
by Chuq Von Rospach.
All Rights Reserved.
One time rights have been acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in its entirety only for
non-commercial purposes. No article may be reprinted without
the express permission of the author.
OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September, December) by:
Chuq Von Rospach
35111-F Newark Blvd.
Suite 255
Newark, CA. 94560
Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ
Review copies should be sent to this address for consideration.
Subscriptions
OtherRealms is available for the usual bribes & trades: a copy of your
zine, submissions, letters, comments, artwork or because I want you to
see it.
People who don't like to write can still get OtherRealms for money:
$2.50 for a single issue, or $8.50 for four issues.
Folks in the publishing industry can qualify for a free subscription.
Just ask.
OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy bookstore, Palo Alto,
California. Stores interested in OtherRealms should contact me.
Electronic OtherRealms
An electronic, text-only version of OtherRealms is available on a
number of different computer networks and bulletin board systems.
On the Arpanet, Bitnet, CSNet, and UUCP networks, send E-mail to
chuq@sun.COM to subscribe. On USENET, OtherRealms is distributed in the
group rec.mag.otherrealms.
It is also available on the Delphi timesharing service and a number of
Bulletin Board systems across the country.
Electronic OtherRealms subscribers who want to see the real thing can
get a sample copy for $2.00, or a one year subscription for $7.50. Just
tell me what your E-mail address is or what BBS you read OtherRealms
from when you send in the request.
Submissions
OtherRealms publishes articles about Science Fiction, Fantasy, and
Horror. The primary focus is reviews of books that otherwise might be
missed in the deluge of new titles published every year, but the
magazine is open to anything involving books.
Authors are welcome to submit articles for the Behind the Scenes
feature section, where you want to talk about the research and
background that went into your book. I'm also interested in author interviews.
Any thing of interest to the reader of book-length fiction is welcome
at OtherRealms. We don't cover shorter lengths, media, or fannish news.
Submissions can be made on either Macintosh or MS-DOS disks (disks will
be returned), via one of the computer networks, or the old-fashioned,
typewritten way if you.
Submission deadline is the 15th of the month prior to publication or
when I run out of space in an issue. Lettercol deadline is the first
of the month of publication.
Publishing News
OtherRealms is interested in publishing news about the happenings in
the genre -- contracts, promotions, happenings, deals, if something has
happened to you that you want the world to know about, let OtherRealms
pass the word.
Artwork
OtherRealms is always on the lookout for good genre art, from small
clip-art pieces to front and back cover. Cartoons, line art, anything
with a genre flavor is welcome here!
Please submit reproductions, not originals.
Those Funny Runes
The hieroglyphs attached to the names of many of OtherRealms'
contributors are, believe it or not, addresses. If this makes no sense
to you, you aren't a computer, as these addresses are designed to allow
a person on one computer to send mail to a person on another computer
electronically. It works, too.
The Details
OtherRealms is published using a Macintosh computer and a Laserwriter
Plus. The main text is Palatino, the headers Bookman and Zapf Chancery.
Layout is done with Ready, Set, Go! 3.0, Microsoft Word 3.01, and
various and sundry other toys. People interested in more detail on the
layout should contact me.
