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.