I remember after reading Riverworld, racing to get my hands on any
Farmer I could find. I ended up with a book, was it Lord Tyger? in
which men dueled with crossed erections. There is a lot of expectation
that goes into the impression of a book. It certainly wasn't what I
was expecting and I was disappointed.
As far as the self-publishing bit circumventing validation, that was
true in the past, but a lot of publishers are picking up books after
they've been self-published and have started to sell. It's the selling
it yourself part that can be the validation now.
Alicia
On Feb 11, 2010, at 12:10 AM, Sal Armoniac wrote:
You should see the long looooooooong protracted debate on Rob
Sawyer's Face Book page about why it is better to get publishing
companies to print your book than to self-publish. There are people
out there who really believe that going through the "filtering
process" of acceptance and validation by any press guarantees
quality over those who are more "impatient." To be sure, Rob's
first remark was to vilify those who suggested to any author that
they self-publish when the enterprise could come to naught
(especially economically).
I think the worst novel I read, next to _Woman Between the Worlds_,
was Jonathan Carroll's _Sleeping in Flame_. Touted all over as the
next best thing to sliced bread in the realm of intellectual fantasy.
On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Dana Paxson <[email protected]> wrote:
35 years or so ago I was driving my family through the Adirondacks,
and to keep the kids entertained, started making up a song about the
Adirondack Shark. I guess I was just participating in some silly
cosmic freshwater resonance.
Eric Scoles wrote:
Are you sure he was serious? (Then again, if I have to ask...)
When I was younger I thought it would be fun to write a novel about
a giant muskelunge eating swimmers in Lake Michigan. Thought it
would be fun to see if people took it seriously. Somebody else
suggested, 'why not just make it a gigantic bass and set it in Long
Lake?'* Then someone went and made _Champlain_, which I'm told was
about a gigantic alligator terrorizing swimmers in Lake Champlain,
and I realized that the world had moved on without me.
--
*My brothers & I spent hours one weekend catching and re-catching
(and re-re-catching) undersized smallmouth bass on Long Lake. One
of our running jokes had to do with crossing them with piranha. So,
there's another idea.
On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Jonathan Sherwood <[email protected]
> wrote:
Sorry to digress slightly, but the absolute worst case of
collaboration was a book my dear wife bought me for a beach read.
It was by Piers Anthony and some other guy. It's called "Spider
Legs," and holds my personal record for worst book ever read. It
was so bad I had to finish it just because it was hard to believe
it was ever put into print instead of sent back to the depths of
Hell by the publisher.
It's basically "Jaws" but with a giant spider crab. Why do good
authors do that?
http://www.amazon.com/Spider-Legs-Fantasy-Piers-Anthony/dp/0812564898
On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 4:07 PM, Sal Armoniac <[email protected]>
wrote:
Asimov also declined. I can't stand his later novels. Clarke's
quality dropped because he started collaborating with less skillful
writers. It bothers me, even, that he wrote his two novels 2001
and 2010 in collaboration with filmmakers. Kubrick's film is far
better, and has reached more people than Clarke's novel, which is a
let down after seeing the film. I'm having a hard time teaching him.
Sally
On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:48 PM, SteveC <[email protected]> wrote:
Blather. Most of the writers at the high age range of that chart
started publishing many years before such a thing as a Hugo Award for
novels existed. Make 1955 your base line (when the Hugos started
being
awarded annually) instead of first published work and the whole chart
shifts downward.
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