Vote vote vote--and rec rec rec rec

[ellen_datlow]

Ok. Here's my impassioned plea/push/nag for anyone who reads this blog and is eligible to recommend stories and or novels for the various peer group science fiction, fantasy, and horror awards.
I know that some people feel that awards themselves are a bad thing and that they should all be abolished. I'm not talking to you. I don't believe that and I know I'm not going to change your minds.

Awards are NOT going to go away but they could become less visible (which I think is a bad thing). As an editor I really appreciate it when the stories/books I edit make final award ballots and win awards. And I think most writers are even more appreciative of this. It gives a sense of validation for what you're doing by your peers (for the Nebula and Stoker).

Right now is "award rec season" and there are discussions on both the SFWA Bulletin Board and the HWA Bulletin Board about how their respective awards are dying --not enough members are recommending works to even make a preliminary ballot.

Now some people think that this might be because no one likes the work being published.
Others that no one is reading enough short fiction to be interested in recommending works in those categories.
I have a really difficult time believing the first reason. I've been reading sf/f/h short fiction for twenty five years and have found no drop off in quality in any of those fields.

I can't answer for the second but I hope it's not true because if so my profession will die and I love editing short fiction.

If you care at ALL for the genre short story then I urge you to recommend the stories that you think are worth bringing to the attention of your peers.

This is totally off the cuff and I know if I thought about it more I'd have more to write--but I'd also probably just delete the whole post...

Comments welcome!

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Now some people think that this might be because no one likes the work being published.

Ding ding ding!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to speak for yourself, but overall that's just bullshit. There's plenty of great short sf/f/h fiction out there--I read it all the time and have been reading it for over 25 years. As an active member of HWA I've recommended tons of good stories--unfortunately, it doesn't seem that more than one or two other members have read those stories, which is a shame.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

But wouldn't you have succumbed to madness by now if you didn't like short fiction?

I review this stuff for a living. I don't have to like it at all. I just need to be able to finish it. Before I started doing that, I have to admit I stopped reading the magazines in the 1990s because the ratio of what I wanted to read/what I actually got was too low. In general, I was pleasantly surprised when I began to be force-fed the various Best Ofs after 2001 [1] (I especially liked the Nature Shorts [2] that got into, hrm, Hartwell/Cramer? in 2006(?)). I still don't read the magazines because I am clearly not their target market.

The Best Ofs in 2007, particularly SF, which is the genre closest to my heart, were amazingly grim reading. I would not have finished the SF collections if I didn't have to. I expect Americans to be suicidally depressed but even the Wilson that kept turning up was bleak and depressing and he's Canadian, if you hold him up to the light in the right way.

It's like living through a bad rerun of 1970s Dismal.

[Do I need to qualify the above? No, nobody would be shallow enough to assume that if I don't want a solid diet of "Oh, woe! We are doomed! Doomed! Woe! And also, all romantic relationships are inherently abusive and my socks don't match." that means I want saccharine happy endings instead, although I can see why it would be rhetorically handy to pretend that I did]

1: Funny story. I once mentioned that I had one of your anthologies in the to-read stack and was looking forward to it as a break from the amazingly long MSes I had been reading. I can't recall how long it actually was but I think somewhere near 1000 pages in MS.

2: There's a collection of 100 Nature short shorts out. Do not read it in one sitting.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Reading almost any of one thing in one sitting will kill ya!
I admit that I don't understand how you can review it regularly if you don't like it.
But yes, as an editor, if I didn't like what I was reading most of the time and love what I was reading some of the time, I'd quit.

In fact...the question I really have for Nick (I had to run out the door before thinking seriously about his post) is if he really truly believes that there isn't any good sf/f/h short stories being published then what's he doing editing a website of short fiction and how/why did he edit an original anthology a few years ago? Does he mean that nothing he has published (as an editor) has been worth recommending for an award? That's exactly what he's implying. If he does think that it's a swat in the face of anyone whose work he's ever bought.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Darn, and I already handed out the kewpie doll.

I do edit a magazine. I buy one story a month. I could buy, given what is submitted to me, maybe as many as eighteen stories a year.

Were I tasked with filling a digest ten times a year, I almost certainly would end up having to stuff the pages with the exceedingly minor works of major authors, stuff with little value other than nostalgia, and short shorts artifically blown up to novella length.

When I flip through or click through magazines and see stories that I rejected for CW, I surely like them no better than I did when I bounced them four months or a year previously.

I consider the stories I publish the very best stories being produced, and this despite the fact that I don't buy the "names" for the magazine. I read the other magazines and with every issue I am convinced that the editorial taste and other factors reflected in their tables of contents are simply inferior to mine in virtually every way. They buy names; I buy stories. They cater to a shrinking audience; I am seeking out a broader audience. They need to fill pages; I don't. They literally have no idea how human beings really act and what motivates them or at least believe that their readers do not; I don't edit the Internal Bulletin for the International Society for People with Asperger's Syndrome.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Any evidence your superior taste is actually reaching a broader audience, then?

If not, what do you think the probability that you are right is, compared to the others of whom you speak, if this trend continues abd you don't reach such an audience?

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

The audience for CW is growing with every issue, and is reaching out internationally (an advantage of the web, both in publishing international authors and in getting a worldwide, albeit English-reading, audience).

The increasingly inaccurately titled "big three" have seen their circulations decline each year and this trend will not stop. The response to this decline has been, as far as my reading, more of the same exact content associated with the declines. As far as the semi-pros, more people read CW material through the link I put up on my blog each month than many semi-pros have readers overall.

If you want to measure quality by way of popularity, then clearly the SF magazines are doing something very wrong. People are subcribing and then just not renewing. Newsstand returns are very high. Compared to even marginal publications on niche subjects, the circulation of SF mags is tiny.

If you want to simply test quality via reading, go right ahead. Frankly, if Ellen can claim that her reading tells her that there are plenty of good stories, my reading can tell me that most published SF/F/H short stories are tedious at best and awful at worst.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

If it is growing, then some evidence, sure, if growing faster than your garden variety internet usage growth, perhaps, or other similar publications.

I may have read a story or two, I will have to check. At one a month, won't take long, regardless.

Online is more accessible for a lot of us, no doubt.

However, at several thousand stories a year, some will be outstanding, on probability. Likewise at the other end. The majority will be mediocre or worse taking into account the following:

Admittedly I have never read at the very low end just as mentioned by girliejones recently where one market had 4 issues in a row all stories 2 out of 5 or less, so a bit of a horrible tail, there.

Even if only to pick a random number (and lastshortstory will give a rough guide to this if they publish their numbers) 10% are 4 out of 5 or better, that will still leave a few hundred that are good.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If we're talking international venues, then the benchmark isn't the ailing American SF magazines but China's Science Fiction World, which sells about 300,000 copies a month and which might have a million readers [1]. SFW is doing well enough to have hosted the Chengdu International Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival. My impression is that the Chinese currently tend to go for what would be considered fairly traditional forms of SF.

I think most reasonable people agree that outsourcing SF (in the restrictive sense) to non-American writers is the wave of the future. Americans can contribute to the field as consumers, the most valuable part of any commercial field.

The audience for CW is growing with every issue [...]

There's an obvious case to compare this to but unfortunately that experiment was derailed by other factors that will not apply to the Clarkesworld experiment. Also, in light of the other factors, I don't think I entirely trust their circulation numbers now.


1: Or about one person in 1,300. If one US magazine had a similar fraction of Americans as readers, they would have about 230,000 readers (But only about 80,000 subscribers, which isn't that much better than the Big Three). Clearly the problem here is that the US is horribly underpopulated and its niche markets are accordingly puny in absolute numbers. US SF editors should consider contributing money to campaigns to increase American TFRs [2] as well as immigration to the US to preserve their own futures. This could pay off in less than a generation.

Mind you, the Baby Boom didn't really pay off for the traditional SF magazines because the bloom in the early 1950s was cut short by the destruction of the American News Company. As long as there isn't some kind of headlong rush to consolidate magazine distribution into a few large and vulnerable companies going on today, it seems unlikely that a similar event could occur in the near future.

2: Humanely. Romanian-style programs need not apply. I'm not a monster and I think it is entirely possible that there is some humane path between the underpopulation of today and a more reasonable population density in North America. Even matching the UK's population density would get the US to about 2.5 billion people.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Nick, so you're saying you actually read everything published in the field of fantastic fiction? If not, how would you know?

[scarypudding.livejournal.com]

It's not like you to use space on your own strengths that might be spent on other people's weaknesses, Nick; I think you're slipping.

(Though, come to think of it, I already know why I don't read the traditional SF venues, and it would probably be more useful to me in the long run to hear more about why I should read CW. Though less entertaining in the short run.)

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

You can read CW or not. We're not one-at-a-timin' hyah, we's mass communicatin.'

It is true that many venues have circulations so minute that a handful of readers makes a big difference. It is also true that not a few readers have embraced a consumptionist aesthetic because of this; thus plopping down at cons and on messageboards and whatnot and making demands of editors and publishers and booksellers (Shocklines is notorious here, as you may have seen from my journal). I've also seen people declaring "boycotts" of one (i.e., not a real boycott) against writers such as Orson Scott Card, and engaging in all sorts of other telling actions: they really think that one person's decisions in a marketplace matter.

And when a mag has only a few subscribers, that may be even true. But that's not a workable model if one is looking for a broader audience. For a cult, sure, then it makes sense to stand in the airport and hand out pamphlets, but I'm not looking for a lifetime of engagement or to provide someone with a cultural index for their lifestyle, I'm looking for people who, when they hear about a good story online for free, go and read it.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

Of course, by denying Moles' request, you've also inadvertantly thumbed your nose at everyone else who might be reading the thread...

(or you could provide a link to a story or two which you're particularly proud of and/or represent what you're trying to do.)

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

Since Nick is too busy quoting Coen brothers to answer: because Nick is pulling the best out of the slushpile, without too much regard for name-recognition? So he tends to publish the best stories from a lot of the same up-and-coming talent you see at, say, SH. Except that Nick's editorial "voice" is very different from the SH guys; if you're looking for something short, dynamic, dark, and well-written, Nick's selections at Clarkesworld are a good place to get a quick 4000-word hit.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Not to put down Nick's taste at all but if I would judge by percentage I doubt I'd like any higher percentage of the stories Nick picks than I do for many other venues I cover ;-)

From out of everything I read for YBFH, I hate most of it. And a lot of it I like ok but don't think is either good enough or appropriate for the horror half of YBFH...

But that doesn't mean that I don't like enough of what is published annually in and at the edges of the genres to think that there's "plenty" of good fiction out there.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

You don't like those, I don't see any reason why you would like this one, either. Not much different, maybe a little more of the 'not really quite genre', if that is your sort of thing.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

You consider them that, but they aren't.

You have a couple of excellent, a couple of good, some decent, and more than half average or worse.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, how can we forgot the informed critical opinion of an lj commenter fuming about "literary fetishism", Tolstoy, and semi-colons. (Forget the fact that you don't seem to know which stories I've edited.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Reading almost any of one thing in one sitting will kill ya!

That's my usual method of reading things. I admit it doesn't work well with stuff like Martin's Terrible People Doing Horrible Things series (But I did get through Moore and Kuttner's Two-Handed Engine in one long session). Bloat only affects fantasy novels these days, so all of the SF and mystery MSes are a reasonable length for my approach.

I admit that I don't understand how you can review it regularly if you don't like it.

In a word, money. As long as someone is willing to pay me, I will read anything that is sent to me. Uh, but the someone paying me can't be the author of the work in question. I do reserve the right to occasionally scream "Stars move!", "No educated person thought the Earth was flat in 1492!" or M/m = e^(Vdelta/Vexhaust)!" at books. I don't do that on the bus anymore.

There's also the possibility of very pleasant surprises, the discovery of a subgenre that I like that I would never have considered looking at on my own.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

How much to read every Gor book and write about it?

:)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Dr. Hyde charged a hundred dollars to go see The Day After Tomorrow (http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/158d8d75d2c494a3/6e52157aaf63775f) and I'd hate to think my pain was worth less than his.

Note that he got paid in 2004 American dollars, worth considerably more than 2007 American dollars after the conversion to Canadian dollars.

I cannot tell from the Dark Horse website if their planned reprint of the Gor series is actually going to happen.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, all the writer types should just give up because they all suck. Novels, stories, whatever, people prefer tv and movies and video games anyway, don't they?

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's just about the most simplistic misinterpretation of my comment one could possibly come up with. You win a kewpie doll!

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Simplistic comment for the simplistic sound made from a simplistic comment at an old fashioned simple sideshow, eh?

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

You're the expert, being the simpleton of the moment and all.