Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 92

Norman Spinrad 1

Norman Spinrad has done a couple of posts on publishing recently. One was interesting, in that it told me things I didn't know. According to him, bookstores "buy to net," which leads to "the death spiral of publishing."

Suppose Barnes & Noble orders 10,000 copies of a book, and 80% sell. This is pretty good, especially considering they can return the unsold copies for credit, unlike every other kind of retailer. When a new book by the author comes out, the buyer at B&N looks at the records an...

Publishing 2

Spinrad then did a second post on how one of his novels got really bad treatment from the big New York house Alfred Knopf.

I posted this on facebook:

Spinrad's horror story is pretty ordinary, except that he was dealing with a 'literary' press, whose people thought they were better than those tacky sf publishers and editors. The snobbery and lack of courtesy sounds seriously angering; and the sub-under-editor he was dealing with sounds far less competent than any sf editor I have ever met...

Norman Spinrad 2

Spinrad then did a second post on how one of his novels got really bad treatment from the big New York house Alfred Knopf.

I posted this on facebook:

Spinrad's horror story is pretty ordinary, except that he was dealing with a 'literary' press, whose people thought they were better than those tacky sf publishers and editors. The snobbery and lack of courtesy sounds seriously angering; and the sub-under-editor he was dealing with sounds far less competent than any sf editor I have ever met...

Science Fiction

You have to remember, I write science fiction, and science fiction is naturally melodramatic and extreme... It asks two great questions, "What if?" and "If this goes on?" And it wants its answers -- its disasters -- to be big enough to be visible and understood.

Is this depressing? Not necessarily. There is a line that comes (I think) from Isaac Asimov. It may be the great statement of science fiction. "There will be a future, and it will be different."

This statement can be set in opposition t...

So Far, So Good

Paul Krugman says that the guys in charge -- the administration, Congress and the Fed -- seem to have decided 10% unemployment is okay, and we can just let the economy perk along at the current speed.

The question is, can it continue at the current speed? Or will it move more or more slowly, descending into an ever deeper recession?

Or will there be more speculative bubbles like the 1990s tech bubble and the recent weird financial instruments bubble that blew up in 2007-2008?

We might have both,...

Other High Points of Diversacon

Mike Levy said that "Mammoths of the Great Plains" is "one of the best tales of alternative history I've ever read." I can quote exactly, because the comment is on his handout for the Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy panel. I will probably frame the handout.

And Sandy Lindow said (in facebook) about seeing me at Diversacon, "I get the feeling that you are in an amazing part of your life. Retirement becomes you. You seem more vital than you have in years."

This second comment needs to be in c...

Diversacon

I went to Diversacon this past weekend. It's a small con. It peaked as 200 members a number of years ago and now is somewhere under a 100. Very quiet, but for me very pleasant. The guests this year were Bill Wu and Rob Chilson, whom I had not seen for more than 20 years. They are sf and fantasy writers much like me. We've been around a long time. We've never hit it big. We keep trucking.

Mark Rich, Mike Levy and Sandy Lindow were there from Wisconsin. Mark is a science fiction writer, poet an...

Astronomy, Heat and Packing

The astronomy picture of the day is awesome, but copyrighted. The predicted high is 90 F. I am going to stay inside and pack books, for the big move Thursday. I don't remember if I have mentioned it before, and I'm not going back and re-reading myself. We are having the apartment re-carpeted, which means moving everything out of the living room into the bedrooms, then out of the bedrooms and into the living room, while the new carpet is laid. Fortunately, the hall, kitchen and bathrooms do no...

Photo of the Day from NASA

What's causing those strange dark streaks in the rings of Saturn? Prometheus. Specifically, an orbital dance involving Saturn's moon Prometheus keeps creating unusual light and dark streamers in the F-Ring of Saturn. Now Prometheus orbits Saturn just inside the thin F-ring, but ventures into its inner edge about every 15 hours. Prometheus' gravity then pulls the closest ring particles toward the 80-km moon. The result is not only a stream of bright ring particles but also a dark ribbon where ...

Funeral

I am going to a funeral today: the brother of an old friend. I knew Ted from the time he was five or six. He grew up to be a fine, well respected doctor and died at 61, way too early.

I knew he was ill, but did not realize how ill. I am shocked and sad for his family.