Spontaneous ∂erivation

The Cart Before the Horse

Or, why I’m writing this:

• a Tor.com interview with Gordon van Gelder, wherein he discussed print versus the Internets;

• the discussion in the comments of said interview, including Ellen Datlow, Nick Mamatas, Jason Stoddard, and more;

• and John Scalzi’s response.

Yes, it’s a bit of a stew.

One of the topics touched upon by van Gelder and Scalzi involve what it takes to make providing free online fiction work, and how marketing at various publishing houses have been a bit clueless about it with respect to new authors, in that they think this will garner instant accolades and eyes.

The problem is that this doesn’t work when said author has no audience. Even before Agent to the Stars and Old Man’s War were put online for free, Scalzi was already building up an audience of readers—and a large body of non-fiction work as well. I’d say the same for Stross and very much for Doctorow. But conversely, that’s when it does work.

Something I Don’t Talk About Anymore

Dirty secret time.

I used to study blogging. Not so much about the art of blogging, but the art of blogging that sells; in other words, online marketing and brand-building. This used to get me some serious amount of hits, a lot of Stumbles, and so on. (Moving to SF/F really tanked that, which should tell you something depressing.)

But this is not something I want to talk about in writer circles ever again, because people suddenly get these weird ideas about online marketing.

Rather than bore you with a summary of some of the discussions I’ve had about this, here are some posts I’ve written in the past, that may be of interest to you, dear writer who wishes to speed your fame through teh Intertubes.

Back to the Past

• 6 Myths about Blogging, Glory, and Fame.

  Know what blogging doesn’t get you. If you read nothing else at my site ever again, read this one.

• Where Seth Godin is Coming From: Re: Free Content and Publishing.

  If you’re going to and/or put free content up there anyways, you need to think about the philosophy of free in relation to brand-building. This is not simple at all.

  I never thought about it until recently because I had a day job. These days I do get paid for some of my writing, and this definitely has caused me to think more about this kind of thing.

• 4 Principles for Packing a Punch with Unique Content.

  If you’re going to try to go down this path, you need some kind of methodology to hit big numbers; this is one simplified template, and likely needs serious tweaking before being applied to fiction. This is the skeleton of Internet marketing and, frankly, is what a lot of traditional publishing marketing guys are missing, much less the heart and other important internal organs of Internet marketing.

  Success stories using this method:

  • The article itself. Over 15,000 hits.
  • Looking for Love in All the Wrong Bounce Rates. Over 8,000 hits.
  • Getting the Most Out of Entrecard. Over 5,000 hits, 59 comments.
  • HTML for Dummies, Part 3: Effects with Borders, Padding, and Replacing Tables with Divs. Due to the last part, over 20,000 hits.

  My failures are all sub-2000 hits, sometimes embarrassingly so, but always because they don’t hit the 4 principles, one of which is more or less out of my control.

In Four Little Words

Build an audience first.

Photography: shok

On a somewhat unrelated note: cerulean nougat exists!

Here are my impressions of the final stories, a brief comment on Lucius Shepard, and concluding thoughts.

Private Eye by Terry Bisson

“Spare one of those?”

“Of course.” I shook a Camel out of my pack, which was sitting on the bar as a reminder of better days. She was wearing a raincoat—Burberry; we notice such things—over jeans. It matches her hair, almost; it wasn’t buttoned, only belted at the waist. She was three stools away, but I caught a glimpse of a narrow black strap on a narrow pale shoulder when she leaned down the bar to take the cigarette from my fingers.

We notice such things. Especially in a quiet bar on Eighth Avenue, on a rainy Thursday autumn-in-New York afternoon.

As the commentary says, this is a sexy tale—and a very well-told one. I like how the atmosphere settles in like fog, subtly and not a word wasted. The science fiction is like the atmosphere; it settles in gracefully. For a story so lurid, the handling of its plot and ideas is gentle and teasing. Especially the teasing.

A dark, risque liquor chocolate.

I’ll be seeking out more Terry Bisson. Unca Mike certainly likes him, but it’s on the strength of this story that I’m downloading Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories onto my Kindle right now.

December 22, 2012 by Sophie M. White

Cute poem. I’m not good with poetry so I’ll leave it at that.

Whoever by Carol Emshwiller

I forgot who I was. I suppose it’s just as well. This doorway, where I lie, is dirty. If this doorway is my doorway and if I’m dressed as I usually dress, then I can’t have been a very respectable person. First thing I’ll do, I’ll go get something else to wear and then I’ll find a good place to live. Something more like the new me. If this is a new me.

I wonder what I look like. My hands seem strong. My fingernails are clean. I’m not too fat. Am I the same sex I used to be?

I’m fond of narrators with disassociation in one form or another, and this is a well-done and approachable narrator. Her exploration is mysterious and suspended, with a cheerfully humorous attitude. The climax feels more than a little out of place, however; this is a story that needs decent room to grow, and I think more space was needed. However, this is a disassociated narrator, so there’s technically nothing wrong with the way things went.

I’d love a bigger story of this, but it’s not her fault that I’m not satiated. Well, it kind of is. But not. Dang it.

One of those little chocolate almond clusters I love, and of which there are too few of in this world.

Here’s an interview with Emshwiller on Bookslut.

Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment:
One Daughter’s Personal Account by M. Rickert

It took a long time to deduce that many of the missing women could not be accounted for. Executions were a matter of public record then and it was still fairly easy to keep track of them. They were on every night at seven o’clock, filmed from the various execution centers. It was policy back then to name the criminal as the cameras lingered over her face. Yet women went missing who never appeared on execution. Rumors started. Right around then some of the policies changed. The criminals were no longer named, and execution centers sprung up all over the country so it was no longer possible to account for the missing. The rumors persisted though, and generally took one of two courses: Agents were using the criminals for their own nefarious purposes, or women were sneaking away and assembling an army.

When my mother didn’t come home, my father kept saying she must have had a meeting he’d forgotten about, after all, she volunteered for Homeland Security’s Mothers in Schools program, as well as did work for the church, and the library. That’s my mom. She always had to keep busy. When my father started calling hospitals, his freckles all popped out against his white skin the way they get when he’s upset, and I realized he was hoping she’d had an accident, I knew. The next morning, when I found him sitting in the rocker, staring out the picture window, their wedding album in his lap, I really knew.

This is a very strong story. And by strong, I mean strong like oaks. I think about the Taliban, but of course this context is quite Western. The world-building is flawless. The way the story and the narrator unfold is entirely unexpected, and things are complicated. It’s all masterful.

At the same time, though—and this is speaking as someone who usually accepts many things headlong—it wasn’t believable. Oh, I believe there’s enough hatred and venom in the world to accomplish such things; but you’d run out of women too quickly. On the other hand, this might be a relatively recent cultural twitch.

If this story is a message, it isn’t going to reach the people who need to hear it. Just speaking as someone who used to live in a small town like that. But a message probably isn’t the reason for this story; it’s an exquisitely accomplished macabre exploration.

Dark orange chocolate. I don’t really like orange in my chocolate, and consider it just this side of nougat, but it is a dark chocolate, for all that. Very dark.

C.C. Finlay interviews M. Rickert for Ideomancer.

Planetesimal Dawn by Tim Sullivan

It was the most dangerous place on the asteroid.

“Why don’t we just go back?” Wolverton asked.

“Because we can’t,” Nozaki said. “The sun’s coming up.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got insulated suits.”

“Not enough.”

This wasn’t the best day to be base camp security chief, Nozaki thought. They stood next to the rover, watching the searing dawn advance across the curved horizon. The rover had died on them, and Nozaki had worked on it as long as she could. The dawn was too close. They had to get moving.

Let me just say: this is what’s wrong with me. I claim to like science fiction, but this is exactly the kind of story I hate.

It’s a bit inexplicable, actually. I liked Heinlein when he wrote stories like this. I like Scalzi when he writes stories like this. I liked Zelazny when he wrote stories like this. I liked Delany’s (weird weird weird) takes on stories like this. They all add something more than just the adventure, even if it’s just characters that I like, or strangely succinct world-building that just, for whatever reason, works. Or the feeling I’m smoking something, but it’s a good something….

But I didn’t like Gene Wolfe’s Memorae, and not only am I usually in love with Gene Wolfe, but he did add more to the story in his usual Wolfe-ian way. Nevertheless, I hated it.

Let’s just say that for me, Planetesimal Dawn is a big white bar of nougat, and that’s likely because I’m an idiot. When I read a story from someone who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (and also Physics), and all I can think of is how all the notes sound wrong, the problem is obviously with me as a reader, not the writer.

Yes, after reading this novelette I wanted to pitch the entire magazine across the room and burn it (I did not actually do so, though, because of Days of Wonder and “Private Eye”).

I’m amazed, actually, that I still feel the same way, at the same strength, a week after I read this. This is not really like me.

Nougat is truly beyond my understanding, I think.

Also, I’m not able to track down more Tim Sullivan links. At least, links that I’m sure point to him; there’s a surprising number of Tim(othy) Sullivans in the world, both alive and dead.

But look! There’s another chocolate in the box, under the wrappers. There always is, you know.

The Scarecrow’s Boy by Michael Swanwick

The little by came stumbling through the field at sunset. His face was streaked with tears, and he’d lost a shoe. In his misery, he didn’t notice the scarecrow until he was almost upon it. Then he stopped dead, stunned into silence by its pale round face and the great, ragged hat that shadowed it.

The scarecrow grinned down at him. “Hullo, young fella,” it said.

The little boy screamed.

Instantly, the scarecrow doffed his hat and squatted down on one knee, so as to seem less threatening. “Shush, shush,” he said. “There’s no reason to be afraid of me—I’m just an obsolete housebot that was stuck out here to keep birds away from the crops.” He knocked the side of his head with his metal knuckles. It made a tinny thunk noise. “See? You’ve got bots just like me back home, don’t you?”

What can I say? This is a very Swanwick story. I have always associated his name with his storytelling style, of strange half- and three-quarter- and sixth-and-eight-twists, going swanwick-swack! through your expectations in a delicious manner. This is almost as good as “Tideline” (and for a friend of mine, to him this would be better; no accounting for taste).

A final drizzled mint chocolate.

And now… there are only wrappers.

And now, a comment on Lucius Shepard. I recall seeing folks dislike his review of Iron Man for being too scathing. To which I say (having read Lucius Shepard’s LJ): dude. It’s just Lucius Shepard being Lucius Shepard. I miss having a Mr. Cranky Movie Reviewer around. I may not always agree with him, but he’s good reading.

As for the rest of the departmental stuff, the reviews and musings and what not, I like them. I always have. Even if I don’t agree, I like them. They were never an issue with me.

Some short concluding thoughts. Well, two, really.

The first is that F&SF is a nice venue for reading writers who are new to you. But then, so are many other venues online and elsewhere. Which brings up the next point….

Which is that F&SF is probably not for me. I loved three of the stories. In a more easy mood, I like six of the stories. If I stretch myself, I’d say that I liked seven. That’s out of 12 stories by an all-star crowd.

This is technically a good ratio.

But what is technically a good ratio does not always mean that it felt like a good ratio.

Maybe the flames will die down after a few weeks and I’ll scoop the next issue onto my Kindle from Fictionwise.

Or maybe not. Right now I’m busy marking up my copy of Acacia on the Kindle so I can understand the plot threads better. Me, knife, drawer, not sharpest.

Photography: Gaetan Lee

Belgian confectionists also make deluxe luxury nougat bars, so this is nothing against nougat.

As for the F&SF Oct/Nov issue, I ran into the inevitable “string of stories I am not 100% enthusiastic about” that is just about unavoidable with most anthologies and story digests. And even single-author story collections, come to think of it.

First, though, we started with a delicious little bon-bon.

The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates by Stephen King

She’s fresh out of the shower when the phone begins to ring, but although the house is still full of relatives—she can hear them downstairs, it seems they will never go away, it seems she never had so many—no one picks up. Nor does the answering machine, as James programmed it to do after the fifth ring.

Anne goes to the extension on the bed-table, wrapping a towel around herself, her wet hair thwacking unpleasantly on the back of her neck and bare shoulders. She picks it up, she says hello, and then he says her name. It’s James. They had thirty years together, and one word is all she needs. He says Annie like no one else, always did.

I always liked Stephen King for the little personal detail work that immerse you into the scene, and for the knack of uncovering just enough information to feel your way through the mist, and interesting shapes stick out that may be something or may be nothing at all. That, of course, is why he’s such a great horror writer: dropping the reader into an uncertain situation that just gets stranger. This works wonders for fantasy as well.

I quite like this story; it’s weird and unsettling, pushes you—personally—out of the comfort zone, and not just the characters. This kind of story (and I count “Sleepless Years” in this group as well) what I like to read between big dark truffles like “Days of Wonder”, a little delicious shock before diving into darker, richer tastes.

You know, I never visited Stephen King’s website before. Woah.

Dazzle Joins the Screenwriter’s Guild by Scott Bradfield

Dazzle found his first script conference a lot less painful than he expected.

“I see a dog with severe personality disorders,” envisioned Syd Fleishman of Sony Tristar, seated in his overstuffed leather armchair with a plastic liter of Evian propped between his knees. “I see a dog with closeness issues, and issues about his dad. I see a dog with lots to say about the terrible problems facing mankind—such as the destruction of the ozone layer and the rainforests, and the tragedy of Native Americans and all that. But I also see a dog that, well. If he spots a human being in trouble? That dog comes running. An all-faithful sort of dog, but an all-faithful sort of dog with attitude. You gotta earn the respect of a dog like that. But once you earn that respect, he’s your buddy for life.”

This is a funny and amusing story, and full of the kind of surreal hijinks that only Hollywood could get up to, and which are made bearable by a talking dog. I am reminded of Terry Pratchett’s Moving Pictures, but this is a modern story that happens in “our” world once-removed by the spectacle of Dazzle.

I think I need to read the original “Dazzle”, since I have the same lack of grasp of who-is-this-guy-oops-dog-I-mean as I did with “Inside Story” earlier, except I don’t have the convenience of finding “Dazzle” online at the moment.

Unfortunately, while funny and amusing and well-written, this (as well as Moving Pictures, though I love Pterry with all my little Discworld heart) is definitely in the not-for-me bin.

I’m willing to try one of Bradfield’s other works, the ones for which he’s called “the David Lynch of prose”; from the enotes.com description (and then again, this is enotes.com) he writes the kind of stuff I usually like.

The Visionaries by Robert Reed

Everyone is an unmitigated failure.

And then success comes, or it doesn’t.

When I was still an unpublished author, I wrote a long story about an average fellow wandering through his relentlessly unremarkable life. His world wasn’t particularly different from mine, except for being set in some down-the-road future. The plot was minimal, the sf ideas scarce. Yet something about the narrative felt important to me. Typing like a madman, I produced a 25,000-word manuscript complete with rambling conversations and a contrived terminology. The next several drafts were agonizing attempts to reshape the work, creating something leaner and more salable. But I couldn’t seem to apply even the most basic lessons of effective writing. In the end, I had a novella nobody would willingly read.

But on the premise that I didn’t know squat, I licked a fortune in stamps and addressed the oversized manila envelope to the first magazine on my list of professional markets.

A few weeks later, both the manuscript and a standard rejection note were jammed into my tiny mailbox.

I think I’m too young to appreciate this story.

In this day and age, I have read the same screed spread out across a hundred or so beginning-writers’ blogs at some point or other. I myself am a neophyte of a writer, so I know intimately this kind of screed. The last place I thought I’d read such a thing would be F&SF, which admittedly is naive of me. As such, this story did not warm the cockles of my heart, and annoyed me very much.

And for some reason, I also knew where all the pool balls were going to go after the opening break about two pages in. That took a lot of stuffing out of the story experience for me.

I’m sure this is a fine Belgian pink-and-white nougat, but I’m no nougat fancier.

Going Back in Time by Laurel Winter

1.

After Richard told her the whole quantum physics thing at the cocktail party, Ellie said, “I get it! We can go back in time.”

“Go back in time,” he repeated slowly, enjoying the attention, the perky camera-ready face tilted up at him. “Only one of those words has meaning.”

Bizarreness follows. I like bizarre, and I like this story, and it’s the right length for what it is, which is rather short. It’s the story-telling equivalent of a joke. Very stylish. I’m pleased to have run into it, but for some reason I still want to file this in the “not for me” bin.

Fortunately, there’s still a little over half more magazine to go.

Chocolate assortments run the gamut from from Hershey’s Pot of Gold to Leonidas Signature Dark Belgian Chocolates, but in the end they’re still assortments. I have no idea why someone keeps thinking that nougat centers are a good idea, yet there they are in every box of mixed chocolates, so somebody must like them. I have a friend who says the similar things about coconut centers (“they fool you into thinking they’re vanilla creme…”). He thinks wrongly, of course, and I wish I could enlighten him, but he resists all persuasion.

Mind you, we both hate nougat.

Last night’s reading went pleasantly. There’s a good stride to the way the stories are ordered¹ ; a few short stories, kind of like little cream centers, before you get to a novelette, a sort of dark large truffle. This repeats itself in a hypnotic way. If I didn’t have work the next day I might have read late into the night.

Of course, that’s a nice pattern that I don’t remember seeing in anthologies, although perhaps I simply wasn’t paying enough attention. I don’t even remember it from when I was reading the Ellery Queen magazines a while ago.

So the first two creams (which I sort of cheated on with an extra online) and first dark truffle:

Inside Story by Albert E. Cowdrey

Tough as he was, retired Detective Sergeant Alphonse Fournet admitted that he hadn’t been able to handle the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“Living in Alabama for a month,” he groused to Chief of Detectives D. J. Tobin. “Wunnerful folks, but how they live! Frying ham in lard. Alla time asking me what choich I belong to. They had a prayer vigil, for Chrissake, to apologize to God for pissing him off enough to hit us with Katrina. It’s like that guy Cheney shot apologizing for getting in he way of the birdshot.”

It was noon at Ya Momma’s Bar & Grill, and succulent aromas filled the air. Tobin, who was picking up the tab, listened patiently but sympathized only to a point.

“You didn’t lose your house or nothing, right, Alphonse?”

“I live in Algiers,” said Fournet, as if that were sufficient explanation for his good fortune. “The west bank is the best bank. You oughta loin that, D. J., now you gotta wife and kids to proteck.”

If you aren’t a frequent reader of F&SF, you may not have read Albert E. Cowdrey’s work. It’s plainly obvious how much he loves New Orleans, because this (along with Queen for a Day, up for I don’t know how long) breathes New Orleans in and out. It’s a visceral part of the scenery, the characters, the plot. And I do mean visceral; either you’ll really like it, or you really won’t.

I appreciate the atmosphere, and found this story funny, but I wish there was more to it. There is a strange feeling that the story is too short, but that the story and characters wouldn’t hold up to being stretched longer. I know that a good story is supposed to feel fit, maybe even tight, but for me this was rather a bit too taunt.

Queen for a Day by Albert E. Cowdrey

“Looka that goddamn king,” growled Det. Alphonse Fournet.

“You in a mood,” opined his partner, Det. D. J. Tobin. DJ was black and Fournet was white, but both spoke in the downtown New Orleans accent called Yat.

Traffic cops had shifted the movable barriers on Canal Street to let them through. But the parade had ground to a halt. On the royal float the bewigged king was drinking a toast to his queen, a pale deb shivering on the steps of the Posh Club. Just behind, the title float — THE BIBLE, with a wind-shaken, papier mâché Adam, Eve and serpent — blocked the growler’s path.

“It’s that crooked lawyer, Bose,” Fournet bitched on, naming a lawyer famed for his almost magical skill in getting criminals off the hook. “Fuckin’ king for a fuckin’ night. Fuck him.”

“Boy, you in a mood. Wife on your ass again?”

Fournet did not answer, for suddenly crystal goblets splintered on the tarmac, the Queen of Kronos raced inside to get warm, and the parade jerked to life. Space opened behind Adam and Eve, DJ hit the gas and the car slid across Canal into Bourbon Street, the crowd parting as reluctantly as the Red Sea probably had for Moses. Fournet rolled down his window.

“Outa the way, assholes!” he roared.

“Boy, you really in a mood,” said DJ, shaking his head.

I thought, since I had very little grasp on D. J. and Fournet from “Inside Story”, I might as well go all in and read this story as well.

Now, reading it did help a lot, and gave me more grounding for who the main characters are and, more importantly, the kind of stories being told here—although there it feels like there isn’t a lot there, even from the first story. A bit frustrating, since even the poor beleaguered soul in the next story of the 2008 All-Star issue has more depth; however, perhaps this is intentional. And it’s just the way the characters and the stories work; they’re supposed to be funny and primarily about strange happenings in New Orleans, which is the most important bit.

Or I’m grossly misunderstanding, which is always a strong possibility.

Either way, I think they’re well done, but they are not for me. I will willingly read them because they come in an assortment, just like I’ll eat orange-flavored mint creme centers because they come in an assortment and aren’t nougat, but otherwise I wouldn’t. But that’s just me personally. There are strange people out there who like orange-flavored mint creme centers.

I will remember New Orleans, though.

Has anyone gathered up Cowdrey’s New Orleans stories into a collection yet? I think that would be a very cool idea.

Sleepless Years by Steven Utley

I would like to sleep now. I would. I’ve told them this, they’ve asked, they’re interested in how I’m feeling, every time they ask, I tell them, “I would like to sleep now.” I find myself emphasizing different words whenever I say it. I would like to sleep now. I would like to sleep now. They hang on everything I say. I would like to sleep now. I have little else to say to them any more, so I say it often. I would like to sleep now. They seem never to tire of hearing me say it. I would like to sleep now.

I’m pretty sure I like this story not just because that was, basically, my Labor Day weekend and I’m super-identifying. (Pager. Systems. You don’t want to know.)

This is a lovely, creepy story that’s part interview and part musings; a very well done first-person piece. When I read the bit about the lack of a subconscious, everything slotted together; and if you’ve ever been long without sleep (I have), what’s described here rings true. Except, of course, that Utley makes it weirder and creepier… and strangely also about faith and death. Or, perhaps, not so strangely.

Very well done. One of those little pralines with the surprise of hazelnut filling.

Steven Utley has a blog, by the way, so you can stalk friend him there. He’s also reading Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. No, not all those other ones. This one, edited by Alan K. Russell.

Days of Wonder by Geoff Ryman

Leveza was the wrong name for her; she was big and strong, not light. Her bulk made her seem both male and female; her shoulders were broad but so were her hips and breasts.

She had beautiful eyes, round and black, and she was thoughtful; her heavy jaws would grind round and round as if imitating the continual motion of her mind. She always looked as if she were listening to something distant, faraway.

Like many large people, Leveza was easily embarrassed. Her mane would bristle up across the top of her head and down her spine. She was strong and soft all at once, and kind. I liked talking to her; her voice was so high and gentle; though her every gesture was blurting and forlorn.

But that voice when it went social! If Leveza saw a Cat crouching in the grass, her whinnying was sudden, fierce, and irresistible. All of us would pirouette into a panic at once. Her cry was infallible.

So she was an afrirador, one of our sharpshooters, always readerd up onto hind quarters to keep watch, always carrying a rifle, always herself a target. My big brave friend.

I’ve found that I’m fond of animal stories. If done well, it’s a joy to watch the author bridge between the context of the reader and the context of this other world, which is not so completely alien to us. An animal story pretty much requires a mythological frame of reference; in a way, they echo back to ancient tales, and the cultural reverberations re-surface. And, by the way, author, that bridge still needs to be built. Oh, and you need to take care of some characters and plot, too. Kthxbai.

Most such animal stories are fantasy stories. (Or something. I’ve never known how to classify Watership Down.) This one is definitely a science fiction animal story, however.

Now, laying aside the animal story thing. Days of Wonder is the kind of story I love to read; something you can get lost in. It’s not just the world, and it’s not just the characters; it’s also the stakes. There are stories, then there are mythical stories. Days of Wonder is one of them. Granted, this is a novelette, so it has more elbow room, but there are short stories that also make a similarly wonderful use of space—like Elizabeth Bear’s Tideline, or Darja Malcolm-Clarke’s The Beacon.

This is storytelling done right. And it isn’t done like this often enough, in my opinion. But I suppose we can’t live on only big dark truffles.

Very, very nice dark truffle; the kind that fills you up.

By the way, Geoff Ryman has this weird website, some sort of interactive novel. This is very curious. I wonder what’s inside…

Next time, we’ll look at the Stephen King story, another animal story by Scott Bradfield, and Robert Reed’s novelette, The Visionaries. Please don’t let there be nougat.

1. I miss the Kindle’s ability to jump between items in the table of contents, so my October/November preview issue is full of colorful paperclips as I marked out where each story starts and ends. [↩]

A month ago, Gordon Van Gelder offered 20 free copies of the Oct/Nov 2008 Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine to enterprising bloggers who wished to review it—a chance to see what people liked and disliked, and what might convince people to subscribe (or keep buying issues off the news stand, or whatever, but subscription is obviously ideal).

This is very kind, especially since the bloggers for this particular promotion (including yours truly) get to review the special anniversary all-star issue. So I decided, what the heck: let’s really go in depth. Let’s write up an entire series reviewing this special issue. There’s so much stuff here, ladies and gentlemen, that I don’t feel comfortable simply giving this a one-off post. And besides, there probably aren’t that many readers of F&SF, now or potential future ones, who actually read a new issue all in one night. It’s like a box of chocolates to be spread out over a week or so—especially if we’re talking the special annual.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

So let’s start with what may seem to be a trivial aspect of any magazine, but is a strong part of what makes someone decide to pick any particular issue off the news stands (and thus possibly subscribe)¹ : first impressions.

For a good first impression is why, a year ago—in fact, exactly a year ago—I bought an issue of F&SF from a Borders magazine stand and discovered the wonder that is Ted Chiang. That first impression is what encouraged me to buy the next issue after that, the 2007 Oct/Nov All-Star anniversary issue. Of course, first impressions don’t last, which is why I didn’t bother buying F&SF again after the… general, but not total, fail… of last year’s anniversary issue. Which just goes to show that even if you get an all-star anniversary issue of anything, it might all be nougat centers in your chocolate box. And I hate nougat.

So let’s do some comparisons here. And this is going to be a bit picture-spammy, so I’m putting the rest of this article below the cut.

Click here to read more »

1. You know. Apart from being a writer who wants to get something published in one of the big three. That’s not a sustainable audience. [↩]

Gordon Van Gelder, of Fantasy & Science Fiction fame, has 20 extra copies of the October/November double issue to give away to bloggers who wish to blog about it!

See his post on the F&SF forum for more details.

I sent for a copy; we’ll see if the email gets there in time or not. Update: I’m in.

Hat tip to Charles Coleman Finlay for the link.