The Year's Best Writing About SF?
May. 13th, 2005 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentSo it started with a post by Jonathan Strahan:
Does this sound like something you'd be interested in reading? If yes or if no, why? What doesn't it do that you'd want it to do? Is there anyone out there who'd be interested in contributing to or helping to edit it, or who has suggestions for contributers or editors? Does anyone have any ideas about publishers? And last, but most importantly, I need people to explain to me exactly why this is a pipe dream that will never get anywhere. :)
I do not believe I could edit this book myself, though there is a part of me that would like to try, but I wonder if the world would have any interest in a book collecting the year's best writing about science fiction or fantasy; you know, reviews, essays, articles, blog postings and so on; a book that would synopsise the field's discussions with itself. I'd love to read it, if it should ever happen. Strikes me as a Borgo Press kind of book. It'd be fun to do.This sounded like a potentially cool thing to me, so I stuck it in as one of the options in the good or bad poll earlier this afternoon. That led to this discussion, in which a couple of other people said they also thought it was quite a cool idea, but we fairly rapidly started debating exactly what it should be like if it existed. In brief, here's what I think:
- It should be a snapshot. A reflection of the feel of the field in a given year; works published, and conversations had.
- It should contain new material--second looks at major works, as
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ninebelow suggested, overviews of the year in sf--as well as reprints. - The reprints should mix up critical articles from places like Foundation and NYRSF with less formal articles from places like Strange Horizons, and even edited blog posts and discussion threads.
Does this sound like something you'd be interested in reading? If yes or if no, why? What doesn't it do that you'd want it to do? Is there anyone out there who'd be interested in contributing to or helping to edit it, or who has suggestions for contributers or editors? Does anyone have any ideas about publishers? And last, but most importantly, I need people to explain to me exactly why this is a pipe dream that will never get anywhere. :)
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Date: 2005-05-13 05:53 pm (UTC)Sadly, no.
If yes or if no, why? What doesn't it do that you'd want it to do?
I need to think about it and will get back to you.
And last, but most importantly, I need people to explain to me exactly why this is a pipe dream that will never get anywhere. :)
Bah! It will be a lovely companion to that 'zine you are starting.
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Date: 2005-05-13 05:55 pm (UTC)You could even put a column in the 'zine collating the Best of the Blogs. Or something.
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Date: 2005-05-13 06:27 pm (UTC)Yes, but only if it had sufficient brand new content not already published elsewhere.
And last, but most importantly, I need people to explain to me exactly why this is a pipe dream that will never get anywhere. :)
Um, because you don't know anything about editing or publishing really, and getting permission to reprint all the stuff you want, especially blog threads, would be a total nightmare? :)
I can do more if you need your dreams stamping upon from an even greater height...
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:07 pm (UTC)getting permission to reprint all the stuff you want, especially blog threads, would be a total nightmare? :)
This had occurred to me. :)
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Date: 2005-05-13 06:43 pm (UTC)It doesn't need to be a big book, and it could be done through one of the PoD SF specialists like Wildside or Cosmos (unless Golden Gryphon or PS took an interest).
The problems are:
1) Choosing the content. More than one editor will be needed, with different interests and specialities. However it is the easiest job.
2) Getting permissions. Academic journals make money from reprints, and the rights sold by authors into other markets will differ differently. For example, if you wanted to get something from SFX, Future's latest contract is "all rights".
3) Layout. This is tedious.
4) Proofing. This is even more tedious.
5) Marketing. Hoo boy.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:09 pm (UTC)No indeed--I'm thinking of something fairly slim.
5) Marketing. Hoo boy.
Heh. In many ways I wonder why I'm even contemplating this. :)
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:42 pm (UTC)Actually, I always have fun doing layout. I can easily spend too much time on it.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:53 pm (UTC)One of the big mistakes we made with Biologically Androgynous, Totally Holistic, way back in the heyday of Bath SF, was to produce a fanzine in Quark. It looked damn good, but oh boy, it took ages to put it together - and that was with Ben Stavely-Taylor of Kerosina fame on board as our design whizz (he put together Future's first layout system, and was a Quark guru).
So there were only two issues.
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Date: 2005-05-13 06:44 pm (UTC)However the Year's Best thises and thats anthologies seem like a good indication that the audience who feels otherwise is there, and it would certainly be a boon to historians to see what was considered relevant at the time.
One thing I'd love to see in it is a foreward, afterward, or critical essay for each clump of discussions teasing out the connections -- explaining who's responding to what, comparing and contrasting how different discussions address the same point.
I'd love to help out, but I don't have the experience or name recognition to edit it either, and I'm not widely enough read either. I think TNH would be ideal if she has the interest, time, and energy.
What about NESFA press? This seems like a book with a solid but limited readership, and that's the kind of thing they do well.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:15 pm (UTC)I'd be interested in reading it, but I don't know that I'd be passionately interested -- mostly because I'm not a very chronological/historical moment thinker, so grouping by year rarely engages my attention like grouping by subject.
See my response to Graham downthread--I like subject-themed books as much as the next, but I also like things that try to corral the (and I can't believe I'm about to use this word; I can feel myself turning into Bruce Sterling as I say it) zeitgeist.
One thing I'd love to see in it is a foreward, afterward, or critical essay for each clump of discussions teasing out the connections -- explaining who's responding to what, comparing and contrasting how different discussions address the same point.
Excellent idea.
I think TNH would be ideal if she has the interest, time, and energy.
Damn, yes. Not that I've ever exchanged two words with her, mind ...
What about NESFA press? This seems like a book with a solid but limited readership, and that's the kind of thing they do well.
I don't know enough about them, really, but if this actually goes anywhere they'd certainly be one to check out.
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Date: 2005-05-13 06:44 pm (UTC)And I think you should take responsibility for it. You say you don't have the experience - well, there are plenty of people around with experience in editing volumes who can give you advice. You say you're not enough of a name - but if you don't take opportunities that come your way, you won't become a name. If you feel that a name is needed to sell the book, then get someone willing to attach their name to the project as co-editor, but keep it as your baby. You say you don't know where to start - this is nonsense, clearly you know what you want this work to be, at least in outline.
When it comes down to it, none of your reasons for not taking responsibility for the project carry enough substance to outweigh the chief reason why you should take it - you are enthusiastic for the project, and have an idea what to do with it. It's you vision. It will be better if you do it than if it ends up in the hand of someone who doesn't quite share your vision, and who hasn't the same enthusiasm for it. I can see why you are a bit lacking of confidence, but if you don't seize these opportunities when you're young, you'll end up old and embittered like me. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I have made similar ,mistakes to the one I think you're in danger of making here, and I'd like to steer you clear if I can.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:19 pm (UTC)When I say I don't know where to start, I don't mean in terms of ideas. You're right, I do have a sense of what I'd like a book like this to be, and it's getting clearer the more I talk about it. What I mean is that quite literally, in terms of process, things like approaching publishers or asking for permission to reprint something, I don't know where to start.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-13 08:01 pm (UTC)Hum. Peake's first comment in the original thread said a lot of what I was going to. I'm very much in favour of putting good critical work in the field into permanent form; but I'm not sure a Year's Best book is the best vehicle for doing so. Some reasons:
- I think there is no consensus on what constitutes "good" critical work in the field - and hence, no unitary market to aim for. If you were wanting to aim for, say, the US library market, you'd take lots of pieces from Sf Studies. If you were wanting to appeal to folks in the UK, you'd choose very differently.
- There's a problem with the "Year's Best" remit: is it the best criticism published in Year X, or the best criticism published on fiction that came out in Year X? If so, you may have to wait a while before everyone has properly digested the work.
- The former approach (best criticism published in Year X) is, I think, more sensible; but you'll have to abandon the idea that a given year's volume is going to give you a canon-forming sense of the year in the way that, eg, the Locus end-year issue does. But I think that may be a good thing.
- One of the trends I think you can pick out in the field in the last few years is of trade publishers doing far more reprint anthologies while the (mass) market for short fiction gets squeezed further and further. While I'm sure this makes commercial sense for all concerned, and some reprint anthology series are very good, it seems to me a great shame that we don't have high-profile original anthology series around in the way that, eg, Starlight, Full Spectrum & Universe were in the 1990s. I'd hate to see the same shift of attention happen to the non-fiction field. Not that anyone's getting rich off writing sf criticism, but anyhow...
So I suppose what I'm thinking is:
1) I'd far rather see the field investing its energy in journals like NYRSF, Foundation, and (yay!) Vector, which aim to put out original criticism (not just reviews), to screen it for quality and edit intensively. Make them better, make them more widely read.
2) As far as putting stuff into permanent form goes, I'd prefer single-critic collections and/or thematic collections. Much easier to trace lines of argument/thought that way.
3) There remains the thorny question of how you archive stuff, like the New Weird discussion, which happened on the Web. Don't have any neat solutions to that, I'm afraid...
That said, I'm open to persuasion. But I suppose my central problem is that, far more than with short fiction, a calendar year is an arbitrary and perhaps misleading border to draw around a bunch of critical thinking. Criticism is (should be) a long-term conversation, and there are better ways of representing a conversation than just picking the good chunks which happen to sit in a particular time-frame.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:06 pm (UTC)Discussion = good. I will now just repeat what I said in my email. :)
- I think there is no consensus on what constitutes "good" critical work in the field - and hence, no unitary market to aim for. If you were wanting to aim for, say, the US library market, you'd take lots of pieces from Sf Studies. If you were wanting to appeal to folks in the UK, you'd choose very differently.
This is true. My instinct is to go generalist, but that may not be desireable or even possible.
- There's a problem with the "Year's Best" remit: is it the best criticism published in Year X, or the best criticism published on fiction that came out in Year X? If so, you may have to wait a while before everyone has properly digested the work.
Again, a good point. And as you point out later on, single-theme or single-author books are much more likely to be coherent. But in a way, that's why I'm attracted to the idea of a year's review book--trying to capture some sense of diversity, some sense of the field being *dynamic*. Because it is, but there isn't much that I read that makes me *feel* that.
What I would want it to be is 'things said in year x that are relevant to year x'. If that means a reassessment of Viriconium because the new weird has come along, great, but in my mind the majority of it would be contemporary. Perspective is something the existing journals do very well, while things like Locus and (less so) NYRSF are hampered by trying to cover as much as possible. There seems to be a space in the middle. Or maybe I'm just imagining it.
- One of the trends I think you can pick out in the field in the last few years is of trade publishers doing far more reprint anthologies while the (mass) market for short fiction gets squeezed further and further. While I'm sure this makes commercial sense for all concerned, and some reprint anthology series are very good, it seems to me a great shame that we don't have high-profile original anthology series around in the way that, eg, Starlight, Full Spectrum & Universe were in the 1990s. I'd hate to see the same shift of attention happen to the non-fiction field. Not that anyone's getting rich off writing sf criticism, but anyhow...
Did I tell you my other plan about saving the UK short fiction market by setting up an equivalent of Polyphony or Leviathan? :) Or failing that, LCRW or Electric Velocipede...
But it's another important point to consider.
So I suppose what I'm thinking is:
1) I'd far rather see the field investing its energy in journals like NYRSF, Foundation, and (yay!) Vector, which aim to put out original criticism (not just reviews), to screen it for quality and edit intensively. Make them better, make them more widely read.
Oh, there are Plans to promote Vector, don't worry about that...
That said, I'm open to persuasion. But I suppose my central problem is that, far more than with short fiction, a calendar year is an arbitrary and perhaps misleading border to draw around a bunch of critical thinking. Criticism is (should be) a long-term conversation, and there are better ways of representing a conversation than just picking the good chunks which happen to sit in a particular time-frame.
I'm not sure whether you're using a much broader definition of 'criticism' than I am or envisioning a more narrowly focused anthology than I am. To me, stuff like the New Weird discussions (or the equivalent for a given year) deserves to be archived but isn't criticism; and while criticism would be a big chunk of any book like this, I can't see it as the be-all and end-all.
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Date: 2005-05-13 08:31 pm (UTC)Re what to select, you say My instinct is to go generalist, but that may not be desireable or even possible.
I think I'm arguing that it's not possible to identify a default, or generalist way of doing criticism in the same way that one can identify, say, Asimov's or the Dozois Year's Best as the default of what good short fiction is like. Criticism in this field gets done in so many different venues and registers. Hence my point about there being a fragmented market, each bit of which will be looking for dissimilar things.
Did I tell you my other plan about saving the UK short fiction market by setting up an equivalent of Polyphony or Leviathan? :) Or failing that, LCRW or Electric Velocipede...
Just an observation: I'm interested that you've picked examples which are all slipstream-y rather than pure-genre-y.
Of course, I realise that this is all part of your Grand Plan, along with the secret island hideout and the long-range laser death ray.
I'm not sure whether you're using a much broader definition of 'criticism' than I am or envisioning a more narrowly focused anthology than I am.
Dunno, he said eloquently. One of the problems we're wrestling with is that lots of the critical thinking in the field gets done in a genuinely collaborative way. To take an example I was lucky enough to be involved in: I got to moderate a panel on the New Weird at Worldcon last year, with Jeff VanderMeer, Jonathan Strahan, Paul Di Filippo & others, and Jon Courtney Grimwood and Kathryn Cramer in the audience. It was a really good session (no special credit to me - I seem to recall just passing the mike a lot) and I came away with the feeling that a lot of air had been cleared. Certainly, a number of people who've been identified with NW made their views a lot clearer. But unless anyone taped it, all of that's gone (*sniff*) and unanthologizable. (This is why I love Readercon: all panels are taped, so your words *can* come back to haunt you...)
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Date: 2005-05-13 09:05 pm (UTC)Ah, but I don't think the Dozois Year's Best represents the default of what good short fiction is like, either. It represents a perspective on good short fiction, certainly, but there's plenty it doesn't cover, even at the umpteen million words it is. So I'm not sure the idea of having a bit of everything bothers me too much, though maybe it should.
Just an observation: I'm interested that you've picked examples which are all slipstream-y rather than pure-genre-y.
That's partly because they were just the first ones that came to mind (the one original mainstream-genre anthology I read recently, Constellations, was pretty mixed, to say the least), and partly because, well, I do like them. What I've read of them, anyway. I don't know if the content would be best for a UK anthology, but I like the idea of a yearly original series.
And man, I told you not to tell anyone about the death ray!
One of the problems we're wrestling with is that lots of the critical thinking in the field gets done in a genuinely collaborative way.
And I think that's one of the things I want to tap into--the comment threads on David Moles' blog, for instance, often being the equivalent of a really good panel discussion.
You know, even if nothing comes of the book, I might try to put up some sort of end-of-year roundup webpage. Hmm.
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Date: 2005-05-13 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-13 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-14 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-14 05:40 am (UTC)the problem would be who would be the audience for it, i think, and a conscious decision not for it to be a book that runs the same question of 'what kind of genre is spec fic?' again and again (as is commonly written).
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Date: 2005-05-14 08:41 am (UTC)I agree--it could and should cover the whole spectrum. I guess we'll see what happens, though...
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Date: 2005-05-14 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-14 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-14 09:06 pm (UTC)Surely not the one dissected here ... ? :)
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Date: 2005-05-15 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 09:04 pm (UTC)Oh, it's a bad introduction, no doubt about that: lazy in parts, clumsy in others, and generally the wrong way to approach the task of introducing that book. But though I think your takedown makes a lot of good points, I can't agree with all of it. For example, a short introduction is the place to introduce the work under consideration. It is not the place to start focusing on her other works. He should have mentioned their titles, but doing much more would have resulted in an equally unsatisfactory piece of writing, though for different reasons.
A thirty-page article in Foundation, on the other hand, is exactly the place to begin that discussion ... and this is by-the-by, but I'd be more than a little suprised if that article passed editorial review at that journal if it had the same sort of attitude as the Lud-in-the-Mist intro. Though as I say, I haven't read it, so I can't be sure.
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Date: 2005-05-14 03:05 pm (UTC)Academic journals don't charge. Most of us only hold copyright "on behalf of the author". Authors might ask for a fee, and it's courteous to offer. As a rule, academics publish for status, pros for money. Some of us have a foot in both camps.
The real problem is distribution. It's that, rather than publication that is hard.
If you want to start a small press (which it sounds like you really want to do) there are books available called things like "starting a small press" and you should make a date with Kelly Link and Gavin Grant at Worldcon to discuss Small Beer Press with them. Also with Pete Crowther.
Publishing is easy (and not that expensive). Distribution and sales are where the real issues lie.
(And if you do decide you want to start a small press, talk to me.)
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Date: 2005-05-14 09:14 pm (UTC)At the moment I'm not sure whether I do or not. I seem to be going through a phase of throwing out lots of ideas in all sorts of directions, and I should think about all of them more before I commit to anything, to work out what's best for what I actually want to achieve. But yeah, part of that will definitely involve talking to people, including you and them--thanks.
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Date: 2005-05-15 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 11:24 am (UTC)Book
Date: 2005-05-16 01:42 pm (UTC)This is pretty interesting to me--I think it would be a valuable book.
I've also decided pretty definitively to edit an anthology of manifestos, rants, and related material. The purpose of the anthology in part would be to preserve a kind of collective memory of the field in one place--or rather a collective memory of movements, proto-movements, etc.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Date: 2005-07-07 07:55 am (UTC)