Appreciating SCIFICTION

[coalescent]

My appreciation of 'New Light on the Drake Equation' by Ian R. Macleod has been posted at the ED sf project.

It was a lot of fun to write something that's an out-and-out rave; it seems the more I read, and think about what I'm reading, the more critical I get, and the more I qualify my judgements. Which is as it should be, since no story is perfect, but this time around I didn't have to. 'New Light ...' is a story that I love, and if it has any major faults, I think I'm probably blind to them, or at least don't think they detract from what's good about the story in any way. I'm very grateful to Ellen Datlow and to SCIFICTION, for giving me the chance to read it. You should probably read the story, if you haven't, before the appreciation.

If you've signed up for an appreciation and haven't written it yet--what are you waiting for? If you haven't signed up--seriously, what are you waiting for? There are still good stories left, and you don't want to miss out on being part of this. All the cool kids are doing it.

Comments

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

I would really like to find a story to appreciate for the ED SF project. The problem is that I'm not a SCIFICTION reader, though I feel bad about this. I just can't read stories online, so the only ones I know from the site are some of the classics Datlow republished and the originals that got reprinted elsewhere. Of the stories I've read, those that are left unappreciated are not ones I can gush about. :(

I appreciate that SCIFICTION existed as a publishing venue, I've appreciated the contribution that it's made to the genre, both in terms of some of the good stories it introduced us to and to the general climate it helped create in which short fiction is something to be talked about. But to my shame I can't find a single story to appreciate off the site (the ones I would have chosen have been appreciated already). What am I waiting for? The ability to read off screen, so I can go and find out what I've been missing.

*sigh*

This is why I'm not one of the cool kids. I'm some sort of hideous throwback who can't get to grips with teh interweb. ;)

Seriously though, I've been trying to figure out what I can do help support short fiction markets, when I actually prefer reading single author collections. I want the online and magazine markets to exist so that writers can publish their stuff and build up a body of work large enough to bring out their own collection. But I don't particularly enjoy reading those stories in the magazines or online. I don't know if I should buy subscriptions anyway, just on principle. And I'm not sure if I should go out of my way to search out a story to appreciate for this sort of project, even if I didn't actually read the site, but only appreciated what it did in a roundabout sort of way. Will it actively help sustain and create short fiction markets? Or should I focus on trying to support the small presses who bring out single author collections?

As a reader of short fiction I would like to figure out what I can do - should do - to make sure my supply of top-notch short stories keeps getting published.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I can't read online either, I cut and paste into Word and print it out.

Not to sound like I'm making excuses or anything...

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

... but I haven't had access to printing facilities (that weren't extortionately priced anyway) for the last few years, so never managed to get in the habit of doing that.

Re: Not to sound like I'm making excuses or anything...

[communicator.livejournal.com]

very good point - I am lucky because I'm sitting here with unmoderated access to a really fast printer. without that I'd be just the same as you

Re: Not to sound like I'm making excuses or anything...

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Me and all. It always irked me that they didn't have a printer freiendly option though (presumably a Sci Fi Channel stricture?)

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

To address your immediate point: do you know Party of the Two Parts by William Tenn? It's short, it's very very funny, and it addresses an age-old philosophical problem that I got lobbed at university.

Your underlying point is more difficult. I don't like reading off screen - I'm doing my appreciation from a print copy of the story in question - and I have the feeling I missed out on a lot of stuff that way. Whither the short-fiction market is a question I have no answers to, except to repeat the guess I voiced at Worldcon: that we're in the middle of a dot-com-ish boom of small-press publishing, and that we can expect a pretty savage die-back in coming years. I guess the Small Beers ans PSs of the world are established enough to survive (and since they publish such good stuff, they deserve to) but stuff I've bought from other small presses has often been hit and miss.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

Woohoo, recommendations, that's what I like!

Are you expecting a die-back in online publishing or short fiction publishing generally?

And yes, my experience of small presses has been pretty hit and miss too.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Are you expecting a die-back in online publishing or short fiction publishing generally?

You do ask the damn difficult questions, don't you? ;)

At the outset, I should say which corner of the woods I'm coming from: a decade or so of work in academic publishing, but no in-depth knowledge of trade publishing. I can hold a conversation with a trade publisher and not feel like a fool, but it's not my field. The online thing is easier to tackle: I'm just starting to see models of putting academic/reference content online which are making money for big organisations like Elsevier. I'm willing to be corrected on this, but I've seen no model of putting fiction out through online-only means which has even started to deliver a substantial, sustainable return on investment. And this at a time when book-buying/reading is riding pretty high in general culture. Maybe there's a tipping-point out there which none of us can see, but I've been hearing talk of book-equivalent reader devices for 10 years or more and have yet to see one which makes me want to buy it. So, re online-only publishing, unless you find an organisation willing to make a loss for a prestige project, I doubt that we'll see a Scifi.com equivalent (whether free or pay) coming along in the near-future. Places like fictionwise or electricstory, which buy electronic rights for already-published print books, are a slightly different case: they're piggybacking on the marketing push the print publishers are doing, and I can see that being a workable model. But you're going to have to wean people off their love of magazine/book-as-artefact for it to really take off.

Will think about the short fiction side and post on that later...

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Instant second thought: I realise there's that Baen project coming along, ed Eric Flint, which aims to be exactly what I was dismissing - an online-only, high-paying fiction magazine. All I can say is that I shall be following its progress with Very Great Interest.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Related: Nick Mamatas on publishing models for short fiction collections.

[peake.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. I cannot read on line, and hate trying to do so.

I supported this project for the idea of SCIFICTION, not the actuality, and for the stories it contributed to Best of the Year and other reprint anthologies.

My own contribution to the memorial was about a story I read in typescript, and I wrote my essay about the typescript, not about what was on line (because I never saw that).

Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I also didn't read Sci-Fiction. I have no idea where you find the time.

But to be honest, I also feel rather bullied. I usually do whenever our US colleagues/friends/listers catch a cause. There is just too much exhortation and "aren't we all wonderful" around this project. I flinched pretty much from the opener.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

It's a little bit creepy isn't it? "I'm validating myself by showing everyone how I can big up someone else", kind of thing.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I didn't read SCIFICTION regularly and I can't claim to have read all other markets exhaustively. However to me SCIFICTION was clearly the strongest.

I see this appreciation less as back slapping and self-agrandisment then an attempt to increase awareness of its achievements to make it more likely for something similar to happen again.

But yeah, Americans do get a little over excited

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think it's important that it's not everyone saying every story published there is brilliant (I certainly don't think that); it's a bunch of individuals saying they each read at least one story there they thought was brilliant, or memorable for some reason.

I didn't have to go looking for good things to say about 'New Light'--it really is one of my favourite stories of at least the last five years, and possibly of all time.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

It's a fine line between getting a site like this enough attention to keep going and gushing over-evangelism (which I'm not suggesting is happening here, nor that Niall is doing it).

The internet is so full of sci-fi geeks it's kind of surprising that you can't just "find" an audience by dint of existing, but the internet is strange place of tribal loyalties and fear of change. And there's a massive law of diminishing returns between the effort one puts into a personal online project and what you get out of it, most of the time.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I also didn't read Sci-Fiction. I have no idea where you find the time.

Oh, that's easy: I don't have a life.

But to be honest, I also feel rather bullied.

*instant guilt*

Sorry. The only thing I can really say is this: SCIFICTION was, as far as I'm concerned, the best short fiction market we had. Of all the losses this year--Robert Sheckley, Andre Norten, Will Eisner--this is the one I want to mark. There certainly isn't another magazine out there I'd feel inclined to do it for, right now.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Of all the losses this year--Robert Sheckley, Andre Norten, Will Eisner--this is the one I want to mark.

*resolves to foist some Sheckley on Niall Real Soon Now*

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I've actually read some Sheckley. He's just not a core influence for me.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

We lost Robert Sheckley? Aw, shit. :(

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

...

I'm not quite sure how you missed it but yes, we did.

Re: Embracing my inner curmudgeon.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure how you missed it

I got an Xbox 360.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Also, did you see:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mabfan/179180.html