Author Topic: Asimov's vs. Analog  (Read 41083 times)

Simon

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Reply #25 on: February 20, 2007, 04:56:43 PM
Darn it, he keeps doing this to me...

I get a good rant topic stuck between my teeth, craft the details so that it a nice rounded dollop of opinionated bile, and Steve manages to jump in and make it clear that I should be nicer...  As usual, he's right, Cheers Steve...  Time for that green tea again.

[pause]

I think I relish a lost age when it comes to sf...  I've always bought my SF in second hand bookstores, the sheer smell of those yellowed sixties editions or Pohl, Bradbury and Ellison with spines that barely last a single reading, I regard it as something of a private world...  Hell, generating that feeling is a major part of what science fiction is for.  And because of this the aesthetics of buying an SF novel with modern covers are likely to jar a little...  Mr Simon, you are getting old and tired...  Expecting SF writers to put out the goods you want is not their job, or their aim...

On the aside of the "for children" comment, yep - good case mr Eley, I suppose I meant that this fiction is inherently juvenile... But that also is not the nicest way to put it.  Ok -- Space Opera is not rising to the heights SF can, and has, achieved, and its weight in publishing power is distorting the genre in this country...  I think that's a solid argument.



SFEley

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Reply #26 on: February 20, 2007, 06:10:32 PM
I get a good rant topic stuck between my teeth, craft the details so that it a nice rounded dollop of opinionated bile, and Steve manages to jump in and make it clear that I should be nicer...  As usual, he's right, Cheers Steve...  Time for that green tea again.

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that you should be nicer.  You can be as vehement as you want to be, as long as it's not directed against specific people.  I simply disagree with you in this case.  >8->


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I think I relish a lost age when it comes to sf...  I've always bought my SF in second hand bookstores, the sheer smell of those yellowed sixties editions or Pohl, Bradbury and Ellison with spines that barely last a single reading, I regard it as something of a private world...  Hell, generating that feeling is a major part of what science fiction is for.

Now that I can respect a lot. 


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On the aside of the "for children" comment, yep - good case mr Eley, I suppose I meant that this fiction is inherently juvenile... But that also is not the nicest way to put it.  Ok -- Space Opera is not rising to the heights SF can, and has, achieved, and its weight in publishing power is distorting the genre in this country...  I think that's a solid argument.

That's fair, too.  Though I have to say that from my perspective, I can't help feeling that the UK is really where all the energy is in science fiction right now.  Space opera or not, your country seems to be generating more successful new ideas and fun fiction than mine is.

I'm not jealous.  I'm just glad it's happening somewhere.

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slic

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Reply #27 on: February 21, 2007, 04:27:17 AM
Yo Simon - good to see you made it to the boards.

So my turn to pick on some of the rant  ;)

These two ideas seem mutually exclusive:
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Back in the 1980's a massive No 1 sales ranked writer like Stephen King could have 200 pages chopped off his masterpiece The Stand because the editor said so...  Where did these red-blooded editors go?
I totally agree...

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here are a few modern SF novels/writers I love:

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age...
whaaa??  Cryptoninmicon was one of the most bloated, wandering novels I ever forced myself to finish - which I did because Snow Crash and Interface were so freaking awesome!  Baroque Cycle isn't too large??

Either way, glad to see the postings...



Anarkey

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Reply #28 on: February 21, 2007, 03:41:58 PM
I often lament the lack of good novel editors telling sprawling novel writers to hack their books down by 300 pages -- J.D. Salinger's entire body of work is about 600 pages total and he's one of the most important writers of the 20th Century, Borges is even less -- in Space Opera this disease reaches unbelievable heights. 

Picking nits here and I apologize for being pedantic but truth matters to me in this case: Borges' "entire body of work" is substantially more than 600 pages (unless you mean some other Borges, not Jorge Luis, in which case carry on and ignore me).  The first volume of his "Obras Completas" (which, of course, aren't complete) is 630 pages.  And there's four volumes.  Perhaps you mean just the fiction, but even there I'm not with you.  Maybe you mean only the novels, not including short fiction?  He didn't really like the novel form, except for detective fiction.  Heck, I'm not sure what you mean, but Borges was prolific, so I hate to see someone express that he was otherwise.

On the other hand, if what you're trying to say is that he was a master of language and used the fewest possible words to express the biggest possible ideas then I agree completely.

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Roney

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Reply #29 on: February 28, 2007, 09:32:24 PM
Ah, sorry Roney, clearly you're a man who likes Space Opera and I seem to have acquired your displeasure here.  All apologies.

No, I couldn't be displeased by someone expressing their own opinion.  In my ideal world we'd all be happy with the state of SF but I can totally understand why you might not be happy with what is effectively modern British pulp.  I just thought I'd stick in my own POV in case other forum readers got the wrong impression from some of your... well... generalizations.

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I've been told I've read all the wrong Banks novels, but I think I can say I've read a good sample: Consider Phlebas, Excession, Feersum Endjinn, Against A Dark Background, The Algebraist and The State Of The Art.

No, not wrong.  They're fairly representative.  I like 'em, but they're definitely not the SF-est of SF.

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In writing this post I realise I am really tarring a lot of people with the same brush...  *All* these writers I dislike are British, and you're right, I am completely missing the modern American contingent.  I hate to become a grouchy old man in my twenties, so much like I decided about the short stories (more on that in a minute) I'm clearly going to have to go and invest some effort in modern, international SF writers.  Any suggestions? I'm obviously going to have to go to Amazon, as opposed to bookshops for my SF fix...  Otherwise I'll just walk out with another Masterwork (Leibowitz was brilliant by the way).

I've been reading a lot of the Golllancz Masterworks as well for exactly the same reasons.  Some I like, some I don't, but they're definitely more ambitious than a lot of the space opera that (I admit) I have a lot of time for, but can come across as a bit lazy.

I don't know which American authors to recommend because I have the same difficulty in knowing which books to buy.  I can't pick them up in the bookshops and try a few sample paragraphs to get an idea of how they're written, and with the cost of importing (even with Sterling strong) I tend not to buy US books on impulse.  All I know is that "the field" is wider than what I see in the shops.

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Sturgeon's law has always applied, but it's getting a lot easier to just tune out.

Can't argue with that.  One of the things I like about Escape Pod is that it's not bound by immediately contemporary SF because it's happy to "reprint" good SF that works in audio form.  I've yet to hear a story that I could turn off... I always want to hear it to the end.

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Nonetheless, I will buy it again next month, because I need to catch up with the modern field in order to argue with you guys without appearing a complete moron...

Hey, we're all writing from a position of ignorance.  There are more words out there than anyone can read and we can only comment on what we've read.

I'm having to guess a bit here from what you've expressed (and my own limited knowledge of SF), but these are my recommendations, for what they're worth:
  • Greg Egan Quarantine: Bit of an old one this -- I read it years ago -- but it sticks in my mind as great idea fiction that gets in, says what it wants to say and goes no further.
  • Paul McAuley: I'm kind of recommending this for the negative reason that I didn't like the one book of his that I read, and if our tastes are so diammetrically different you might like it.  He seemed more interested in the science than the characters.
  • Charles Stross: Accelerando: A definite ideas man but he still tends to write his novels around how the setting affects the characters.  Accelerando is more of a themed short story collection where he takes the idea of software constructs being more important than flesh-and-blood humans and explores it in different ways.

Make of that what you will.  And please don't fight shy of posting just because I came on a bit strong with the disagreement: I'm really interested to hear what you have to say.



jahnke

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Reply #30 on: May 18, 2007, 04:47:31 AM
I think part of what we're seeing here is that tastes differ.  Also, Asimov's is a somewhat different magazine under Sheila Williams that it was under Gardner, and there are a number of fen (though probably few among the Old Guard) who say it's a change for the better.

When I was younger I was a huge fan of Analog. As I got older I moved more towards Asimov, since Gardner left I must admit I find myself letting Asimov sit in the in pile longer and longer. I don't get the thrill I used to get. The magazine is palpably different since she has put her stamp on it and I personally don't appreciate it as much as I did with Gardner at the helm, I will say that I am a big fan of people who do try new things and she does do that, I do think she will hit her stride at some point.

In the 80's Stanley Schmidt was an awesome editor, I still remember not being able to wait to get the next episode of Timothy Zhan's Spinneret in it (I would stop by the news stand on my way to school to see if it had come in yet.) Although Allan Steele's Coyote series almost got me as excited, I would look forward to the next issue when I would see he had a new story in coming next month section.



Michael

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Reply #31 on: May 22, 2007, 01:28:41 AM
Wow this thread wanders! 

 
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It stands to reason that an author not interested in following guidelines for an editor will not be interested in the quality of their manuscript.


Robert Silverberg, for example, has to be well over 70.  I salute him for being able to find the "on" switch on a computer.  You can't always fault someone for not knowing what "RTF" is. 

 ;)


SFEley

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Reply #32 on: May 22, 2007, 04:20:25 AM
Robert Silverberg, for example, has to be well over 70.  I salute him for being able to find the "on" switch on a computer.  You can't always fault someone for not knowing what "RTF" is.

FWIW: the Silverberg stories we've run (and others we'll be running later this year) did not come in through our submissions e-mail address.  I met him at Worldcon last year, where he knew my name because Mike Resnick had already recommended me to him.  We chatted briefly and I gave him my card, and Mr. Silverberg sent a paperback edition of one of his story collections (Beyond the Safe Zone) to our P.O. box.  I selected a number of stories from that and e-mailed him contracts.

There are times when one has to be flexible in order to get what one wants.  When Robert Silverberg says "Let me send you a book, and you tell me what you'll buy," pointing him at our submission guidelines and insisting he send us a plain text e-mail is the wrong answer.  It's an answer that would have resulted in us getting no stories from him.

Everyone else?  Well, if you're famous enough to ignore the guidelines, you probably know it.  And you probably didn't get that way by ignoring guidelines early in your career.  >8->

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Michael

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Reply #33 on: May 22, 2007, 09:25:28 AM
At Westercon in 1987 I remember Robert Silverberg as a pleasant man in his 50's--he looked like a college professor.  When I realized Robert Silverberg was signing autographs, I approached a bookseller in the lobby and bought a respectable looking hardback of his, looking from the early 70's, for him to sign.  Turned out that it was a rare book of his--one he hadn't seen a copy of in years, and he greeted it like a lost child.  He wanted to have a long talk with me about it.  Unfortunately I had only just bought it five minutes ago and did not have a clue what it was about.  ;-)


djtrouten

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Reply #34 on: December 26, 2015, 05:43:42 AM
I'm currently subscribing to both Analog and Asimov's, and am enjoying them both. When it's time to renew, I'm planning to continue with Analog while letting my subscription to Asimov's drop. The decision has nothing to do with editorial philosophy and everything to do with design. Analog runs its stories in narrower columns, putting two columns on a page. Asimov's runs its copy in one very wide column. The Analog design is easier to read. The Asimov's design is less readable, and therefore delivers a less satisfying reading experience, regardless of content.