Author Topic: Asimov's vs. Analog  (Read 41069 times)

nebulinda

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on: February 01, 2007, 07:16:11 PM
(Moderator's Note: Edited to correct the spelling of "Asimov's.")


I'm trying to decide which SF/F magazine to subscribe to. I can't really afford to subscribe to more than one, so I'd appreciate it if people told me their opinions of these magazines. Or if there are any others out there that I don't know about.

I've been to their websites, and Asimov's and Analog seem like pretty much the same magazine to me, so I'd like to gather people's experiences to see which one I might like better.

Thanks!
« Last Edit: February 01, 2007, 07:22:38 PM by SFEley »



SFEley

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Reply #1 on: February 01, 2007, 07:28:33 PM
I've been to their websites, and Asimov's and Analog seem like pretty much the same magazine to me, so I'd like to gather people's experiences to see which one I might like better.

They have the same publisher, which is why the Web sites are so similar, but the content is very different.  Analog is the quintessential "hard SF" magazine: all the stories are based on science and logical extrapolation.  Some even say it maintains this focus at the expense of characters and/or prose quality.  My own feeling is that that's sometimes a fair critique and sometimes it isn't.

Asimov's is more "soft SF" and some fantasy.  The stories are more heavily character-based, often more literary in feel, and if they're grounded in science at all it frequently takes a backseat to human impact.

I can't tell you that one is better for you than the other without knowing your own tastes.  If you're unsure, one idea you may find practical before subscribing would be to pick up a copy of each from your favorite bookstore.  If they don't stock them on the shelves (and many large bookstores still do), they can order them for you.

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scottjanssens

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Reply #2 on: February 01, 2007, 07:46:40 PM
There's also The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction if you're also interested in both sf and fantasy.



nebulinda

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Reply #3 on: February 01, 2007, 11:33:26 PM
I always spell "Asimov" wrong. For some reason the extra "s" always creeps in. Sorry.

It sounds as if I'll like Asimov's a bit more. I'll hit Barnes & Noble to see if they have it. Thanks.



Jonathan C. Gillespie

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Reply #4 on: February 02, 2007, 01:46:51 PM
For the casual reader, Asimov's.  For the writer, Analog.

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Simon

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Reply #5 on: February 02, 2007, 02:06:00 PM
I've rambled a lot over here about my passion for "traditional" SF, which means I admit to a real gap in my knowledge of the current scene.

The closest I ever came to reading modern SF was a year long subscription a few years back to Interzone (yes, I'm a Brit)...  Maybe this was the wrong place to start, but to be frank I found the quality of the stories pretty risible. 

And some point I will push myself back into the field - and the death of the periodicals that Steve discussed does worry me - but I am wary after being bitten last time (I think in 12 months of stories there was 1 I considered memorable, a far, far, lower hitrate than EP).  Sounds like Analog would be the way to go if I were to do so...

But, in all honesty, I have a general feeling that the whole SF field needs someone to grab it by the neck and shake it...

Hmmm...  Maybe i'll just go and spend the money on yet another one of Gollanz's SF Masterworks - I really need to get around to reading A Canticle For Leibowitz.



SFEley

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Reply #6 on: February 02, 2007, 06:27:56 PM
The closest I ever came to reading modern SF was a year long subscription a few years back to Interzone (yes, I'm a Brit)...  Maybe this was the wrong place to start, but to be frank I found the quality of the stories pretty risible.

I have heard that Interzone has gotten better since the dust of the TTA Press transfer settled and Jetse de Vries started running it.  That's only what I've heard -- I should know for myself soon enough, as it's one of the four magazines I subscribed to a couple weeks ago.  (Largely on the strength of Paul Jenkins's reviews on the Rev Up Review, and meeting Jetse a couple times at cons.  He's a sharp guy.)


Quote
But, in all honesty, I have a general feeling that the whole SF field needs someone to grab it by the neck and shake it...

To tell the truth, I rather agree with you.  Especially in short fiction.  My belief is that the lack of a strong demand for short SF has caused the field to collapse into navel-gazing to a certain extent, and sucked much of the vitality out of it.  (As a broad generality -- there are still really great stories being written.) 

One of my purposes with Escape Pod is to help regenerate that strong demand.  That's why I care about the magazines -- I don't want to succeed simply as a market, I want to contribute to making short fiction succeed again.  And that's bigger than any one market.  (I suppose that may strike some as an odd life goal; but it was available.)  >8->

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jrderego

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Reply #7 on: February 02, 2007, 07:43:04 PM
I'm going to wade reluctantly into this discussion, then gracefully wade back out... LOL.

I stopped subscribing to mags when Science Fiction Age went belly up, and here's why.

SF Age introduced me to a whole slew of great short science fiction writers, and some wonderful stories. Craphound first appeared there, and as a measure of SF Age's quality, I remembered reading it immediatly after starting to listen to the podcast. And it wasn't just that tale, there were, literally, dozens of others that in a short print run, still rank among the best short science fiction I've ever read.

At the time I has a subscription to both Analog and Asimov's too, but every month I would look forward to SF Age while putting the digests aside for later reading. Once I'd ripped through SF Age, usually one afternoon was enough, I'd prowl the others. But, and this is very true for right now as well, they seemed to contain the exact same stories, and by that I mean plotlines, month after month after month from the same writers month after month after month. Alien contact, Asimov's. Alien contact involving complex mathematics, Analog. Off course space ship, Analog. Off course space ship with a humorous robot, Asimov's. Time travel to change the past, Asimov's. Calculate the orbit of an asteroid before it collides with space station, Analog. Third rate cyberpunk (because it was popular at the time), both. Then a novella from a well known author such as Kim Stanley Robinson, then some reviews, then convention listings, both.

Every month the same.

The last big mag purchase I bought was Analog and TMoFaSF to read on a day trip to Virginia for a meeting. I made it almost five whole pages into Analog when I hucked it into the trash. The first story had something like this for first sentence -

Paraphrasing -

"John and Mary were the sole survivors of the crash, everyone else was dead."

That sentence there stopped me reading even the next sentence of that story. The following tales were so wrapped up in the awesomeness of their own little literary microverses that they might as well have contained no characters or linear plotline, hell, for all I know they didn't.

Marion Zimmer Bradley had a great quote as an editor in MZB Fantasy magazine listing in Writer's Market, "stop showing me how beatifully you write and tell me a story."

I lost my taste for Asimov's when they published "Sensible City" by Harlan Ellison, who, in the introduction, detailed how he wrote the story in two days on a cruise because he was bored. The story was about two guys passing the same city on the highway over and over again.

Hey, you know what Harlan, get bent sideways.

I've read better stuff from high school kids who know nothing of science fiction but what they see on TV.

There are hundreds of writers who send stuff into the slush netherworld of these mags who are lucky to get a one page checklist form reply 6-10 months after submitting. There HAVE to be tales on that pile better than the vast majority of shit they keep publishing.

If you want to blame the right people for the decline of circulation of these mags, put the blame where it belongs. Put it on the editors who routinely showcase the least daring, most overdone, comfortable crapola they get from established writers.

That's why I don't subscribe to the big mags.

Here is what they can do to change things for the better (for both reader and writer)-

For readers -

Print better stories. Pass over that Robert Reed story for the one from the slush. Better yet, devote one issue a year solely to slush writers. Even better yet, keep 5000 words open in every issue for a slush writer.

Sell better advertising. I don't care if there is an ad for a Chevy Truck in the center fold. If it means you can publish a better cross section of fiction.

Advertise the goddamn magazine. Publisher's Clearing House is the only place I have ever seen an ad for ANY genre digest. I throw PCH stuff right into the trash. Underwrite an NPR show, finance a monthy show on PBS, produce a web series and release it free on Youtube. Describe why you are a better read than Star Wars fan fiction.

Work with SciFi Channel to put an anthology series together. The Outer Limits used to buy stuff out of all the digests, hell, they did a fantastic job with Think Like a Dinosaur by J.P. Kelly. Call it, Oh I don't know, Asimov's Science Fiction Showcase and produce one story from each year's magazine as part of the regular series run.

For writers -

Take e-mail submissions. WTF, it's 2007 already.

Respond in an acceptible time period. 10 - 12 weeks is a hell of a long time to wait. Or, accept simultaneous subs without complaint.


Okay, so that wasn't graceful...

Let me say this in closing. Escape Pod has the potential to redefine the way short fiction is presented, consumed, and received in the marketplace. Steve's committment to quality and his willingness to read and buy subs from guys like me with no pub creds worthy of mention sets a new standard for short science fiction and fantasy. We can only hope that others take to his model. Sure, I've heard a few stories here that I haven't enjoyed, but I still listened all the way through, and the number of those pales by comparison to the vast number of tales that I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy over and over again.

(edited to remove nasty swearword!)
« Last Edit: February 02, 2007, 11:09:26 PM by jrderego »

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scottjanssens

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Reply #8 on: February 02, 2007, 09:22:31 PM
Jeffrey, I have to respectfully, but vehemently, disagree with your post.  Over the past couple years Asimov's has debuted many new writers: Melko, Skillingstead, van Eekhout, Pratt, Lake, et al.  (That reminds me, I have to bug Melko for stories again.)  If you saw the slush pile, I think you'd change your tune about devoting an entire issue to selections from it.  A market's priority should be the reader, not the writer.  Devoting an entire issue to slush would not serve the reader. 

I don't think the advertising would help much.  Why would Chevy advertise in a genre magazine with a circulation of tens of thousands?  I suspect the magazines would love to run ads for Chevy.  I seriously doubt any genre magazine has the money to underwrite anything.  There's a reason SF Age isn't around anymore.  These magazines operate on narrow margins.  It's hard to sell advertising when B&N and Borders don't even have you in every store.  (The obvious suggestion here is put the magazines in the SF section except that B&N and Borders refuse.  I assume they have their reasons.)

I know exactly why the magazines don't accept electronic submissions.  Given a choice between email or snail mail, I'd take snail mail.  Escape Pod's guidelines are pretty clear, no?  I'd say at least 20% of the submissions we receive don't follow them.  I've learned several new file extensions and developed even more animosity toward HTML mail than I'd already had.  Imagine how difficult it is to read a story where all the quotes are replaced by letters with umlauts or some such.  My job would actually be easier if we didn't take electronic submissions.  If Steve and I lived in the same city I'd be pestering him to go to paper submissions.

This isn't to say the magazines can't be improved.  But there's no easy solutions.  The magazines aren't operating on slim margins because the staff is sitting on their hands.  There are worse things than not getting a response within 12 weeks, such as not having markets to submit to at all.



scottjanssens

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Reply #9 on: February 02, 2007, 09:29:09 PM
Let me say this in closing. Escape Pod has the potential to redefine the way short fiction is presented, consumed, and received in the marketplace. Steve's committment to quality and his willingness to read and buy subs from guys like me with no pub creds worthy of mention sets a new standard for short science fiction and fantasy.

Esacpe Pod is not a fair comparison.  EP has no payroll and has much lower overhead than a magazine.  As for buying stories from unproven writers, it's just not true.  Asimov's in particular has published a lot of first time writers in the past few years.  (And some of those stories have been rejected by EP.)  You may disagree with the editorial decisions, but I don't think they can be criticized for a lack of quality.  I dunno, maybe I've just been reading too much slush.



SFEley

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Reply #10 on: February 02, 2007, 09:51:05 PM
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.  Like Interzone, I'm still waiting for my subscription to start rolling in, so I haven't had a judge to judge the "new" Asimov's yet myself, except for stories I've seen in our own submissions.

In any case, Jeffrey, that was a phenomenal rant and I really enjoyed reading it.  And I agree with much of what you said.  I was also driven off by many of the magazines several years ago -- but time has passed, most of those magazines have changed and so have I, and I'd like to give them another shot.

I also agree with Scott, too, although I doubt I'd take paper submissions even if it was practical.  I'm a horribly disorganized person, and paper's easily lost.  >8->

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jrderego

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Reply #11 on: February 02, 2007, 11:08:08 PM
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.  Like Interzone, I'm still waiting for my subscription to start rolling in, so I haven't had a judge to judge the "new" Asimov's yet myself, except for stories I've seen in our own submissions.

In any case, Jeffrey, that was a phenomenal rant and I really enjoyed reading it.  And I agree with much of what you said.  I was also driven off by many of the magazines several years ago -- but time has passed, most of those magazines have changed and so have I, and I'd like to give them another shot.

I also agree with Scott, too, although I doubt I'd take paper submissions even if it was practical.  I'm a horribly disorganized person, and paper's easily lost.  >8->


I have yet to see a Shiela Williams issue, so there is hope for Asimov's. Like I said, I buy them sporadically. If I get two issues in a row that have a majority of good stories in them, I'll consider subscribing. Admittedly, some of what I typed sounded like sour grapes, and I didn't mean it to. Hell, I still submit to all of them even if my readership has dropped off on the off-chance that I'll send something that makes it through the slush and I certainly wouldn't complain to have my name on the cover of one. Still, there is a bit of frustration. Less so now that Scott has laid out the rationale behind some of the byzantine submission guidelines and response times about which I was complaining.

I don't think the circulation drop is limited to just genre mags though. Has anyone else noticed that a lot of short story lit journals have gone belly up, or at least in my area (New Hampshire), failed to maintain shelf space at the local bookshops? I can usually find Glimmer Train once a year, even though it's quarterly. And there are usually a couple of university lit journals to choose from, but even those are sort of vanishing. I like to think it's because people are buying them before I get to the racks, but I don't know...

Back to the original topic -

And certainly some of the blame can be laid right at the feed of the general audience. Not the regular readers of the big mags, but the audience that doesn't read them. They are the same people that pass over new sci fi novels by new writers so they can get the latest Star Wars, Stargate, or Buffy tie-in.

I really miss SF Age though. Thankfully I saved every issue I had so I can revisit them every now and then.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2007, 11:09:54 PM by jrderego »

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Simon

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Reply #12 on: February 03, 2007, 04:01:03 PM

"She closed her eyes and images assembled: a blue planet, floating against star-pricked velvet. The planet itself, speckled by tiny green islands, like strings of emeralds. Wispy white clouds, streaming in comfortably chaotic patterns. Far-away the oranged-tinged brilliance of Alpha Centauri B, blazing heaven with the energy of life" -- An extract from Softly Shining in The Forbidden Dark by Jason Stoddard, published in the January 2007 edition of Interzone.

I read the previous thread this morning, and came dangerously close to throwing a second rant in there to accompany JrDrego's.  I find myself regularly intolerant of modern SF, as a Brit the SF scene always appears to be dominated by the mindless tedium of Space Opera writers excreting their latest brick thick tome in which the universe is yet again in mortal peril... Stephen Baxter, Alasdair Reynolds, Iain M Banks (how can a writer so good at literary fiction write such pathetic McGuffin driven SF in which people go on some form of quest to find some form of superweapon/key/whatever), Peter F Hamilton, Ken Macleod...  Waterstones, our biggest bookshop chain, seem to have half their space dedicated to these guys...  And yet it is almost impossible to find anything except Masterworks editions of the work of Alfred Bester, and finding Walter Miller's A Canticle For Leibowitz has taken me 4 weeks.  It takes very little triggering for me to slam these modern SF writers down and extol the virtues of post-war Galaxy-era SF.

But this time, I thought for a second.  I do not like to find myself arguing from ignorance, and if I were to comment on the failings of modern short SF, I'm either 3 years out of date or I'm basing it on Escape Pod. That's not the way to continue this argument.  So, before I went for it again,  I left the room..  I had a cup of nice green tea -- listened to some pleasing music and left the flat.

So now, I'm back four hours later.  I dropped by at London's Forbidden Planet (London's flagship SF store) in the intervening hours and picked up copies of Interzone, F&SF and finally managed to get the aforementioned Leibowitz story (as an aside I stood at the magazine rack for 10 minutes before I realised that the grey-haired chap in the brown sheepskin jacket doing a signing session next to me was Terry Gilliam).     

Next thing to do is to sit down and make myself read through this significant pile of SF and see how I feel about it now.  The quote, shown at the top of this post, is from the first story I opened in this little adventure you've all sent me on...  Please god tell me I don't have to deal with 12 odd stories with that sort of deathless prose -- this could well turn out to be an exercise in masochism.   

At least I have the Miller to sit there and wash this meal down if it proves unpalatable.



billmtracer

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Reply #13 on: February 03, 2007, 10:32:56 PM
But, Simon, at the risk of lacking sufficient cynicism, I rather liked that quote. It sounded like a potentially interesting story.



wakela

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Reply #14 on: February 12, 2007, 03:08:46 AM
I mentioned this on another thread, but since we're talking about it here, and I love the sound of my own voice, I'll restate it here.

I used to be in the camp of picking up an Azimov's or Analog every so often, and most of the time I was dissappointed.  There might be one or two good stories in an issue, but I have to sift through several crappy ones to get to them.  On the other hand I have authors I like, and I know I can grab one of their books and be entertained right off the bat.  Now if I am not willing to try out a new author, why should the magazine.  The difference is that I am happy with my books, while readership of the mags is in decline.  I don't need to change my strategy.  They do. 

The last issue of Azimov's that I read had a story featuring a spaceship that crashed on a planet.  The pilot was a loveable rogue and his co-pilot was a giant, mute, hair-covered humanoid who wore a cowboy hat a boots.  Their ship was surrounded by aliens that were little and cute, but the catch is that they turned out to be dangerous.  Oof.  Another story was a race around Jupiter's gravity well.  The hero (another loveable rogue) had to slow down to help another ship that started getting sucked in.  Then he lost.  Oh, the irony. 

Yet, half the stuff I read in the 300 Words contest is great.



ClintMemo

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Reply #15 on: February 12, 2007, 03:53:07 AM
I mentioned this on another thread, but since we're talking about it here, and I love the sound of my own voice, I'll restate it here.

I used to be in the camp of picking up an Azimov's or Analog every so often, and most of the time I was dissappointed.  There might be one or two good stories in an issue, but I have to sift through several crappy ones to get to them.  On the other hand I have authors I like, and I know I can grab one of their books and be entertained right off the bat.  Now if I am not willing to try out a new author, why should the magazine.  The difference is that I am happy with my books, while readership of the mags is in decline.  I don't need to change my strategy.  They do. 

The last issue of Azimov's that I read had a story featuring a spaceship that crashed on a planet.  The pilot was a loveable rogue and his co-pilot was a giant, mute, hair-covered humanoid who wore a cowboy hat a boots.  Their ship was surrounded by aliens that were little and cute, but the catch is that they turned out to be dangerous.  Oof.  Another story was a race around Jupiter's gravity well.  The hero (another loveable rogue) had to slow down to help another ship that started getting sucked in.  Then he lost.  Oh, the irony. 

Yet, half the stuff I read in the 300 Words contest is great.


What you're saying reminds my very much of something I was going to post in the writer's forum somewhere, but I'll post it here even though it's something of a tangent.  I have a daughter who is now nine year's old. She has always been an excellent talker and has a huge imagination.  When she was much younger, say 3 to 5 years old, she would say wonderfully original things or things in a way that I would never have said them.  I think the reason is that, while she understood the point she was trying to convey, she hadn't been speaking long enough to be bound by the conventions of language that we adults are.  I'm kicking myself now for not having written down everything she said.  Somewhere, I have a notebook where I managed to jot a few down, but it has gone missing.  The only example I can remember is the last gem she gave me.  We were all going to the immediate care center because someone had to get stitches (I don't remember who, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't her). I asked her if she understood what "getting stitches" meant and she said "Yes. It's just like sewing except that you're not a teddy bear."

My advice to all you writers out there who either have young children or are planning on having children later is to go get a special notebook just for those literary gems that will pop up unexpectedly. And don't lose it!

Anyway, your comment about the 300 word contest reminded me of that.  I think a lot of the entries are from people (like me) who have either never submitted anything anywhere or at least haven't done it very many times.  They haven't been doing it long enough to get trapped in too many literary conventions.

btw, I hope my entries are in the half you like :P

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SFEley

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Reply #16 on: February 12, 2007, 04:15:37 AM
My advice to all you writers out there who either have young children or are planning on having children later is to go get a special notebook just for those literary gems that will pop up unexpectedly. And don't lose it!

That's a very cool idea, Clint.  Right now my own kid is about to turn two, but I'll remember this for when his wit grows beyond "No!," "Doggie!," and the occasional "Cheeeeese!"  >8->

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wakela

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Reply #17 on: February 13, 2007, 01:56:27 AM
Clint, your stories are my absolute favorites. ;)   Especially that one where that thing happened that was kind of surprising.

I live in Japan and used to teach English.  I came across several of those brilliant expressions from adults who were simply using the only words they had, not the ones that everyone else uses.  Sometimes they would say something that would have been poetry if it had come from a native speaker.  Of course I didn't write them down either.   Let's see....  once I asked "Why do we hate cockroaches, but like beetles?"  The response, "because cockroaches can regard me."  Another student said that when she went to America she saw the "freedom goddess."  When I asked what that was she put her hands like the Statue of Liberty.  Recently a coworker told me that he was "weary from many toils." 

BTW, Capt. Eley, a few podcasts ago you mentioned that your kid was having trouble with the speaking.  I'm glad to hear that he has a few words under his belt.  My kid is about a year behind yours. 



Jonathan C. Gillespie

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Reply #18 on: February 14, 2007, 01:44:44 PM
I know exactly why the magazines don't accept electronic submissions.  Given a choice between email or snail mail, I'd take snail mail.  Escape Pod's guidelines are pretty clear, no?  I'd say at least 20% of the submissions we receive don't follow them.  I've learned several new file extensions and developed even more animosity toward HTML mail than I'd already had.  Imagine how difficult it is to read a story where all the quotes are replaced by letters with umlauts or some such.  My job would actually be easier if we didn't take electronic submissions.  If Steve and I lived in the same city I'd be pestering him to go to paper submissions.

I have to speak up here for a second.  Let me preface this by saying:  I love EP, I love the fact that you guys bust your butts to bring this good fiction to us, I love that you give up-and-comers like J.R. a chance, and I love the fact that there's basically a 50/50 ratio of lesser known/ well-known writers with fiction featured on EP.  I believe strongly in EP; this and Pseudopod (Also excellent, thank you Ben and Mur) are two of the first places I go to when I have stories ready to sub.  If you guys' submissions guidelines required me to send in my story via snail mail, I'd bite the bullet and do it.  Hell, if you wanted it in clay tablets, you'd probably see me by the riverbed.  You guys rock, OK?

BUT...part of the reason you're dealing with these issues is this preference on having the subs sent as inline text in the body of an e-mail.  That instantly opens up the sub for all the butchery the mail client is capable of doing to that text.  To send you guys a sub looking halfway good, I have to tweak, and tweak more, and send myself copies of what I'm going to send you to see if it'll look right, and even then there's usually more to do.  And this is with Thunderbird -- arguably the finest mail software known to man.

A lot of your pain would instantly vanish if you'd take .rtf attachments.  Yes, you and I both know you'll never remove the unprofessional nature of some of the folks submitting, and I know the preference here for inline text is probably so everything stays in one place.  But it's just something for you to think about.

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SFEley

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Reply #19 on: February 14, 2007, 04:40:24 PM
A lot of your pain would instantly vanish if you'd take .rtf attachments.  Yes, you and I both know you'll never remove the unprofessional nature of some of the folks submitting, and I know the preference here for inline text is probably so everything stays in one place.  But it's just something for you to think about.

Actually, you'd be surprised.  People can mess up attachments just as easily.  We do get attachments despite our guidelines, and if we're in a good mood we'll often do our best to read them anyway and (in a snippy tone) remind the writer of the guidelines after the fact.  There are also some major writers who send multiple documents at a time, sometimes to the wrong address, and I'm simply not going to tell them "No.  Please review our guidelines, and resend these Hugo-winning stories in inline text through our submissions address, one at a time."  We're pragmatists.  I don't like double standards, but sometimes you have to be flexible for the sake of getting good stories.

And what I've learned is that a lot of people don't grok attachments any more than they grok inline text.  We're received messages that were clearly supposed to have attachments, but the RTF markup is instead streamed into the e-mail body.  We've received UUencoded text in the body with no MIME headers, forcing me to paste it out and uudecode it.  We've received documents with no extension (newer Macs hate that, by the way, even when the documents come from older Macs); Word documents that won't open in Word; and documents that I couldn't read at all except by opening up my binary editor and extracting the text.

"Just require RTF" sounds easy -- but again, there will be a certain number of people who don't follow the guidelines, either because they don't read them or because they honestly don't know what RTF is and how to save to it.  Yes, there are writers who don't know RTF.  Including some very good writers.

That's the problem I predict.  The other side of it is our workflow: right now we read the stories inline, inside our e-mail clients, and use IMAP as our filing mechanism.  Having to open up every story separately in our word processors before reading it would lead to a minor, but persistently annoying, reading delay and organizational hassle.
 
So there are no foolproof processes.  And really, the stuff Scott is talking about -- it drives him nuts, but he did say it was a minority of the submissions that have problems.  We can still read a story enough to gauge its quality even if the quote marks are screwed up. 

And you can draw whatever correlations you like from this, I'll just report the fact: although we almost always read them if we can, the stories that don't follow our guidelines are bought at a much lower ratio than the ones that do.  Not because we want to punish the authors or anything.  They just don't tend to be stories we want to buy.

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Jonathan C. Gillespie

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Reply #20 on: February 14, 2007, 05:36:47 PM
No, that makes perfect sense.  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.

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Roney

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Reply #21 on: February 16, 2007, 02:13:03 PM
I find myself regularly intolerant of modern SF, as a Brit the SF scene always appears to be dominated by the mindless tedium of Space Opera writers excreting their latest brick thick tome in which the universe is yet again in mortal peril... Stephen Baxter, Alasdair Reynolds, Iain M Banks (how can a writer so good at literary fiction write such pathetic McGuffin driven SF in which people go on some form of quest to find some form of superweapon/key/whatever)

I have to take issue with that.  Banks uses his McGuffins well to draw out the interactions between the characters -- which is rather the point of them.  The results can be a bit variable, but then the same can be said of his non-SF.  I thought The Algebraist had a rather neat central idea (based in actually correct science, too, which is unusual for an author who usually prefers magic tech), although it could have been conveyed just as easily in a short story.

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Peter F Hamilton

It's pulpy, but there's a lot of detailed and plausible world-building that goes into his epic stories.  Plus it's fun, and it sells... you can see why the publishers like it.

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Ken Macleod...

Now you've really lost me.  Whatever it is that MacLeod writes, it's not universe-in-peril space opera.  Socio-political post-singularity SF would be one description.  Although Learning the World suggested a possible change in direction.  I'm guessing that you didn't read this: it's the most original first contact story I've read in years.

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Waterstones, our biggest bookshop chain, seem to have half their space dedicated to these guys...

...and three times as much devoted to fantasy of extremely variable quality.  I agree, in the UK it was almost impossible even to get hold of a decent range of SF before Amazon.  I would read the list of Hugo nominees each year and find that it wasn't just the novels that I hadn't heard of, but the authors -- regarded as the best in the field, but not published over here.  (For a while that even included Charles Stross, a Yorkshireman based in Edinburgh, who seemed to be published in the US a couple of years before he got a UK deal.)

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I dropped by at London's Forbidden Planet

I lost track of Forbidden Planet when it moved around the corner.  I thought they must have closed down their London branch or moved out to some cheaper suburban location.  I spotted it from a bus the other week but haven't got around to arranging a shopping expedition yet.  Interzone bored me to depression when I last tried it but that was a long time ago and I really should give it another try.  And as far as I've ever seen, Forbidden Planet is the only retailer that sells the mag.

Although if the snippet you posted is typical, I'll maybe give it a miss for another couple of years.  Do let me know how the rest of the issue turns out...



Simon

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Reply #22 on: February 20, 2007, 11:40:15 AM
Ah, sorry Roney, clearly you're a man who likes Space Opera and I seem to have acquired your displeasure here.  All apologies.  That was a more than slightly ranty piece I stuck up there.  Anyway, to respond to your points:


I have to take issue with that.  Banks uses his McGuffins well to draw out the interactions between the characters -- which is rather the point of them.  The results can be a bit variable, but then the same can be said of his non-SF.  I thought The Algebraist had a rather neat central idea (based in actually correct science, too, which is unusual for an author who usually prefers magic tech), although it could have been conveyed just as easily in a short story.

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.  Apart from the last of those I found they were all space opera by numbers.  The same tired plot structures repeated again and again with the same flashy individual action scenes to make it seem this was a coherent novel and not just a series of scenes.  I recently re-read Babel 17 by Sam Delaney and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.   Over 40 years ago these guys had done all that needed to be done in the "flash scenes, big imagery, then onto the next planet" sub-genre and I find Banks's rehashing of these themes pretty tedious.  I keep reading him because I've really enjoyed several of his literary novels -- Complicity is really gripping, as is The Crow Road, and even his overly stylised pieces like The Bridge have merits -- and he keeps letting me down.  I'm not going to bother with him again.
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Quote
Peter F Hamilton

It's pulpy, but there's a lot of detailed and plausible world-building that goes into his epic stories.  Plus it's fun, and it sells... you can see why the publishers like it.


I know it sells, I can absolutely see why the publishers like it, and it makes me very sad that this is the state SF is in.  I'll admit it, I hate space opera for space opera's sake -- the only series I've really enjoyed of this type is Niven's Known Space and Mote books.  And in these cases I think the settings and ideas were sufficiently important that it didn't just turn into a romp between planets.  Maybe it's a reflection of Niven's limitations as a writer (he never could do structure) but even his epic Ringworld is a slim volume by the standards of today's Space Opera writers. 

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.  What the hell was Hamilton's editor DOING for The Night's Dawn trilogy?  And I've yet to read a book by Stephen Baxter (although I've only read a few) that doesn't have an incomprehensible long-winded aside that had no real value to the story as a whole (what was that bit with Neanderthals on Jovian Moons about in Manifold: Space for?). I'll put it bluntly, this stuff sells in massive amounts and sufficiently to drive other SF authors off the shelves, if there is a problem with SF novels then at least 50% of it is down to too many SF readers having sod all taste, because this stuff is crap.

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 think it is also partly down to the decline of short fiction, I suspect back in the 60's when everyone came up through Galaxy and If you learned to be concise before you got your novel writer's pen...

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Waterstones, our biggest bookshop chain, seem to have half their space dedicated to these guys...

...and three times as much devoted to fantasy of extremely variable quality.  I agree, in the UK it was almost impossible even to get hold of a decent range of SF before Amazon.  I would read the list of Hugo nominees each year and find that it wasn't just the novels that I hadn't heard of, but the authors -- regarded as the best in the field, but not published over here.  (For a while that even included Charles Stross, a Yorkshireman based in Edinburgh, who seemed to be published in the US a couple of years before he got a UK deal.)

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).

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Interzone bored me to depression when I last tried it but that was a long time ago and I really should give it another try.  And as far as I've ever seen, Forbidden Planet is the only retailer that sells the mag.

Although if the snippet you posted is typical, I'll maybe give it a miss for another couple of years.  Do let me know how the rest of the issue turns out...

Well, it definitely wasn't bad, but nor was it good.  There were a couple of forgettable stories (the quoted one above is typical),  and a cracking good style piece about Brit gangsters and Celtic myths meeting parallel worlds, but none of it was ideas fiction...  I can cope with listening to an Escape Pod and turning it off (part of the reason I listen is just for Steve's Essays) but the attached content in Interzone was really, really, disposable.  Dull interviews, film reviews that wouldn't match the stuff you find from a Technorati search, nothing that would make me come back again to keep up with.  I think part of the problem is you do need a "hook" for a fiction magazine, because stories are their own units...  And Interzone really doesn't have good enough supporting content to justify a 3 out of 4 miss rate on the short stores.  Sturgeon's law has always applied, but it's getting a lot easier to just tune out.

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...



Simon

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Reply #23 on: February 20, 2007, 12:30:33 PM
Before I come across as a complete traditionalist arse-hole, here are a few modern SF novels/writers I love:

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age...  That man has a rare, rare talent, f**king hell is he good.

David Brin's Kiln People - I have yet to read a book by Brin that didn't blow me away.

Kim Stanley Robinson - Nuff said.

Greg Egan's Diaspora - Not quite my thing, but gripping and memorable.

I can, and will try with modern science fiction...  But Space Opera is for children.



SFEley

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Reply #24 on: February 20, 2007, 03:55:49 PM
I can, and will try with modern science fiction...  But Space Opera is for children.

I am mystified.  Not so much by the generalization -- but because you say it like it's an insult.

I haven't read Hamilton, nor Baxter, nor Reynolds.  I've only read one MacLeod, and it wasn't space opera.  I cannot say whether "for children" is accurate.  I believe it isn't in at least several cases, but I won't start sparring with examples.  (I'll just mutter "Vernor Vinge" beneath my breath and let it be.)  >8->  However, if it is generally true, I think that's fabulous.  I don't know what age you were when you started reading SF, but I know what age I was.  And if the space opera being written today is accessible to SF's Golden Age (13 and under), then that means SF is likely to stay alive for at least one more generation.  Huzzah.

That's not to say that you should read it, if it isn't fun for you.  But I dislike "for children" as a casual dismissal of significance or quality.  Some of the best books I've ever read were ostensibly young adult fiction.  Certainly some of the most important, in that if I hadn't read them, I might not be reading today.

ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine