From: David.Dyer-bennet@f0.n3740.z0.tdkt.kksys.com (David Dyer-bennet)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: John Woods Campbell
Date: 9 Jan 93 16:54:43 GMT


 >>Verne, Wlls, Huxley, and Capek were NOT part of the field.

 BJ>   Obviously we are not speaking the same language if you
 BJ> assert that _Mysterious Island_, _The War of the Worlds_,
 BJ> _Brave New World_, and _War with the Newts_ are not part
 BJ> of the saifai field.

The books are, but the authors weren't?  The field hadn't been
*invented* yet when they were written.  Certainly they were not
written in the era of genre science fiction, nor published in
established genre science fiction channels.

 >>By the way, Weinbaum is overrated.  He wrote a couple of pretty
 >>good stories, but most of his works aren't that good. Have
 >>you read The Complete Short Stories of Stanley Weinbaum (or
 >>even The Best of Stanley Weinbaum)?

 BJ>   I've read _The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum_ several
 BJ> times, and I do not think he is overrated.  If he had
 BJ> lived, he would be generally acknowledged as being one
 BJ> of the best saifai writers ever.  But he died near the
 BJ> beginning of his career.

Risky, in my opinion, to predict the career from early results.
Consider Larry Niven, or Spider Robinson, or Piers Anthony -- all
looked very promising early in their careers, and none fulfilled the
promise.  I *hope* Weinbaum would have fulfilled his promise, but I
wouldn't take it as a given.

 BJ>   It is bizarre to see how, when an author screws up,
 BJ> saifai fans will say "He needs a good editor!"
 BJ> Wouldn't it be more rational to say "He should write
 BJ> better" or "He should do his homework"?  

I had the opportunity, a decade or so ago, to examine some of the old
manuscripts from the Street & Smith archives (I think it was) that
are held at Syracuse University.  No legitemate scholarly reason,
just curiosity, but I was in the area and managed to get access to
some stuff.  I ended up pawing through Cordwainer Smither manuscripts
with pencil corrections on them.  It's amazing how much more like
real Cordwainer Smith the edited version was than the typescript.
(At the time I believed the penciling to be editorial; I cannot now
recall the evidence on which I believed it, however :-)

I think *you* are expecting too much from the author.  The authors I
know well enough to discuss such things with (and thus know their
opinions) (which includes at least Pamela Dean, Steven Brust, Emma
Bull, Will Shetterly, John M. Ford, Joel Rosenberg, Pat Wrede) all
seem to be convinced that without a lot of outside help their books
wouldn't be as good.  All seem to be grateful for good copy-editors
(the ones whose job *really is* to catch inconsistencies and
mistakes), and for real editorial feedback.  None would put up with a
"meddling" type of editor, I don't think.

Sadly, fewer and fewer publishing houses are providing decent editors
and copy-editors.  I know of one case where the copy-editing
assignment is frequently made under the author's control (thus to a
person the author considers good at it), and one case where an author
has paid out of his own pocket for editorial work on a book to be
sure the editing was up to his standards; but most authors seem to
either be unable to get the publishers to behave, or perhaps just
don't care.  (Chalker, for example, has said in public that he writes
well enough for his audience, so don't bother him.)

I think, when a bad story is published, that Dyer-Bennet's fourth law
applies: Don't waste your time arguing about allocating blame,
there'll be enough to go around.  That is, both the author and the
editor have failed, and they should both be blamed.