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December 2003
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Aside: A Note About Content. (2022) A few of the editorial comments by JTC during the early 2000s were political in nature. Those represent purely my own opinions stated at the time, and may not have agreed with the opinions of my esteemed team members. Explanation follows. Click for more INFO.
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Perspective on 2003, and Looking Forward
Notices
Books Received
Publisher's
Note: The personal views of the publisher, expressed here, do not necessarily
mirror those of other contributors to this magazine. This is strictly my personal
rant.
Out with the
old... This is a good milestone for looking back as the dust of our first
year as Far Sector SFFH settles. It is a good time to see how this new
publishing concept fares. In our previous iterations, 0uts1de: Speculative
& Dark Fiction (1998-1999) and Deep Outs1de SFFH (1999-2002),
we made history in being world's oldest web-only professional magazine of SFFH
without print antecedents, and we were the first to appear in Writer's Market
(1999) alongside the big pulp mags (WM currently no longer features web-only
publications whether they pay authors money or not, which seems to us a giant
step backwards, and a failure of vision on WM's part). We are accustomed to
failures of vision, since SFWA refused for years to acknowledge our existence
even though we fully met all their rules—they threw our money and our applications
in the trash for years, and only stepped forth to recognize digital fiction
for their cronies at the SciFi Channel (which, by an added dash of personal
irony, I had unsuccessfully pitched to Bob Guccione and Ted Turner in 1984).
This magazine has
done pretty well, and continues to forge new ground. We're not a financial giant,
and we aren't part of the pulp establishment, but that's okay with us. We are
breaking even in our own small way, which is more than I can say for most publications
in these genres. Our advances are tiny right now, but that will change as this
market grows larger. This is only an infant as yet. Give us time. We like to
think we're doing something fresh and original here. That's the main joy of
doing this, along with publishing some really talented new authors whose voices
should be heard. We don't claim to have a monopoly on vision, but we're wearing
sunglasses, so that must mean we are blinded by the brightness of inspiration.
Honestly, it's not about hype, either. It's about putting the 20th Century and
its Futurians-turned-Backwardians behind us. It's about putting the 3 cents
a word of the 1940s out to pasture (or the 5 cents that it's now elevated to&151;still
not much more than the price of a good steak dinner in Manhattan, when you consider
that a 3000 word story will earn $150 at that munificent rate). We have a simple
proposition&151;we pay a small advance, and we pay 50% of our receipts (in
effect, approx. 25% royalty) through our publications at Fictionwise. We do
not believe in metaphors. We have gone beyond lame and bumbling attempts to
create something online that mirrors something offline. We offer no fake page
turning, so quasi-pulp covers, none of the paradigm that has to do with delivering
tons of chopped up & and colored paper to a physical magazine stand. This
is a point that runs much deeper than one suspects at first blush. It's not
about creating imitation "magazines" on line. It's about leaving the old paradigm
behind and really, really doing "it" the digital way. We feel that our magazine,
and Fictionwise in general, is the first blush of this becoming a medium in
its own right, with no need to lean on crutches from a previous age. Yes, the
real e-book doesn't exist yet, and we're still inventing ourselves. Yes, readers
still tend to seek either a "short story" or a "novel" (terms that are meaningless
in a truly digital environment)&151;but we're confident that in the next
few years writers will delight in writing their story to the exact length that
it demands, and readers will purchase it on those terms. And hey, no hard feelings.
We're not looking back and neither should you. Print books, like horses, will
soon be no more than toys for a very few dabblers. We are by and large happy
publishers, with happy writers, and happy readers, so it's been a very successful
year. You need a metaphor? I'd say...hmmm (scratch, scratch)...1936 or so. Early
pulp. Golden Age. The truly Futurian years, before the bureaucracy took over.
...In with the
new! Yes, in the midst of a war of religions that has essentially been going
on since the Stone Age. When do humans learn? Never, one suspects, because otherwise
we'd lose our humanity. That's the thing James Kirk kept impressing on all those
Platonists and fascists who want to take away our pain, our fallibility, our
foibles. As Dr. Joyce Brothers put it, "we are Stone Age people living in an
Atomic Age." We just need to do like Santa says, and be nicer to each other.
If we could just do that, we'd be so much better off. That's really a kind of
SF message, isn't it?
We had visitors
the other day, and the topic of conversation turned to a nice hutch available
at Ikea. Supercilious eyes turned upon me: "You mean you'd shop with those French
bastards?" I informed my esteemed friend that Ikea is Swedish. I didn't mention
how sad it is that the fascist, conservatively-owned, and foreign-run (Fox)
media in this country have done such a poor 1930s European job in misinforming
our citizenry. I got this retort: "Well, they're a bunch of damn Europeans,
and they're all alike." To which I retorted, before changing the subject entirely:
"I'm half European and half American, so I don't have that problem (of hating
Europeans or French or anyone else for that matter)." I changed the subject
by pointing out that I noticed, while peering more closely at a few items at
Ikea, those items seemed to be made in China. Honest. I kid you not. Made in
China, with a Swedish label put on them, and shipped directly to the USA. Now
that's globalization—Bush I's New World Odor.
What a fantastic
world it would be if people who so adamantly profess to be followers of Jesus
or Mohammed or YaddaYadda would actually adhere to those tenets rather than
contradict them. I suspect Jesus would favor universal health care, an end to
capital punishment (since He was a victim, particularly), and a whole lot of
other strange sorts of socialist-sounding beliefs that run counter the actions
and beliefs of so many hypocrites who kill and steal in His name. I think Jesus
would avidly read about the newest discoveries in science (particularly about
evolution) to see if we're beginning to get a glimmering of the divine plan
yet rather than being lost in 6,000 year old Mesopotamian creation myths. He'd
be sad to learn that so many people are mistrustful of reason, and are instead
lost in a murky world of ill-informed "faith." Let's be perfectly clear: I'm
a big proponent of faith, but faith cannot exist without reason, and to smear
reason is to flush faith down the toilet. That, I am afraid, is where we must
go to retrieve our moral and philosophical moorings after 20 years of endless
analization on sleazy hate shows.
Now about that
Chinese astronaut...I see we are responding predictably to China's space challenge.
Those of you who follow this column know I predicted China's entry into manned
spaceflight nearly a year ago. The conservatively-owned media, who lie so constantly
and so thoroughly that they believe their own pack of lies (including that they
are liberal-owned), have seized upon another half-truth: that the Chinese intend
to put a man on the moon by 2020 (which is, by odd coincidence, the year by
which most large mammals including tigers, polar bears, white rhinos, elephants,
and others will be extinct, having been utterly ignored by our sanctimonious
and unworthy leaders in the pursuit of oil and dollars). Wrong. The Chinese
plan to put a colony on the moon by then, and not only that, they have stated
they are shooting beyond the moon. They are going to Mars, to the asteroid belt,
the moons of Jupiter and Saturn...and I suspect they'll have a string of space
stations in orbit around the earth while we in the U.S.A. are still mired in
a debate about whether we should teach ancient Sumerian mythology in our science
classrooms. It's a lot like this business of publishing fiction. Just when yesterday's
Futurians become the establishment, that is, today's Backwardians, just so time
and progress do not stop for anyone. Personally, I applaud the success of China,
because it is a success for humans everywhere.
My high school
Problems of Democracy teachers taught us, back in primordial 1962, that one
of the tactics of a repressive and failed government is to invent external enemies
to unite people in anger in an outward direction and point away from domestic
failures. This isn't the place or time for a political speech, though I'd dearly
love to deliver one. I am concerned in the very largest scope with a problem
I identified years ago, and I called it The Pearl Harbor Syndrome. This country
is an awesome giant when it stirs, but it seems to always require outside stimulus.
The Japanese bombed us at Pearl Harbor and got nuked less than four years later.
The Russians beat us to putting a little bleeping ball in space in 1957, put
the first man in space in 1961, were the first to hit the moon with a probe,
and more firsts...but we came from behind and put 14 guys on the moon starting
12 years after Sputnik; and today the Soviets no longer exist, as much in the
dustbin of history (ahem! irony!) as Imperialist Japan. It seems to be a central
shortcoming of our way of life that we require an outside challenge to gain
focus and start slugging back. Let me tell you this. When it comes to slugging,
I would not want to be in the way when the USA starts slugging away. These hateful
degenerates, these lowest scum of humanity, who attacked not only the United
States on 9/11/2001 but in fact all that is decent and democratic in the world,
have no idea what they have unleashed. This is a lot bigger than the visionless
dolt sitting the White House choking on his pretzel and beer.
The Pearl Harbor
Syndrome is at work again. Caligula's oracles are already floating noise about
how the U.S.A. wants to beat the Chinese to the moon. Doesn't that sound pathetically
deja vu? We will share the future with the Chinese, the French, and the
rest of the world, and it will be a brave new world indeed. May we live long
enough to enjoy its good and bad points. Here's a hint: turn off the radio.
Turn off the TV. Take a deep breath. Reflect for several long minutes. Understand
that you are being manipulated constantly. Advertisers want your money. Liars
want your votes. Talk shows are about touting a book or a movie or some other
way that fake celebrities can make money off of you. Turn them all off. Turn
off Limbaugh. Tune out Caligula. Flush Paris Hilton or whatever emaciated peroxide-blonde
is the icon of the moment. Enjoy the stillness. Think about the true meaning
of the holiday season. Yes. There had better still be some true meaning in the
holiday season, or we are all in worse trouble than even I had guessed. We'll
know a lot more by 2020. Stay tuned. Far Sector SFFH will still be around
by then. E-books will rule. Print books will be obsolete like the horse. And
God help us, maybe Pygmies will have beaten us all to Mars. How righteously
that would serve this culture of fake politicians, fake religious leaders, fake
moralists, fake allies, fake enemies, and fake leaders. Let's you and I try
to be genuine.
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Notices
Notices received from third party organizations will be displayed here as appropriate. If no notice appears here, it means we did not receive any this month.
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Books Received
Books and materials received may not be shown here, but will most likely be reviewed or discussed in our columnists' monthly articles. See appropriate column for info.
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