Comments | bluetyson: Space Opera and Fun

bluetyson

Space Opera and Fun

Dec 11, 2007 23:55

SPACE OPERA ( Read more... )

brian aldiss, jonathan strahan, mike resnick, humour, donald a. wollheim, martin h. greenberg, mike ashley, gardner dozois, analysis, rich horton, terry carr, robert silverberg, peter haining, stanley schmidt, space opera

Comments 6

gillpolack November 28 2007, 12:52:00 UTC

If there's not enough humour for a volume every year, how about one every five years? I suspect there's a readership for it.

bluetyson November 28 2007, 13:30:50 UTC

You think? Me not being anything resembling a publishing person.

Let's see, major magazines, was something like 1 in 8 stories, so 20 odd from there for the last year, plus however many of the well over 1000 other SF stories per year? If it was 1 in 10, say, for the rest, there would be 100+ a year to choose from, which could maybe get you a 300 pager?

Over a few years you'd have lots, anyway.

davefreer December 1 2007, 14:32:22 UTC

I gather humour got a serious burn-out about 20 years back. Editors bought a lot, and it didn't sell. Ergo there is no market for it, not that they didn't buy the right stuff :-). Seriously one man's humor is another man's yawn, and it's a lot harder to write _well_ than straight-up story, and about thirty times harder than my pet hate the slice of life (miserable character who actually is merely an observer (active participation is frowned on) sees a world which is thoroughly miserable/horrific. The 'story' probably didn't start anywhere, and the POV charter does nothing, and there is no resolution - give it an award!). I'd love to see more humour, and more active, positive stories. So that's at least one reader ;-)

bluetyson December 1 2007, 21:23:24 UTC

It was pointed out on a mailing list there are a couple of recent anthologies :-

This Is My Funniest - Mike Resnick
This Is My Funniest 2 - Mike Resnick

and these, too, aren't so old

The Book of Comic Fantasy - Mike Ashley
The Mammoth Book of Seriously Comic Fantasy - Mike Ashley
The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy - Mike Ashley
The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy - Mike Ashley

The Wizards of Odd Tales of Comic Fantasy - Peter Haining
Knights of Madness: Further Comic Tales of Fantasy - Peter Haining

From a deleted post sclerotic_rings November 28 2007, 19:36:00 UTC

"Or becomes less bitter than a writing carrel full of lemons."

And you're absolutely right. It's just that I have to admit that I get a certain perverse fun out of watching the situation. Without fail, dare to point out that the big editorial names in skiffy are those who got the job only because nobody else was dumb enough to take the position, or that it's rapidly turning into a genre where the only part of a magazine that ever gets read is the Submissions Guidelines page, and you get more impotent whining than a Nickelback concert in Portland, Oregon. The slans are dead; long live Cat Piss Man!

Re: From a deleted post bluetyson November 29 2007, 06:12:51 UTC

No wonder I had no idea what your were talking about with your feline piss bloke, that is a pretty obscure reference!