Why I Am NOT Into Group Identity Based Anthologies

[jordan179]

Modem's repaired, so I resume Fantastic Worlds after a long hiatus.

We start with

Why I Am NOT Into Group Identity Based AnthologiesFrom time to time, one sees an anthology containing stories by authors all belonging to some similar group -- they are women, black, Jewish, Russian, whatever. And some of the stories, and indeed whole anthologies,

Comments

[spiffystuff]

Random anecdotal data in support:
I once picked up an anthology "women who run with werewolves" because I'd read just about anything with "werewolf" in the title.
It was... really bad. It turned out to actually be "angry lesbian werewolf anthology". Not the fun kind either!
There was only one story I liked in the whole thing and it turned out to ALSO be in a different werewolf anthology - Asimov's werewolf collection or something. (... which I really don't recall being a great anthology either but at least I didn't feel vaguely repulsed after reading it)

... of course, the book's title was also ripped from "women who run with the wolves" which was more a collection of myths by a Jungian analyst. So it might be a confounding factor "books trying too hard to be other books are bad"

[anonymous]

Eh, those kind of anthologies seem like a good place to find hidden gems, especially in a market glutted with crap like Flashback and Road of the Patriarch (the R.A. Salvatore novel with "I am killed!" and a guy getting killed by a pie to the face)

[jordan179]

Your argument makes no sense. Given that the average quality of the fiction is the lower the greater the number of quality-irrelevant search criteria, "a market glutted with crap" would make it even less likely to find "hidden gems," since "gems" are the more likely to be published the lower the quality of their competition.

[anonymous]

Except that's just a baseless assumption.

[jordan179]

Except that's just a baseless assumption.

If by "that" you mean

Given that the average quality of the fiction is the lower the greater the number of quality-irrelevant search criteriathen the statement is a direct conclusion from mathematics

[cutelildrow]

I stumbled on an anthology titled The People of the Book - a decade of Jewish Science-Fiction and Fantasy because one of the people who put together the database mentioned in the Acknowledgements is someone I was acquainted with during my college years, and frequently blogs about writing and other authors, and he mentioned it on his blog

[jordan179]

Oh, I'm not saying that recruiting more writers into the field reduces average quality. Indeed, assuming that the group recruited is of average quality for new entrants, the long-term effect of any such recruitment is bound to improve the quality of writing in the field, at least in the long term.

[cutelildrow]

I think, for the purpose of evaluating anthologies, you'd have to look at the purpose of why the anthologies was gathered, and which reason was the primary one that determined entries, and which survived the selection process to publication. All too often, I agree, one is left with the impression that there are a few gems, which is further surrounded by less than impressive filler. The purpose of the compilation would determine in part, it's quality filter, I would reason.

[gothelittle]

I've suspected for a while that most anthologies are, like many single-package assortments, a handy way for publishers to make something back on the worse stories. Kind of like how the typical music album contains two really good songs and a bunch of filler crud. You spread out the gems on purpose so that you can fill the rest and make more money off the entire group.

The exception would be anthologies assembled by people who love that particular subgroup and are not particularly trying to maximize their profit off of it.

[actonrf]

To me you argument is much ado about nothing to perhaps a straw man.
"Imagine that there exists a set of 1000 stories, each of which has a clearly discernable "quality" enumerated from 1st (the best) to 1000th (the worst). "

I do not think that is how stories are ranked. It more of a histogram where in the right one ma see a few masterpieces, a few very good, to mean and then dropping off to worst. If an editor or an anthology is worth his or hers salt, they would set the bar high and accept submissions the exceeds the bar. The only thing addition to Group Identity Anthologies Based is they must fit the theme of the Anthology.
There is a major fault that can with Group Identity Anthologies, when the theme or group usurp quality. AS a devote Christian this as a huge problem with Christian media.

[gothelittle]

"There is a major fault that can with Group Identity Anthologies, when the theme or group usurp quality. AS a devote Christian this as a huge problem with Christian media. "

Oh geepers. You are right on the money there. Too many Christian artist try so hard to make their work as properly Christian as possible, they lose sight of the art itself!

As a Christian who writes, I made the cold and hard decision to not worry about it. If what I write comes out overtly Christian, so be it. If it doesn't, then just the fact that it's being written *by* a Christian should mean that Something shines through, and it really does not have to hit you like a pie in the face.

[cutelildrow]

Change 'Christian' with "Filipino" and that's pretty much the most crippling thing about Filipino fictionwriting! (At least, in my opinion.) Actually, I'd hazard to guess that it's the problem with most culture-group focus fiction, but since my experience of it is local, I'll complain about that

[actonrf]

So you have penanggalans instead of elves and dragons. I don't see what the problem is.

[lather2002]