Editing New Worlds: a question

[A_Non_Ymous]

Sartre, like James, goes great on TV. Anyone else see the BBC2 'Roads to Freedom', for instance ? This led me to read the sequence which I quite enjoyed, though I have to admit I enjoyed the TV series better. It seems that 2 and 4 believe these days that if it won't fit in a crinoline it isn't a classic.

I like Les chemins de la libertأ© well enough, and several of his short stories (e.g., "Le mur"), but I'm just not enthusiastic over his work. It's often lacking in humor, too, but I suppose one can't have everything, even in such a long series of novels.

Sartre was an admirer of Dos Passos's U.S.A. Trilogy, and felt that Dos Passos had invented a fictional method admirably suited to his purposes, so he used it (more or less) in Les chemins.... Dos Passos 3-volume work is another work that I like well-enough, but about which I'm not enthusiastic. Interesting, the way John Brunner adapted this method for Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and The Jagged Orbit. I've got considerable affection for those 3 books. Brunner's employment of the technique was distinctly "warmer" than that of Dos Passos or Sartre, although academic critics might well object that Brunner's work is "mere" sf.

Grants. Anyone thought of asking the London Arts Council ? Usually, these councils have far more applications than they can satisfy, but it's always worth a go. Maybe you could sell your sofas to the Tate Modern.
Might get a Turner prize. Or are those heady days over at last ?

The chances are probably better than getting an arts grant in the U.S. these days. I agree it's worth a try.

LSN

[xidrep]

Jean Anouilh. Great stuff, I bin in one of them.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Jean Anouilh. Great stuff, I bin in one of them.

I'd guess it was in L'alouette? (The Lark).

Which part -- and if you claim it was Jeanne d'Arc, we'll have to devise some taunts suitable to your performance history. :lol:

LSN

[xidrep]

Non, it was Ring Round The Moon. I was Messerschman...open-air theatre job, and it was the part that nearly diverted me into Drama as a career...I could've been the next Dr Who, me...instead I'm Who? You - a Doctor? :lol:

[A_Non_Ymous]

:? That's the English name for L'Invitation au Chأ¢teau, right?

Interesting choice.

LSN

[xidrep]

Yep, it's the only Anouilh I know, TBH! :lol: I seem to recall I took the part because there was a shedload of crumpet in the play...

Another Gallic bloke to suffer with poor translation IMHO is poor old Verne. Know any decent English versions? :roll:

[A_Non_Ymous]

No, but if you read a little French, you might give it a try. The language is pretty clear and straightforward.

LSN

[nalpak retrac]

Another Gallic bloke to suffer with poor translation IMHO is poor old Verne. Know any decent English versions? :roll:

William Butcher (a literature prof. in Hong Kong) has recently translated a whole slew of them. Published by Oxford. I have read Verne in French and in English, and from what I've seen Butcher doesn't omit anything.

Another possible funding source is of course advertising. This can be handled in a creative way, I think. E-mail artists and musicans--people who put ads in the back of art magazines like Juxtapoze, for example, or contact people advertising in New Age kinds of magazines like Gnosis--and describe the project and offer very low rates to begin with. University and science fiction presses might also be a source of ad revenue. Actually, the presence of some peculiar ads might enhance the experience of reading the magazine. You could sprinkle these pages too with odd-ball adds taken from the 1890s, perhaps, or the 1930s, and photos and ads from German Nazi and Italian Fascist magazines? Red Chinese/North Korean clippings from the 50s and 60s?

By the way, thanks LSN for telling me about this exciting project. :D

Cheers, Carter

[A_Non_Ymous]

Carter's ideas about advertising are interesting. What do you guys think about his proposals?

By the way, thanks LSN for telling me about this exciting project. :D

De rien. The goals seemed to me to include getting the most interesting submissions possible. I've seen your postings before, and it's not hard to determine whether a person is a good writer on the basis of a modest amount of evidence. So you seemed like a good candidate.

Thanks, by the way, for sending me copies of your submissions. Very interesting work!

LSN

[xidrep]

Thanks for the ideas, KC! I must admit that the ad's section of Fortean Times is always fun, so it may be a good route to take...

I have been toying with some Soviet and Mongolian/Chinese imagery; I've always liked the aesthetics of these; the 'Foetus' album covers of a few years back did some stark but interesting things with this. I've got a bit of stock of Victorian ad's and invention patents, too...some possibilities there. I'm still experimenting with some layout possibilities, and I'll be running some ideas past (aka 'hassling') PWV and DCS on the subject frequently...I think realistic publication for PX1 will be around June-July, if I'm realistic....I don't want to rush the publishing after all the hard work folk have put in. Hope that's not too slow for everybody! :?

[A_Non_Ymous]

I agree that unnecessary haste in this production is a mistake. We appreciate your efforts, Darren, and know that this entails a lot of hard work without remuneration.

Not to mention reading all the manuscripts!

That raises an interesting question for Mr. Moorcock. When he was editing New Worlds, I would imagine that he encountered burn-out on reading the submissions (slush) pile at times. That occurs when you just can't stand to read another story, but deadline pressures mean you can't stop. I would worry in such a situation about one's judgement being slightly impaired due to antipathy. How did he cope, I wonder? Did he just defer reading the 'pile, or did he do a divide-and-conquer, and parcel out the reading of manuscripts to the other editors involved. (At various times, Harrison, Sallis, Platt, and Bailey.)

Just curious. We've got only one Perdix, and he must be carefully rationed if we wish him to retain such sanity as he still owns.

LSN

[xidrep]

>Gibber< :lol:

[A_Non_Ymous]

>Gibber< :lol:

It is good to see that your mental state is improving!

LSN

[xidrep]

In truth, I will in all probability 'farm out' submissions for future editions to members of the elite Praetorian Guard of a proposed 'Editorial Board', whose membership will be strictly selected on the basis of whoever happens to be daft enough to sound vaguely interested :lol:.

[Anonymous]

You do burn out. I always reckoned an editor had about five years in them before they burned out. I tended to retire at five or six year intervals! You also get a nose for talent and can generally spot it in the first page. However, I never trusted my nose after the first year or so and I always had another editor (Lang Jones in the early days, then Sallis, then Platt and others) read submissions, too. I would also publish a story I didn't personally like if someone else was keen on it. At least two of the stories I didn't like went on to become perennial favourites.
Towards the end of our large size issues, the magazine was effectively edited by a committee, each of whom was permitted to choose at least one story per issue. This was because I was pretty sure I'd burned out.
Much of the fiction I liked by then wasn't even imaginative, let alone sf!
I wasn't altogether satisfied with those 'committee' issues. While I'm a populist democrat as far as politics are concerned, I think the best editor is a benign, possibly loony, dictator.