When SF eats worms and dies, then everyone will be sorry

[james_davis_nicoll]

Are James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald holding SF down while Ernest Hemingway kicks it in the ribs?

If I wasn't so consumed with lassitude, I'd looking for a recent matching "The problem with modern SF is that it is too literary, what with all the homosexuals and girls writing it" essay. I'm sure one exists, though.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously underwhelmed that the Booker judges only look at what the publishers send them. Don't they read anything for their own pleasure during the year? Don't they notice whether any of it impresses them?

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

But how many books *do* the publishers send them? One book each? Two? How many publishers? Is the total list... waitaminute, I can google this. Wikipedia sez:

* Each publisher's imprint may submit two titles. In addition, previous winners of the prize and those who have been shortlisted in the previous ten years are automatically considered. Books may also be called in: publishers can make written representations to the judges to consider titles in addition to those already entered. In the 21st century the average number of books considered by the judges has been approximately 130.
* The list of books making the longlist was first released in 2001. In 2003 there were 23 books on the longlist, in 2002 there were 20 and in 2001 there were 24.
* For the first 35 years of the Booker, there were only five years when fewer than six books were on the shortlist, and two years (1980 and 1981) when there were seven on the shortlist.

Probably not every judge reads all 130 books. If they do, I'm impressed. I would guess that they *do* all read at least the total longlist, which is at least 20 books, and probably more than that. Even among fandom, getting through one book every two weeks is a pretty good average (though we all know people who easily pass that).

Last time I was a Worldcon member, and thus Hugo voter, I made an effort (though failed) to read every issue of the 'big 3' SF magazines for that year. Even that incomplete attempt took up almost *all* my available reading time that year, and still left me having not read a significant number of stories that made the final ballot, which came from original anthologies, online sources, or just issues I had missed.

Reading 'all the good stuff' in a field is impossible in theory, and even making a good college try is *hard work*.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I agree with that, but maybe the judges should be able to nominate a book or two each for the long list instead of leaving it all up to the publishers.

[avram]

Maybe, or maybe not. A lot of award competitions rely on submissions. Art competitions, for example, are generally submission-based; the judges don't sit around saying "Hey, I saw this really cool painting three months back, let's add it to the list."

[narmitaj.livejournal.com]

Booker judges panels can call in extra books (http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1204); in fact, some publishers suggest them (I wonder if any, if they're risk-takers, do not submit their strongest book, gambling that it will be called in).

120 books is already a lot to read in four months between noms closing and the longlist being announced. I doubt whether all the judges read every book all the way through, especially at maximum concentration - but careful who you and where you ask (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/is-selina-scott-really-worth-pounds-1m-a-year-1268574.html): "Ms [Selina] Scott has been dogged by suggestions that she is all looks and no substance. Her low-brow reputation was set in 1983 when live on television she famously asked Fay Weldon, the chair of the Booker Prize jury, if she had actually read all* the books being judged. A moment the BBC cruelly included in its TV Hell programme in 1992."

*I am assuming SS meant all the submitted books, not just "all" the books in the shortlist. But maybe she meant that.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Just because you might be interested: the Not the Booker winner.