165 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
165 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
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0$0$0$$0$0$0$0$0$0 CHEAP TRUTH 9 $0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0
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EDITORIAL. Ghettos are insular places. The antics of ghetto elders or
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sinister youth gangs may assume absurd importance to a degraded and indigent
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populace. In their wretched haste to eke out a living, they may forget that
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the outside world exists.
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This is modern SF's predicament. Extrapolations, that once held some
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intellectual validity, have now become distorted folk tales, passed down
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through generations. SF's vision of the future has become a Punch and Judy
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show, ritualized, predictable, and fit only for children.
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This is not due to latter-day decadence. It is the result of a
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profound terror of the future and what it holds, a fin-de-millenaire
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obsession with apocalypse. Reader and author alike wrap themselves in
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escapist nonsense, quilted up from rags and tatters of jingoist imperial
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Americana or the comfortable minutiae of technical obsession.
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Yet this represents a profound abdication of SF's role in society.
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It is as if the scouts of a panic-stricken army had retreated to an obscure
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corner of camp.
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Attempts to actually go out and survey the territory are dismissed
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out of hand: too difficult, too dangerous, too depressing. Too much hard
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work. It's easier to exploit the panic: either by addiong to it with the
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latest gray dystopia, or by preying on the terror of a demoralized readership
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by offering cathartic power fantasies.
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To survive and revitalize itself, SF must find new visions of the
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human future. Never mind that 40-year-old crap about atomic armageddon. If
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we can't see any farther than that, then we will have added to the apathy and
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fatalism that are the allies of destruction.
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Think of it as an act of self-preservation. In the case of any
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profound disruption of society, our snug little ghetto will be the first to
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go. It's up to us to look for ways out. If not us, who?
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As a first step in this daunting and worthy task, CHEAP TRUTH offers
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the following guideposts in the
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wilderness.
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** SQUIRMING MAGS: Second Installment **
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** Social and Political Issues **
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AFKAR INQUIRY, 55 Banner Street, London EC1Y 8PX. Single issues
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US$2.50, UK80p. Perhaps the first order of business is to destroy our
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preconceptions and few magazines could be better fitted for that than AFKAR.
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Imagine an English-language magazine by radical fundamentalist Islamic
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FUTURISTS. Essays on Koranic epistemology alternate with analyses of Alvin
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Toffler and solar-age, small-is-beautiful manifestos. The upshot is little
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short of staggering: defiant, militant, self-contradictory, blazing with
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dangerous energies. Those who think of the Muslim Resurgence as a vaguely
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comic medieval anomaly should read this post-haste. AFKAR is a mix of
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mosques and monorails, AK-47s and Arab satellites, a propaganda organ for a
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new intelligentsia, who fancy themselves the avant-garde for an OPEC-financed
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global Islamic rebirth. Their writers are smart, fluent, furiously angry,
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and fanatically determined to build a future "neither East nor West." They
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mean business.
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SOUTH, The Magazine of the Third World, Suite 319, 230 Park Avenue,
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NYNY 10169, US$28/yr.; also 13th Floor, New Zealand House, 80 Haymarket,
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London SW1Y 4TS. The US media ignore Third Worlders unless they're either
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starving, or shooting Americans. Yet the curves of demographics and economic
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growth prove that the developing nations will wield an ever-growing influence
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in years to come. This is an excellent magazine, authoritative,
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well-written, with superior graphics. It covers Third World politics,
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finance, technology, and the arts, always with mind-opening perspectives. It
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is neither militant nor Marxist, yet doesn't cater to comfortable Yankee
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prejudice. Highly recommended.
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WORLD PRESS REVIEW, Box 915, Farmingdale, NY 11737, $19.95/yr. WPR
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is a summary of "news and views from the foreign press," most of them devoted
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to nervous assessments of what the rest of the world thinks of the US.
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"Moscow Beat" and "Asia/Pacific Beat" are especially intriguing. Its
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interest in economic issues gives it a forecaster's outlook useful to
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investors, speculators -- and extrapolators.
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WHOLE EARTH REVIEW, 27 Gate Five Road, Sausalito, CA 94965, US$18/yr.
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This periodical, formerly COEVOLUTION QUARTERLY, has gone through a
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marvelous sea-change. From tired old '60's tech hippies they have now become
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shiny new '80's hip techies, a much more palatable breed. They have
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published THE WHOLE EARTH SOFTWARE CATALOG, possibly the best book ever
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written for the layman about the promise and peril of personal computers.
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Even the earnest, dirt-stained, denim CQ was always good for a shot of uplift
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and optimism; now, equipped with red-hot com technology, they are like
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hardened jungle guerillas suddenly armed with Stealth bombers. These Green,
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eco-decentralist cadres may have underestimated the opposition in their
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struggle to create a sustainable, humanized society. But they suddenly have
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a big new chunk of loose change and a new constituency revolted by recent
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callous excesses against the environment. Exciting things are going to come
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from this magazine, and though their utopian schemes will almost certainly
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fail they will have a strong role in shaping the future.
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THE PLANETARY REPORT (journal of The Planetary Society) 110 S.
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Euclid Avenue, Pasadena CA 91101 (available with membership). A very
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interesting ideological struggle is taking shape within this slim little
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propaganda mag. The Planetary Society is Carl Sagan's pressure group for
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space exploration. The civilian scientific intelligentsia behind this
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publication are apparently nauseated by military ambitions in space. They
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have opened their membership to Soviet space scientists, thereby gaining in
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their last issue an incredible coup of previously unreleased Venusian surface
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photos. With the recent "nuclear winter" flap, Sagan and his ideological
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allies have gone to the barricades against what they perceive as
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crypto-Christian jingoistic Neanderthals in high office. Rarely do
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scientists speak out with this kind of media savvy, and they appear to have
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struck a chord. These people are not to be underestimated, despite their
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painful habit of talking down to their audience and their occasional excesses
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in mystic scientism (of the "Our DNA Must Reach The Stars" variety). And if
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their privately financed radiotelescope Search for ExtraTerrestrial
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Intelligence, by some cosmic mischance, should happen to deliver, well, all
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bets are off.
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We now yield the floor to a worthy comrade in the globe-spanning
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network of CHEAP TRUTH shills. Leaping from ambush behind the smoking office
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xerox, it's that two-fisted voice of reason, Your Friendly Editor, Mark
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Theroux.
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** GRIPE TIME **
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You people out there think that all science fiction editors do is
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talk on the phone, go to lunch, and attend conventions. Not so. Large
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amounts of time are spent coddling and placating writers who want to know
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"when are you going to run my stuff," "do you think anyone will like it?",
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"I'm stuck in the middle...." etc. (You know who you are.)
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That's okay, it's what we're here for. What editors hate is
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ungratefulness. Take for example the author with whom I spend hours of ofice
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time going over a ms that had potential. I felt sorry for the writer because
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he was only in town for a few days. I liked the story and it was a slow day.
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The rewrite didn't work and I rejected the story. Never got a
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thanks. Next time I heard of that writer he's making a big public stink.
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Or how about the writer who asked for, BEGGED for editorial comments
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on his ms. I wrote a three-page editorial letter, single-spaced, made
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suggestions, and what did I get back? A two-page personally and
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professionally insulting harangue criticising my solicited comments.
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Another time, I asked someone for a change in the beginning of a
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story. The author said sure. I got back the ms with the same beginning but
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with a different ending (worse than the original). I'm convinced that some
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writers cannot hear what editors say (and you know who YOU are, too.)
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Or how about the writers whose prose cannot be TOUCHED without
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permission. Don't change a comma, period, colon or misspelling -- or else!
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I don't care how long you've been writing or how famous you are, you
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can't be objective about your own work. Stephen King is a prime example.
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Yeah, he's successful, but boy, does he need an editor. Someone who can spot
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the inconsistencies, the repetition, the lapses of logic in plot or
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characterization. Editors aren't trying to destroy your words, your
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thoughts, or your reputations, you paranoid idiots. They're trying their
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damnedest to make a good piece of work better, a potentially great story or
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novel live up to that potential. That's what a good editor can do. Really,
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we're on your side.
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CHEAP TRUTH On-Line 809-C West 12th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 USA NOT
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COPYRIGHTED. Vincent Omniaveritas, editing. "Bored With the Apocalypse"
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