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What you can’t tell a book by
Nov. 17th, 2020 02:47 pmThe Art of Book Covers [Public Domain Review]
Not fantastic enough
Jul. 21st, 2019 03:45 pmHistory of Faber & Faber (T.S. Eliot and that lot) leaves out their substantial work with f/sf [Wormwoodiana]
The Big One
Jan. 4th, 2019 06:05 amHow The Lord of the Rings changed publishing forever. Might have said a bit more about how Terry Brooks & the del Reys discovered that you can create a template for infinitely replicable trilogy product by lopping off a few of the more interesting parts.
Thanx to Tor.com.
Thanx to Tor.com.
Mr. Eliot declines
Nov. 2nd, 2017 06:05 amWhen T.S. Eliot did not want to offend Comrade Stalin, which may have been more out of character than writing a poem with the refrain “For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.”
Thanx to RAW Illumination.
Thanx to RAW Illumination.
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Designs on you
Dec. 19th, 2016 05:39 amIn 2009 the British Royal Post issued a set of ten stamps to honor classics of British design. One of those was the original Penguin paperback: two broad orange stripes surrounding a white stripe, with the title and author in clear, readable text: elegant simplicity.
But design is an autoantonym, like oversight and sanction. It means clear thinking made visible, as Edward Tufte would say, but it also means what other designers like, with mere users not getting a vote.
Penguin is now looking back at the good old days and came up with two new kinds of Penguin Classics. One takes the original orange design and adds little things crawling around on it, which I guess is appropriate for the Lovecraft reprint but not the others. The other is worse: one fantasy and five sf books. The fantasy, The Once and Future King, merely violates the rule that Olde Englishe and all-caps don’t go together. The sf books look futuristic, if not readable, with the sort of approach that feels letters would be much better design elements if only they didn’t have to mean anything. Perhaps the best part is that the title of Frank Herbert’s interminable adventure classic looks like DUNG.
But design is an autoantonym, like oversight and sanction. It means clear thinking made visible, as Edward Tufte would say, but it also means what other designers like, with mere users not getting a vote.
Penguin is now looking back at the good old days and came up with two new kinds of Penguin Classics. One takes the original orange design and adds little things crawling around on it, which I guess is appropriate for the Lovecraft reprint but not the others. The other is worse: one fantasy and five sf books. The fantasy, The Once and Future King, merely violates the rule that Olde Englishe and all-caps don’t go together. The sf books look futuristic, if not readable, with the sort of approach that feels letters would be much better design elements if only they didn’t have to mean anything. Perhaps the best part is that the title of Frank Herbert’s interminable adventure classic looks like DUNG.
Servants of the Goddess
Mar. 5th, 2016 05:42 amI love Scott Alexander’s trope of the Goddess of Cancer vs. the Goddess of Everything Else. As human beings, we serve two deities: the one that tells us “KILL CONSUME MULTIPLY CONQUER” and the one that inspires love, cooperation, creativity, and knowledge.
There is another life-form, the corporation, and it may be like us except for the part about the Goddess of Everything Else. For the last 50 years or so, corporations have been carrying out battles of merger and acquisition that are as red in tooth & claw as anything Ev Psych could dream of. Publishing is a current example of this process. Once, publishers had some respect for the Goddess of Everything Else: The best sellers subsidized work that didn’t serve the bottom line as obviously. Now they can’t do that anymore. Their goddess will turn Her favors to those who do not have that weakness, so they must sacrifice more and more to survive. (Or maybe they are like the Ethnic fox that gnawed off three legs and is still in the trap.)
This post is dedicated to Sharyn November and Firebird Books.
There is another life-form, the corporation, and it may be like us except for the part about the Goddess of Everything Else. For the last 50 years or so, corporations have been carrying out battles of merger and acquisition that are as red in tooth & claw as anything Ev Psych could dream of. Publishing is a current example of this process. Once, publishers had some respect for the Goddess of Everything Else: The best sellers subsidized work that didn’t serve the bottom line as obviously. Now they can’t do that anymore. Their goddess will turn Her favors to those who do not have that weakness, so they must sacrifice more and more to survive. (Or maybe they are like the Ethnic fox that gnawed off three legs and is still in the trap.)
This post is dedicated to Sharyn November and Firebird Books.
