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August 31, 2003

Buttons
Posted by Teresa at 03:48 PM *

I bought another button. This one says, in necessarily small type:

It’s okay to disagree with me. However, once I explain where you’re wrong, you’re supposed to become enlightened and change your mind. Congratulating me on how smart I am is optional.
It doesn’t represent my own opinions.
Comments on Buttons:
#1 ::: julia ::: (view all by) ::: August 31, 2003, 04:34 PM:

My brother got me that one at ICon.

For some reason or other.

#2 ::: Barb Nielsen ::: (view all by) ::: August 31, 2003, 11:30 PM:

You wrote it. Right?

#4 ::: Robert L ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 01:42 AM:

And what if we're both wearing that button?

#5 ::: Jane ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 02:19 AM:

Clearly I need that button for David!

Jane

#6 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 04:45 AM:

I've had that one in my rotating sigs for some time. I got it from Karl Johanson, whose sig it was on Usenet for 5 years or so. (The one thing I really dislike about Nancy's buttons is the way she takes quotes from Usenet and uses them without attribution.)

#7 ::: caren ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 11:32 AM:

where can i obtain such button? my roommate just about keeled over when he read it... :)

#8 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 12:13 PM:

I generally don't go in for buttons, but Hilde gave me one a few years ago that read: A PILE FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN ITS PILE.

And I've had a few custom-made:

One says: MY LIFE IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN FRANZ KAFKA AND LEWIS CARROLL. (That was made during a period when life seemed equally divided between nightmare and nonsense.)

The other one reads: ROGER ELWOOD OWES ME MONEY

#9 ::: Yonmei ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 12:45 PM:

I use the following as a sig on some e-mails. I've thought about putting it on a badge, but it's possible that I really need it on a t-shirt. It's in the form of a "memo to self", which perhaps should be indicated.

Whenever you find yourself having these arguments with other people you should always remember that your way of thinking about things is weird.
#10 ::: blaise ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 02:16 PM:

I second Caren -- where can the rest of us buy these things, on line in the best of all possible words...

#11 ::: blaise ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 02:17 PM:

I second Caren -- where can the rest of us buy these things, on line in the best of all possible worlds...

#12 ::: Sander ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 02:51 PM:

Prospective buyers: Google "Nancy + button" and Bob's your, ehm, uncle.

#13 ::: Arthur D. Hlavaty ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 04:55 PM:

David: How would you footnote a button?

#14 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 07:55 PM:

To answer Arthur's semi-rhetorical question -- it's fairly easy to footnote a button in the same manner as was used to put mottoes on various US coins -- make it appear on the edge. As the button sizing is about as rigorous as a US coin, printing the attribution in the area that will appear on the edge _in the vast majority of cases leaving out some pathological exceptions_ (inserted for the too-literal-minded, who are fortunately not common here) is both a source of amusement for the anally-retentive (intended as an attributive adjective, TNH) purchasers and a source of egoboo for the person attributed. And it costs a few seconds of time, and nothing in material, once the template-concept has been actualized (he winces at the neologism).

Cheers,
Tom

#15 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 07:59 PM:

(Yes, I know it won't always be readable, but for those of us who look for mastering information in the middle of LPs [Hi, Porky] or CDs, it'll still be amusing to look for it)

#16 ::: Zack Weinberg ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 08:13 PM:

Who is Roger Elwood, and why did you have a custom button made saying that he owes you money?

#17 ::: Kip W ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 09:12 PM:

Elwood was (is?) an editor of sf, who was known for underpaying arthurs.

It has been brought to our attention that that should be "underpaying authors." Never mind.

Considering some of what he published, he might just owe money to everybody who bought one of his books. I was happy, though, in 1975 or so, when he published the original version of "The City on the Edge of Forever" in an anthology. It made up for a lot.

#18 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 10:18 PM:

That's a damned good anthology, if it's the one I'm thinking of--it's got Tom Reamy's Sting! in it, doesn't it? I don't recall any of those scripts stinking, and Sting! should get produced.

#19 ::: Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 11:19 PM:

Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Elwood, 1976. Contains:

  • The City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison
  • Sting!, Tom Reamy
  • Contact Point, Theodore R. & George Rae Cogswell
  • Stranger with Roses, John W. Jakes
  • The Mechanical Bride, Fritz Leiber
  • Let Me Hear You Whisper, Paul Zindel
#20 ::: Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 11:20 PM:

Tom: I've helped Nancy assemble buttons, and trust me when I say that doing small print designed to appear on the edge of the button would work very unreliably.

#21 ::: Robert L ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 11:54 PM:

You could always stick an asterisk on the original button, and then put your footnote in smaller type on a button below it--repeating as needed...

#22 ::: Robert L ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2003, 11:59 PM:

There's a good deal more to the Roger Elwood story--everything you say it true, but it's sort of like saying that Winston Churchill was a British politician who smoked a lot of cigars...I don't have the energy to explain it all, but suffice it to say that he more or less permanently altered the SF market for short fiction, and not for the better. Ask David Hartwell; he can explain it better than I can...

#23 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 05:46 AM:

Tom: it amuses me mightily to see you speaking of others perhaps being overly literal-minded.

#24 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 05:47 AM:

As to the matter of how to attribute a button; it seems to me that all but the very longest of slogans leave a bit of space in which might be put, e.g., "--Karl Johanson". Perhaps in smaller letters.

#25 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 06:28 AM:

David -- when I'm being overly literal, it's a form of play. When you're doing it, it's a foible. When others do it, it's a character flaw.

(those who do not already know the form of this joke should take a moment and consider the nature of humor, with a side of linguistic classification theory)

Cheers,
Tom

#26 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 08:27 AM:

Here's the Roger-Elwood-owes-me-money story:

Back in 1973, during the midst of the period during which Elwood flooded the SF market with literally dozens of mostly forgettable anthologies, I interviewed him. This resulted in a long article, "Roger Elwood: A Personal Reaction", which appeared in my own fanzine, GODLESS, and was subsequently reprinted in Dick Geis' SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW.

Roger felt I had treated him unfairly, and that I should have simply transcribed the interview with him. (He had actually paid my airfare from Virginia to New Jersey for the interview.) He also felt that my own anti-religious feelings (he was a fervent Christian) had slanted the article to his disadvantage. (I had tried very hard not to do so in the article.)

Things rested at that point for the next twenty-five years.

On Easter Sunday, 1998, while I was out of the house, my wife Hilde answered the phone to find Roger Elwood on the other end. He had called (collect!) to see if perhaps I was ready to apologize for the article I had written in 1973.

After a short time talking with him, Hilde finally hung up on him after he kept insisting he deserved an apology from me. But one of the other items of information that came up in the phone call was that Roger had been teaching classes at a Texas seminary, and he had been using "Roger Elwood: A Personal Reaction" as an example of anti-Christian writing.

If something I wrote is being re-used as educational materials... shouldn't I be getting -royalties-?

#27 ::: Kellie ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 10:27 AM:

Well, he at least owes you for the collect call.

#28 ::: Howard Weaver ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 01:04 PM:

My favorite button was given to me by my wife. It says "I'm not very smart, but I can lift heavy things."

Is this a compliment?

#29 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 01:48 PM:

howard, it is a compliment if you think so. Contrariwise as well. Unless you're welly tight in.... (the first CLD reference is a gimme, the second much less so)

#30 ::: Leigh Butler ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 07:03 PM:

I'd like to read that article.

#31 ::: Kip W ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2003, 09:40 PM:

My favorite button is light blue. Nancy made it for me for half price. Before that, my favorite was my white button, but I find the blue one is just a bit more expressive.

#32 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 04:10 PM:

Of course you can footnote a button. Mike Ford once made me a button that had four footnotes on it. The non-footnoted text read, "Trust me, I'm a pedant."

(Alas, the button was ruined when I got caught in a rainstorm, and water leaked in behind the plastic cover.)

Bruce, I'd say that Roger Elwood's over the line if he's using your copyrighted piece in his class without at least getting your permission. If you were the sort who enjoys litigation for its own sake, you could probably get some money out of him whether he wanted to pay it or not. Short of that, you could point out that if he's all that bloody virtuous, he could pay proper fees for the work he uses. Tell him it's covered under rule #8.

(Hoo boy. Talk about someone who can't excuse himself on the grounds that he didn't know that you have to pay authors for using their work.)

He's also over the line if he's claiming that your interview is an example of anti-Christian writing, but there's no help for that one. Easily nine out of ten (or maybe nineteen out of twenty) of the people I disemvowel for rudeness are absolutely sure that I did it because I disagreed with their political views.

You don't have to go to David Hartwell to hear about how Roger Elwood semi-permanently screwed up the anthology market by flooding it with carelessly edited theme anthologies.

For a couple of years Roger Elwood sold theme anthologies to everybody, just an astounding number of titles. I don't care how naive he afterward pretended to be, when the anthology market collapsed in ruins; he'd been in the business for years, and he had to have known that the market couldn't possibly assimilate as many theme anthologies as he was selling. Here's the chronology of his anthologies per year:

1964: 1
1965: 1
1966: 1
1967: 1
1968: 1
1969: 3
1970: 1
1971: 0
1972: 4
1973: 17
1974: 22
1975: 8
1976: 3
1977: 1
1978: 0

With the exception of a few deliberate series, the mid-'70s contracts were modest one- or two-book deals. The problem was that there were so many of them. Here's the list of his publishers by year:

1964: Paperback Library

1965: Paperback Library

1966: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

1967: Tower

1968: Tower

1969: MacFadden-Bartell (3x)

1970: MacFadden-Bartell

1971: ---

1972: Avon, Chilton, Fleming H. Revell, MacFadden-Bartell

1973: Avon (2x), Concordia, Doubleday, Fawcett Gold Medal, Follett, Franklin Watts, Harper & Row, Macmillan (2x), Manor, Rand McNally (2x), Random House, Trident, Walker, Whitman

1974: Aurora, Berkley/Putnam (3x), Curtis, Dodd Mead, Doubleday, Franklin Watts, John Knox Press (?!), Julian Messner, Lerner SF Library (8x), Pocket, Rand McNally, Thomas Nelson, Trident

1975: Berkley, Berkley/Putnam, Bobbs-Merrill, Evans, Follett, Manor, Prentice-Hall, Warner

1976: Archway, Pocket, Washington Square Press

1977: Bobbs-Merrill

What happened? Mr. Occam thinks the likeliest explanation is that all (or almost all) of the Elwood anthologies published between 1972 and 1977 were contracted for in 1970-1972. You can only sell anthologies at that rate until the field catches on to what you're doing. By this theory, what Elwood did was deliberately talk his way into as many anthology contracts as possible, with as many publishers as possible, before word could get out about what he was doing.

I don't know how honest Roger Elwood was when he started doing anthologies. Maybe he didn't go into it planning to establish a track record, then rip off SF publishing for everything he could get. However, I can't see any other way to interpret what he did in the mid-'70s. Stupidity doesn't cover it.

Bear in mind that when the publishers signed their anthology contracts with Elwood, they had no way of knowing that he was carpet-bombing the field with them. He had a track record, and I assume his first several anthologies must have sold reasonably well. I've never heard anybody say whether he warned prospective publishers about all his other projects, but I can't believe he did, because they wouldn't have taken him on.

Anyway, by the time Roger Elwood was finished, you couldn't have sold an SF anthology in North America if it were priced at ten cents and made out of Godiva chocolate.

The other rotten thing he did was show the field how easy it is to put together a lousy anthology. It's hard to explain this one to younger readers, but before Roger Elwood, anthologies and story collections were a reliable staple of SF publishing. They were popular. Readers had faith in them. I bought a lot of them myself, in the sublime certainty that Pohl or Merrill or Knight or Conklin wouldn't let me down.

Roger Elwood single-handedly broke the story collection/anthology market. He squandered the credibility accumulated over the years by better anthologists, and wrecked the readers' faith in story collections. I remember it vividly, because I was one of those readers. To this day, anthologies and story collections are a hard sell. That's his fault and no one else's.

You know the scene in The Producers where the accountant figures out that it's easier to make money with an over-invested Broadway flop than with a successful show? Before Roger Elwood, it had not yet become evident that an editor can make money by skimping on an anthology, whether or not it sells, because the unspent portion of the advance goes into his own pocket. It also helps if you don't put too much work into it, which frees you up to collect your smallish profit from a largish number of titles.

(This hadn't previously been evident because people who were primarily interested in money tended to avoid SF publishing.)

Can I prove that that was Elwood's intent? No. He undoubtedly knew when he contracted for them that, due to his own undisclosed actions, his anthologies couldn't possibly perform as expected. That's dishonest enough. I can't prove that he was also dishonest about the quality of the work. Still, falsus in unum 85

Look at the eight titles he did for Lerner in 1974. Lerner publishes children's books, and the "Lerner SF Library" appears to have been an eight-volume uniform-format hardcover series of originally commissioned stories, three or four per volume; so there must have been at least a dab of money involved.

The books -- Adrift in Space, The Graduated Robot, Journey to Another Star, The Killer Plants, The Mind Angel, The Missing World, Night of the Sphinx, and The Tunnel -- are suspiciously long on authors with slight publishing credits outside of Roger Elwood projects. I'm not going to point fingers and name names, but in just those eight books there are three authors whose only sale recorded in the ISFDB is to that book, two more authors who only ever sold to Roger Elwood, and one who only sold to Roger Elwood but got one story picked up for republication elsewhere.

That isn't good. It isn't even probable. One doesn't normally commission new stories on a set theme from untried and unpublished authors. A magazine editor might buy an already-written story from a nameless newbie; but then, a good story is its own reason and its own excuse, no matter who wrote it. Alas, that's not what we're talking about here.

I'll grant that the Lerner series had a sprinkling of respectable names like Jack Dann, Lawrence M. Janifer, Barry Malzberg, and Mack Reynolds, and that each volume has a foreword by Isaac Asimov. That's nice, but it doesn't excuse the rest. It certainly doesn't excuse the fact that two of the books had stories by Eando Binder, and a third had a story by Otto Binder.

Earl and Otto Binders' work was reasonably lively pulp in its day, but even in its day it was never very good, and by modern standards it's not up to modern standards. Moreover, Earl Binder quit co-authoring stories with his brother in 1955, and died in 1965. Otto Binder died in 1975. There aren't many scenarios that account for the two of them suddenly starting to write brand-new stories for Roger Elwood's 1974 anthologies.

There was no shortage of good short fiction writers in 1974. Damon Knight was doing Orbit, Terry Carr was doing Universe, and if you wanted theme anthologies, that was the year of Jack Dann's Wandering Stars. Single-author collections published that year included Disch's 334, Silverberg's Born with the Dead, Ellison's Approaching Oblivion, Keith Roberts' The Chalk Giants, Haldeman's The Forever War, Carol Emshwiller's Joy in Our Cause, and George Martin's A Song for Lya. In fact there was a very lively short-fiction scene, and if your budget was short, there were also a lot of talented newbies coming up just then. Why disinter the Binder brothers?

Anyway, anyway. Roger Elwood made howevermuch he made, and when the inevitable crash came he walked away from science fiction whistling. I heard an unconfirmed rumor that he'd worked in pro wrestling publications for a while, then quit when he discovered that the matches were rigged. Maybe it happened. Maybe he said that about it. He did do a pretty good version of "I'm just a simple tootsie from the country."

As I said earlier, story collections and anthologies have been a hard sell ever since, and that's purely Roger Elwood's fault. It's made life harder for short-fiction writers, since they don't sell second rights nearly as often as they used to. It's also cut a lot of the readership off from short fiction, which is the field's R&D lab and quick-response dialogue with itself, and it's cost everyone a lot of good reading.

I expect that if you said all that to Roger Elwood, he'd get huffy and tell you what a good Christian he is. It's not my place to say whether he is or he isn't. All I can say is that he doesn't look like much of a saint from here.

#33 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 05:05 PM:

Just to be slightly pedantic, though 334, THE FOREVER WAR, and THE CHALK GIANTS had bits of them published as short stories, they weren't packaged as short story collections but as novels. And FOREVER WAR even won a Hugo as a novel. This doesn't detract substantially from the argument, just a nitpick for historical accuracy's sake.

Cheers,
Tom

#34 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 05:19 PM:

Shall I send a note about it to the ISFDB? It's no excuse, not when I'm dealing with you; but that's where I got it.

#35 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 05:22 PM:

So I take it the one Elwood anthology I have--the one with the six plays--is an exception to the rule, in that the authors have significant publication histories and the scripts range from good to great.

(I'm still trying to get the Judith Merril anthologies I don't have! We found England Swings SF this weekend, and I'm hoping to find the one of her annuals that I need so badly soon.)

A question, though:

Is the trade paper market for anthologies in the same shape as the mass market, uh, market? Seems like I see a fair number of those, but I don't really keep up with the field these days.

Oh, and buttons? When we used to have buttons manufactured for political stuff, we always put our contact info--address and phone number--around the edge. Easy advertising, somewhat effective.

#36 ::: Kellie ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 05:35 PM:

TNH wrote: Anyway, by the time Roger Elwood was finished, you couldn't have sold an SF anthology in North America if it were priced at ten cents and made out of Godiva chocolate.

I dunno, Teresa. I know there are a few books I would snag for that price in that medium if only for the satisfaction of being able to say, "I ate that book because that was the only way I could stomach it."

#37 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 06:22 PM:

Drop me a note offline, adamsjp, and I may be able to help with your anthology search....

(just remove the NO SPAM to do so.)

Cheers,
Tom W.

#38 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 06:45 PM:

And T, the ISFDB probably uses some definition of "collection" that is sufficiently arcane to include "anything that had part of it published as a separate story"; they probably don't care about how things were marketed. Those three actually represent a pretty good continuum of the fix-up, with the Haldeman the most like a novel, the Disch in the middle, and the Roberts the least. Do they list McCaffrey's DRAGONFLIGHT as a collection? It seems to be the only novel to have won a Hugo and a Nebula without winning either (two parts of it won each as a novella, and it won nothing as a whole).

Cheers,
Tom

#39 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 09:23 PM:

I forget whether they list Dragonflight, but I like the fact that it's a novel that won the Hugo and Nebula without winning either. That's nice. It's like the great trick question about which Latin American country is entirely oriental.

Adamsj, the collection of plays was a reprint anthology, not originally commissioned work. It's well regarded, which is not surprising considering how seldom genre-related plays get collected. Gives you a lot to choose from.

Tell Tom "yes" if you want that book. His gift for finding books verges on the supernatural, and that's on his bad days.

#40 ::: Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2003, 11:23 PM:

Roger Elwood had one unmistakable virtue: In those 44 anthologies, he published 19 R. A. Lafferty short stories, including "The World as Will and Wallpaper". I'm not saying that no one else would have published them; I'm just saying that even a blind pig finds a truffle now and again.

#41 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 04:19 AM:

I've never heard the one about the Latin American country. What's the answer?

If we're trading geographical trivia, here's one I've always liked: What's the largest US city east of Reno and west of Chicago?

#42 ::: dm sherwood ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 07:06 AM:

I'm thinking of getting one made for an Uncle of mine 'SURE I'M WILLING TO DISCUSS THE MATTER IN AN ADULT MANNER BUT YOU DO REALISE THAT I'M INTITLED TO WIN THE ARGUEMENT. YOU DON'T? hOW IMMATURE'

#43 ::: James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 07:09 AM:

I'd just be guessing, about the Latin American country, but I'd guess that it's the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

#44 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 10:46 AM:

a1Correcto! We remember that it's the Oriental Republic of Uruguay about as often as we call a certain West Coast city El Pueblo de Nuestra Sef1ora Reina de Los Angeles del Redo de Porcifancula.

#45 ::: Tina ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 11:37 AM:

Good gods. Is that really L.A.'s full name? No wonder it goes by its initials!

And you had to go and make me look up Porcifancula.

#46 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 08:32 PM:

David: population or area? IIRC, Houston beat out Philadelphia for 5th place in population some time ago, but some implausible place (Oklahoma City? Tulsa??) has a greater area than anything anywhere in the U.S. (>800 square miles? LA, which used to be tops at 453, has been pushed down a few notches by cities that were still allowed to eat their neighbors.

Tom: thank you. I haven't seen a new conjugation in a long while....

#47 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 08:55 PM:

When I lived in Oklahoma, everyone said it was Oklahoma City which was larger than Los Angeles. Possibly that was just compensation for all the culture being in Tulsa, though.

#48 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2003, 10:48 PM:

Teresa, for over twenty-five years, every time I've heard the phrase "a simple tootsie in the country", it has brought you to mind.

However, after your comment uptopic, I have this horrible fear that from now on, what "simple tootsie" will bring to my mind's eye will be the pasty, flabby image of Roger Elwood.

#49 ::: James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2003, 01:06 AM:

Pittsburg (named for Prime Minister William Pitt), New Hampshire (population 867) is the largest town in the state of New Hampshire, with a total of 282.3 square miles of land area and 9.0 square miles of inland water area.

It also has the distinction of having once been a separate country.

#50 ::: nln csn ::: (view all by) ::: November 03, 2003, 11:23 AM:

Jst t b slghtl pdntc, thgh 334, TH FRVR WR, nd TH CHLK GNTS hd bts f thm pblshd s shrt strs, thy wrn't pckgd s shrt str cllctns bt s nvls. nd FRVR WR vn wn Hg s nvl. Ths dsn't dtrct sbstntll frm th rgmnt, jst ntpck fr hstrcl ccrc's sk.

#51 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: November 03, 2003, 12:08 PM:

How amusing, a bot that picks up a previous comment and reinserts it. I wonder how it picks one (since it was mine that it picked, and I don't know whether to be pleased, insulted, or amused at random variation....)
Cheers,
Tom

#52 ::: Alan Bostick ::: (view all by) ::: November 03, 2003, 12:09 PM:

online casino: Did you have an actual response to Tom Whitmore's comment, or did you just like it so much that you couldn't resist repeating it?

PS: Your site sucks runny eggs. Enthusiastic one-sentence blurbs don't cut it as reviews.

#53 ::: Alan Bostick ::: (view all by) ::: November 03, 2003, 12:11 PM:

Unlike online pr0n sites, online casinos need only snare one sucker to pay for hundreds if not thousands of dollars of promotional expenses.

#54 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: November 05, 2003, 01:43 PM:

Goodness, look at that. It's another one for the collective blacklist.

#55 ::: Alan Bostick ::: (view all by) ::: November 05, 2003, 07:59 PM:

Teresa, I think you should register the domain I-am-about-to-lose-my-vowels.com.

#56 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: November 05, 2003, 08:53 PM:

It's a little late for me to get into the Elwood digression. But I personally resent his poisoning the well at Mcfadden-Bartell, which my father, Samuel H. Post, Cum Laude in English Literature from Harvard, ran honorably for several years before Elwood dumped some there. For the record:

Samuel H. Post was the uncredited anthologist/editor of two
collections of science fiction stories:
"The 6 Fingers of Time and Other Stories" (New York: McFadden,
50-244, 1965)
"The Frozen Planet" (New York: McFadden, 60-229, 1966)
As Editor of MacFadden-Bartell Corporation, Sam Post published the
following paperback books (acquired them, wrote blurbs and
introductions, designed covers, wrote contracts, designed ads...):
Margery Allingham, "The Mind Readers", (75-175, 1967)
Poul Anderson, "The High Crusade", (50-211, 1964)
Poul Anderson, "The High Crusade", (60-349, 1968)
Poul Anderson, "Time and Stars", (60-206, 1965)
Taylor Caldwell, "The Devil's Advocate", (75-126, 1964)
Taylor Caldwell, "The Devil's Advocate", (75-184, 1967)
Curtis W. Casewit, "The Peacemakers", (60-321, 1968)
Mark Clifton, "When They Come From Space", (40-105, 1963)
Mark Clifton, "When They Come From Space", (50-341, 1967)
Philip K. Dick, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (60-240, 1966)
Philip K. Dick, "Now Wait for Last Year" (60-352, 1968)
Gordon R. Dickson, "No Room for Man", (50-179, 1963)
Gordon R. Dickson, "No Room for Man", (50-329, 1966)
R. C. W. Ettinger, "The Prospect of Immortality", (75-166, 1966),
1st Cryonics book in paperback
J. Hunter Holly, "The Mind Traders", (60-291, 1967)
Damon Knight, "Beyond the Barrier", (50-234, 1965)
Damon Knight, "Cities of Wonder", (75-183, 1967)
Cyril M. Kornbluth, "A Mile Beyond the Moon", (40-100, 1962)
Cyril M. Kornbluth, "A Mile Beyond the Moon", (50-288, 1966)
Murray Leinster, "The Greks Bring Gifts", (50-224, 1964)
Murray Leinster, "The Greks Bring Gifts", (50-418, 1968)
John Lymington, "Froomb!", (60-287, 1967)
George B. Mair, "The Day Khruschev Panicked", (50-183, 1963)
S. Michael, "Journey Into Limbo", (60-140, 1963)
Sam Moskowitz, "Doorway Into Time", (50-311, 1966)
Sam Moskowitz, "Microcosmic God and Other Stories", (60-335, 1968)
Eric North [B. C. Cronin], "The Ant Men", (60-277, 1967)
Alan E. Nourse, "Tiger by the Tail", (50-199, 1964)
Alan E. Nourse, "Tiger by the Tail", (60-309, 1968)
Dorothy Sayers, "Human and Inhuman Stories", (50-156, 1963)
Dorothy Sayers, "Human and Inhuman Stories", (60-298, 1967)
Dorothy Sayers, "Stories of the Supernatural", (50-170, 1963)
Dorothy Sayers, "Stories of the Supernatural", (50-300, 1967)
Clifford Simak, "All the Traps of Earth", (50-165, 1963)
Clifford Simak, "They Walked Like Men", (50-184, 1963)
Clifford Simak, "They Walked Like Men", (50-381, 1967)
Clifford Simak, "Way Station", (60-198, 1963)
Clifford Simak, "All the Traps of Earth", (50-388, 1967)
Edward E. "Doc" Smith, "The Vortex Blaster", (60-325, 1968)
J. Stearn, "The Door to the Future", (75-152, 1964)
William F. Temple, "Shoot at the Moon", (60-239, 1967)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", (60-146, 1963)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", (60-318, 1968)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Beast", (60-169, 1964)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Beast", (60-343, 1968)
A. E. van Vogt, "Empire of the Atom", (60-267, 1966)
A. E. van Vogt, "Masters of Time", (50-334, 1967)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Changeling", (50-335, 1967)
A. E. van Vogt, "The Wizard of Linn", (60-366, 1968)

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Making Light copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden. All rights reserved.