The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Janni:

#12/sisuile: My question is, what about books under the Luna imprint? If a gem is to be found there, are they still eligible for SFWA awards?

My understanding is that, while SFWA requires one be with a professional publisher to become a member, books don't have to be published with professional publishers to qualify for the Nebula Awards -- in theory, even actual self-published work is in fact eligible, if it meets the other requirements and the members vote it so. So Luna books would still be eligible for the nebs, as would any other Harlequin book, self-published or not, with SF/fantasy elements.

And wouldn't easy access to data mean more subway and bus riders, which would enhance their revenue? Essentially they're wanting to charge people for advertising, or maybe access to the user manual.

I bet a substantial number of people who fail to find the data they need give up and either walk or take a taxi, especially if they're in a rush or are tourists, thus cutting down on said revenue ...

K.G. Anderson, #7: I find that disconcerting precisely because it rings so very true.

The fact that there are scenarios in which a typewriter is the harder route doesn't mean there aren't also scenarios in which it's the only doable one, and the fact that there are poor or disabled individuals for whom a cheap computer is within easier reach than said typewriter does nothing to discount the notion that there are people for whom the reverse is true, because people's lives and the constraints on same differ from person to person. Which is the whole reason one can't generalize from "this works best for me" to "this is what works best for everyone and so ought to be required" in the first place.

I also wouldn't want to, if I were homeless or very poor, depend on trying to find carbon paper or typewritter ribbons in 2009, or pay for toner ink on the laptop and small printer I'd be carrying around with my blankets or leaving hidden in a park or a storage unit. Or pay for photocopying at the library to make copies of my paper stories.

That even used computers cost more than carbon paper and typewriter ribbons and a cheap typewriter, and that these are all findable things, is nonetheless true. As is that at least some libraries do enforce their time limits, or--more likely--rarely have a time when someone isn't waiting. (My library opens at 10. If I get there at 10, folks are already there waiting for the machines--all of which are full more often than not.)

Last I heard something like one in five people don't have computers--a significant portion of the population, for all that our all being around each other makes it hard to believe said people really exist sometimes.

Given that it's an easy thing to state that one prefers electronic copy, but will accept hardcopy if necessary, it seems a reasonable (not to mention kind) thing to err on the side of accessibility, in this one thing at least.

Most folks are already overwhelmed by submissions, true, and some filtering up front never hurts--but best it be on the basis of something other than economics as much as reasonably possible--and as accommodations go, this really is a pretty minor one. (No one's being asked to read manuscripts in purple ink, or cover the return postage, or anything like that.) I think BruceA makes a very good point.

Anyone who has ever poked one's head in to a US public library even once over the last decade knows that writing and submitting for publication is free, even for people poor enough to be literally homeless.

Yes and no. My public library, at least, has such a high demand for its computers that there's a 30-minute time limit. Since stories that are going to be submitted online also need to--at the least--manually into a word processing file if they're not first written in same--and then proofread and edited--that half hour isn't going to realistically cut it. Over a few visits, sure--but the hassle factor there is exceedingly high.

Far higher than the hassle it is for those of us with reliable computer access to drop a manuscript into an envelope, in fact--and how many folks are saying that is more work than submitting ought to require?

The whole reason I picked up 1984 off the dusty shelves in my family's summer house was that I needed something to read and it was clearly science fiction, unlike most of the other books on the shelf.

I believe suicide rates are highest in spring, too ...

That was my reaction--Boston Tea Party? How did I not know this existed sooner?

(#3 Andrea) Nader was the green candidate in New York? Huh, in Arizona it was Cynthia McKinney, and Nader was there without (I think) any party affiliation.

Heal well, Teresa. Thinking of you here.

Every time I hear a story like this, I think of the evacuation of Iceland's Heimæy Island. A smaller island, admittedly, but the entire population was saved, save for possibly one person looting a pharmacy. No one said, "bring it on" or "I'm staying with my home," because everyone who lived there knew there was no arguing with a volcano.

I'm not sure everyone would be so sensible here. As I recall, there were folks who remained on the slopes of Mount St. Helens, too.

I've been told that in Iceland, in stories of man versus nature, nature always wins.

One thing about drinking water: it means water. Soda isn't water, tea isn't water, coffee isn't water; none of them will hydrate you as well as water can, and some will leave you thirstier. (Gatorade, on the other hand, is sorta water.)

I never knew how good water tasted until I moved somewhere where the humidity can get down around 4 percent in summer--made staying hydrated a lot more intuitive than it had been. But the same principles apply in more humid places where it's less intuitive--all that changes is the quantity you need to keep feeling okay

Also, by the time you're thirsty, you're probably already dehydrated.

Harper claims to be unhappy about paying large advances ... as if
it's someone else who decided, and not the company itself, to inflate
those advances.

I'm not seeing how an author who already can command an obscenely
large advance would agree to a contract under the terms of this new
imprint anyway. So it's the authors getting smaller advances, or not
yet selling at all, who are likely to be published there.

Which makes this look like another way of paying low-end writers
less, rather than of spending less on high-end writers as the article
tries to imply.

I had the same thought as Kate Nepveu (#13) about the Llama song,
but whatever it is, the fact that there's something like Llama song
filk in the world still made my day. :-)

#17: The primary system is frustrating, but we have other options for helping choose the candidates, if we want to spend more time and energy than just waiting for our turn to vote. Not meaning to lecture anyone; I just think that it's useful to remember that we're not as powerless to affect these things as we often think and behave.

Yes, but see, as someone who lives a couple thousand miles away from the earliest primary states, it's not at all clear how I and those around me are supposed to go about doing that. I know ways to influence voters in my local community, sure, but not how to influence voters/caucusers in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina.

Now, if we had a single primary day for everyone, the work I could do locally in this regard would actually, like, matter.

You know, those of us voting in tomorrow's primary are among the relatively earlier voters--yet I still feel like the media (especially) and a small handful of states before me have together decided who the candidates who matter are, and like I already have hardly any choice at all.

To say I find this frustrating and disheartening would be an understatement.

I can only imagine how the folks voting after Super Tuesday feel about it.

What worries me is thinking about families who live out here who won't, say, be able to afford to visit Grandma in Mexico for a weekend, because she happens to live on the other side of the border and getting passports for an entire family is, well, expensive.

Here in the southwest, at least, requiring passports to cross the border means more or less splitting some families up based on economics.

Jim says:

A better plan would be for Scalzi to put his name in for Prez before the nomination deadline, so he doesn't have to start a write-in campaign after half the voters have already returned their ballots.

I wish wish wish wish wish wish wish wish more folks would remember that Scalzi's candidacy was pretty unlikely to win for this reason, and that's it's failure says nothing about the organization except that many of its members return ballots the same day they receive them, and that the election results are by no rational standard an indication of the failure of the organization.

Run an opposition candidate in well-thought out, organized way, get them on the ballot, and then, if they lose, start pondering whether the organization is doomed.

But this very basic thing hasn't even been tried yet, and too few people seem to understand that.

The current administration is the current administration not because SFWA is evil, but because no one else has made a serious bid to do the work and put in the time. There's no reason these things can't be tried, and no reason to assume ahead of time they will fail if they are.

It's hard to believe the Times reviewers couldn't understand a book like The World Without Us, though (which I'm currently reading). There are still science books published regularly that are written very much for lay audiences, and that manage to be engaging and relevant to same.

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