Comments for Graham Sleight

Comment on Being Judgmental by grahamsleight

grahamsleight — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:07:39 +0000

Thanks for your comment. I’ve done bits and pieces of writing about sf of the 60s (for instance, an essay on PKD which isn’t online), but nothing substantive as yet. I am however thinking about it for a forthcoming project…

Comment on Being Judgmental by michael svehla

michael svehla — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:13:28 +0000

your confirmation link did not work here’s my confirmation

Comment on Being Judgmental by michael svehla

michael svehla — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:06:17 +0000

You made this statement in the WP article ” These quandaries played themselves out in the sf of the next decade, but that’s another story.” I’m wondering if you’ve written on this subject somewhere??
Thanks
ms

Comment on On (collectively) winning a Hugo Award by John Clute

John Clute — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 14:36:20 +0000

That was very very well dressed of you, Graham. Almost glad I wasn’t there to embarrass us all. John

Comment on Sf Masterworks by Petr

Petr — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:57:46 +0000

Converting and rereleasing is sonethimg Baen *has* done, you know. And they are doing it even as we speak. Both from somebody else’s print catalog (most recently adding Heinlein books) and from their own catalog (to support epub on pre-2008 releases).The key with Baen is that there is every indication that they use modern workflow tools in their production process which keeps the manuscript in electronic form every step of the way to the printing plant so ebooks are an easy intermediary byproduct of producing a print book.Most BPHs (Big Publishing Houses, to distinguish them from the small and medium-sized publishers who aren’t clueless) are still stuf with a 18th century business model and 20th century publishing processes. (I’ve heard of Madison ave Publishers that rely on sneakernet and ftp servers for document flows.) Expecting those types to understand concepts such as sunk costs, long-tail sales or sonethimg as basic as product arketing to the end-user is simply too much.A good book is a good book regardless of whether it was written yesterday or in 1959.And the really good stuff is timeless; classics get to be classic by surviving the test of time.The reason Google is s actively trying to acquire a monopoly on so-called orphan works is that they understand there is gold in them thar hills and the BPHs who actually own the rights are too hung up on lookingfor the next big thing they are neglecting the value of their existing assets.That said, there is one (semi-valid) reason why a lot of publishers are nelecting their back catalog; they don’t actually own it and they are too (proud, stupid, cheap; pick one) to use their existing relationship with the author to negotiate a secondary contract for the erights they don’t own. It is beneath them to go ask for sonethimg they believe is theirs by dvine right but which every court has said isn’t. (Presumably they are hoping for a miraculous new ruling reversing decades of precedent.)They would rather dish out a Million dollar advance to the latest made-up true-lfe story to pops up on Oprah or the NYT than to actually spend that money getting a thousand back-caalog titles out in ebook form.Now, if they actually took notice of the music industry, where the back catalog is pretty much the only thing keeping the studios afloat

Comment on Sf Masterworks by jacderida

jacderida — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:27:02 +0000

‘Star Maker’, also, is available in the new version, but again Amazon has the old numbered version listed.

Comment on Sf Masterworks by jacderida

jacderida — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:18:30 +0000

Hmm, sorry, it seems my comment before this didn’t appear.

I also said that, Olaf Stapledon’s ‘Last and First Men’ is available in the new version (number 11 on the original list), although all the sites still appear to have the old version listed.

So I’m slightly confused, it appears that nobody has a truly up to date version of what exactly has been published in this series .

Comment on Sf Masterworks by jacderida

jacderida — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:16:10 +0000

Also, Poul Anderson’s ‘Tau Zero’ has been printed in the new edition. Although, on Amazon’s entry for the new edition, it says that it was published in 2006, which is the date of the publication from the old numbered series.

Comment on Sf Masterworks by jacderida

jacderida — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:06:12 +0000

Hi,

Olaf Stapeldon’s ‘Last and First Men’ has also been printed in the new version (number 11 on the old list). Although all the book stores seem to list it with the old cover, and it doesn’t seem to say even on the book itself when exactly it was published. I ordered it from Amazon recently expecting to get the old version but ended up with the new cover version.

It seems anywhere you attempt to go nobody has a really truly up to date version of this list .

Anyway, thanks for the one that you have provided here, it’s much more useful than the wikipedia entry.

Cheers,

Chris

Comment on Updates by Kevin J. Maroney

Kevin J. Maroney — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:15:11 +0000

Ah, son of a bitch! We will miss you ferociously at ICFA!

Good on ye about all the others!