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| SFReader Forums > Book, Magazine, and eZine Publishers > Flashing Swords > Reactions to the New Edge Editorial | Forum Quick Jump
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J Harper
Stablehand
      
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 39
| Posted 7/13/2005 10:00 PM (GMT -4) |   | Hey all,
Can someone post some links to the sites where Howard Jones' current editorial is being discussed? I'm a bit curious to read what people are saying about it, good or bad.
Cheers,
Jeremy Harper
I am staunch and black and have one mood, and this - to defend my masters and their green earth.
Tintaggon
The Coming of the Sea by Lord Dunsany
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jonesha
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/14/2005 4:19 AM (GMT -4) | | Dear Jeremy,
You REALLY don't want to see them. Aside from a few "way to go" type lines on a couple of sites, by far the most energy has been expended with great vitriol by bloggers and their disciples who have already arrayed themselves as enemies. Many of them foster deliberate mis-reads; others have uninformed opinions based on their limited knowledge of s and s.
Most don't trouble to be polite and are more than just generally insulting (you'd never speak to a person face-to-face with whom you disagree the way some of these people type spittle-flecked lines of prose, unless, say, you met someone who was rabidly endorsing the cannibalization of children or something). Being polite to people with whom you disagree seems to me a simple enough thing to do. I know Nathan spent some time talking with some of these people (I followed his efforts for a bit) and I haven't seen him since. Hope he's still alive and well! I fear considering their outrage or trying to respond to it is a worthless exercise that will only frustrate: most (and I do say most, NOT all, please note) are unlikely to be convinced by anything we might say on the subject. Our energy is better spent promoting what we're trying to do to parties who actually would care.
Best wishes,
Howard
Managing Editor
www.swordandsorcery.org
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John Hocking
The Olde Prospector
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 144
| Posted 7/14/2005 4:41 AM (GMT -4) | | A couple outspoken denizens of the net did indeed take issue with Howard's impassioned editorial.
I think they missed the point, primarily by focusing on our dissatisfaction with much current fantasy.
At a nuts-&-bolts level, the editorial simply describes the kind of fiction Howard wants for 'Flashing Swords'.
But it's more than that-- Howard's New Edge is an attempt to define and hew to a set of literary ideals within the confines of his e-zine, and in the essay Howard has the courage to declare both his ideals and his hopes for them.
Is it absurd that a small, fledgling e-zine like 'Flashing Swords' would set such goals? I don't think so, but it's always easy to mock the fellow brave enough to tell you of his vision.
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baritsu6
Neophyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 122
| Posted 7/14/2005 5:43 AM (GMT -4) | | Gents, If they do not like what is going on over here, they have a choice. do not come! I have been reading horror, sci-fi, fantasy for 32 years[ collecting it as well!] . This group is one of the finest collection of people in the field [ writers, readers, collectors] and I am proud to be accepted here! As for Howard, as we say in Brooklyn, he is chill!--Ralph
ralph grasso | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 7/14/2005 5:59 AM (GMT -4) | | Is it absurd that a small, fledgling e-zine like 'Flashing Swords' would set such goals?
***
No, but it is surprising to see that a small, fledgling e-zine like Flashing Swords could provoke such extensive controversy with a short editorial and a couple three issues and no advertising or hard PR.
This, as they say, is merely the dragon's breath -- we're ready to let the dragon OUT.
Daniel
www.pitchblackbooks.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Rob Santa
Sage
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 1383
| Posted 7/14/2005 6:05 AM (GMT -4) | | It does seem odd that people would take umbrage with an editor establishing goals for his publication. Just about all of them do. With the exception of the standard "purchase a copy of the magazine to see what we're all about," many submissions guidelines include a few lines about what the editor likes and dislikes. I have written guidelines for two of my pretend magazines; both times I've included such preferences. It seems a simple way to lessen the slushpile. After all, I would never submit a vampire story to a horror market that specifically states it doesn't want to see any. And when I run across editors that express fondnesses for certain storylines, well, I obviously send those stories that way.
Ralph's comments are right on, but it is a practice few people perform. There was a hullabaloo last year about Maxim magazine being in Wal-mart (or some other such store), that Maxim was veiled soft porn. Guess what folks? Don't buy it. Don't pick it up off the shelf, don't flip through the pages. The same concept applies to just about everything. People that choose to enjoy S&S for its contrast to other fantasy fiction will find their way to Flashing Swords (and hopefully be pleased by what they find). People that choose other forms of fiction won't come. So what?
Rob
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joe5mc
Stablehand
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 7/14/2005 6:10 AM (GMT -4) | | If you are dead set on reading them, a search engine will get you there, but really, don't bother. I spent a couple hours reading them yesterday and all I really got for my time was bored. Just a bunch of people talking around each other.
For me, Howard's editorial was read as a call to arms. "Come on people, lets write good stores the way they used to." If somepeople consider this an attack on them or their favorite kind of writing, so be it. You can't please everyone.
There was only one point out of the pages and pages of junk I read that I thought work noting. I think it was made by Nathan. Only someone who has written S&S for awhile knows the frustration of looking through the guidelines to all the current SF/F publications and seeing "No S&S" again and again and again. I'll even take it one step further, I'm tired of seeing "No S&S" writen next to "No child-abuse" and "No Porn". If us S&S fans can be a little defensive sometimes it is because we are tired of being snickered at lumped in the story trash bin.
Howard, I believe, was trying to get us to stand up and be proud of what we write, of what we read, and if somepeople don't like that, the hell with them.
Joe
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/14/2005 6:49 AM (GMT -4) | | Howard: In regards to your not seeing Nathan for a while and hoping he's alive and well ... the man's on vacation. And he's still alive and well enough to be giving me the devil of a time on the virtual chessboard!
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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Supr
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 107
| Posted 7/14/2005 7:00 AM (GMT -4) | | | I'm also proud to read and write S&S! And - like Bruce said on conan.com - pox on our enemies! | | Back to Top | | |
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 989
| Posted 7/14/2005 7:09 AM (GMT -4) | | I'm just waiting for Howard to top himself with the editorial in Issue #4 [:D]
-- Paul McNamee
http://writer.paulmcnamee.net
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Kuroboshii
Shogun
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 543
| Posted 7/14/2005 7:12 AM (GMT -4) | | Ugh. I see Nathan encountered Nick Mamatas. I'm sure he seems brilliant to people who already agree with him, but...he can't seem to argue without resorting to obscenities, obfustication, and various varieties of insult. Nor will he ever admit to being wrong about anything, and his style of argument seems to be to demand facts and links, even in arguments where such "facts" as statistics aren't terribly relevant. He's never satisfied with the ones he gets, either, and seems determined to interpret the statements of others in the most negative way possible.
Still, in the one argument I read, Ben Rosenbaum was very fair. Not all the "lit spec-fic" type writers are as hostile as Mr. Mamatas.
Howard, I can't say that I'm particularly into S&S more than other kinds of fantasy--I enjoy high fantasy a great deal, and I'd argue that there's plenty of great stuff there which isn't overly Tolkien derivative. I also like some science fiction. Still, to the extent that the New Edge produces well-written, exciting stories which don't shy away from a good fight, I'm with you. I greatly enjoy Lords of Swords and many of the stories in Flashing Swords. I'm also just starting into Swords Against Death, and I'm greatly enjoying it thus far.
Keep it up! (And could you twist D. K. Latta's arm for another Zargatha story, please [;)]?)
Sean T. M. Stiennon (AKA Suuran Songforge)
For information about me, see my author page at www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon. | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 7/14/2005 7:29 AM (GMT -4) | | And he's still alive and well enough to be giving me the devil of a time on the virtual chessboard!
***
Thanks for the reminder!! I'm supposed to be playing both of you....
Daniel
www.pitchblackbooks.com | | Back to Top | | |
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jonesha
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/14/2005 7:36 AM (GMT -4) | | Fear not, Sean, D.K. is tweaking anothe Zargatha story, probably as we speak.
And let me reiterate that I am not down on other people liking other sorts of fiction; I know what I like to read and what I hope to publish in the zine. My brilliant sister digs "chick lit" novels, the thrill of which escapes me, but more power to her if it brings her pleasure and isn't hurting anyone. Joseph Campbell wrote to "follow your bliss."
As to the words in the editorial: Hocking and William King have raised far more articulate commentary about it than I have, and Tom Floyd has made excellent points about s and s representing the freedom of the common man, or lack thereof. C.L. Werner has articulated the hard boiled point better than I could ever have done, in another thread here on the forum.
If there's one thing I wish I had made more clear, it was that the attempt was to address something that Bill and Hocking and the rest of us feel has been underway for a while. We were trying to codify what we wanted to do with s and s ourselves, but had all been striving toward individually. Others who have no knowledge of what we've written or what we're discussing here seem to have been doing similar things on their own. (Joe McCullough and I had discussed hoping for something new for years, and likely some of you also have had talks with sword and sorcery fans about what you wanted to see in modern s and s.) As one of the bloggers ranted, Warhammer's been doing a type of s and s for a while. Well, yes, which is probably why two Warhammer writers are "signed on" to what we're striving for and one of them, Bill King, started the whole ball rolling. Here, at this forum and on the s and s site, is a place for any of those s and s writers and fans who wish to do so to gather strength and find like-minded comrades.
Rob and Joe are both correct: Rob points out that the editorial was an attempt to lay down what I wished to see in my submissions pile as well as to explain the philosophy behind what the 'zine is doing. Joe points out that the editorial was intended as a rallying cry. Darned right it was.
In any case, thank you all for your support, insights, and comments. It seems like you "get" what we're going for, which is heartening. If you like what you see, I do hope you'll support Pitch-Black and all its ventures. A fledgling company needs all kinds of nurturing, and if you like s and s as much as I do I hope you'll back them so that they can bring us more (and so maybe we can spend less time on our day jobs and more time with s and s stuff--speaking of which... I'd best run).
Swords Together,
Howard
Managing Editor
www.swordandsorcery.org
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/14/2005 10:31 AM (GMT -4) | | Howard: I've written opinion pieces for newspapers off and on for many years now, and one thing I can tell you for certain. even if you write something as simple as "The sky was a brilliant blue yesterday," you will here from readers who insist it was azure, not blue; or who condemn you for being happy when the world is such a miserable place; or who point out that your piece should have carried a warning about exposure to ultraviolet radiation; or who want to argue temporal physics involving your use of the word "yesterday" and the half of the world on the other side of the International Date Line. You can't win with people like that: All you can do is precisely what you did -- you made your points clearly, and eloquently, and fairly. Some people just won't ever get it, but that's OK. Others will.
Keep swinging the sword.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 989
| Posted 7/14/2005 11:20 AM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by nathan meyer
Still if S King can shrug this: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/#
off then I'll be okay[:p]
That's funny.
My Shakespeare professor in college considered "Children of the Corn" to be the finest piece of American horror literature since Edgar Allan Poe.
I'm tempted to agree with my professor.
Hey, King readily admits he writes "Big Macs" of literature. He's probably surprised by the laurels, too.
I would be *far* more concerned with television as being a main culprit of the U.S. dumbing down. Even if someone is reading King - at least they are reading. Nowadays, I don't think that is a bad thing.
And I am referring to the original "Children of the Corn" short story, not that awful movie. (awful in my opinion)
-- Paul McNamee
http://writer.paulmcnamee.net
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4474
| Posted 7/14/2005 11:36 AM (GMT -4) | | I'll add one quick comment.
I've long since come to the conclusion that much of the 'public forum' boards on the internet serve only to let shut-ins vent their spleens. People who work for a living and try to find time in their lives to create something from passion and joy for the benifit of others will find F***-all to encourage them there.
Sometimes one must venture there, in desparation to promote a new product perhaps. But don't expect anything, the place is a nest of sad wanna-be vipers. Unless you use your options to block out many of the residents you'll be stuck with useless vitrol drowning out anything anyone of integrity might have to say.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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jonesha
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/14/2005 12:41 PM (GMT -4) | | Thank you everyone.
Now let's turn the discussion away from THEM and start talking about the focus of the editorial. What to do with modern s and s. In another thread Daniel wrote:
---------------------
... the movement existed before anyone named it and it will continue to exist no matter how many object to its present designation or name.
I'd agree, though, with the idea that heroic fantasy and S&S is quite compatible with more excessive (or ornate) narrative writing styles; what Howard is trying to avoid is "style over substance," and that's an affectation spreading like a wildfire throughout much of the "slipstream" or spec-lit community.
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And Jeremy Harper wrote:
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No, Conan isn't Sam Spade, but R.E. Howard was to fantasy what Hammett and Chandler were to detective fiction. Moorcock has pointed that out. So has Don Herron, one of the leading figures in Howard studies. Howard's prose does not read anything like Hammett's or Chandler's, but is similar in spirit. He does not couch his action and plots in a genteel style - he is as direct and straight as a sword's blade. His writing and descriptions can be beautiful and haunting, but unlike Dunsany, or Peake, or his great friend and contemporary Clark Ashton Smith, he does not try to dazzle you with word-witchery. His way, to quote Stephen King, is to pull on his combat boots and assault your senses. This is what I feel Howard Jones meant by wanting stories with a hard-boiled style.
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Let's hear from more of you on the four points! AND I do hope that if you like the stories you'll post and let the authors know, especially if they happened to have been dissed by any reviewers.
best,
Howard
Managing Editor
www.swordandsorcery.org
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 989
| Posted 7/14/2005 12:57 PM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by jonesha
Thank you everyone.
Now let's turn the discussion away from THEM and start talking about the focus of the editorial. What to do with modern s and s.
1. A hardboiled tone - as in terse and unsentimental
I'm not sure on this one anymore. Was Leiber terse and unsentimental?
Do we want to declare the tone? Conan is grim in a manner of survival while Elric is grim in a matter of tragedy and doom to come.
Maybe we should leave tone out of it. It's a bit intangible and is bound to vary from writer to writer. As long as the story doesn't contain dancing pixies, the choices made for the magazine will probably define the tone.
(I think one of the vitrol people actually posted something along this line, but it was easy to miss the wheat for the chafe)
2. Exotic settings and/or settings that live - as in NOT faux Tolkien (if the settings echo Tolkien or other writers then they must be twisted or seen from some new perspective)
How about dropping the Tolkien part? Let's work from what s-and-s is rather than what it isn't.
3. Evoking a sense of wonder - magic is never banal or easy, the fantastic should not be mundane
This one is fine by me! I think our thread on magic covered alot of what magic can/should be and what is shouldn't be in the context of s-and-s.
4. High energy storytelling - as in fast and without padding
That definitely separates s-and-s from fantasy and high-fantasy and I think it's a good point to include.
-- Paul McNamee
http://writer.paulmcnamee.net
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ragemachine
Neophyte
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 7/14/2005 4:23 PM (GMT -4) | | I think I've tackled this topic before in my article: "Is the Lord of the Rings sword & Sorcery".
http://kingsofthenight0.tripod.com/lordoftherings.htm
GW
G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 350 different books, magazines and ezines including Black October Magazine, Writer's Digest and The Armchair Detective.
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Kuroboshii
Shogun
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 543
| Posted 7/14/2005 6:42 PM (GMT -4) | | Right on, Nathan. Mr. Mamatas isn't worth worrying about. He once hammered Deep Magic and Flinteye (which he managed to compare with D&D, somehow), and I'm still continuing with both.
Sean T. M. Stiennon (AKA Suuran Songforge)
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4474
| Posted 7/14/2005 8:11 PM (GMT -4) | | I think its important to me, as a writer, to know that Howard prefers a terse and unsentimental tone in the stories he selects for Flashing Swords. Certainly if I ever expect to have something to send him that he'll want to buy.
I'd also remove the references to Tolkien, unless that seems to be a major point of confusion to the people who submit to FS. I would guess that Howard probably put that specific point in for a good reason.
The magic stuff seems clear enough and has been discussed elsewhere.
As I said elsewhere as well, its the energy (along with other things) that seperates S&S from other fantasy. Good S&S should never plod.
So much for Howard's guidelines. Is that all there is to the new edge S&S? How much room does the genre have for humor? Does it deal differently with anything as compared to, for lack of a better term, the old edge? What do we hope to see here from it? What do we fear finding in it?
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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Bruce Durham
Crom's Administrator & Drinking Buddy
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 605
| Posted 7/14/2005 8:42 PM (GMT -4) | | Humour? My story had a fair amount of it, but it was so subtle, so Canadian, it was probably missed, especially by self-important reviewers.
Frankly, I don't think Howard has to apologize for anything. To change his mission statement means he is succumbing to the very elements he wishes to distance himself from. Why should he budge under so-called pressure? And by distance, I mean he shouldn't have to conform to the complainers (and I don't mean anyone here. God knows, I've drawn enough unwarrented crap from people I don't even know) who don't understand the legacy of the Howards and Leibers and Wagners. Howard wishes to establish that S&S is a genre unto itself, nothing more, and nothing less. It's old, original, classic, and predates most of the pablum we have to put up with today. What's there to apologize for?
Sword's Together,
Bruce
-------------------------
Admin: Community Forums for the Official Site of Conan the Barbarian
Contributing Editor for Flashing Swords. The leading edge in fantasy: Guaranteed Oprah Free!
Moderator for Paradox Interactive Games AAR and Fanfiction Forums
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4474
| Posted 7/14/2005 8:58 PM (GMT -4) | | Bruce,
Well said.
I meant to disrespect to Howard or what he's trying to do. I just found Flashing Swords and I love it. Howard is not quite a lone voice in the wilderness but as a tribe were still mighty small. In the end readership is going to decide these issues, not criticism or editorial policy or even writer's creativity. An audience will develope or it won't. I hope it does and I think it will.
One thing I do know for sure, Howard can only print the stories he's sent. I think he's been pretty clear as to what he wants and by what he's asked for I expect to see a lot of stories I will want to read.
And I thought your story was hilarious and I've never been farther into Canada than the Niagra museum.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 989
| Posted 7/15/2005 5:06 AM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by bdurham
Frankly, I don't think Howard has to apologize for anything. To change his mission statement means he is succumbing to the very elements he wishes to distance himself from.
Bruce, fair point. I didn't mean to sound like I thought Howard should retract anything. I just wanted to discuss the four points as he requested. [:)]
G.W. - excellent notes on the differences between fantasy and s-&-s. Selfish heroes vs. world savers is a very good way of distinguishing. Thanks.
-- Paul McNamee
http://writer.paulmcnamee.net
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jonesha
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 7/15/2005 6:41 AM (GMT -4) | | Paul, I don't mind reasoned criticism. Expletive rich, spittle-drenched attacks--those I mind. Let us set aside the critiquers who are offended because a movement is dared suggested (one that is already underway and has been, like it or not, prior to a label) and move on to talking about these points.
Legitimate questions have been raised about the expression "hardboiled." The ranting bloggers seized upon this as well. I'd hoped to go into more detail in an upcoming editorial about the points, never expecting the wider world to pay much attention, not yet. The editorial was long enough already without me spending a page or two on each point.
As to Tolkien, well, I see a LOT of Tolkien and D and D influenced fiction in the submissions. Some of it I take, as with William King's Kormak tale. He's put a new spin on some older ideas. I wanted to clarify why I take some material influenced by LoTR and why I will reject others.
But returning to the hardboiled tone--earlier in this thread I cited Jeremy, who described what I meant quite well. Jeremy, I may well ask your permission to quote you when I write the next editorial. Daniel also touched on something important. And in another thread, Hocking has just written:
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Back before hardboiled was universally equated with trenchcoats, fedoras and lonely saxaphones playing in the rain, it was a broader term for clear, unsentimental prose that didn't tell the reader how to feel, but showed him. Back in the day Hemingway, Dos Passos and John O'Hara were considered "hardboiled", believe it or not.
The prime dictum of "hardboiled writing" is still around--- every working writer has heard "show, don't tell". But you don't see much of that style in modern fantasy, and I think its undervalued in all fiction today.
--------------
Anyone else?
Managing Editor
www.swordandsorcery.org
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