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  ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT

  Vol. CXXVII No. 3, March 2007

  Cover design by Victoria Green

  Cover Art by George Krauter

  SERIAL

  QUEEN OF CANDESCE, part I of IV, Karl Schroeder

  Novella

  THE SMALL POND, C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley

  Novelette

  COOL NEIGHBOR, Michael Shara & Jack McDevitt

  Short Stories

  TRUCKS, Amy Bechtel

  MISQUOTING THE MOON, David Bartell

  Science Fact

  TOWARD A NOT-JUST-DIAMOND AGE, Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D

  Reader's Departments

  THE EDITOR'S PAGE

  IN TIMES TO COME

  THE ALTERNATE VIEW, John G. Cramer

  THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Tom Easton

  BRASS TACKS

  UPCOMING EVENTS, Anthony Lewis

  Stanley Schmidt Editor

  Trevor Quachri Associate Editor

  Click a Link for Easy Navigation

  CONTENTS

  EDITORIAL: NEW WRITERS by Stanley Schmidt

  QUEEN OF CANDESCE: PART I OF IV by Karl Schroeder

  SCIENCE FACT: TOWARD A NOT-JUST-DIAMOND AGE by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D.

  TRUCKS by Amy Bechtel

  MISQUOTING THE MOON by David Bartell

  THE ALTERNATE VIEW: EXTRASOLAR PLANETS AND OCCULT ASTRONOMY by John G. Cramer

  COOL NEIGHBOR by Michael Shara and Jack McDevitt

  IN TIMES TO COME

  THE SMALL POND by C. Sanford Lowe and G. David Nordley

  THE REFERENCE LIBRARY by Tom Easton

  BRASS TACKS

  UPCOMING EVENTS BY Anthony Lewis

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  EDITORIAL: NEW WRITERS by Stanley Schmidt

  Last summer a thread on the Analog website Readers’ Forum revisited a frequently asked question: What determines whether a story submission gets bought, and how can an aspiring writer improve his or her chances of selling? Several of our regular contributors joined in and did an admirable job of setting the record straight for those participating. However, the number of our readers who are interested in writing is much larger than the number who frequent the Forum. Since the Forum comments repeat a number of common and counterproductive misconceptions and speculations, I thought it would be a good idea to respond to some of them here, too.

  For example, the thread started with a reader questioning the statement in our submission guidelines (available on our website [www.analogsf.com] or by sending a request with a self-addressed stamped business-size envelope) that “Analog will consider material submitted by any writer, and consider it solely on the basis of merit. We are definitely eager to find and develop new, capable writers.” This reader did his own research by counting stories in our 2005 issues and identifying those writers he thought were new. His identifications were not always accurate, but his qualitative observation that only a minority of stories were by new authors is true. Unfortunately, he then concluded, “Seems like Analog might be considering more than just the merit of the stories they receive. Looks like you need to have some publishing experience listed in your cover letter."

  Which is, as several other participants (both professional and otherwise) pointed out, very wrong.

  The fact is that the author's name, reputation, or publishing history has absolutely no effect on our decision about whether to buy a story. Please note that I speak here only for Analog; magazine editors are quirky individuals just like everybody else, and different ones can and do have different priorities. And book publishing is a quite different kettle of fish. If a novel is published in book form, the success of that book is riding on a single story. The publisher will want to make sure it sells at least reasonably well, and there is a good deal of evidence that many book purchases are made in large part because readers liked previous books by a particular author. So book publishers often do seek out books by authors who have sold well in the recent past, and sometimes won't even consider manuscripts by authors of recent books that didn't make much money.

  At magazines—in particular, at this magazine—things are very different. Each issue contains not one, but several stories and other features, so there's not as much riding on any one of them. We can be more willing to take a chance if we're not sure how readers will react to an unusual story. As long as most readers like most of what we publish, they'll allow us an occasional oddity that they don't like. Most of them are intelligent and observant enough to realize that individual tastes vary widely, so we can't expect any reader to love everything we publish, or every reader to love anything.

  The flip side, of course, is that most readers have to like most of what we publish, or we'll lose our audience. We can't afford to let that happen, so we are very seriously determined to get the best material we can, regardless of where or whom it comes from. So we really do pick stories “solely on the basis of merit.” “Merit,” of course, is in part subjective, so what I really mean by the “best” stories is “those stories I think most likely to please most of our readers.” But those can come from anywhere. Quite often (and this should surprise no one) they come from people who have already written for us enough to have a good idea of what we're likely to like, and how to create it. But they can, and sometimes do, come from complete newcomers. By at least one measure, the most popular story I've published in all my years of editing Analog was a first submission straight out of the slush pile.

  So don't names count for anything at all? Well, sometimes, but probably not in the way you might imagine. One person on the Forum asked, “Does Analog surreptitiously rely on ‘big names’ to snag purchases on magazine racks? ... Some names, at least, are listed on the cover.” Oh, come on! There's nothing surreptitious about listing names that are likely to catch a reader's eye on the newsstand; of course we want to do that, and a well-known name is obviously more likely to do it than a completely unfamiliar one. We don't list all contributors on the cover (as does that poster, who edits an online magazine) because (a) the familiar ones would stand out less from a long list, and (b) many of our readers like the cover art and want the picture relatively uncluttered. The space constraints and display requirements for an e-zine and a print magazine on a newsstand are entirely different.

  But (and this is important) most of our sales these days are through subscriptions, not newsstands, and subscription renewals depend more than anything else on trust. We need subscribers to feel confident that we will give them really good reading material most of the time, and a “big name” on the cover does not automatically assure that. One of the first things I learned when I took this job is that even the biggest names are not in top form all the time. Also, I can't buy more than about 1% of what I get, no matter how much I'd like to buy, because that's all the magazine has room for. So, just as I have bought and featured stories from complete unknowns, I've also rejected work by almost anybody you can think of.

  Now: suppose I buy a substandard or inappropriate story just so we can print a big name on the cover. Maybe it does produce a little one-time blip in newsstand sales, but the value of that will be more than offset by the loss
of trust when our subscribers read the story inside and feel cheated. We can't afford to let that happen. So instead I buy the best stories I can, from whoever offers them to me. If one of them happens to be from an author with a highly recognizable name, yes, we'll put that on the cover (and when I turn down a story from such an author, no one else needs to know about it). But note carefully that the story is first bought on its own merits, and only then do we consider using the author's name as part of a marketing plan. The name plays no role in deciding whether to buy the story.

  We try to keep the magazine's name one that readers will recognize and trust as a reliable source of good stories, even to the point where I can give an unknown top billing on the cover and newsstand readers will pick it up because they suspect this must be a new writer of great promise. And yes, this has happened; two cases that come to mind right off the top of my head are David R. Palmer ("Emergence") and Geoffrey A. Landis ("Elemental").

  Incidentally, I can think of one small exception to my statement that the author's name has no effect on my likelihood of buying a story: sometimes a good track record can make it harder to sell a particular story. I once sent a story back with a letter that began, “If I got this story from somebody I'd never heard of, I'd be very excited. But I know Mike Flynn can do better....” (And with that goad, he did.)

  Let's look at another sadly amusing myth from that website thread: “'Open to new writers’ is just a marketing gimmick ... It's the oldest trick in the publishing book. Hopefuls subscribe to the magazine because they figure they'll want a copy when their stuff is published. Analog's subscription base would be decimated if they told the truth about their story selection process.” I have no idea what basis this writer thinks he has for believing such fanciful “facts,” but the truth about our story selection process is what I'm telling now and always have. If we publish your story, you don't need a subscription to get a copy—we'll automatically give you a couple of copies, along with actual payment in currency of the realm, plus the option of buying as many additional copies as you may want at a substantial discount. And while our subscriber base includes a good many writers who submit stories, it includes a great many more readers who have no interest in submitting.

  Another attempt to bolster the tired old rationalization that rejection or sale is determined by name: one writer on the Forum said a story by a “name” recently appeared in Analog with the same premise as one of his that we'd rejected. I don't doubt it, and I was pleased and impressed that the writer had the good grace not to accuse anyone of plagiarism or even to name the other story or author with a similar idea. Another of the first things I learned when I took this job is that truly, completely new ideas are extremely rare. A premise does not make a story; the story is what you build on the premise, and evidently I liked one of these more than the other. Some premises have served as the basis for several successful stories and hundreds or even thousands of unsuccessful ones. Some years back I published a list of 26 that I could count on seeing in my slush pile several times every month, but once in a great while a skilled writer (like Orson Scott Card) can still turn one of those into a fresh and memorable story. But doing that takes skill, and that takes both talent (the raw material from which skill can be made) and practice.

  Incidentally, I should probably say a few words about the “slush pile,” since I've mentioned it a couple of times and many people think it sounds derogatory and make still more assumptions about what it means. In my case, all manuscripts come to me in an unsorted pile and I read them all—all 500 or so that I get in a month. If you do the math, it will be obvious that I don't read them all the same way. If I'm going to get through them all, I'll have to read most of them quite rapidly, so I try to do that with all of them. But I can't speed-read something that grabs my concentrated interest, so if that happens while I'm working through that initial “slush pile,” I put that story aside for reading later in a different, much slower, and more analytical mode. Often, when I get a new pile of manuscripts, I'll flip through it right away and pull out some that I know I'll have to read in slow mode, because of past experience with that author. That does not mean that stories in that “pro pile” are automatically given preference come buying time; it just means that, statistically, I know it's going to take longer to go through a foot of those than a foot of “slush.” But if there's something of pro quality in the slush pile, by somebody I've never heard of, it will leap out at me and I'll pull it out for a closer read later.

  And that's the biggest kick I ever get in this job: the thrill of discovery, of finding my attention completely captivated by a really good writer the rest of the world doesn't know about yet.

  So you bet I want to find and cultivate new writers—and I need to, because the ones I've already cultivated tend to attract other editorial eyes and get book contracts that keep them too busy to write much short fiction. But that doesn't mean I'm interested in publishing writers just because they're new. I'm no more interested in publishing new writers per se than in publishing “big names” per se. I'm interested in publishing stories that make our readers sit up and take notice. At any given time, a majority of those stories are likely to be by writers who already have some experience—but some won't be. And some of those few writers who catch my eye for the first time will be the “big names” newcomers envy a few years later.

  Remember, everybody was a newcomer, an unknown, initially. Getting beyond that stage requires a certain amount of talent, a lot of persistence, and (it must be admitted) a certain amount of luck. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to debunk the myth that newcomers don't have a chance; now I must balance the picture with a few words about the countermyth that if you have some talent and are persistent enough, eventually you will succeed. Sadly, it isn't necessarily so. “Merit,” as I mentioned earlier, is partly subjective; most editors are trying to match reading material with sets of readers who will enjoy it, and they have quite different audiences. You should never assume that just because a story doesn't sell to one market, it's “no good” in some objective sense. Get it out to other markets and see if you can find one that wants to buy what you're trying to sell. Maybe you will; maybe you won't. That depends on there being a suitable market at the right time, with the right kind of vacancy, not having bought something too similar too recently, etc., etc. My personal record is 21 years, for a story that I recognized as a “Twilight Zone” story as soon as I wrote it, but couldn't sell until somebody started a “Twilight Zone” magazine. As an editor, I've read lots of perfectly respectable stories that may never see print because their authors may not live long enough to find the right home for them.

  But some will, and it's enough fun that if your interests run that way, I certainly encourage you to give it your best shot. Don't give up your day job unless and until it feels really right; don't let your whole future happiness and sense of self-worth depend on commercial success as a writer; but tell the stories you have to tell as well as you can tell them. Remember that merit isn't all subjective; this trade, like any other, depends on skills that you need to develop, and you may not be able to tell whether you have them until you do. Learn the basics, like submission protocol and grammar (you'd be astounded at how few people use commas and hyphens in a way much better than random, and at how much you can make yourself stand out by becoming one of them). Be aware that the competition is tough—but if you do well at it, it can offer you rewards (largely intangible, though occasionally financial as well) that you'd be hard put to find anywhere else.

  And besides, I want to read those stories.

  Good luck!

  Copyright (c) 2006 Stanley Schmidt

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  Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXVII, No. 3, March 2007. ISSN 1059-2113, USPS 488-910, GST# 123054108. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One-year subscription for $43.90 in the U.S.A. and possessions, in all
other countries, $53.90 (GST included in Canada) payable in advance in U.S. funds. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within eight weeks of receipt of order. When reporting change of address allow 6 to 8 weeks and give new address as well as the old address as it appears on the last label. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec. Canada Post International Publications Mail. (c) 2006 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or character. Any similarity is coincidental. All submissions must be accompanied by stamped self-addressed envelope, the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

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