threemonkeys (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threemonkeys) wrote2006-07-18 07:03 pm
threemonkeys) wrote2006-07-18 07:03 pm
Entry tags:
Again
I think I said this after the last Ringworld book. Why do I keep buying Larry Niven books? I just keep doing it. I keep reading them too. This time is was Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. To be fair, it was a lot better than the last Ringworld book but then that isn't exactly praise. Perhaps working in collaboration keeps ol' Larry on track. Actually I suspect that Brenda Cooper did most of the actual writing and Niven supervised.
The story is coherent and clearly written like an earlier Niven story. In fact there is a lot more that is like previous Niven stories. I kept thinking "oh just like A Gift from Earth", or "just like Legacy of Heorot" or Rainbow Mars or Ringworld. Self parody maybe.
The story is coherent and clearly written like an earlier Niven story. In fact there is a lot more that is like previous Niven stories. I kept thinking "oh just like A Gift from Earth", or "just like Legacy of Heorot" or Rainbow Mars or Ringworld. Self parody maybe.
no subject
It was extremely disappointing. Niven doesn't have to write for a living, anything he does write seems to sell, so he has no restriction on what he does write, and it shows.
From looking at the collaborations with Pournelle and Barns, it always seemed that Niven supplied the imagination and the ideas, and Pournelle and Barns provided the actual writing.
Again, we have to ask just how much influence editors had on early Niven, these days editors don't help writers write, they just serve as poor gatekeepers over what is published. Compare "The Mote in God's Eye" which was effectively edited by Robert Heinlein with "The Gripping Hand" which is another incoherent mess and edited by no-one.
I haven't read "The Burning Tower", is it any good?
no subject
Regarding editing, I am sure you are right with respect to Niven. There were a number of editors at Conflux and this issue got raised a lot with them. It is clear that established authors pretty much go through untouched - they might get a copy edit for spelling etc but sometimes even then I wonder. New authors are still actively edited - well some of them are. In house polocy at the publishers seems to vary and there are also mentoring type programmes that some publishers use rather than the slush submission process which complicates the notion of what an editor does. The overall effect is that books appear bigger and less well structured.
As for Building Harlequin's Moon, it appears that in this case the collaboration process was a long one with a lot of back and forth between Niven & Cooper. This may be why the book seems a little tighter than other recent efforts - the back and forth may have resulted in some self editing.
no subject
(Joe Haldeman said at a con that tax changes in the USA had meant that print runs had become much smaller as it was ruinously expensive to have books sitting in warehouses for more than a year, thus the publishers print small runs, sell them out, then print another run if required)
And in SF, they are releasing a book a day now. So what if Niven writes a turkey, as long as it makes back its advance, and a bit of profit, that's all that matters.
Meanwhile I go into the bookshops, and despite all the books, there is nothing for me to buy.
no subject
I bought the Niven book because I was given a book token and couldn't find anything more interesting. Of course I could have waited but I'm not wired that way unfortunately.
I find that I am reading more short fiction than I used to and more fiction from small press publishers who are publishing more for love than money. I'm sure the factors you describe are part of the reason for this change.