From: "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:26:34 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Technically, the titles of books should be italicized and shorted works be
inside quotation marks. But I don't think the troublr of italicizing is
worth the bother in such an informal medium as e-mail. As a wise person once
said (the name escapes me at the moment), "Consistency is the hobgoblin of
small minds." If that is true, I've worked with many a small mind over the
years!

Erica

-----Original Message-----
From: Strong, Lee [mailto:StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 9:10 AM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

Erica,
	Yes, I would like to borrow _Alternate Realities_ at the next WSFA
meeting.  I looked for it in two library systems and they don't have it.
	I did find a copy of Heinlein's _The Number of the Beast_ and
started rereading it for his thoughts.  My previous read influenced my
thoughts on this subject.
	And as a professional proofreader, is it correct to indicate the
title of a book by quotation marks or underscores or what?  I have been
using quotation marks for short stories and before-and-after underscores to
simulate italics for full length books, etc.  However, most people use
quotation marks for both, and I request your advice.

Lee

-----Original Message-----
From: Erica VD Ginter [mailto:eginter at klgai.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:47 PM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

This discussiond reminds me of "fictons," created by Heinlein, in which all
possible imagined universes exist; each such universe is a ficton. Spider
Robinson has adopted the idea and used it with distinction in some of his
Callahan's stories.

I am also reminded of one of my favorite nonfiction books, "Alternate
Realities: The Search for the Full Human Being," by Lawrence LeShan
(Ballantine 1976, NY, ISBN 0-345-3494-5). LeShan talks about the different
approaches to viewing the universe we all share, i.e., the
religious/mystical vs. the scientific, and argues the validity of each
approach. I should reread it and review it for the journal, but I just
bought Stan Robinson's new book, soooooo... (It's received so many excellent
mainstream reviews that I had to go to 4 bookstores to find it! We're proud
of you, Stan!)

Erica

-----Original Message-----
From: Strong, Lee [mailto:StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 7:57 AM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

	Sam, I understand your point of view and agree with it in part.
However, I think we should reserve the term "alternate history" for
universes where objective history differs one from another.  Otherwise, a
useful term acquires a totally different meaning and becomes almost useless.
Perhaps we should use "ideoverse" to describe an individual worldview within
a single universe by analogy with the established term "ideolect" used by
speech scientists to describe individuals' unique speech sub-languages
within a standard language.

-----Original Message-----
From: Samuel Lubell [mailto:lubell at cais.com]
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 11:26 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

At 09:01 AM 4/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Sam,
>	If you're really interested, I think I can find my hard copy
>reference.  Most of the proposals I read in a bound master's thesis at the
>University of Mississippi.
>
>Lee
>

Not that interested, sorry.  But I will comment that every work of history
is an alternate history as two historians, looking at the same events will
come up with different interpretations.