Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:04:13 -0400
From: Kit Mason <kit at hers.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Could use some editing, was So Many Universes, So Little
 Time
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Ted White wrote:
>
> Kit Mason wrote:
>
> > Ted White wrote:
> > >
> > > Kit Mason wrote:
> > >
> > > > Erica VD Ginter wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Anne McCaffrey. Marion Zimmer Bradley. Who else gets away with it now that
> > > > > they're a Big Name?
> > > >
> > > > Stephen King.  Tom Clancy.  Clive Barker.  Katherine Kurtz.  Samuel L.
> > > > Delaney.
> > >
> > > There's editing and there's Editing.  Delaney can't spell (he was a victim of a
> > > teaching program which ignored such details) and *has* to be edited.
> >
> > Notice the difference between the award-winning originally published
> > version of "Babel-17" and the version that was published a few years
> > later *with the edited material restored*.  That was a whole lot more
> > than just spelling.
>
> I missed that -- but then, I never found his Ace books that readable.  Don Wollheim
> could be a demanding editor, but all he ever changed in my Ace book was the
> characters' *names*.    What was the nature of the restored material?

Large, philosophical chunks of exposition that didn't help the plot.
Lots of philosophy on the nature of linguistics, and some monologues
from one of the major characters who, as he's introduced, does not
comprehend pronouns.  Overall, the "unedited" version is about a third
longer.  I loved the original version, wore out two copies of it; I
could barely get through the unedited one.

Kit