Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:14:49 -0400
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.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>

Kit Mason wrote:

> 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.

Hmmm.  Wonder who did the editing?  (Chip used to be one of Wollheim's assistants.  I
can't help wondering if Don handed him the ms. and said, "Take all the crap out"....)

--Ted White