Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 13:58:24 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: An imaginary conversation in the backroom ofabookstore . . . .
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Sayeth Ted White:

>I missed the discussion elsewhere, so....
>
>1.  Schmitz was a writer of commercial fiction.  Commercial fiction gets
>edited.  I strongly suspect his stories were originally edited for their
>magazine appearances.

Mainly by that Campbell fellow. Of course one could go on at great length =
about JWCs editing . . .

>2.  Schmitz was not an outstanding prose stylist.  He *needed* some
>editing.

And some of what Flint did is perfectly reasonable - such as reducing the =
number of exclamation marks.

>
>3.  That said, if the Baen editing was "extensive," how was it applied?
>Were plots changed?  Were passages cut?  Were passages extensively
>rewritten?   In other words, would a casual reader have noticed these
>changes -- or would that reader have felt the editing was an improvement?

Rather than quote a very long message, this posting by Eric Flint is a =
fairly good summary - in his own words - of what changes were made.
Message ID: 20000420134004.15443.00002202 at ng-cl1.aol.com

My objection is not so much as to what Flint & Co did - after all, it =
seems the Estate was happy, well, probably happy to get the money - but =
the fact that no reference to the changes were made anywhere in the books =
(and putting stuff online DOES NOT count).  Folks reading the books are =
unaware of the changes that Flint made to the story "Poltergeist".

Delany almost always make changes with each new edition of his novels - =
look at the copyright page of any recent edition of Dhalgren or Nova, etc =
etc.  Ellison is always making changes in each new reprinting of his =
collecitons - but he's so up front about it, as only Harlan can be of =
course.

I realize these be high falutin' words, but it's the intellectual =
dishonesty that I find sad.

mjw