Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 08:50:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: N Lynch <sfbookfan at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The World Turned Upside Down - and changes
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

--- Michael Walsh <MJW at press.jhu.edu> wrote:
> These changes would seem to be based upon an
> assumption that the modern
> reader is dumb.  That an editor needs to "fix"
> things in previously
> published stories to make them more palatable to the
> modern reader.

This a fact or just an assumption based on dislike of
a person editing - that stories have been "fixed"?

> I would hope that most readers of SF are smart
> enough to pick up a
> collection of stories published in the 1950s (or
> whenever) and realize
> that the 1950s (or whenever) were a different time.
>
> Clute has said something along the lines of "All
> science fiction,
> regardless of when it is set, takes place when it
> was written."
>
> Meddling with the published writings of a dead
> author is pretty tacky.
> To not acknowledge it is worse.

That's good question - how do post-computer readers
feel about stories written in the pre-computer era?  I
know I find it jarring to read a story where the main
character pulls out a slide rule to make calculations
for his whiz-bang machine.  It seems odd to have a
machine that can do wonderful things, but the data to
run it has to be manually entered.  And I remember
slide calculators!  What if you've never had that
experience of no computers, cell phones, and the like.

Not that those stories should necessarily be updated,
but would the stories be too unusual for those
readers?   Seems to me that if people can relate to
Jane Austin's era, they might be able to find
pre-computer days comprehensible.

Nicki

=====
"The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants."  -Andrew Carnegie
=====
MIMOSA web site: http://www.jophan.org/mimosa

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