On 7/14/2025 11:21 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Youtube has started pitching me videos from indie SF author Jon Del Arroz from time to time. I usually don't have the patience to listen all the
way through a video essay (these things should be text on Usenet!)
but I get enough to see that the guy has a definite point of view which
will not be universally appreciated. That said, he has had a couple of videos on the big 3 magazines lately and apparently there is a lot of controversy around AI cover art and now changes to author contract terms.

I have to agree with his point about short fiction dying: I don't think
I have actually read an issue of _Analog_ (which I have subscribed to since the last 1970s I think) in a decade. I'm not sure what it is, but I find
I have to put as much effort getting into a short story these days as
into a novel, and then, bam! it's over...

Anyway, his vid on the contract controversy is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZwp9WlpmE

Interesting. I hope we don't see the demise of the short story outlets.

pt

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In article <105606b$68a1$1@dont-email.me>,
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/14/2025 11:21 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Anyway, his vid on the contract controversy is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZwp9WlpmE

Interesting. I hope we don't see the demise of the short story outlets.

I think there are quite a lot more outlets now than there were thirty
or forty years ago, it's just that most of them are online rather than
in the magazine rack. If we look at this year's Hugo nominees, three
were in Uncanny, two were in Lightspeed, and one was in Clarkesworld
-- all online venues, all established in this millennium.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

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Reply-To: slp53@pacbell.net

wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes:

In article <105606b$68a1$1@dont-email.me>,
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/14/2025 11:21 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Anyway, his vid on the contract controversy is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZwp9WlpmE

Interesting. I hope we don't see the demise of the short story outlets.

I think there are quite a lot more outlets now than there were thirty
or forty years ago, it's just that most of them are online rather than
in the magazine rack. If we look at this year's Hugo nominees, three
were in Uncanny, two were in Lightspeed, and one was in Clarkesworld
-- all online venues, all established in this millennium.

Not to mention fan fiction, which is sometimes even pretty good.

Don Sample comes to mind.

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.1 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: UsenetServer - www.usenetserver.com (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

In article <mdlvq0F3speU1@mid.individual.net>,
Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:

Youtube has started pitching me videos from indie SF author Jon Del Arroz >from time to time. I usually don't have the patience to listen all the
way through a video essay (these things should be text on Usenet!)
but I get enough to see that the guy has a definite point of view which
will not be universally appreciated. That said, he has had a couple of >videos on the big 3 magazines lately and apparently there is a lot of >controversy around AI cover art and now changes to author contract terms.

The man is a troll, and prone to spurious lawsuits and attempts to control
the Hugo awards. This is a point of view few here are likely to appreciate.

But it is true that short fiction is less popular, and I think that is
because it is so much easier to sell a long format work than it used to be. --scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2025 12:38:35 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

I have to agree with his point about short fiction dying: I don't think
I have actually read an issue of _Analog_ (which I have subscribed to since >> the last 1970s I think) in a decade. I'm not sure what it is, but I find
I have to put as much effort getting into a short story these days as
into a novel, and then, bam! it's over...

Anyway, his vid on the contract controversy is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZwp9WlpmE

Interesting. I hope we don't see the demise of the short story outlets.

Agreed - long ago I subscribed to both Asimov's and Analog but gave
them up when I moved 2000 miles away for grad school. (My folks kept
the remaining issues of my subscriptions for me and gave them to me
when I came home for Christmas which was a very pleasant shock) Not
sure why I didn't re-subscribe but didn't but have read plenty of SF
from our local library. One story I remember well from Analog was "The Mountains of Mourning" - it was the first Miles Vorkosigan story which
of course led to many more from Bujold.

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