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EDITED_REALITY

                                              February 1, 2007

  When I was a young and naive teenage
  reader, I had an unconscious worship
  of the writers that I liked:

     I trusted them to play it
     straight with me, to always
     tell the truth to the best      (And I was a
     of their ability.               Harlan Ellison
                                     fan!)
     It took some years to
     understand it, but that
     does not include telling
     you the truth about
     editors.  It is not
     possible for a commercial
     author making a living on                 One of the early puzzles
     the sufferance of editorial               I had to solve: why
     decisions to do more than                 was Anthony Boucher so
     hint at their actual                      well respected by the
     opinions of editors.                      writers I respected?

                                               All of those glowing
                                               remarks about the
                                               fellow... yet "Rocket
                                               to the Morgue" was an
     One example: there are                    awfully thin piece of
     tales about *some* editor                 fannish fiction, and
     with a reputation for                     Boucher's other
     screwing around with                      mystery novels aren't
     wording for no apparent                   any better.
     purpose. Some writers
     went as far as to                         The answer is rather
     experiment with planting                  simple, though: he
     intentional errors in the                 was the editor of
     manuscript so that the                    "Fantasy and Science
     editor would feel like he                 Fiction" for many years.
     had done some work and
     perhaps leave the rest                       And a good
     alone.                                       editor, I
                                                  must say.
        You were allowed
        to hear this story...
        but the editor's                                  BLACK_MASKS
        name would be          My guess: Horace
        discretely left out    Gold... but if that's
        of the tale.           a wrong guess, it
                               illustrates why you      HORACE_GOLD
                               should name names or
                               not speak.



             And then there's the
             case of Bruce Sterling,       STERLING_DISTRACTED
             who takes it to extremes:

                 Ellen Datlow, he informed
                 us in "Mirroshades" was "a
                 shades-packing sister in
                 the vanguard of the              (She bought shorts
                 ideologically correct"           for Omni at two
                                                  grand a pop.)
                 And in "Tommorrow
                 Now", he tells us
                 that Kevin Kelley is
                 "the Emerson of the     CONTROL
                 Internet Era"


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