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PARSIMONY

                                May 26, 1992

There's a barrier at the beginning
of every story that takes effort to
penetrate.  You need to learn
something about the characters, the
style of writing, and get a sense
of the direction of the plot before
you get can get drawn into the
story.
    
   With Science Fiction and    
   Fantasy this barrier is even
   larger, since fewer things  
   are given: you also need to 
   understand the social and   
   technological premises of   
   the story.  If you're       
   reading for "escape", then  
   most of the effort is spent 
   at the beginning, and the   
   payoff is whatever follows. 
                               
      So you get series. And     
      really *long* books.       
      Sometimes you get series 
      of long books. 

It used to be assumed that entertaining
fiction should have as few words as
possible, because people with poor reading
skills would be intimidated by massive          There's an Algis   
tomes.  Now, the opposite idea seems to be      Budrys theory that 
in play.                                        the "unnecessary"  
                                                verbiage in        
                                                bestsellers gives  
                                                poor readers a     
                                                chance to catch up.


So, once upon a time, novels were
tight, parsimonious, like say:       
   Delany's "Babel-17"               (Though... there was a converse  
   Algis Budrys' "Rogue Moon"         problem: abrupt, forced endings 
                                      tacked on when the arbitrary 
                                      page limit was near.)
Now they tend to be sprawling,
overweight monstrosities.  

It seems to me that everything
reads like it's in need of        
cutting, even a lot of the        For example Pamela Sargent's   
books that I like.                _Venus of Dreams_ and _Venus of
                                  Shadows_ both drag in places.  
                               

                            
                   So, how about creating a new
                   Hugo category for books over
                   a certain length?           
                                               
                   "Bloats" wouldn't be a      
                   bad name, though I have a   
                   certain fondness for        
                   "Damn Fat Books".           

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