Fear and Loathing in Burlington
A Review of Readercon 12
by Patrick LeClerc

Well, it falls to me to write this months editorial. Mike was going to do it, but he is nursing bruised knuckles on his typing hand after a heated debate about the validity of electronic publishing. He wanted to tell you all "you should see the other guy."

Bolstered with optimism and strong drink, the Quantum Muse crew made the epic journey to Burlington, deep in the People's Republic of Massachusetts earlier this month for the much touted Readercon 12, three days of phony cordiality, partisanship, self congratulation and backstabbing that would make the Republican National Convention look like Woodstock.

The first thing we noticed at Readercon was the shocking absence of readers. The halls were filled with booksellers, publishers, editors, authors, struggling authors, aspiring authors and would-be authors. Like another paranoia-driven authoritarian organization before them, the staff mandated the wearing of symbols to distinguish the different groups, so the lack of simple spectators was obvious.

It was soon clear that the electronic publishers are the poor relations of the industry. With the same desperation-driven venom that the Central Germany Monks' Transcribers Local must have felt for Gutenberg, the establishment took every opportunity to sneer at the newcomers. Mike pointed out that the British regulars sneered at the American marksmen who fired from cover and targeted officers, but all the sneering in the world couldn't keep the colonies in the Empire.

The mood among our group grew ugly. Our Web Goddess took over one of the panel discussions on Internet S/F to free the oppressed masses from the Orwellian rhetoric of the convention organizers. Cindy, the earthly incarnation of the Muse, was ready to shoot lightning bolts from her eyes. Strong men quake at her wrath. Ray, cunning and methodical beneath the exterior of a Robert E Howard hero, complied a list of publications in which he could attack the establishment. Tim, brought up believing that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, was appropriately silent. Shortly after Mike made his comparison about the American Revolution he began drinking heavily, muttering to himself, and developing a thousand yard stare. Eventually, he waded into the debate which robbed him of his editorial. He can't help it. He's an infantry Marine at heart; hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle.

I came up through Recon. I hung around the edges of conversation, sat in on the panels, listened at the bar, and made every effort to sniff the wind.

It was heavy with fear and filled with the too-loud laughter of industry middlemen with the stink of death already upon them. I have often been accused of exaggerating the facts, so I will let the convention condemn itself out of its own mouth. The following is the write up of an actual panel discussion, taken verbatim from the program guide.

"Electronic Publishing, Print on Demand, and the Death of the Book. Will there be any readers to attend a Readercon ten years from now? Right now, SF is a profession for many of its practitioners; it's what they do for a living. But if e-books end up being priced very cheaply, and if readership doesn't expand as we switch from print to digital, SF may end up being solely a hobbyist activity. Will the genre survive the transition to new forms of publishing? How will readers be able to distinguish quality work from the mountains of crap that will flood the net in the post publisher economy?"

Can you smell the terror wafting from the sweating editorial assistant who penned that? Cringing and clawing at his bald spot as he scribbled those lines in the harsh, cold, wee hours, shaking hands spilling the gin which had become his only confidant. I haven't seen such loaded language outside of a Senate race or the headline of a Rupert Murdoch newspaper. McCarthy would be proud.

Examine the question closely. The publishing industry thinks you are a bunch of idiots. Why, how could the general public ever be smart enough to tell good from bad without the publishers telling them? "How can I afford hookers if they cut my job in the marketing department?" is the real question that brings these people awake at night in a cold sweat. Never mind that there were no readers at this Readercon. Never mind that plenty of crap gets published in paperback. Never mind that the thickness of a book and the resulting shelf space it will occupy are as vital to a manuscript's selection as its merit. Never mind that the genre which most heavily demands imagination and experimentation is now a fussy, conservative boys club that relies on a stable of established writers to crank out series (better than original single novels to keep a return audience) in a similar milieu. Never mind that, of all genres, Science Fiction is deeply afraid of science.

Good SF is simply storytelling. All good fiction is only that. All it requires is an author and an audience. There will always be some way for grateful readers to throw largesse at the writer. Stephen King is trying it now. What scares the industry is that now storytelling can be direct. We no longer need the staff of middlemen to bring new works to the masses. They sense this, and lash out against it like a wounded beast.

Lash out as it will, an old, sick wildebeest will go down before a pride of lions. And the industry is getting older and sicker by the day.

Run with the lions. Subscribe to Quantum Muse.

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