Off the Beaten Track
by Michael Gallant

Entertainment is a vast, shallow, empty expanse of the predictable, the rehashed, the worn out and the pale imitation of what was once ground breaking.

Movies are looking more and more to remakes of classics, and having sucked the film well dry, are turning to old television. Not even good old television, just old television. Television is worse. Cheap, easy to crank out reality shows dominate, and anything with wit or humor or originality dies a quick and ignoble death.

As always, the less said about popular music the better.

And, the s/f section of the bookstore is still filled with the same dozen writers.

It's enough to drive you to despair.

Or to drive you to do something about it.

It's only the mainstream media that sucks. More and more people are noticing this. The most exciting dramas are on cable stations, not the big networks. People are subscribing to satellite radio to hear unsigned bands and ignored alternative music. DVD rentals are fueling the independent movie industry.

And you guys are coming here for your fiction fix.

So as usual the first part of fixing a problem is to get up and do something about it. Which some of you are. Actually, all of *you* are, but some of the general population.

The second part, and this is where the faithful stray from the path, is not to become an indie snob.

You know the guy at the Con who get's pissy when somebody calls SF "sci-fi?" Don't be that guy.

Don't be the guy who stops listening to a band when they get a record deal. Don't stop liking a director because he finally got to do a film with a budget.

And for the love of booze, don't bitch on the QM forum that a story we put in the sci fi section wasn't "sciency" enough!

You're just being a putz, because, first, only about six people read the damn forum, and second, because we want to publish some stories we really like and maybe give a good but unrecognized author a break, and the only slot open is in science fiction, because all the hard SF we got that month sucked like Heinlein's rejected drafts after a drunken binge and cocaine fueled night of passion with an underaged Brazilian prostitute, so we published the well written story about life in space that somehow doesn't fit *Azimov's* definition of SF.

Half the reason we don't do many Conventions is that my parole officer has unrealistically rigid views on my swinging chairs at people who do that kind of thing. That and the booze tends to be overpriced.

In short, you already know where to look outside the mainstream, to the struggling independent artists.

Now try not to shoot down their hard earn, poorly compensated success when they finally get it.

So, people, let's review.

Being discriminating means hating the bad stuff, not the popular stuff. We understand that that's usually the same, but try to see the subtle shades of difference.

You're smart enough to do that. We have faith in you.

| Home | Alternative | Fantasy | Science Fiction | Artwork | Editorial | Submissions | News |
| Discussion Board | Recommended | Merchandise | About Us | Links | Webrings | Archives |