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Replying To:
Luddite SF Authors[ Parent ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Fri Feb 20, 2004 at 10:42:38 AM PDT

Just a quick note -- my fellow Anonymite is quite right about how little understanding of computers there is among SF authors. I'm a member of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. (Yes, there's only one F in the acronym, it's a long story.) SFWA members get a monthly mailing which is essentially a big letter column, discussing issues relevant to the group and to the SF/F writing community as a whole. And you should see the fear and hatred some authors have expressed in those letters for the entire concept of electronic media. I could understand the fantasy writers -- you'd expect them to be uncomfortable with anything beyond vellum and oak-gall ink. But the SF authors? The way some of them talk, they sound like they'd be willing to destroy every computer in existence in order to preserve the pittance they make off their paper sales. Can't they see the pattern? Every new technology like this starts with piracy and ends with profit, from the printing press (producing "unauthorized" Bibles) to the VCR (how evil, they're timeshifting TV shows!) to the computer. How can someone whose job is extrapolating the future from the past and present be so blind to the potential in front of them?

[ Parent ]


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