Monday, April 8, 2013

Day 8: Roger Zelazny haiku

Gather 'round, children,
for Pol Detson's strum-a-long.
Get a job, hippie!

14 comments:

  1. Pol Detson's magic
    versus Mark Marakson's science.
    Guess which one will win?

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  2. Calling Chris K.!!!
    This is out of left field, but I was just reading this rant by someone named Kameron Hurley where he says that Roger Zelazny died in poverty:

    www.kameronhurley.com/?p=13015&wpmp_switcher=mobile

    WTF?

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  3. That's a perfect example of someone proclaiming to all the world that he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's heard an urban legend third-hand and assumed it to be fact, or he's actually thinking about some other writer of Zelazny's era who did die in poverty. There have been more than a few of those.

    Zelazny made a lot of money in his last few years with the Amber novels; the advance alone on the first three was considered "huge" for its time by editor David Hartwell, and the books did so well commercially that the three became five books. As I noted in the biography, when Zelazny died he had full medical insurance with all of the privileges and top level care that could come with it. That's not someone who's poor. Many science fiction writers can't afford medical insurance and have had to make use of the SFWA emergency medical fund. But not Zelazny.

    Chris

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    Replies
    1. I hadn't heard that author's name before but I've realized that I should have written "she" not "he" in the first paragraph.

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    2. That's disappointing, but I believe it's probably a good faith error. I see there is no options to comment on the blog and all contact should be made through her agent, but I'll give a go and try to reach out to her if no one else wants to do it.

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    3. Josh, please do. Left unchallenged it will become fact simply because it's there on the Internet. Imagine if someone had casually posted something about you such as "...and I vividly recall the time he was arrested for..."

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  4. I figured it must be something like that -- although just for a second there my whole view of Zelazny was upended. Kind of jarring.

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  5. It's already spreading:

    http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4264097.html

    They start in on Zelazny a little ways down the thread, and it gets ugly quickly. I tried to post but LiveJournal wouldn't let me.

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    Replies
    1. I've posted a reply which should help if anyone reads it.

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  6. This came up on the F&SF Forum (that's where I learned about it), so I posted there, too.

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  7. I see that the post has since been updated with a sarcastic, dismissive non-apology.

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    Replies
    1. That shows a complete lack of class from Hurley.

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    2. Yes, that's a rather puerile response and not the simple correction and apology a mature person would have made. "Sorry, I must have been thinking of someone else." Moreover, her phrasing implies that she's sure that Zelazny wrote in one of his own collections, "I've died in poverty." Or maybe she thinks it was "I'm dying, and I'm in poverty." Zelazny was neither prescient nor poor.

      I wonder how she'd feel if someone had made slanderous remarks about her, and instead of a simple correction and apology, she received the sarcastic non-apology that she wrote? Roger's not around to defend himself because he's dead, and she has to attack the "Zelazny fans" who pointed out her error/slander?

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  8. This is really beginning to bother me. I have no problem believing her initial statement, which was almost incidental to the larger point she was trying to make, was something she believed. That's not a problem. People make mistakes all the time and I certainly make my share. It was probably foolish to make an offhand comment about a beloved and renowned public figure, but whatever.

    However, when presented with evidence of a mistake, I generally have the good grace to acknowledge and correct it. The "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge", oh I think I must have read it somewhere, but gosh darn the luck, I can't find the nameless collection that backs me up.

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