Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Different strokes and all that.
For my money, Heinlein's worst by far was the utterly self-indulgent (and devoid of any editorial fingerprint) NUMBER OF THE BEAST. SUNSET might be worse, I suppose, but by then I was done with him.
Now, on the Baen side I'm quite fond of the recent Vorkosigan volumes, most of the 163x series, to say nothing of the triple ongoing Weber Honorverse series. Or the Hell's Gate series. The recent Webers are a tad verbose in places, yes, but I survived reading Lord of the Rings twice in one week long ago, so verbose doesn't stop me. And, having purchased the odd ARC here and there (plus the oopsie), I can attest that *some* editing has occured. Which is more than I can say for Weber's Tor-published Safehold series.
(Shrug)
Being well acquainted with Sturgeon's law, I don't pretend any publisher is above putting out clunkers but since SF is the literature of ideas, even the most vile or poorly executed SF book has something to say to somebody as long as they're willing to listen. Doesn't mean everything has to please everybody, though. In fact, most of my favorite books have annoyed somebody somewhere which I take as a good sign.
Baen makes it clear they are not adverse to publishing space opera and neo-pulps, as well as straight adventure SF, urban fantasy, and spoofs. Suits me just fine. I like risk-takers.
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The thing about the number of the beast and his other late books is you can watch Heinlein's brain though the text, it stretches and then about 2/3'rds of the way though a nice adventure story, *snap* like a rubber band and all of a sudden it's all about incest nudism and plural marriage and you're like what the hell man? Youput up with is in Time enough for love becuase the tale of the adopted daughter makes you cry, you put up with it in the cat who walked though walls because it's an awesome future adventure till they get to tertius. Farnham didn't have the saving grace of being decent up until he shook things up, it was lackluster before then and then just bad and racially insensitive.
The 163x's started decently but have now just become awful. The storylines go everywhere, nothing ever seems resolved, they're not books, they're not even chapters, they're low on plot snapshots of a place and time. Building a world is great but what happens in it should be solid plot arcs that have a point and come to a resolution. Characters don't grow past whatever they were needed to be to start the plot of that book. His naval series with Webber is decent though.
The early Honor Harrington books were plagued with political strawmen and constant almost random viewpoint shifts, the later ones (which I read because I promised someone I would or I'd have stopped) managed to settle down the viewpoint problem to where the changes were at least spaced out properly and in places where there were logical breaks for doing so but it was replaced with 10 page blocks of expository text that just drives me crazy, show don't tell.
Much like with 163x Webber's collaborations with Flint are better, they seems to brace up each other's shortcomings acting like the missing editor they'd both do much better to have.
And no I'm not saying others don't put out clunkers but for their pet authors Baen has really lowered the bar. I've questioned for awhile whether they're more vanity press for a handful of names than a full service publisher. A situation of I like your politics or Jim Baen had already signed you so whatever you give us, we publish no questions asked no editing offered. It's a small niche, relying on fans of authors to care only about names, and it works for them but it is limiting.
Like I said Tor or Ace wouldn't have published most of it and none of it without editing. Even the Flint Webber pairing could still use a final coat of polish. I'd rather read a book than a spell checked manuscript.