6 ms·

"Literary magazines are failing because people have wild takes these days" sounds like a huge leap of logic and embodies the sort of irrelevant dismissiveness t

"Literary magazines are failing because people have wild takes these days" sounds like a huge leap of logic and embodies the sort of irrelevant dismissiveness that HN commenters tend to have regarding non-technical topics. As someone else pointed out below, speculative fiction magazines are doing just fine, and you'd be hard-pressed to find ideas that WOULDN'T be considered "wild" in the field of SciFi or Fantasy.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Just out of question, do you read any literary magazines?
- oldsecondhand 5y ago
  He doesn't even read the comments he's replying to.
domador 5y ago
I think you're confusing two different things: 1) Wild ideas INSIDE a given work of literature 2) Wild ideas ABOUT a given work of literature
kevinventullo 5y ago
SciFi and Fantasy are explicitly fiction.
thinkingemote 5y ago
I believe that knowing about a topic is not a pre-requisite to gratify one's intellectual curiosity on this subject on HN. Indeed, I would suggest that we encourage curiosity in others when we see it.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  Sure, but I would suggest that we also encourage reading the linked articles before commenting. In this case, there is nothing in the CNN article that suggests the decline in literary magazines has a connection to "literary critique and interpretation in many Universities becoming more radical." It's awfully hard not to see this as the commenter just taking this as a stalking horse to bring up an opinion they already held.
  - useragent86 5y ago
    > It's awfully hard not to see this as the commenter just taking this as a stalking horse to bring up an opinion they already held. Isn't this what happens on every HN thread, people expressing opinions relevant to the topic? Or is it only forbidden when criticizing descendants of the Frankfurt School?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      I originally wrote a snarkier response to this in response to your snark, but I'm to just gently note that my contention was that the opinion was not relevant to the topic, and it seems to me you're demonstrating exactly what I was complaining about: you didn't actually respond to what I said, you just said, "Ooh, here's an opportunity to snark about something I consider snark-worthy." So, uh, go you.
    - watwut 5y ago
      I think that issue is the claim not being relevant to topic in article, while pretending so to push for specific ideology.
bigbillheck 5y ago
>speculative fiction magazines are doing just fine, F&SF is down to six issues a year (they had 8 in 2009, and 11 from 1991-2008). Analog and Asimov's each dropped from 10 to 6 in 2017 (and each went from 11 to 10 in 2003). That's not what I'd call 'just fine'.
- akuchling 5y ago
  Stories in the SF magazines have also pretty much disappeared from award-nominations like the Hugos and the Nebulas, replaced by publications that are free online like Uncanny or Tor.com. It makes sense: people are much more likely to read and nominate these stories, and the shrinking number of readers means a smaller pool of potential nominators. I think it's just a matter of time, maybe a decade or so, before the print magazines disappear.
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
Speculative fiction magazines are doing relatively well because the standing of speculative fiction in literary circles has risen so much. 50 years ago, it was largely considered pulp and not real literature (though I would argue that plenty of "real literature" was being written in the genre, it just wasn't widely accepted as such by contemporaries). Even the few works that were accepted, people often claimed that it wasn't really SF. More recently, it is increasingly being accepted that being SF doesn't inherently reduce something's literary value, so SF magazines have had more room to grow. Even with that, a lot of the traditional leaders among SF magazines have been struggling. What's doing well are the newer online-first magazines, most notably Tor.com, which has boatloads of money to throw around (by short fiction standards) and doesn't need to be financially self-sustaining because it is effectively a loss-leader for their novels.
- brimble 5y ago
  Mid-tier genre mags still pay. The pay may suck, but they do pay. Even some fairly low-tier ones pay. Mid-tier literary journals generally don't, and their editors often act insulted if the topic is raised, so the issue doesn't seem to just be that they can't afford to pay. There's seemingly an expectation that until you've already "made it" you should be working for free.
pcmoney 5y ago
I am not talking about wild ideas in the literature but wild ideas in the interpretation of the literature. There is a pressure to interpret everything with the lens of partisan identity politics. Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay.
- thebooktocome 5y ago
  People have been debating that since the sixties —- predating “identity politics” by several decades.
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    - thebooktocome 5y ago
      That may be your opinion, but C. S. Lewis was not participating in some discourse on identity politics, not by any stretch of the imagination. He wouldn’t have understood the term. Your citation merely reinforces my point that queer readings of LOTR predate the current generation by several decades. It’s a historical fact.
      - pcmoney 5y ago
        Maybe not the term but the practice: “The danger of mistaking our merely natural, though perhaps legitimate, enthusiasms for holy zeal, is always great. The demon inherent in every party is at all times ready enough to disguise himself as the Holy Ghost,”
    - watwut 5y ago
      Yes, gender and race were immensly important to success and literally anything in the 60s. That decade started shortly after bus boycot and ended around the time MLK was killed. Yale, Princeton and Cornell did not allowed women at all. The identity ruled the lifes of people.
nonameiguess 5y ago
It's amusing to see the responses to this about not reading the parent comment when, as far as I can tell, the parent comment may not have read the article. Literary review magazines publish short form literature, not literary criticism.

vorpalhex 5y ago

Just out of question, do you read any literary magazines?

oldsecondhand 5y ago
He doesn't even read the comments he's replying to.

domador 5y ago

I think you're confusing two different things: 1) Wild ideas INSIDE a given work of literature 2) Wild ideas ABOUT a given work of literature

kevinventullo 5y ago

SciFi and Fantasy are explicitly fiction.

thinkingemote 5y ago

I believe that knowing about a topic is not a pre-requisite to gratify one's intellectual curiosity on this subject on HN. Indeed, I would suggest that we encourage curiosity in others when we see it.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago
Sure, but I would suggest that we also encourage reading the linked articles before commenting. In this case, there is nothing in the CNN article that suggests the decline in literary magazines has a connection to "literary critique and interpretation in many Universities becoming more radical." It's awfully hard not to see this as the commenter just taking this as a stalking horse to bring up an opinion they already held.
- useragent86 5y ago
  > It's awfully hard not to see this as the commenter just taking this as a stalking horse to bring up an opinion they already held. Isn't this what happens on every HN thread, people expressing opinions relevant to the topic? Or is it only forbidden when criticizing descendants of the Frankfurt School?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    I originally wrote a snarkier response to this in response to your snark, but I'm to just gently note that my contention was that the opinion was not relevant to the topic, and it seems to me you're demonstrating exactly what I was complaining about: you didn't actually respond to what I said, you just said, "Ooh, here's an opportunity to snark about something I consider snark-worthy." So, uh, go you.
  - watwut 5y ago
    I think that issue is the claim not being relevant to topic in article, while pretending so to push for specific ideology.

bigbillheck 5y ago

>speculative fiction magazines are doing just fine, F&SF is down to six issues a year (they had 8 in 2009, and 11 from 1991-2008). Analog and Asimov's each dropped from 10 to 6 in 2017 (and each went from 11 to 10 in 2003). That's not what I'd call 'just fine'.

akuchling 5y ago
Stories in the SF magazines have also pretty much disappeared from award-nominations like the Hugos and the Nebulas, replaced by publications that are free online like Uncanny or Tor.com. It makes sense: people are much more likely to read and nominate these stories, and the shrinking number of readers means a smaller pool of potential nominators. I think it's just a matter of time, maybe a decade or so, before the print magazines disappear.

TheCoelacanth 5y ago

Speculative fiction magazines are doing relatively well because the standing of speculative fiction in literary circles has risen so much. 50 years ago, it was largely considered pulp and not real literature (though I would argue that plenty of "real literature" was being written in the genre, it just wasn't widely accepted as such by contemporaries). Even the few works that were accepted, people often claimed that it wasn't really SF. More recently, it is increasingly being accepted that being SF doesn't inherently reduce something's literary value, so SF magazines have had more room to grow. Even with that, a lot of the traditional leaders among SF magazines have been struggling. What's doing well are the newer online-first magazines, most notably Tor.com, which has boatloads of money to throw around (by short fiction standards) and doesn't need to be financially self-sustaining because it is effectively a loss-leader for their novels.

brimble 5y ago
Mid-tier genre mags still pay. The pay may suck, but they do pay. Even some fairly low-tier ones pay. Mid-tier literary journals generally don't, and their editors often act insulted if the topic is raised, so the issue doesn't seem to just be that they can't afford to pay. There's seemingly an expectation that until you've already "made it" you should be working for free.

pcmoney 5y ago

I am not talking about wild ideas in the literature but wild ideas in the interpretation of the literature. There is a pressure to interpret everything with the lens of partisan identity politics. Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay.

thebooktocome 5y ago
People have been debating that since the sixties —- predating “identity politics” by several decades.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  - thebooktocome 5y ago
    That may be your opinion, but C. S. Lewis was not participating in some discourse on identity politics, not by any stretch of the imagination. He wouldn’t have understood the term. Your citation merely reinforces my point that queer readings of LOTR predate the current generation by several decades. It’s a historical fact.
    - pcmoney 5y ago
      Maybe not the term but the practice: “The danger of mistaking our merely natural, though perhaps legitimate, enthusiasms for holy zeal, is always great. The demon inherent in every party is at all times ready enough to disguise himself as the Holy Ghost,”
  - watwut 5y ago
    Yes, gender and race were immensly important to success and literally anything in the 60s. That decade started shortly after bus boycot and ended around the time MLK was killed. Yale, Princeton and Cornell did not allowed women at all. The identity ruled the lifes of people.

nonameiguess 5y ago

It's amusing to see the responses to this about not reading the parent comment when, as far as I can tell, the parent comment may not have read the article. Literary review magazines publish short form literature, not literary criticism.