tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post115362625672491085..comments2024-03-26T18:28:06.391-04:00Comments on Evil Editor: Face-Lift 131Evil Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03879826770199639420noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153808654595558332006-07-25T02:24:00.000-04:002006-07-25T02:24:00.000-04:00Novelust said... >>>Women's SF is all Prada bags a...Novelust said... >>>Women's SF is all Prada bags and aliens, strappy sandals and androids. <<<<<BR/><BR/>Thanks. Now I'll be trying to fall asleep to an image of Data in drag , possibly channeling Meryl Streep in 'Devil Wears Prada'.<BR/><BR/>>shudder<<BR/><BR/>'Scarabaeus' made me wonder if there was an unheralded sequel to The Bartimaeus Trilogy... in which Barti stops materializing as a young Ptolemy and goes for a less exalted, but still Egyptian, look that's less exhausting to maintain.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153784762575372872006-07-24T19:46:00.000-04:002006-07-24T19:46:00.000-04:00Not to mention Scarabaeus Babies and Scarabaues: T...Not to mention <I>Scarabaeus Babies</I> and <I>Scarabaues: The Musical</I>Daisy Batemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10031425541717458261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153774365875069312006-07-24T16:52:00.000-04:002006-07-24T16:52:00.000-04:00After that will come Revenge of Scarabaeus, etc.Yo...<I>After that will come Revenge of Scarabaeus, etc.<BR/><BR/>You forgot Law & Order: Scarabaeus. <BR/><BR/>Followed by CSI:Scarabaeus.</I><BR/><BR/>You also forgot <I>Scarabaeus Messiah, God Emperor of Scarabaeus, Heretics of Scarabaeus</I> and <I>Chapterhouse: Scarabaeus</I><BR/><BR/>I just can't let a potential SF series pass w/o a <I>Dune</I> reference. It would violate the terms of my parole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153773893907854362006-07-24T16:44:00.000-04:002006-07-24T16:44:00.000-04:00"Eventually" is in fact inaccurate, although I can..."Eventually" is in fact inaccurate, although I can't blame Evil Editor. The novel starts on the day she gets kidnapped, and she's kidnapped specifically because she's the best person for the job (stealing biocyph from Scarabaeus). They go there immediately, although the journey takes a couple of weeks. (Her sabotage 7 years earlier is backstory.)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your comments and thanks EE for the ideas I garnered from the rewrite.<BR/><BR/>(There are no strappy sandals!)Sara Creasyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09398837332152581447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153769763557483452006-07-24T15:36:00.000-04:002006-07-24T15:36:00.000-04:00Delete "Eventually," which suggests a lot of aimle...<I>Delete "Eventually," which suggests a lot of aimless wandering before the plot actually materializes.</I><BR/><BR/>To me it suggests an unspecified amount of time has passed. We know seven years passed between the time she screwed up the planet and the time her kidnapers returned her there. But since we don't know how long after she was kidnaped she returned, or whether her captors were aimlessly wandering during that time, we'll need the author to tell us whether they went there immediately after capturing her, or . . . eventually.Evil Editorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03879826770199639420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153763317642119582006-07-24T13:48:00.000-04:002006-07-24T13:48:00.000-04:00Excuse me, Anon, for being nit-picky, but people m...Excuse me, Anon, for being nit-picky, but people may "migrate" as well.Bernitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05264585685253812090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153757948321718852006-07-24T12:19:00.000-04:002006-07-24T12:19:00.000-04:00Eventually the rovers are drawn to Scarabaeus,Dele...<I>Eventually the rovers are drawn to Scarabaeus,</I><BR/><BR/>Delete "Eventually," which suggests a lot of aimless wandering before the plot actually materializes. Kind of like <I>Star Trek III (The Search for Plot).</I> (Credit to the late Kelly Turner for that one.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153754445663795292006-07-24T11:20:00.000-04:002006-07-24T11:20:00.000-04:00To make matters worse, she is assigned a reluctant...<I>To make matters worse, she is assigned a reluctant bodyguard, the dark and mysterious convict Finn, who is motivated to protect her by a chip in his skull that will kill him if she dies.</I><BR/><BR/>It is obvious how this makes matters worse. Finn is seriously suicidal but too scared to kill himself, so he spends the rest of the book trying to off Edie.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153743137514659872006-07-24T08:12:00.000-04:002006-07-24T08:12:00.000-04:00Those who like this pitch might also like The Four...Those who like this pitch might also like <I>The Four Lords of the Diamond</I> by Jack Chalker, in which an oppressive gov't terraforms four planets of the Diamond using advanced but mysterious technology; in which technicians are kidnapped by outlaws spawned on the Frontier Worlds; in which smart bio-implants threaten to kill their implantees, and in which the terraformed Diamond planets all evolve under the control of the mutated micro-organism that makes the planets sentient.<BR/><BR/>Del Rey Book Club Edition published 1983.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153742742520817372006-07-24T08:05:00.000-04:002006-07-24T08:05:00.000-04:00I think naming the protagonist "Eve" would guarant...I think naming the protagonist "Eve" would guarantee instant rejection. That's something of a travelled road in SF, women's or otherwise.<BR/><BR/>I imagine women's science fiction is like what's in those Women's Press SF novels I have upstairs somewhere: SF by women for women about women. Or perhaps the querier just meant that the agent she's approaching has a lot of female clients who write SF...nonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00415222406280230021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153741084091972422006-07-24T07:38:00.000-04:002006-07-24T07:38:00.000-04:00Not my cup of tea, but the rewritten query makes t...Not my cup of tea, but the rewritten query makes the novel sound like something my daughter would love to read. I do not mean that as an insult...she's twelve, intelligent and loves SFF with female protagonists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153737761844034762006-07-24T06:42:00.000-04:002006-07-24T06:42:00.000-04:00Women's SF is all Prada bags and aliens, strappy s...Women's SF is all Prada bags and aliens, strappy sandals and androids.Novelusthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446059248591407659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153727793924620562006-07-24T03:56:00.000-04:002006-07-24T03:56:00.000-04:00With a BSc in Biology, I use futuristic concepts o...<I>With a BSc in Biology, I use futuristic concepts of genetic engineering as the backdrop for my novel.</I><BR/><BR/>Look at this line. Apart from the BSc BS, this is one big comma splice. "With" is not the right word to start of this sentence. I think this happened because the querier wanted a tight sentence. This one is too tight. Try: "I have a BSc in Biology and I use..." It takes a few more letters, but it's much better grammatically.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153718645275447342006-07-24T01:24:00.000-04:002006-07-24T01:24:00.000-04:00I'm with Anon 11:17 -- what is "women's science fi...I'm with Anon 11:17 -- what is "women's science fiction" supposed to mean?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153713312461863212006-07-23T23:55:00.000-04:002006-07-23T23:55:00.000-04:00What is "women's science fiction?"I don't know. I ...<I>What is "women's science fiction?"</I><BR/><BR/>I don't know. I made it up.<BR/><BR/>It's the sci-fi I want to read. Female protagonist, no military, no physics, a little politics, a couple of guns, lots of biology, a heap of sexual tension. (Evil Editor killed my sexual tension!)<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>This book definitely needs a mutant beetle.</I><BR/><BR/>Indeed there is a mutant beetle, and it's vital to the plot. Just not that vital to the query.Sara Creasyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09398837332152581447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153711063808584742006-07-23T23:17:00.000-04:002006-07-23T23:17:00.000-04:00What is "women's science fiction?" I've heard of m...What is "women's science fiction?" I've heard of military, space opera, dystopian, hard science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk and tons of other subgenres, but I've never heard of "women's science fiction".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153710802282469172006-07-23T23:13:00.000-04:002006-07-23T23:13:00.000-04:00I've since learnt it's called a BS here (which is ...I've since learnt it's called a BS here (which is about all it's good for). As if I didn't have enough to worry about, what with the endless Search & Replace for colour/color, -ised/-ized, grey/gray...Sara Creasyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09398837332152581447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153709100480225492006-07-23T22:45:00.000-04:002006-07-23T22:45:00.000-04:00We call them B.S. degrees here. Seriously. It's a ...We call them B.S. degrees here. Seriously. <BR/><BR/>It's a pretty good descriptor.Daisy Batemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10031425541717458261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153703825855073642006-07-23T21:17:00.000-04:002006-07-23T21:17:00.000-04:00I'm also Canadian, but the BSc doesn't seem all th...I'm also Canadian, but the BSc doesn't seem all that strange to me... it's a bachelor's degree in science...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153702294657349782006-07-23T20:51:00.000-04:002006-07-23T20:51:00.000-04:00Yay! Once again I guessed the correct plot. I lik...Yay! Once again I guessed the correct plot. <BR/><BR/>I liked this story and definitely would want to read it. Not based on the fake plot blurb (which I found confusing and unbelievable. I couldn't see how sentient beings could arise from a "ruined" planet in just 7 years--but the query does a good job of explaining that).<BR/><BR/>I would expect the title to be explained, though.<BR/><BR/>Also, since this is initially promoted as "women's" sci-fi, you might want to give your main character a more womanly name. Edie is a female name, but closely tied to the masculine Ed. Eve on the other hand has lots of womanly (and creation) connotations.<BR/><BR/>And we have Bachelors of Science in the states. I think we just abbreviate as BS though (and that has it's own connotations!)<BR/><BR/>EE's version is great. (Makes the main character more likeable up front.) As is his humor (great). (I liked "crib death" too!)<BR/><BR/>And finally, we know what to get EE for his holiday gift--a bodyguard with a chip to protect EE at all costs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153699917609281352006-07-23T20:11:00.000-04:002006-07-23T20:11:00.000-04:00EE: What?! We have B.Sc. degrees here in Canada; h...EE: <I>What?!</I> We have B.Sc. degrees here in Canada; how different could the United States be?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153698756000869602006-07-23T19:52:00.000-04:002006-07-23T19:52:00.000-04:00Not to be too nitpicky, but migrate is what birds ...Not to be too nitpicky, but migrate is what birds and antelope do. People <I>emigrate</I>...unless they go from the US to Australia every 6 months or something.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153694225779864722006-07-23T18:37:00.000-04:002006-07-23T18:37:00.000-04:00Followed by CSI:Scarabaeus.Followed by CSI:Scarabaeus.Teresahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00149230263885894832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153691310106229522006-07-23T17:48:00.000-04:002006-07-23T17:48:00.000-04:00This book definitely needs a mutant beetle.This book definitely needs a mutant beetle.Feistyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11862268796574597694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26791026.post-1153690805255079922006-07-23T17:40:00.000-04:002006-07-23T17:40:00.000-04:00Crib Death.BAHAHHAHHAAAAAA!!!Crib Death.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>BAHAHHAHHAAAAAA!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com