The BFS Newsletter - Prism

[David A. Riley]

I hope Dev will forgive me for using this forum to make requests for reviews. As some of you will know I am now the editor for the British Fantasy Society's newsletter, Prism.

Although the BFS covers fantasy across the boards, including SF, fantasy and horror, I have found that very few of the book reviews cover straight horror. I hope, therefore, by mentioning this here I might be able to attract reviewers who would be interested in covering recent horror books, particularly anthologies and collections. I am thinking of anthologies like Charles Black's Black Book of Horror or Johnny Mains' Back from the Dead, both of which I hope to have covered this time but which wouldn't, had I not taken over editorship of Prism, been covered at all. There are quite a few collections I would like to see reviewed too, such as John Probert's, for instance. Not to mention the various Wordsworth collections.

So, if anyone here would like to send reviews of this type into me for Prism I would be more than grateful.

My email address is: [e-mail].

Thanks

David

[marksamuels]

Ummm....

I would but on the other hand I'm afraid that if I do...





Mark S.

[dem bones]

hi David

it's about time a genre publication paid more than lip service to Wordsworth editions and now that Prism is intent on giving horror more of a look in, it seems only right to try and give it some support. As i understand it from the BFS board, the new issue is pretty much done, so what's the deadline for the next one? is it restricted to people who can actually string two coherent sentences together or can illiterate vermin join in?

[David A. Riley]

I hope to send the next issue off to the printers on Monday, so there is still till this weekend. No pressure, eh?

After that, the next deadline is the middle of August for the September issue.

Although I don't want to tip the balance too far towards horror (after all, the BFS does see itself as a broad church), I do feel that horror is underrepresented in Prism at the moment, perhaps because a lot of the people who currently do reviews for it are more into fantasy and SF. There is some horror, of course, but not nearly half as much as I would like to see.

One nice development has been John Probert's new regular column on obscure, strange, perhaps ultra-strange horror films - such as this issue's The Hunchback in the Morgue. Even I had never heard of this one! As you would expect from John, the article is superbly whacky.

David

[David A. Riley]

"is it restricted to people who can actually string two coherent sentences together or can illiterate vermin join in?"

Obviously not. Last issue had a review by John Carter in it.

David

PS JC has qualities, though, that shine through. Blunt honesty being one.

PPS Added in case John Carter ever reads this.

[David A. Riley]

I'm afraid Prism is now a thing of the past. This is a message I have just posted on the BFS Forum:

"Well, effectively it looks as if the last issue of Prism , the September one, was the last there will ever be. From now on there'll be just one publication mailed out to members, and reviews and news will be on the website. I hope this results in more members using this site.

Since there's no point in having an editor for a non-existent publication, I would just like to say that I have enjoyed doing what I could with it during the course of this year - and at least it's appeared on schedule - and was, hopefully, of interest to members when they got it.

What columns are kept - no doubt "Ramsey's Rant" and, I hope, Mark Morris's "Mark of Fear" and John Probert's "Profundo Probert" - don't need me just to pass them on to whoever will be collating everything for the printer.

I was there when the Bulletin first went litho in the mid seventies and, oddly enough, I was there again during the Bulletin's final issues. Which marks the end of an era. Perhaps, in this internet age, it was the right decision too. At least there should be no delays in getting news and reviews out there on the website to the society's members. And our printed journals can concentrate on other things that don't date quite so quickly.

David"

www.britishfantasysociety.org/forum/index.php?board=43;topic=2696.36#msg18885

[dem bones]

i'm sorry to hear this, David. i could already see the vast improvement in the two Prism's you so kindly sent me and, from a purely selfish point of view, it was great to see you deliver on your 'there will be more horror' promise (see initial post on this thread). Aren't you being hasty? Even if there is to be just the one merged BFS magazine, it will still need a decent editor!

[David A. Riley]

It's not over with yet. But there are a few things I have issue with, in particular handing over the layout and setting to PS Publishing who have offered to do this "for free". That's a bit of an insult to the existing editors who have all done a fine job on the layout, etc for years "for free" . I dislike the idea of handing over something like this to a private company, whoever they may be.

I think anyone who has done this kind of thing will admit that a lot of the job satisfaction out of editing these periodicals is being able to design them too. That looks like going.

In any case, as I have already said, I dislike the idea of handing over important aspects to an outside company. It goes against the grain of what I have always thought the BFS was about. And could be a dangerous precendent.

[Dr Terror]

Shame, especially as you had already started on the Christmas edition.

[dem bones]

Sept 30, 2010 20:05:05 GMT David A. Riley said:

It's not over with yet. But there are a few things I have issue with, in particular handing over the layout and setting to PS Publishing who have offered to do this "for free". That's a bit of an insult to the existing editors who have all done a fine job on the layout, etc for years "for free" . I dislike the idea of handing over something like this to a private company, whoever they may be.

I think anyone who has done this kind of thing will admit that a lot of the job satisfaction out of editing these periodicals is being able to design them too. That looks like going.

In any case, as I have already said, I dislike the idea of handing over important aspects to an outside company. It goes against the grain of what I have always thought the BFS was about. And could be a dangerous precendent.

i've never been a member of the BFS so it's not my place to get involved in their business. I will say that this is all very reminiscent of the dilemma facing Justin and Paperback Fanatic a few years back. If he'd decided to submit overall control to an outside agency at the time, i'm sure it would have made his life a lot easier and the magazine might have enjoyed a higher profile, maybe even sold tons more copies. But I doubt there were any among the readership who wasn't relieved that he kept it out of corporate clutches!

For what it's worth as an OUTSIDER the thought of handing over a British small press flagship magazine to kindly old PS Publications - "We believe in publishing high-quality books for collectors and bibliophiles"- gives me the creeps. and yes, i would take that 'for free' as an insult to all those who've given of their time and talent to produce the various publications since 1974.

*Justin, if you read this: care to comment? (and i've not forgotten i owe you a big email ) *

[David A. Riley]

I agree, dem. I particularly do not care to see the BFS publications come under the control - however benign this may be at the moment - of a private company. I fail to see what benefits the society can gain from this. Ignoring Prism, for obvious reasons, the editors of both Dark Horizons and New Horizons, not only the current ones but those in the past too, have always done an excellent job in designing the layout. They have been able to get top artists to provide excellent illustrations and covers, and the interiors have looked second to none. They have done this unfailingly for free for the last forty years. I think it outrageous that now, suddenly, under a new chairman, its deemed necessary to get someone like PS to do the layouts, etc instead, whether "for free" or not. And I question just how "for free" this will be. The danger is that if this goes ahead, and the format changes to that of quarterly or, God help us, half yearly bloated hardbacks, the BFS's publications will just look PS clones - and possible, even probably be looked on as such.

It's the thin edge of a very big wedge.

Who, eventually, will be in charge of these publications - or publication (since everything will be dragged into one)?

With the final layour and design passed from their hands into someone else's, presumably PS, what control will the editors have? What incentive will there be for people to volunteer for these jobs? Or will they eventually be taken over by PS too at some stage, "for free", if there is ever a vacancy that takes more than a few weeks to fill?

I can certainly see within a year or so a call for increased subs to meet the costs of producing hardback journals, whatever anyone may say at the moment.

There are many other issues, but these will, I think, have to do for now.

[Craig Herbertson]

This modern tendency to make everything a kind of global concern always worries me. The point of any association is to gather together people with a shared interest. SF, Horror, fantasy were really fringe cults or in our pulp fiction heyday a mass market for the deranged (that's us) where the people who get involved have a genuine love of the thing. Hate to see this kind of outsourcing. I'd rather have a pair of gloves hand knitted by a friend than a gift wrapped piece of fake leather

[dem bones]

beautifully put, craig. seriously.

Has no-one wondered aloud at the inevitable conflict of interest issues almost certain to arise somewhere along the line?

If my Basil Copper: A Life In Books experience is anything to go by, then PS publish at least two versions of their "affordable" hardbacks and even the pleb-placater ls not what some of us would call "affordable" in the Wordsworth or Robinson sense of the word. Then there's the deluxe, slip-cased, signed, "bonus strip of old coloured silk knicker elastic bookmark with first 5 copies!" and all that fucking nonsense limited edition for those who daren't read their books in case they get a smudge on them and lower the "value". And this lot are going to be handling BFS publications? The few old DTPed issues of Dark Horizons i've seen look only slightly less grotty than punk fanzines and, judging by the response, the readers loved 'em.

But like i said, its not my place to comment so this is me keeping out of it.

[David A. Riley]

Oddly enough, dem, in the early days of the BFS, Jim Pitts and I had a hell of a time getting the Bulletin upgraded to litho printing. The then BFS supremo wanted the society to stick to the then traditional mimeographed process he loved so well. The only way we got away with it was by subsidising the printing costs out of our own pockets. The result, though, was an increase in the society's membership and publicity for it in magazines like World of Horror, which liked what they saw in the Bulletin.

I hope I'm not being a Luddite, but I do believe that the BFS has already achieved remarkably high standards with both Dark Horizons and New Horizons, and don't see the necessity to go one step further with hardbacked versions, incorporating what's left of Prism. David Howe has told me that one benefit of outsourcing layout to PS will be taking this burden off the shoulders of future editors, who may have been put off by this task. I don't see this myself. I think the prospect of designing the whole thing is one of the attractions. It lets an editor put his own stamp on it. I also fear just how far letting someone like PS do this will go in the long term. David Howe tells me they will not only do this "for free" but will also be "uncredited". I'm sceptical of this. I'm sure that at some stage the BFS's indebtedness to PS for providing this degree of professionalism into our otherwise amateurish publications will be made known. Or am I being unfair?

[marksamuels]

I'm certain that Pete Crowther wouldn't have agreed to do this for mercenary motives. He's a completely honest chap. Presumably it's the new Chairman who's come up with the scheme?

Am I right in thinking that PS have issued special publications for previous WHC (and BFS?) conventions? That seems to have tipped things in their favour.

Still, I haven't been a BFS member for a couple of years now, so I'll shut up.

Anyway, sorry to hear that you won't be editing Prism, David. With you involved, the BFS seemed a better organisation.

Mark S.