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From: chabot@miles.DEC (All God's chillun got guns)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Authors' rights vis a vis Star Trek novels
Message-ID: <3619@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 13:24:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.3619
Posted: Wed Aug 14 13:24:54 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 06:56:42 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 53

rick heli  == >  & > >
> You misconstrue the issue.  

No, you let yourself wide-open for this one
> > I have been told by a fairly knowledgable source that anyone who
> > writes Star Trek novels has basically sold out and probably can't
this is kind of nasty------------------------^                    ^
this implies that Paramount won't let them------------------------^
   or that they're incapable of it

> > sell non-Star Trek material.  Apparently Paramount holds all the
> > rights to Star Trek stories and pretty much has such writers at
> > their mercy.
this ------^
  sounds like the "slavery" clause we thought you were claiming--why else
  "mercy": hacks can always find work

> It is not that Paramount would seek to
> prevent writers from writing non-Star Trek related materials, only
> that their restrictions are so bad that no writer would want to
> write for them.  So who does?  Simply those who can't write anywhere
> else...  in general, anyway...  if not in every particular...
>  
> And, PUHleeze, don't hold up Vonda McIntyre as an example of good
> SF writing...  or even good Star Trek writing...  not to me at any
> rate...

Look, just don't get nasty.  Vonda McIntyre has sold a lot more fiction that you
have, unless you're publishing under a pseudonym, and you originally said
"...probably can't sell non-Star Trek material."  You've been given other 
examples of authors who've published non-ST material: John M. Ford, Diane 
Duane, A C Crispin, Greg Bear, Barbara Hambly (and she even has non-science-
fiction-fantasy stuff published, and fantasy, and I think even non-fiction), 
Lawrence Yep.  Now, that's 7 authors: how about you, or your knowledgeable
source, come up with a list of those who aren't published elsewhere.

There are bad ST novels, there are damn fine ones.  I've read two, based on
recommendations from this newsgroup and from PDDB, and those two were enjoyable.
(Ford's _The_Final_Reflection_ and Hambly's _Ishmael_ )  You can't just throw
out some data because, well, those authors *happen* to be _good_ and 
therefore don't fit into the category of ST authors, and you can't throw out
some data just because you don't happen to like what they write: the original
claim was that ST authors "can't" publish elsewhere.  Wrong.

If your issue was just to say nasty things about those who've published ST
novels, well, you've done that.  Congratulations.  We've given you 
counter-examples: what do you say to that?  Perhaps they're not to your taste.
Oh, well.  What *do* you like and KNOW about ST: let's talk about that instead.

So, if *you*'re just going to be nasty: you know what they say about people 
who quote an entire lengthy posting before adding their comment at the end!

L S Chabot   ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot   chabot%amber.dec@decwrl.arpa