Cover Story » Nonfiction

Editor's Preface

Written by Eric Flint

Once again, alas, I need to apologize for the delay in producing this volume of the magazine. In my preface to Volume 3, I confidently predicted that we'd be able to publish the next volume in late January or February. Instead. . .

Well, here it is, in mid-April.

Again, the main cause of the delay was illness. In this case, my copy-editor got sick with this very nasty strand of the flu that's been plaguing us recently. Then, by the time she recovered, she had a backlog of other work that was more pressing than the magazine, that she had to do first.

(Which, she did. Sorry, folks, but facts are stubborn things—and it's just a fact that the income for a publisher that's generated by an electronic magazine, even a successful one like the Gazette, is always going to put it at the bottom of the priority list. Such is life. No reason we can't have fun grousing about it, of course, but do be aware that it's on a par with grousing about the weather.)

Someone might wonder why I didn't just find a different copy-editor. Picture me gasping with horror. Modean has copy-edited every single piece produced in the 1632 series since the original novel 1632 that created it in the first place. By now, there are many ways in which she knows this universe better than I do. Just to give one example, the official style sheet that I ask people to use when writing stories or articles for the magazine was produced by her, not me. I asked her to do so, which she did by systematizing what had been my semi-conscious practices in 1632 and 1633 and The Ring of Fire.

The point is this: copy-editors are important. They do far more than simply proof-read to check for typos. They are also the people who systematically cross-check the text to make sure the authors are maintaining factual, thematic and stylistic continuity within the story and (in the case of a series) from one story to the next. Continuity lapses are a problem even within a single, stand-alone novel. With a long and complex series like the 1632 series, they can become a major problem without a good copy-editor who knows the material extremely well serving as the watchdog.

I would no more casually change copy-editors for a 1632 project than I would blithely schedule the second half of major dental work with a different dentist because my regular one didn't have an opening on exactly the day I wanted. (I've had the same dentist for twenty-three years and the same doctor for nineteen. There is a reason for this.) Far better, as inconvenient as it might be, to wait a couple of months.

However, all's well that ends well, and here is Volume 4. There's even a bright side to the delay, which is that it enabled me and the editorial board to get the fifth volume put together in the meantime. Modean already has it and she tells me—told Paula, rather, my assistant editor—that she foresees no delay in getting that one ready.

So, if all goes well—which it should! it should!—we'll have Volume 5 ready for publication in two to three months. That would put us back on the triannual schedule I've been hoping to maintain all along. (No, we haven't been doing it. Our actual schedule has been closer to biannual.)

Some remarks on the contents of this volume:

Once again, I had to go through my usual dance, trying to decide which stories should go under "Continuing Serials" and which should be published as stand-alone stories. This is a dance which, as the magazine unfolds, is getting. . .

Really, really complicated.

In the end, I parsed the contents of this volume in such a way that only David Carrico's "Heavy Metal Music" fell into the category of "Continuing Serials." I am even willing to defend that choice under pressure, although—fair warning—my defense will lean heavily on subtle points covered by Hegel in his Science of Logic. (The big one, not the abridgment he did later for his Encyclopedia. So brace yourselves.)

That said. . .

Well. . .

"Poor Little Rich Girls," by Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff, continues the adventures of the teenage tycoons-in-the-making that Gorg began in "The Sewing Circle" in Volume 1 of the Gazette and continued in the story "Other People's Money" in Volume 3.

I will stoutly insist that Virginia DeMarce's "'Til We Meet Again" is a stand-alone story; no ifs, ands or buts about it. I will also admit that, knowing Virginia, the status will last about as long as a snowball in hell. Leaving aside the suspicious appearance of the name "Quedlinburg," the presence anywhere in the vicinity of Mary Simpson is enough in itself to set off all the alarm bells. I introduced the character of the Abbess of Quedlinburg myself, in 1633—but did so at Virginia's recommendation. I should have known. . .

As for Mary Simpson, I first introduced her as a minor character in 1632 and then developed her as a major character in 1633. Since then, the dame seems to be taking over the world. She'll be a major character in 1634: The Bavarian Crisis and I can see her looming in David Carrico's series.

The same with Karen Bergstralh's "One Man's Junk." In this volume, that story is a stand-alone. Yup, sure is. That status will last until the next volume comes out. At which point the readers will discover that life goes on, for the characters in that story as with so many others.

The same will probably prove to be true, sooner or later, with most about all the other ...